Montana Deer

Here are a few pictures of Garrett's hunting trip to Montana. I will have him write about it later.

Thanksgiving Break

Over the Thanksgiving Break we had lots to be grateful for, our biggest blessing is our family and the knowledge of our Saviors plan so we can return together as a family in the next life.
We have enjoyed all the snow we got this past week, it has been very cold around here but the kids still continue to go outside and play. We brought out the board games. It always seems like this time of year we play a lot more games. We found a new one we love The farming Game for Kids.

We spent Thanksgiving this year at Vard's house. It was very nice of them to invite us to their home. Morgan found a new best friend. Her name is Jocelyn (Tony and Ali's) It was love at first sight for the both of them. They both have glasses and are in Kindergarten. Morgan had such a good time with her, she even got to have a sleepover with her. Morgan came home and said "Mom how far is Utah?" I told her it is far away and it takes all day to drive there. She then asked "Could we meet Jocelyn's mom half way one day so she could come and play again at my house?" It was very sweet, we will miss them when they leave.

The girls had slumber parties our in our living room, since there was no School.

I did my annual Black Friday shopping. This year was not as fun as past years. I went to Walmart by myself at 10:30 pm on Thursday night cause everything on my list was on sale at midnight. I did score on some great Christmas gifts for the kids. I can now say that I'm almost all done. My mom and sisters headed in at 5:00am Friday to get the things they needed.
We have all had colds at our house. We hope we will be getting better soon.

Morgan had her Thanksgiving feast in Kindergarten on Wednesday. Natalie and I were able to help cook some of the food and eat with them. They had turkey, vegetables, corn bread, and apple juice.

We can't wait for Christmas to come. We set up our tree this weekend also. The kids were so excited to have our friend Christopher Pop-In-Kins back in our home. He is a magical elf that watches over the kids to see if they are good or bad for Santa.

Splish Splash I was taken a bath.........

Way to go Garrett....It's official

We just received this letter from the Fire Department:

Memorandum

To: Staff
From: Chief Gear
Re: Lieutenant Appointment
Date: November 16, 2010

With the promotion of Lt. Donais to Captain a Lieutenant position has opened on "B" Shift. As of this date I have not received any requests from current Lieutenants to move to that shift. If any Lieutenant might have an interest in moving to "B" shift please contact me as soon as possible.

This opening creates the opportunity to promote a new Lieutenant from our current list. After considerable consideration along with provided information and discussions with staff, I have decided to follow the order of the list.

Therefore, effective November 29, 2010 I am pleased to announce the appointment of Garrett Jenks to the position of Lieutenant in the Pasco Fire Department. I am sure Lt. Jenks will do an outstanding job for the Pasco Fire Department, and personnel working for him. I congratulate him on his appointment!

No School

Today school was cancelled because of the snow we got the past 2 days. The kids have enjoyed playing in the snow, it is very cold. Tonight it is suppose to get into the negative numbers.

Madalyn is growing up in so many ways. Today I couldn't find her and then I see her outside sliding down our hill. She had got herself dressed and decided to go play outside. It's so nice to have her get dressed all on her own.

Sarah got home from school last night, the kids were excited to see her drive the 4 wheeler down to our house and play in the snow.

Morgan trying to throw a big snowball at me.

getting bigger

Brooklyn is growing up in so many ways. She has become a delight in our home, she was not always a happy baby. In the last month she has become happy and more enjoyable. I guess she finally realized that she is stuck with us and she better make the best of it. She loves her sisters and gets so excited to see them come home from school.

Madalyn is truly my lifesaver, she is so good with Brooklyn and Brooklyn just loves her. I has been nice having someone a little older to help out with the baby.

Today was her first taste of rice cereal. (4 1/2 months old) She didn't know what to think, I put it in her mouth and she didn't really eat it. After a few tries Madalyn wanted to try and Brooklyn ate it really good for her. I hate this stage for feeding, they are so messy when they eat. And I always get spit on, I will just let Madie do it since she is so excited. She will love it until she spits it all over her face. Growing up so fast, when is she going to sleep through the night????? Let's hope soon.

