Playing Catchup

November was a great month:

Brooke was involved in the high school musical, "Once Upon A Mattress" and had a fabulous time. She was very busy with practices and also doing soccer, but she did a great job as a lady in waiting and a towns person. She got to do several dances and a pantomime at the beginning with Ally.
It was a lot of fun when the family came to watch. Logan, Kait and Haddie all thought Brooke was the best!

In between all the musicals and activities we had Grandpa Burnham's birthday and Brooke's.

 It is always fun when the family is home and we have some quartet singing.  Pictures from left to right:  Cory Finlinson, Derek Finlinson, TJ Finlinson, and Brendan Larkin.  Derek likes the quartet music a lot and usually will make the request to sing with everyone.

Brooke had a couple of birthday celebrations.  We celebrated when everyone was down for the musical and then again on her birthday which also happened to be on Thanksgiving!  Thanksgiving was with the whole Finlinson Family in Leamington and so it was quite the rendition of Happy Birthday for Brooke and her candles were in a pumpkin pie!

We had a wonderful time getting Christmas trees again (at least according to Abby and Mom!)  Derek and Jaclyn didn't come since they have an artificial tree and DON"T like to be cold.  The took Wendy out to lunch while we were gone. But the rest of us had a great time hiking all over to find the perfect tree.  TJ was the hold out for the longest this year, and finally found one that he hoped would be what Shauna liked.  Haddie enjoyed the hike can you tell?

We thought the little kids would love a sled ride, but Haddie and Logan just encouraged each other to  cry.  Kait however thought it was great and was laughing and enjoying herself while Logan and Haddie tried to outcry each other.

Since everyone was home the weekend before Thanksgiving to get trees and attend the musical, we had no helpers for putting up the lights this year.  It ended up being just Brooke, Dani and Cory a little bit.  What a job, but the girls did it!

After working on the lights for the day we went to the annual light parade.  It was a bit small this year, only lasted about 10 minutes!  Oh well, at least we all had a steamed milk from 7-11.  Yummy!

Fright Night!

Carving the Jack-O-Lanterns didn't take long with only 3 carvers. Brooke and Dani did two each and Cory one very nice big pumpkin! Dani did the little pumpkin, and Brooke the one with a spider in it.

Brooke and Dani painted Jack and Sally pumpkin heads (Nightmare Before Christmas).


Our costumes turned out so good this year. I made Dani and Brooke's from some fabric that my sister Ann gave me and they turned out super, Dani's Chinese Kimono, and Brooke Nun habit. Cory was Edward Scissor Hands. He put his costume together on his own at college, borrowed some things from his siblings, and did an awesome job! He was so scary!!!

I finally made myself an official costume and was quite proud of how it turned out. I found most things at our local Deseret Industries, the skirt that I dyed black, the boot, the top, and a nice purse to accessorize with. I even made my witches hat! I had a lot of fun dressing up this year.




Our annual Halloween dinner was a tasty as ever with the main dish of "Spook"ghetti.

Grandpa Burnham was nearly cut to pieces by Edward, much to the delight of the witch, but thanks to the prayers of the nun and the meditation of the Chinese girl, he was spared!

Brooke and Dani still are enjoying Trick or Treating. They don't feel to old for it, and the nice neighbors in Deseret and Oasis like to have all ages come.

The nice candy haul.

The Cutest Grandkids Ever

September Fun

The first of September TJ and Shauna spent a week in Costa Rica for TJ's job and so we got to tend Kait and Logan for the week!  We had so much fun and they were the cutest and best kiddies.  Kait loved playing with our new kittens.  I had to watch her carefully, she would go out the back door before I knew it and she always had to hold them, not just watch them.

Kait was a very big helper and we had fun making cookies. She helped my bottle green beans too.

Logan loved the cookies and cream milkshakes we made!  Check out the amazing mustache!

 We had a picnic out back and Logan was getting along pretty good with Grandpa.

 On the last day they were here we played in the sprinklers.  Logan wasn't too brave to run right through them, but Kait wasn't afraid at all.

We went up the canyon for a picnic and to play on the circle on Labor day.  Grandpa and Wendy came with us.

Grandma and Grandpa Fin came down to dinner so we could celebrate Grandma's birthday.

Grandpa Burnham helping us make tomatoe juice.

I found out about "The Raspberry Patch" in West Mountain (west of Payson) and so I invited Abby and Shauna to come pick raspberries with me.  It was a huge patch and very inexpensive so we got enough to eat what we wanted!

Haddie was very resourceful finding raspberries to eat, either off the bushes, or on the ground, it didn't matter.

Logan on the other hand just followed Shauna and Kait around because he preferred the ones already picked in the bucket.  They had a hard time getting their bucket full!

Homecoming week at Delta HIgh School was a lot of fun for Brooke.  Each day she dressed up in a different time period of dress.  Here she is sporting a dress from the 50's that actually was worn by Grandma Burnham.  She was a very cute 60's 70's girl in her gogo boots. And absolutely rocked in her 80's leggings and side pony tail! 

The best part of Homecoming week however was the game.  Brooke was very excited to show us the half time show in the marching band.  They brought out some old uniforms and did a fabulous job.  They made a DHS on the field and got a standing ovation and huge cheers from the crowd.  The fans cheered louder for the band than they did for the game!  How often does that happen.  She was pretty pumped afterwards and NOW it is cool to be in the band!

We finally decided this was the year to go to a BYU football game since Cory is a freshman there and a true blue cougar.  It was a lot of fun and BYU won so that was even better!  Grandpa and Wendy even went with us so that made it even more memorable and fun.

Becuase Dani is my favorite child and wanted a 1/2 birthday party we had one on the 21st just for her! We just had a cake and played games, but it was fun and we are glad Dani gave us a reason to have a party!

For FHE one night the power went out just before we started, so we had to have it in candle light.  But how could we play the piano?  Dani had the solution with an emergency light we got to use in your car.  It works to play the piano in the dark also.

Jay and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary in September!  It is hard to imagine that we have been married that long! Time goes by so fast and it has been a wonderful 30 years for us.  Gee that must mean we have old children also!

Our children planned a very nice party for us on Oct 4.  Abby spear-headed it, and it turned out so nice.  Everyone was here on Sunday and we had a very delicious dinner, then a nice program, and ended with a wonderful slide show put together by Abby and TJ of pictures from the last 30 years!  How awesome to have all those pictures on a slide show!  Thanks to our children for a great memory.