Family Reunon Friday December 17th

 Friday morning we all got together for pictures.  The top picture is all 63 of us.  Aunt Kim did a great job getting us all in a group that everyone could be seen.  Keeping all those little kids happy was definately a challenge.  My cousin Jessica was smart enough to bring a package of M&M's. That was a brilliant idea!

 
 All the siblings with their spouses above from left back Grandma Dot, Alice, Laurie, Kim, Scott, John
Front row: Brad, Brent, Duane, Darla and Dorea.

 Siblings picture Dori, Darla, Grandma, Brad, Brent and Duane.

 All the first cousins.  I love my cousins.  They are all so awesome and talented and I am so glad that our parents did such a good job keeping us close so we know each other. 

 Great Grandma with all of her Great grandchildren. 15 from Brad's family, 3 from Brent's and 1 from Duane's.





 After pictures we all met up for a huge lunch at Bucco Di Beppo.  The food was really yummy and it was so fun to hang out with everyone. 

 Uncle Chad helping Dallin with his crossword.

 Another birthday to celebrate...Holly turned 1.  I don't think she liked the cake.  The kids had fun singing to her though.

 After lunch some of us decided to go ice skating.  Our boys have only ice skated one other time and it was a year ago.  They are naturals at it though and had a blast. Above is Alden, he ended up taking off his gloves, hat, scarf and coat and was just in a long sleeve shirt cuz he was so hot he skated so hard.

 Elena and Micheal talking while Jonah and Marcus try to skate.

 Dallin skating around trying his hardest to stay up with Alden.  He is a little competitive and doesn't realize that Alden is almost 3 years older than him.

 Me and Brig.  He had a harder time and wanted to hold on to the side but I kept trying to get him to just hold my hand and skate around.  By the end he was doing much better.

 Lila thought it looked like fun and kept trying to run out on the ice.  It was really cute to watch her but too crowded I was worried she would get run over so she had to stay on the side. Luckily Uncle Scott bought her a soda pop to keep her occupied. 

Here is the whole group.  Those of us who actually skated anyway.  Out on the side was Scott and Darla St. Clair, my Scott, Lila and Dori.  In the picture is John, Branden, Jaime, Jonny, Breanna, Alex, McKenzie, Ashley, Micheal, Elena, Brig, Aubrey, Abby, Alden, Dallin, Jonah and Marcus.

After we skated we went to Target to get some Christmas shopping done and then Scott and I went to the Tabernacle Christmas concert with David Archuleta.  We went with Tanya and Nick. We were right on the isle way down on the 4th row and President Monson and Uchdorf along with Elder Holland and a few other general authorities walked right past us it was really cool to see them so close. 

Verland and Dorothy Thurston Christmas Family Reunion December 16-19, 2010

We left on Wednesday the 15th and headed up to St. George where we stayed the night at my awesome Aunt Dori's house.  She has the cutest house and her family is fabulous.  I happened to mention that it was Dallin's b-day the next day and they ran to the store at midnight after asking him what he wanted for his birthday breakfast and he responded french toast.  They made a huge breakfast that was so yummy and we even followed it up with cupcakes!  I wish I would have had my camera out for pictures but it was packed somewhere in the over crowded car.

Thursday we finished driving the rest of the way to Salt Lake City where our family reunion was being held.  We stayed in the Little America Hotel and it was soooo nice.  Someone else was smart enough to take a picture of the room. ours was similar but we had two beds.  everything else was just as fancy though. Aunt Darla put together these fabulous gift baskets with so much food we barely made a dent in it.  Again I was not smart enough to take a picture so i had to steal someone else's and ours was similar only i think twice as big!

One of the many other gift we recieved was a manger for our family to add hay to the bed by doing service for each other.  I really like this and think it will be a new tradition in our family.

