Here Comes Santa Claus

Finally blogging our Christmas.

With Santa at our Ward Christmas Party. Favorite part of this picture is that Meg has green and red rubber bands on her braces to celebrate.

Grieving

Meg and Ben with their cousins Marshall and Abbie during the viewing.

My mom is an only child and my dad had only one sister. These are three of my four 1st cousins.

Some of my dad's grandchildren practicing the song for the funeral.

This picture is tender to me. Again, my mom was an only child and in the wheel chair is my Aunt Ruby, my grandma's only sister. When I saw her I was vividly reminded of how much I miss my Grandma the last 25 years. All my siblings, my sister-in-law and mom are in this picture.

Ben was my rock the entire weekend.

Rusty and Ben were pallbearers.

Me with my dad's sister, Aunt Audrey.

Driving away in the limo with my mom, sisters, Rusty and Ben. I see my brother linger to say a final good-bye.

This tragedy has brought me closer to all my family members (I feel blessed for that), but without my husband, Rusty, I could not have endured the past four days. Rusty took two pages of my nonsense notes about my dad's life and produced an amazing 6 page life sketch (eulogy) for me to deliver.

My deepest thank you to all my friends for your kind words, flowers, meals, cards, help with my kids and mostly support to let me grieve.

Deck The Halls

Thanksgiving

Freezing, in an attempt to get a Christmas card photo. Decided to go with a different one.

We had Thanksgiving at some friends' house, with another family. Lots of kids and lots of fun.

Lisa brought an arousing game of Bingo where everyone eventually won a giant candy bar.

Molly with some of her friends, Katie and Ashley.

Watching a little football.

Molly had a little Thanksgiving program followed by a "feast." Our buddy Gage is right behind her.

Molly is thankful for food and flowers. And we kept the "turkey potato" until it started to grow additional things other than feathers.

The front of Molly's sweater. . .

. . . and the back.

I love this picture. They are so happy and love each other.

Ben created this masterpiece using Molly's headdress that she made at school so she would have something to fight. She had just watched The Barbie Musketeer movie.

Halloween

Before. . .

. . .After

About half way through carving, Molly decided that she wanted to chow down on some sour cream and onion potato chips. This picture was snapped right after she burped a sour cream and onion burp in Rusty's face. After he grossed out, Molly questioned, "Whhhaaaaat?"

Me taking over "Molly's" half-done-"I'm-done" pumpkin.

Molly decided that since her hair cut was like Snow White, then she would be Snow White. She asked me to be one of her dwarfs. . .Grumpy (hey, at least it wasn't Dopey).

For one party Sam decided to be Darth Vader.

Sam has recently decided sports are his life. And, therefore, staying true to his biggest passion, he needed to change his costume and be a St. Louis Cardinal (his and Rusty's favorite professional baseball team).

Meg as "a girl pirate" (the tag said "Wench" but I opted not to tell Meg that).

Ben as a vampire (not Edward).

Side note: I ruined his Sunday shirt by dying his hair. LOVELY!!

Max and Dominique came over to trick-or-treat with us.