It's been a while...

 It feels like we keep really busy here, mostly doing a lot of this--

and time passes so quickly it seems.  It's impossible to cover everything, but here's just a quick recap of a few things that have been happening lately....

November--
 I gave a little bday brunch for my sister Cassy's bday.

 Kept it simple,

 but yummy.  It was a lot of fun to be together with my mom and sisters celebrating Cassy.

 Then 2 days later our newborn baby (it feels that way anyway) turned 1 year old!  Can't believe it!  Happy Birthday Caleb!  He had a vintage airplane birthday party which turned out super cute!

 He loved his gift, and the box too!

 Then 6 days later Ben, truly our living miracle, turned 5 years old.  I was super emotional all day but had to hold it together because he had a big rocket and astronaut birthday party that night where we all had a blast! (Sorry, couldn't pass up the pun! :)

 Around that same time he left a present for mom and dad, our very own mural.  We taught him to write, now we just need to teach him where to write.  At least he wrote nice things like Benjamin and Dad, I love you, and xoxoxox.  Ah, what a sweetie.

In October Cody came home from his deployment, whew!!  We were all so happy to have him home.

A couple days later, if you follow facebook you know already, we got this! Surprise!!

Also in October, Cody and I took a little road trip by ourselves to St. George.  Cody has missed a lot of our Anniversaries with military trips so he surprised me with some quality time together.  I'll admit I was worried (terrified!) about leaving the kids for 4 days but, surprisingly to me, everything went fantastic at home and Cody and I had a wonderful time too. We stopped at Cove Fort on our drive down, saw Thoroughly Modern Millie and Mary Poppins at Tuachan, went to lots of fun historic church sites and went to the St. George Temple too.  And we also were able to get almost all of our Christmas shopping done which was a huge blessing.

Here's Halloween--

I dressed up too.  I rarely do, but Aimee, after picking out her popstar costume, didn't want to wear it anymore, so I donned some sparkly leggings, a pink and white wig, and gigantic bright blue eyelashes and went as her back up singer.  She was happier then, plus she realized she could wear lipstick for the costume--that sold her!  Caleb liked my wig too!

Here are a few other random pictures from the time while Cody was deployed...

Joy School friends, minus Tanner who I didn't happen to catch in the picture

Caleb messy, pretty common actually

Aimee playing goalie

Jocelyn just before a steal

Ben's first day of preschool at Miss Vicki's 

I couldn't believe he was this big already!

(Also made me really miss our old friends the Dopp's who moved away.)

Jocelyn proud of her dessert creation which tasted super yummy!

Sarah and Ben making a carrot chain on the piano. :)

The new stove that would soon catch our kitchen on fire!  

A blessing in disguise as so many are.  

(Why do most of our blessings come in the form of lots of hard work?)

A late over with our neighbor and babysitter, Emily.  What a good sport.  We sure love her!

Jocelyn and Aimee were so proud they'd planned decorations, 

games, treats, and a movie.  Everything went great!

Ben meticulously set up this Barbie house.  Should I be worried he plays with Barbies?  I guess with 3 sisters it's not surprising.  At least he threw a Lightning McQueen car in there too.  

He was so proud of his contribution to the late-over night too!  Darling!

Here's a giant onion from our garden. 

The picture doesn't do it justice.  

We had a great crop of produce this year on our little farm.

There is sooo much more I could post but it's late.  Stay tuned for more...  :)