Family Reunion

So here are some of the family reunion ideas. Please vote for your favorite. Option number one Destin Florida. Heres the link:


http://www.vrbo.com/18636

ANother choice would be to use mom and dads condo packages, and heres the choices there:

Michigan:

http://www.pinestead.com/Resort.htm

or south padre island which is a few hours from here and

Im looking into what the condos in Mexico are.

we could also rent a house near my house like we did, and

Im looking at Hawaii as well

Heres a house in Mexico

http://www.vrbo.com/166088

So anyways theres some ideas, and please vote when to go, spring or summer.

Marie and I were reviewing who has who for Christmas. It's tricky when you can't remember who you had last year!! We finally figured it out, though--
This year :

Scott's Family gives to Gerald's Family
Craig's Family gives to P. Clint
Rebecca's Family gives to Marie's Family
Gerald's Family gives to Jon
P. Clint gives to Scott's Family
Marie's Family gives to Craig's Family
Jon gives to Rebecca's Family

We also need to organize at least one Skype call, too. Especially since now I have high speed internet!!

Love you all- Hope your Holiday's are great!!

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Yes its fall again in Michigan and its just a beautiful time of year. With all the variety of maples in various colors of red, orange, and yellow and the many other trees native to Michigan its just fun to see all the changes around us. Whats not fun is knowing winter is just around the corner. I have decided each year to take pictures of my kids playing in their Grandma Diana's yard she has a huge maple tree to climb and have fun with. We had to take pictures quick this year; my mom's neighbor was using his leave blower to get all the leaves in one pile to pick up for her. He was nice enough to take a break so I could get some fun pictures. I hope you enjoy!!!!!

Hey everyone I hope you enjoyed your Halloween this year. For Halloween this year I got on Familyfun.com and had the boys look at homemade costumes for deciding what they wanted to be this year. Matthew decided he wants to do the Alien Encounter for Halloween. That Alien head you see behind Matthew's back is a paper mache' head. What a pain it was to make and your looking at the second head; the first one broke on me so I spent a lot of days working on this head for him to make the perfect Alien. I told him next year he has to pick a easier costume like Blake's.

Blake's costume was so much easier to make, and he loved being able to have a green face. He cried when I took the paint off his face at night. He was happy he got to paint his face 2 times green. I think he makes a very scary Dr. Frankstiens Monster don't you?

This thing wiggling inside me actually has a face..A cute one at that!

We had an ultrasound on Tuesday and we have a cute little one inside. These photos don't do a lot of justice... but here is the profile and and one with an arm in there. And if you are wondering.....we did NOT find out the sex of the baby so you will all be surprised with us. Everything looks good. With all the kicking it will have very large muscles when it is born.

Back to School

Matthew waiting for Blake's bus to get home from school; Blake coming off the bus.

Blake's first day of school.

Blake started all day Kindergarten this year, it was exciting for him. He has the same teacher Matthew had for Kindergarten (which Matthew was excited for Blake to get). He is doing good and I am excited for him to learn lots of new things.

Matthew started Middle School this year Yikes!!!! Matthew was very prepared for his first day. His school had a transition day where we learned rules, got his schedule and his locker number and combination. On his way to the transition Matthew said, "Mom I am excited but, I am so nervous I want to puke too." I told him I am very nervous too and want to puke for him. The transition went well and he soon master the art of opening his own locker. Soon he was getting very excited. His first day of school went well and he was very excited for it, he saw lots of friends that went to Haggerty Elementary and of course being Matthew and making friends easy he said he made lots of new friends. I hope I have being teaching him well the gospel because these are the tough years of learning to stand up for what you believe. We study the Book of Mormon together this summer and I also study with the boys in the new Missionary Handbook its great learning tool. We had some really great gospel discussions this summer.

Now that both boys are in school all day I have lots of time on my hands. I plan on getting lots of projects done, I have lots of painting to do in the house. Matthew decided he wanted his bedroom to have a change so I have been busy helping him with that. I also wrote two children's books this summer and am going to work hard to get them published. Hopefully they will get in print and maybe I can read them to Blake's class someday. That would be really cool.

Reunion Cleanup

I've been thinking about posting ever since the reunion. Boy how life gets busy and in the way of doing things that we feel are important! I really enjoyed seeing all of you and had a lot of fun!!
Still, I didn't feel satisfied with how I handled a couple of things.

I realized that as soon as a film festival was suggested, that to also do the Olympics would probably be too much to try to fit into a night. Still I prepared it thinking it would be a fun way to involve everyone. I put in the Love Language quiz especially to help us get to know each other better. Kind of like Jon said, I feel like I don't know you as well as I'd like to. Due to several factors, I never followed up with that activity. I'd like to remedy that now.

If you didn't know my Love Language - it is primarily Words of Affirmation. Verbal or written expressions of appreciation mean a lot to me. Likewise verbal (or written) criticism is taken very much to heart. Sometimes I'm not as good as I'd like to be at learning and recovering from such criticism and so I miss opportunities to really connect with people. I'm sorry for those missed opportunities - especially the ones I missed while we were all together.

To make up for it a little, I'd like to invite you to share your love languages as you comment or add posts. If you don't remember or didn't take the quiz and would like to, it's at : http://www.fivelovelanguages.com/30sec.html#love

Love Ya!
Rebecca