Everyone got a shirt too.  The front says: "Got Family?"  and this is what the back looks like.  At the bottom it says "63 and still growing."   Thursday we just got checked in and went swimming and had fun catching up with our cousins.  We had a great time with Jennifer and Gerald and Elena's family eating pizza and catching up for the evening. 

Lila's new "spots"...

 Lila loves to carry anything around with a strap or a handle of anykind such as her play purse, the boys backpacks, and my decorations.  She is so funny!

 Lila has recently discovered that she is the perfect size to sit on the little table by our front door.  She sits there all the time and either just talks to herself or brings her little toys over there to play with them.  It is really cute.  It is like her own little spot where her brothers leave her alone. 

 Look at her messy hair! Can you believe I actually took pictures of her without fixing her hair first?  Ha Ha! I know, I am a freak!

Last but not least, she has figured out how to open the door on the clock.  She is constantly playing with it and putting stuff in there.  Anytime we are looking for a remote, or anything, that is now the first place to look.  She apparently decided it is a good place to keep things.  Capri Sun anyone???

So Big

Lila is getting to be so big! She is a month away from being nursery age (18months) and just a super cutie.  Her newest things are folding her arms for prayers and then saying amen, climbing on anything she can little monkey and lots of new words.  She has her daddy wrapped super tight around her finger and she is just sweet as can be.  She loves her brothers, especially dallin and she loves to go to the park and ride her bike.  Everytime we go anywhere or come home from anywhere she wants to get a juicebox out of the fridge in the garage (she learned that one from Brig).  The other day Tara was over and was borrowing our computer, I was in my closet cleaning it out and her and Hyrum were just kind of going back and forth where they were playing.  It got really quiet and I hadn't seen them for a while so I asked Brig, who was helping me in the closet to go check on the babies (he wanted to know why, like I was some sort of crazy person) apparently at the same time, Tara got a strong impression to go check on them too.  She found the front door open (Brig had gone out earlier and forgot to lock it and Hyrum is soooo tall he can open doors at 1 years old!!) anyway she found them across the street Hyrum in the grass by the park and Lila at the top of the slide!!!! Yikes.  Talk about having a heart attack!  I don't think we will live that one down for a long time.  We definately learned our lesson and those sweet babies had angels watching out for them that they didn't get ran over by a car or something scary like that.  Little stinker knows how to get into trouble!  Lila also has decided she likes to watch movies but only the ones with lots of music/singing so she can dance along.  It is really cute cuz she kind of Moo's for movie and points at the TV and gets the controller out and tries to use it.  It is her new little morning ritual to get her blanket and a cup of milk and kind of wake up to a movie.  She is so cute I can't tell her no, but her brothers have a really hard time getting ready for school with the TV on they have to watch (even princess movies) so we are going to have to figure out a different time to let her watch a movie.  Anyway, Lila is amazing and super fun and cute but she is getting so big, she is definately a toddler not a baby anymore, which is fun but kind of sad, maybe that means it is time for another one?....

Happy Halloween!

 We had our annual Halloween soup/party with the Marble family and it was yummy and fun like always.  They kids had a great time playing and passing out candy in their costumes even though we didn't go trick or treating this year.  We did go to gpa Brad and Steve's  ward trunk or treats though so they still got lots of candy and plenty of wear out of their costumes.  I was super cheap this year and didn't buy any costumes, I told them they had to wear what we had.  There was a little fighting over who got to be what but it turned out good.  Alden was transformer bumblebee, Dallin was the white ninja guy from G.I. Joe, Brig was a Jedi from Star Wars and Lila just got to wear her cute outfit Gma Janice bought her last year that was way too big and fit her perfect this year.  I bought a witch had to wear with it but the wind kept blowing it off her head so we stuck a bow on instead. 

 Most of the Marble cousins gathered for a picture.  We were missing a few, it is near impossible to get everyone in a pic at the same time. 

