Thanksgiving 2010

For Thanksgiving this year we decided to go down to Atlanta, Georgia. Bill and I both have some family that live there that we haven't seen in a long time, and we decided that since we might not live this close to them for much longer we might as well take advantage of it. So we packed up our family and started the long 10-hour drive.

Everyone did great (mostly thanks to some fun books on CD), and we arrived at Bill's cousin's house on Tuesday afternoon. We were pleasantly surprised to see his aunt and uncle there - it's actually their house, Bill's cousin and his family live there for the time being - because we thought they'd be in Houston. Having them there made things even more fun.
The next two days were full of lots of laughs, cooking, playing, and just a lot of fun. We took the kids to the park




Took a quick tour of the area

Random house surrounded by gorgeous trees

Atlanta Temple. If it wasn't being renovated we might've thought about doing a session.

But mostly we stayed at the house and had fun together.

Kayla spent a lot of time analyzing their video selection and playing with that big toy sitting beside her. They even had an extra one that we were able to take home with us. One Christmas present down!




Will and his 2nd cousin Jefferson. These two are about 6 months apart in age, and they had a fabulous time together.

Kolson, Will and Jefferson. These three were always running around the house or the yard, so when they finally sat still we had to record the moment.

Three handsome soldiers

Thanksgiving Day we had a lot of fun. Everyone pitched in with the cooking


While the boys made gumdrop turkeys with Bill's cousin Tom





The table right before all the food was spread out



Yummy


Kayla was ready to say a prayer and dig in

After dinner the boys played a few games. It was really funny to watch them play Twister.



I think the only one who didn't enjoy Thanksgiving completely was Kayla. She didn't get a nap that day, so by the end of the day we got this


Which eventually led to this


And I had to take some pictures of their cute house and beautiful backyard. I had never been to this part of the country before, and I definitely wouldn't mind visiting again.







Tom, Jen, Hyrum, Jefferson, and Kolson

Our last stop before going home was to see my uncle John and his family. Their oldest is on a mission and their second oldest is attending school at BYU-Idaho, so we weren't able to see them, but we saw their other two kids, Megan and Ryan. Ryan is an amazing photographer already, and he was nice enough to take some pictures for us.





We had such a fun time and it was so hard to leave everyone. Thank you to Ray, Kay, Tom, Jen, John and Chris for making our trip so awesome. We will definitely be coming back soon.

Sorry Santa

Someone else is comin' to town first - The Tooth Fairy. Will lost his first tooth tonight. Technically it probably could've stayed in for a while longer, but we had some minor drama that caused it to come out now. It was funny seeing Will's reaction. Obviously when everything first happened he got a little scared and worried. I mean, wouldn't you if your loose tooth started bleeding, then fell out a few minutes later? But after a minute or two he thought it was the coolest thing and he wanted to show all his stuffed animals and toys. So now we've experienced another first in our house. I wonder how much the Tooth Fairy is charging these days.


(Sorry the first picture isn't so great. I'm not very good at figuring out the best lighting)

Cake and Carving and Costumes...Oh My!

It's been an eventful, fun-filled week. It all started with Will's 5th birthday on Monday.


I made him a special breakfast. He looks thrilled, doesn't he?

Later that day we had his birthday party. There's just one word I think best describes the event - CHAOS! Which is, of course, completely understandable when you put 10 kids, ages 3-5, together in a huge room that has an echo. But the kids all seemed to have a fun time, so that's all that matters, right?


These two girls are probably two of the sweetest, most adorable girls I've met in a long time.


Here the kids are playing "Simon Says". My favorite part of the picture is that it looks like Kayla is the one being the leader, even though it was actually Bill.


Will's monster truck pinata after being destroyed. None of the kids were able to make much of a dent, so after all the kids got a turn, Bill took a few whacks at it. After HE was unable to crack it open by hitting it with the bat (I have never seen a sturdier pinata) we had to resort to throwing it on the floor as hard as we could. It was really funny.



Will blowing out his candles. Bill and I spent most of our Sunday night putting his cake together. Basically we made it look (as best we could) like the board from a Candyland game. I think it's the most candy-filled cake I've ever seen, but it ended up looking pretty good.




Will opening presents. I think I'm going to have to give away some of his old toys just to make room for all the amazing things he got for his birthday this year.


The whole group enjoying cake and ice cream. Will has some fun friends, and we're sad that we'll be losing some of them in the next year or so.

Later in the week we carved our pumpkin. Bill and I did most of the work




I love Will's face in this picture, like he's saying "Daddy, don't hurt the pumpkin!"


The end of the week was devoted to all things Halloween. Will and Kayla were dressed up as characters from Dr. Seuss. Can you guess which ones? (Ok, so Will's is obvious, but what about Kayla?)



On Friday morning we went with Susan and Robert and a few other friends to a local nursing home for a short costume parade. Kayla wasn't too excited about it.


Friday night was our ward Halloween party and Trunk-or-Treat.


From all the parties and other activities during the week they both have WAY too much candy. But they had a fun week. Hope you all did too.

Self-portrait by Will Evans

Earlier this morning Will told us that he wanted to draw a picture. In the past when he's drawn something it was usually a bunch of scribbles and a circle or other shape here and there. But today he surprised us with this:



He had drawn a picture of himself, complete with a face, hands, and feet, plus he WROTE HIS NAME! (it really is in there, despite my horrible picture-taking) I've been hoping he'd learn how to do that for the longest time, and it finally happened. It was such a fun moment for all of us. He's growing up into a great young man and we are very proud of all his accomplishments.

