See Ya on the Flip Side Elder Herzog

Missionaries go into the Missionary Training Center down in Provo, UT on Wednesdays. Tuesday night, Tim was set apart as a missionary by an Extraordinary Priesthood Blessing. The spirit was so strong and amazing. Afterward, he is officially Elder Herzog and will be a Missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for the next two years.

There was lots of hugs and tears knowing that we wouldn't see him in person for the next two years. But overall the feeling was joy, happiness and excitement that he was choosing this honorable path.

Carter and Tim have always had a special relationship.

Yes, that is a soccer ball in Timmy's hands. Anyone who knows him, knows that he wouldn't survive without his soccer ball.

Adios Elder Herzog!!


Now fast forward a couple weeks from those previous pictures. Tim just arrived in GA yesterday. His Mission President, President King, and his wife had all the new missionaries over for dinner and interviews and they took this picture to send to all the families. Elder Herzog is top left. And the fun begins!!

Hollywood Connection

It is tradition in my family that the Monday night before a missionary leaves to the Missionary Training Center that we all go to a fun place to play together. This time we went to Hollywood Connection.

These bumper cars were a BIG hit. They were the best bumper cars that I have ever been on. Carter looked so stinkin cute on these big cars, they practically swallowed him up, but he did everything in his might to control that thing and he did a good job.

My family filled up every spot on this bus.

Cute Grandpa helping the granddaughters learn how to putt.

Carter likes to do it with his own style. There is no trying to help that kid.

Syd had quite the mad skills on the mini golf course.

Kyle getting set up.

Kyle's twin Ashlyn.

LITTLE Lilly Bean. She is such a cute, tiny thing. She is about 3 months older than Hayden.

And the whirly balloons....

Merry-Go-Round....

And more whirly balloon. Hayden loved the rides.

The cool kids balloon: Big Timmay, Lexi (Chris's), Tim's girlfriend Stefanie, and Aubrey (stac's).

Daring Mom's balloon with all the little tykes.

And my balloon, as you can see I was trying to hold in my cookies.

My beautiful niece Emmie.

Elder Timmy's Farewell

My brother Big Timmay just left on his mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to the North Atlanta, Georgia mission. He will serve there for 2 years. He will not be paid for his service, in fact missionaries pay to go on their missions. It was a call that came from God and Tim is willing and excited to accept. This day has been a long time in coming and I am so proud of him for making this tough yet rewarding decision. He had many challenges to overcome to be ready to serve and I am inspired by him for doing what he needed to do to make himself available to serve. He is a strong young man and I know he will serve our Father in Heaven and His children in Georgia well.

Typically the Sunday before missionaries leave they have what is called a "Farewell." They speak in church and then have a big gathering afterwards with all their family and friends. And let me tell you did Tim have a BIG gathering at my parent's house. I have never seen that many people at my parent's before. One could barley move there were bodies crammed from wall to wall. We weren't even close to being in fire code I am certain. The above picture has all the nieces and nephews in it that Tim will not see while he is gone. We can only write letters or emails. There is no talking on the phone (except Mothers Day and Christmas) and no in person visits. He will miss births (my sister in law is in due in a couple months and I am sure there will be more), no weddings in our family future that he will miss (Nicole, don't even think about it!!!), but any other big family event they miss out on. Matt and I got married while his brother was gone on his mission. It was kind of weird having a brother I had never met before. Overall, the whole family is so blessed for having a missionary out and I am excited for those blessings and the missionary letters that are jam packed with the Spirit.

By the end of the day we all felt like Stacey's Kyle.

On this trip out to Utah, Hayden had a hay day with Sadie and Sadie, though large, is a gentle giant.

Pre School Thanksgiving Feast

November 22, 2010

Carter had his preschool's Thanksgiving Feast on Monday. I was so excited to go and see Carter all dressed up and get some great pictures of him. As you can see neither of those things happened. Of course, Carter was the ONLY kid of ALL the classes that would not dress up. No matter the occasion, Carter will be Carter. :)

But we did get two cute songs from Carter's class and several other songs from the other classes. Below is one of Carter's songs. You can't really hear it, but you get the idea:

These were the cute table decorations that were on the table when we got there. I have always been impressed with the many cute art projects they do.