The Wizard of Oz

Madalyn and Morgan had the chance last week to be in the Wizard of Oz Play, they were the Evil Magic Flowers. The Montana Missoula Children's Theatre came to their school last week for a week of fun.

The SCARY Evil magic flowers. The girls were very lucky to get parts in the play. On Monday the first day of practice they had to try out and 15 Kindergartners and 1st graders that were in their classes got cut. It was so sad to see the kids that didn't get parts, it made my heart break. I worried about if one of them got a part and the other didn't. But they did great and they were both able to do it.

They spent a lot of time after school practicing, I would pick them up at 4:30, after 2 hours. And a lot of kids with bigger parts stayed until 7:00. They performed for the whole school on Friday and then for the public on Saturday. What a fun 2 days for them.

We (ok I) was really glad when it was all over, it took a lot of time after school of practicing. What a busy week we had that week. They loved it, they are singing the songs non stop at home. Natalie has even learned them, in fact I caught myself singing them the other day.

BOO

Happy Halloween from our Hunted House to yours!!!!

Madalyn was a Vet this year. It was a little hard for me to have her be something other than some kind of princess or fairy just cause she is growing up so fast and dressing up as a princess is just not as fun as it use to be. She loved being able to take her pet dog to school as part of her costume.

Natalie was a Barbie Musketeer, she got this costume from Santa last Christmas. It was all she could talk about last year.

Morgan was Snow White. Both girls loved going to school all dressed up. Morgan thought it was so fun to have a Halloween Party at school. This was her first school Party.

Little Brooklyn Just had a cute little orange Halloween costume on with a black cat on the front. We went to our wards Trunk or Treat and then around to a few family member houses, we got more than enough candy. Happy Halloween and Happy Birthday to Aunt Emily

Pumpkins

This past weekend we had a big surprise, Sarah surprised us and came home from BYU for the weekend. The girls were so excited to see her especially Natalie. So while she was here we all got together for dinner and to carve pumpkins.

Morgan and grandma cleaning out her pumpkin. Morgan picked out the hardest picture to carve out, it was a hunted house. Garrett did it for her.

Sarah and Natalie working together. She just did a smiley face.

Dad busy helping all the kids with theirs. It was a really fun weekend with Sarah home.

Our little pumpkin Brooklyn!!!

Aunt Emily with Brooklyn

We are sending our neighbors a thank you card cause they are the ones that grew all the pumpkins. We had some really BIG pumpkins.

Already for trick or treating on Saturday.

Hunting

I shot this deer in the orchard on the home farm on October 21, 2010. I went up the Kettle Falls for three days previous to shooting this pig. Up at Kettle Falls we saw a lot of deer but nothing worth writing home about or even worth blogging about. Justin called my on Tuesday and said there were a bunch of deer in the orchard and that one of them was really big, he also said he called Duane and that he was going to come and shoot it. I was not to happy and that point so it didn't hurt my feelings any to hear from him a little bit later saying that none of the deer were legal bucks and so Duane didn't pull the trigger on any of them. So anyways I leave Kettle Falls on Wednesday and Thursday morning I go to the home place expecting to see some does and a couple of two points, well I did see those things but much to my surprise I also found this buck laying in the middle of the row about 30 yards down from the road. I stopped to get a better look at him and it didn't take long for me to decide that I was going to shoot this deer. One shot and the deer was down, he is a very big bodied deer and his rack has a lot of mass to it. As you can see at some point in his journey his one side stopped growing or he broke it off somewhere, but he is still a great buck. Natalie was my hunting partner for the day she did great and helped my spot out every deer, she actually saw this one before I did. Afterwards we gave each other high fives and celebrated a bit. The other girls were pretty mad when they found out that Natalie got to go hunting with me and they had to go to school. I would like to thank the farm workers for not poaching this and the other deer. Good job Natalie.