The rest of the Summer

And the rest of the summer...

We had Emma a little longer and loved having her down with us.  We played games

 Who's the Dalmuti now?

 Celebrated Sam's birthday

 And made some fun Independence day cookies before she had to leave again. 

We got toilet papered

 And Max went to scout camp

 Joe became legal!

 Don't worry-he didn't just get Hostess cupcakes for his birthday.  I also made him this cool death by chocolate cake which was super yummy!

 And we celebrated Angus's birthday!

 And that's all folks!  

Now it's time to get back to school!

Max 7th, Joe 10th

 Sam 13th- College- for this one!  In the summer they made all the freshman come down and do an overnighter.  They showed them around campus and had talks and presentations.  They set them up with a councilor that talked to them about what they wanted to major in and then set them up with the classes and the schedules they would need to keep for the years ahead to get that degree.  They also had Sam do some testing and got him enrolled with the honors college.  He skipped ahead in math and went to the honors Chemistry.  

Emma was finishing up her 16th year- 13 hours away, so no picture of her!

They are all getting so big!!

Essentials of Christmas

Essential parts of our Christmas season:

1. Two trees- one with Mom and Dad's wedding ornaments and carefully picked out ornaments that match and another with homemade, silly and fun gifted ornaments.  Can you tell which one this is?

 2.  Celebration of St. Nicholas day.  He comes on the night of the 5th and fills your shoe with wonderful stuff.  

3.  Yummy treats- super essential!

 This one was made by a nurse in my ED.  Super cute and yummy

 This one was made by me!  This was my first year of success with old fashioned fudge.  I got some awesome pointers from our fabulous cook, Carolyn, and it finally worked out.  Who knew the secret was to not stir it?

4.  Cuteness in all it's many forms.  Poor puppy!

5. The reading of and acting out of the First Nativity.  Emma is usually Mary and Joseph is usually Joseph, but it has varied.  Our sheep has run off at this point.

6. Christmas morning round up.  They must all sit on the stairs and look pretty in the morning until I get a picture and start the video camera.  Yes it is always me, so you will never see me in the Christmas morning round up.  Aren't they so cute, even as big as they are?

Thanksgiving Friday

I had to work Thanksgiving in order to get out working Christmas or New Years when Emma was home.

That morning we went to Cracker Barrel for breakfast and then the boys went on a hike up the Sandias while I worked.  

The next day we enjoyed our Thanksgiving lunch!

 I made apple, pumpkin cream cheese and a mixed berry pies.  They were all delicious!

Visiting

While up in Utah, we stopped in at a cousin's wedding reception and also attended the wedding of Emma's roommate and friend, Sierra.  We knew them in Ohio and Germany.  

Emma is going to have a lot of bridesmaid's dressed before she leaves college!

Fun day seeing old friends.

Robert and the boys also went up camping with Grandma and Grandpa Thomson while I went with Emma back to her dorm and checked out her new digs.  Very nice place.  I became known as the exercise mom pretty quickly.  I had nothing else to do while Emma worked!  

And then before we left we got PEACHES! 

 Oh how I have missed good peaches!  There is nothing like them!

Birthday fun

I had a sweet friend set up a birthday lunch for me.  It was nice to have people come and say we like you enough to show up for lunch.  I have had a hard time in this ward feeling wanted, needed, relevant, or having anything at all in common with any of them.  I was looking out at the ward leaving from sacrament meeting one Sunday and Robert asked me, "what are you thinking (or feeling maybe?)" and I said, "I'm just depressed."   That's what I feel almost every Sunday now, depressed!   Luckily, there are some people that  help make it better and these ladies definitely help.

Besides a lovely lunch, my family took me to the Cheesecake factory.  We all ordered different cheesecakes and I got to try each one.  Sam refused to get anything interesting and only got the plain. It was my least favorite.  Rob actually got my favorite and I ate more of his than any others!  Joe really didn't want cheesecake, but he was forced to order one.  He got the Hershey's and it was actually quite good.

 Nice pose Sam!  Check out Max just checking out the cheesecake- it's his favorite too!

All those yummy cheesecakes in a bag!

For Emma and my birthday I had a friend send a bunch of chocolate from Germany, too. 

I sent some up to Emma, but she definitely didn't get the mother load that we got!  Yummmmmmm

Well anyway, Happy out of your teen years Birthday to our beautiful daughter!

Thankful

Grandma and Grandpa came from Utah for Thanksgiving and Karl and Terrie and family came from Arizona.  It was really nice to have some family for our celebration since we weren't hopping among the English Isles this year.

Besides yummy dinners and amazing pies (I tried a lemon tart, Pumpkin cheesecake pie, apple and a cherry berry pie- all of them were so good!)

We played at the traditional Turkey bowl

went and saw where Grandpa was born- or at least round about

and we went and climbed around the Petroglyphs.

These particular petroglyphs are smack dab in the middle of the suburbs- you wouldn't even know it though.  They have protected them pretty well.  

In November Sam finished football and started wrestling- all the sports have overlap here.  

Joseph got promoted in JROTC

And Max started playing basketball with a team I really enjoyed.  They were actually in a different city, but I really liked the coach and his teaching techniques!  The kids all seemed to be good kids and they had fun together.