Here's Some of What we were up to in October...

More family get togethers. We set aside at least two Sunday dinners for each other (2nd and 4th Sundays of the month). Then a few extra dinners usually get squeezed in there here and there.

The boys did a boys night out to the Royal's game early on in the month. As you can see, Carter has a thing for his Grandpa and has since he was an infant.

And Hayden just keeps on being adorable month after month. This particular day Carter decided he was going to try feeding her for the first time:



We are getting a temple here (and it's just 5 minutes away from where we live!!). We are so super excited!! In our church, The Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints, temples are extremely important and sacred buildings and it is an unbelievable blessing to have one so close. We can't wait to have the opportunity to serve and work in this temple. This particular day (above) was the ground breaking for the church building that will be built right next to the temple. Matt and Carter took a turn turning the dirt.

Here we are standing on the ground where the church building will be, but you can see the elevator shaft behind us that will be a part of the temple. I think this will be a cool picture to look back on in years to come to think that we were here as the temple was being built.

Carter and our next door buddies. These three kiddos next to Carter are all apart of the same family and they are the cutest kids. We love having them around and feel so blessed that we moved onto a street with such great kids.

Grandpa Craig came for his yearly October visit. My Dad is a pharmacist and he is over pharmacy and technology (sorry Dad I know I am not getting this right) so he comes out every year for a conference. We are so glad that we will now live here so we get to see him every year on his hospital's dime no less. Next year just bring Grandma along Dad!!

We also had Great Grandma B and Great Grandpa B come out for a visit as well. Carter thinks his grandparents are the beezneez. He asks at least a couple times a week if his great grandparents are coming back yet?

Then Carter had his Fall Festival. Since he belongs to a religious preschool i guess they don't celebrate Halloween so we had a Fall (no costumes) party. The kids had a great time and went from station to station doing different activities and getting toys and some candy.

I was over the parachute activity.



Their cute goody bag they made. Carter makes the CUTEST crafts and art projects @ his school. He also now knows how to write his name.

We also took a trip to the zoo. They have a big cage full of lorikeets and I think they were attracted to my green fleece because they were all over me, I even had the poop to prove it. :)



Carter got in on the action.

And of course a trip to the zoo wouldn't be complete with out the train ride, and at our zoo the train ride is a necessity since things are spread out so much.

I love watching these two together, they are best buddies.

Gotta love feeding the deer.

When Matt and I lived just north of here while Matt was going to school, it was tradition during football season when we would come down for the weekend to go to the local high school football game on Friday night. So we decided to get the kids on to the tradition. Here Hayden is at her first game. I laughed because as soon as we showed up Grandma about jumped out of her seat and over Grandpa to get her hands on Hayden. I guess Grandma thinks Hayden is better entertainment than a football game.

She got plum tuckered out being so cute at the game.

She has also started to get the idea of the Jumperoo this month and loves it!!:

Halloween

We had a whimsical Halloween this year with a Dragon and a Fairy at our house. I feel bad that we didn't get better pictures, but we were kind of rushed and with an active three yr old and a 10 month old who wants to be on the move, we were lucky to get one or two pictures that weren't a blur.

The Dragon doing the robot.

Our Fairy thought she would get her read on before trick or treating.

Grandma Bonnie made the kids these cute ghosts stuffed with goodies.

This was our neighborhood posse that we went trick or treating with, the crazy thing is this picture left out 3 of the kids. Carter was the most die hard and stayed out the very longest. He hit up two neighborhood haunted houses (they were pretty legit, I only went to one, but it was pretty scary!) and was out close to 2 1/2 hours and filled 3/4 of two pumpkins (between trunk or treating and trick or treating). Not a bad haul for a 3 yr old.

Oct 30th was our trunk or treat at the church, these are our buddies we carved pumpkins with and they had on my favorite costumes of the evening.

Grandma and Fairy Hayden at the church.