 Besides Brig's regular preschool party at Mrs. Ambers Brig also went to Mrs. Aunt Tara's preschool party.  She is doing a trial run of preschool this year and so her nieces and nephews get to be the test subjects.  She was nice enough to invite Ryker to the party too.  They kids had a ton of fun and made cute crafts and treats.

Brig showing off his cute treats he made.  We sure had a good time this Halloween with all the different school and church activities.  It was a fun week!

Brig's preschool pumpkin patch field trip

 Tara and Tanya came along with us this year to the pumpkin patch to check it out.  We had so much fun and were glad they came with.  Mrs. Amber took us to a different place than we had been in the past and we loved it! There was so much for the kids to do.  At the enterance...Holly, Londyn, Hyrum, Brig and Lila.

 Brig, Ryker, and Londyn posing for some cute pics.

 Lila, Brig, and Londyn with the pumpkins waiting to get started.

 Best buddies Ryker and Brig.  They are going to have so much fun going through school together!

 Tractor ride.  They had the cutest little train put together; the kids loved it.  It was so much fun to go on a ride being pulled by a tractor in their own little car thing.

 Brig learning how to milk a cow.  This may come in handy someday if Scott every gets his wish of having his own cow!!

 Brig showing off how strong he is.

 Brig trying to knock down the crows.  There were lots of cute games for the kids to play.

 Checking out some of the animals.

 Playing on the playground.  The weather was perfect.  It was breezy and overcast.  Nice and cool out.  It sprinkled for just a second and that was it.  It was really nice to be outdoors.

Lila and Hyrum, the scarecrows!

 Ryker and Brig on the teeter-totter.  They weigh about the same so they kind of just leveled out every once in a while. It was kind of funny.

 Aunt Jaime being a sport and helping out on the other side of Londyn's teeter-totter, then Tanya had to help out to give Londyn some weight!

 Ryker, Brig, and Londyn going through the hay maze.  They sure had fun running all around in there.  The boys were ducking down trying to hide it was so funny.

 We had so much fun riding these cute little bikes on a mini track.  We had so much fun.  Even Lila loved it!

 Seeing how tall we all are this year!

This place is a really fun place to be.  The kids all had so much fun and it was a great morning.  We finished it off by having lunch with all the cousins that were there with us at Chic-fil-a down the street and it was a really nice field trip.

Fall Break (day 3) Disneyland/California Adventure

 So beside the fact that I am way behind on keeping my blog updated, I am also so computer illiterate that all my pics are out of order and I don't know how to fix it, so yes I am a dork, but you already knew that huh.  Brig and Dallin posing with Mr. Incredible (Alden was apparently too cool and wouldn't get in the picture).

 Minnie Mouse with her outstretched hands waiting to hug all the kids.  Lila loved her from afar, but up close she was terrified. 

 The Marble clan saying hi to mater and lightning mcqueen. We all crouched down to be on Lila's level and so she decided she had to sit like the rest of us.  That girl has such a cute personality!

 In the morning grabbing some breakfast before we headed into the park.  We tried to stay cheap by packing alot of our own food.  Next time we will remember to stay at a hotel with a free breakfast!

 Brig always has a silly face when he knows you are taking his picture so I really loved this pic of him cuz it is so natural and his real happy smile.

 Lila making a mess with her cereal bar. 

 Brig and Daddy on the bumper cars. Brig had fun getting to be the driver and steer the wheel to crash into people.

 Heidi and Jalyn bumping into Alden.

 Dallin coming after Aunt Heidi and Jalyn while she is getting bumped behind by Uncle Ryan and Ryker.

 While I know that I am the most ridiculous looking in these pics and if I knew how to crop pictures I might have just removed myself from it, I had to post it cuz the boys looked so cute.

 I absolutely love Brigs face in this picture.  Mine is pretty funny too.  Too bad there are a couple old guys we don't know in with us. 

 Jalyn and Dallin on the jelly fish ride. This was the longest wait for the shortest ride ever.  Kind of dumb but the kids liked it.