My Grandma

 9 hours to Cody,WY

The boys were great the whole way!

 

Two weeks ago we celebrated the life of my sweet grandma Messer.  She died from Alzheimer's disease. My grandma was an example to me of so many things.  A lot of those things I hadn't thought about until she passed.

She was an incredible worker.  Seriously, when my grandma came to town we cleaned and cleaned before she arrived....and then she would clean and clean when she got to our house :)

My grandma had friends EVERYWHERE.  She was one of those ladies that had lifelong friends everywhere she went.  I want to be like her in this aspect!  What a wonderful talent to have- to make and keep so many friends and to be loved by so many people.  She was easy to love and always had positive things to say.

cowboy boots for days in Cody

She loved the gospel.  Her first husband died in a plane crash when she was pregnant with her first child- My aunt Lyn.  She was a single mom for several years, taught school, and met my grandpa several years after.  She had my dad and aunt Keri after that.  I remember her talking about her callings in church, the sisters and families she visit taught.  She is an great example of a strong woman in the gospel.

Cowtown Candy Store- 

where you can buy chocolate pistols, boots, horses, cowboy hats and more!

Whenever I saw or talked to my grandma she would always start out by saying, "sweet megan..."  I can hear her voice saying that in the same way she always did.

playing with their chocolate pistols

Once I was married, I saw my grandma at least every year- usually twice.  We would have Thanksgiving with my aunt Keri's family and she and my grandpa would come down for that.  She loved to see my boys and loved Charlie's full name.  "Charles...I just love the name Charles..." she would say.

Growing up my grandparents would visit and would always bring berry berry kix cereal for us kids.  I remember thinking they must wake up at 4:30 AM because when we'd wake up the would be awake and had drove or walked to the grocery store to pick up donuts too.  Raspberry filled donuts remind me of my grandparents.  They would always make us drink milk too.  I hated milk growing up so that's one thing I did not like about their visits!

We stumbled upon the town's Christmas parade!  Perfect!  

I imagine my grandma, up in heaven, working like no woman has before in missionary service. When I found out she had died, I pictured the huge a huge crowd of loved ones waiting for her.  Lots of animals too- she loved animals.  Even spiders, ladybugs, praying mantis...she would sweetly scoop up any animal with a piece of paper and gently set them outside in the grass.

my workout buddy at the hotel...left my tennis shoes at home...whoops!

I think grandma's funeral went just the way she would have wanted it.  We all had a lot of fun being together!  Hailey accompanied me when I sang, "In This Very Room."  I sang that at my baptism and my grandma, ever since, said she wanted me to sing that at her funeral.  The whole family stayed in a hotel in Cody and siblings stayed up late playing games and talking.  It was a great family time.

siblings

I'm thankful for the knowledge of eternal families.  This is what life is all about!  I will see my grandma again and I'm positive she'll give me a big hug and in my ear she'll say, "sweet Megan..."

Thanksgiving Part 2

The next morning we woke up and met my awesome friend for a quick photo shoot at the park.  It was so kind of her to take these photos for us!  Here are a few of  my favorites...

 Grandparents and grandkids

 I love John's face in this one!

I'm lucky to have married into such a great family.  I have in-laws who are supportive and kind to me, sister in laws who I look up to, brother in laws who Tony looks up to and adorable nieces and nephews.  I just love them.

We had Thanksgiving leftovers for lunch and headed out to the aquarium!  It was a little busy, but still fun!

We ordered pizza that night, did a craft and played games!

 Joey was SO proud of his snowman--thanks Aunt Sandi!

 Sweet cousins

We played our own version of the candy bar game that night and had a blast!  I think what I loved most was watching candy get stolen!  I was surprised by some of the favorites-- a 85% cacao chocolate bar, brookside pomegranate chocolates and a cadbury caramel bar.  We have some sophisticated taste buds in this group!  Even among the kids!

We had more pie that night and Charlie was so happy to get pumpkin!  Joey had lots of pie plates, but didn't eat any.  He just scraped the whipped cream off the top of each slice and asked for more.  Noted- Joey looooooves whipped cream.  