Off to the races

Back in May I made this goal. Bill joined in on the fun, and over the last two weeks both of us have reached that goal. First up was Bill's race, the Savoy Orchard Days 5k. The kids and I came along to cheer him on and did our best to entertain ourselves while we waited near the finish line.


Bill before the race



Crazy kids




Post-race picture


Doing stretches with Daddy


This was taken on top of the hill where the finish line was.

A week later it was my turn. I chose to run in the Women's Fitness 5K. Bill and the kids were there, and later Susan and her kids came to show their support.


Pre-race picture


At the starting line


This was the most grueling part of the race. We were running on the side of a main road so I spent a good 5-10 minutes being tilted to one side next to the sidewalk, which meant that my right arm was doing all the work.


Crossing the finish line. It was an awesome and emotional few minutes for me when I realized that I had finished and accomplished this goal. I think Bill and I have decided that we're going to try and do this again sometime in the future. If nothing else it was a wake-up call to how out of shape we are and how much we need to exercise and stay healthy. So if you ever need a kick in the pants to get you motivated, make the goal to run a marathon!

Looking back

I seem to be really bad at updating our blog lately, therefore you all are going to be subjected to another long, picture-heavy post. Here are some of the happenings of the Evans family over the past few months.

COUCHES
Being the poor college students that we are, our living room furniture is not what you would call classy or new. We've inherited pieces from family, neighbors, and craigslist. Until recently it didn't bother me much that we don't have matching furniture. But for some reason I started being frustrated that our couches didn't match. So began my quest to find matching slipcovers. And finally, thanks to some great family members who gave us gift cards, we were able to purchase some from JCPenney.

Before:

After:


I've now gotten the remodeling bug. We'll see how much finances and time allow us to do in the future.

DECATUR ZOO
You may remember last year when we went to the zoo near our home. This year we decided to go again, and we invited Bobby and Susan to come with us this time. Will and Alice had a blast hanging out and looking at all the animals, and Kayla and Robert enjoyed being out in the sun and playing.






One of the highlights of the zoo for Will was getting to go on the train. He asked about it both last year and this year, and was so excited when we got to go this time. It wasn't a very long ride, but he seemed to enjoy himself.



THE "CHEESE VEGETABLE"
In the 3+ years that we've lived here I've gotten used to some of the differences between the West and the Midwest. No mountains, lots of corn, the Church being a minority religion in the area, etc. One aspect of living here that I've come to enjoy is the types of entertainment. For example, a few weeks ago we went to the Amish Country Cheese Festival. (Will apparently misunderstood the name, so he started calling it the cheese "vegetable." We thought it was funny, so the name stuck.) Every year the small town of Arthur, Illinois hosts a 3-day event with cheese tasting, cheese-centered sporting competitions, vendors selling numerous items (cheese-related and otherwise), clowns making balloon animals, and a number of other activities. But the most exciting event of the festival seems to be the International Cheese Curling Competition. Last year we weren't able to go to the competition due to bad weather, but this year we decided to go see what it was all about. Needless to say, we made a very wise decision. Not only did we have a lot of fun, but Bill ended up being on the winning team. So I can now say that my husband is one of four international cheese curling champions. For more details on this exciting event, check out our friends blog.

The winning team: Alysa Stewart, Jacob Stewart, Joe Bair, Bill Evans


Look at that amazing technique.


After the cheese curling, we went to get Will a balloon animal. There is a group there that ties balloon animals of all sorts. Last year, Will got a balloon pumpkin. He has been talking about it ever since. He asked for months afterwards when we were going to go back and see the clowns and get another pumpkin. Well, this year, when we decided to go back to the festival, we made certain to go get another balloon animal. This year Will decided on a balloon fish on a fishing pole. It didn't last more than a day or two, but he was absolutely ecstatic.


PRESCHOOL
I have decided that it's a bittersweet thing to have your child start school. You are excited for them and all the fun that they will hopefully have, but you are a little sad that you no longer will have them at home 24/7. At least that's how I felt this last week when Will started preschool. There's a great program that one of the local high schools started called Little Maroons. (The high school's mascot is Max Maroon, who is apparently a bear. It appears that the only known picture of Max Maroon is found in an old alumni newsletter here -- You have no idea how long it took us to find this.) Will goes to preschool every Tuesday through Thursday for about 3 hours. We love it mostly because the majority of his friends are also in the preschool, so they all have a lot of fun together. We hope he will enjoy the whole year and that this will be good practice for kindergarten next year.



I love Will and his friend Spencer in this picture. Their faces seem to be saying "what are you doing here?"

Just for fun

I love taking pictures of Will and Kayla because I never know what will happen. These four videos have nothing to do with each other, but they're all fun in their own way.

Daddy came up with a new game that Will and Kayla love to play with him. And while I love to watch them, I worry sometimes about Bill's poor knees.


Kayla is becoming quite a dancer. This video shows only a tiny bit of her talent, and of course Will wanted in on the action too.


Will discovered a fun new game. If you stick pieces of paper up to the air conditioning vent they stick. This entertained him for at least a few minutes.


This last video is my favorite. Kayla is definitely a smart little girl. She says a lot of words and understands many things.