It was a perfect weekend.  We love our family so much!  If we can convince them, I think we should have it here every year :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Part 1

 waiting for cousins to arrive

Thanksgiving was a dream this year.  We hosted Tony's family and were so happy to do so! Family started trickling in the day before the holiday.  Mom & dad stayed at a hotel, but the sibling families stayed at our home.  It was a packed house, but I think it felt festive being all together!

 John, Addison, Charlie

snuggling up Thanksgiving morning

 breakfast with the cousins

Thanksgiving morning I took my SIL's to an aerobic dance class I go to at the church.  It was fun to get out and do something different!  We left the dads and big girls in charge....

 Brynn, Maya & Cambridge worked on our thankful tree! 

 It was fun reading all the things they wrote down.  Love these sweet girls.

 cousin crafts

 I love this picture! Peter got lots of cousin love over the weekend!

We had appetizers for lunch and had Thanksgiving dinner later in the day.  Everyone helped and I appreciated it!  It was fun trying everyone's fun foods too.  Teri makes the best key lime pie and Sandi brought a cranberry jello I'm still thinking about.  Everyone had multiple assignments so the daunting "Thanksgiving meal" wasn't too scary.  Really I wasn't scared because I asked my MIL to make the turkey...maybe next year I'll try the turkey!  I enjoy making the fun sides so I was in charge of that.  

The Kid Table

The Adult Table

 We had to rearrange a few things, but we were all able to fit!

Sandi's family brought these place cards for everyone!  Aren't they cute?!  We loved them!

 Grandma & Peter

We had pies and lots of hot chocolate that night.  Love this sweet family!

Happy Halloween

Halloween was great this year!  It was several days of celebrating and we wouldn't have it any other way!

 Peter Peter Pumpkin- Eater

 Halloween Eve was spent at daddy's work party.  First of all, can I say that trick or treating at a tech companies is awesome.  I love seeing grown men dressed up.  Gotta love all the Star Wars ;)  My inner nerd loves it since my dream is to dress up as Princess Leia and have my boys be Jedi's.  One of these years!




Halloween day rocks when you're in preschool!  Charlie had his costume parade/program and my mom was able to come too!  Joey also had a special party at his school. They loved it.
 

Later that day the boys watched The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown while I got dressed and got a few things ready for dinner.  Peter wasn't happy when he saw my face! haha poor guy!




We made our traditional Jack-o-lantern pizzas for dinner.

mapping out their route

Once the sun went down the boys left with daddy and had a great time trick or treating.  I passed out candy and loved seeing all the primary kiddos that came to the house.

We let the boys eat as much candy as they wanted and then they set out their candy for the switch witch.  The switch witch comes around on Halloween and looks for candy to feed her cat.  If you leave her your candy she'll leave you a surprise!  The boys weren't disappointed to find new toy jets to play with the next day!

Joey took his "as much candy as you want" order very seriously. 

 He took a lick or bite out of almost every piece of candy!

It was a great night!

this picture perfectly sums up how we felt after Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Carving

 This year each boy picked had a pumpkin to carve!

Charlie wanted a "happy-faced" pumpkin.  He helped draw the face and even scraped quite a bit of the seeds.

Joey wanted a "happy, scary" and toothy faced jack-o-lantern.  He enjoyed the night for about 5 minutes and then spent the rest of the time mad he couldn't play with the sharp knives.  Oh Joey...

Tony is the pumpkin carving master.  The insides of his pumpkins are incredibly clean.  Mine are the opposite so he usually finishes mine for me! I'm going to be totally honest here and say that I really don't like carving pumpkins.  I never have.  It's messy and I'm not creative when it comes to the carving.  One of these years I'm going to paint my pumpkin.  However, carving pumpkins is just one of those things you HAVE to do with kids!  Thank goodness the boys have Tony, right? :)

All lit up!  Joey's pumpkin has the long smile and he drew that himself!  So cute!