Thankful for our little turkeys!

We had such a wonderful Thanksgiving last week and enjoyed the weekend at home with our little turkeys. All I have to do is look at this picture to know how blessed my life is each and every day!

This is the first time our little family has stayed home so I was a little nervous about cooking a turkey for the first time. Jeff and I both come from families with amazing cooks so the pressure was on. The day before Trey and I made some delicious pies...

...and mini tarts. When I was little my mom would always let my sisters and I have the pie crust scraps to make mini tarts. Trey loved it!

Our turkey may be small but it was DELICIOUS!!

Avrey was a good helper and played nicely in her saucer. No pictures of Kaden cause he was gracious enough to take a nap before dinner!

Trey was also in charge of the place cards and did a great job!

The beautiful spread! I broke out the fine china for the event and Trey was so excited that he got to have a glass cup and plate all in the same day! What a wonderful holiday and reminder of the many things we have to be grateful for!

550 Gallons Later

When you have a BIG beautiful tree like this in your front yard you love it until all those beautiful leaves fall on the ground and you get to clean them all up!! Jeff and Trey started to rake them up one Saturday and then we realized how many were still on the tree and we didn't have any garbage bags big enough to get rid of them so, we left them for another day! Luckily a few days later we had a huge wind storm blowing the rest of the leaves off and a lot into the neighbors yard!!

Avrey remained inside during the clean up. She and leaves do not go well together!

(See post titled "Danger falling all around" for more details!)

The boys had so much fun raking and playing in them. In the end it took 10-55 gallon garbage bags to get it all cleaned up. Can't wait till next year!!

Welcome Home Elder LeChem!

During the month of October we spent almost three weeks in Utah. One of the main reasons we went is to welcome back Jeff's younger brother Peter. He spent the last two years serving a mission in the Philippines. Kaden and Mo were so excited to see him!

Almost altogether again! Jeff was not able to come to the welcome home at the airport but arrived the following day to spend Halloween with us and be their for his brothers welcome home!

Trey was so happy to see his Uncle Peter and then, of course, once he saw him got a little shy.

Peter meeting Avrey for the first time!

Finally after 4 years the whole family is together again. Peter's Welcome home ended up being on Halloween Sunday. He gave a great talk and then we had a wonderful dinner at Jeff's parents home.

Avrey fell in love with her Great Grandpa Peterson.

As you can see we had a great time filled with many wonderful activities! Kaden tried his hardest to keep up, but finally passed out on Grandpa.

Happy Halloween

Halloween is one of our favorite holidays. Trey decided to be Michael Jackson this year, Kaden was Buzz Lightyear and Avrey was a seal. Not much of a theme, but they all looked so cute. The boys had a fun time trick-or-treating with their cousin cowboy Mo.

Trey was ready at any moment to bust a move or put on a concert.

Even in the rain and cold they had such a great time trick-or-treating and didn't want to stop.

Getting ready for Halloween!

We are blessed when we go to UT because we get a chance to spend time with both sides of our family. One afternoon while we were at Grandpa and Grandma Gillespie's (Julie's parents) the boys wanted to go out and rake up the endless amount of leaves in the back yard.

They wanted to rake them up just so they could jump in them, but Grandpa was so happy when he got home he ended up paying them a few dollars. They, of course, wanted to go back out and rake up more!

That night we got to carve pumpkins with Grandpa and Grandma.

My dad scored HUGE points with the boys that night. Kaden wanted a simple pumpkin face which my dad was happy to do. Then he asked Trey what he wanted on his pumpkin and he said, "Michael Jackson'. Grandpa laughed and said yeah right. I finally talked Trey into doing the MJ and his hand so it would be like Michael's glove. Trey agreed but then said he wanted sparkles on it. I said we couldn't but then Grandpa pulled out some magic. He cut the hand out and then took it outside to use his drill to cut a whole bunch of little holes in it. Trey was so excited!!

To top it all off they shared doughnuts with Grandma and then got to sit in the hot tub. Such a wonderful night with some pretty cool grandparents!!

Cowboy Grub

We had a very fun night with my sister Laura up in Salt Lake. She took us to this fun little place called Cowboy Grub.

In the waiting area they have free horse rides which the boys loved! They also have the yummiest ribs I have ever. Thanks Laura for a fun night!

Dr. LeChem makes house calls!

Dr. Jeff broke out some skills and took care of an in grown toenail for his younger brother Nic. We gathered together in their very "sterile" living room. Nurse Trey was in charge of holding the light.

Nurse Kaden was in charge of not touching anything!!

The audience and patient were very pleased with Dr. Jeff's hard work and knowledge.

Danger "FALL"ing all around

As the warm days are coming to an end I thought it would be a good idea to get all the leaves cleaned up before the snow comes. Yesterday afternoon I tried to do just that. Trey was at school, and Kaden was asleep so Avrey and I headed outside. I put Avrey in her saucer near the front porch and started raking. A short while later I noticed that a leaf had fallen onto Avrey's seat and she, of course, put it directly into her mouth. I ran over and got most of it out of her hand and the few pieces from the front of her mouth when I noticed she began to choke. I grabbed her out of her seat and began patting her back but it seemed to only be getting worse. All I could think is, get inside and call 911. So I did. Avrey was having a hard time breathing and seemed like she was getting no air in whatsoever. Her face was getting very red and had tears running down her face but she wasn't making the sounds of crying. The fire truck arrived within 3 minutes waking Kaden up wondering what in the world was going on. Luckily, by the time they had gotten here Avrey was breathing on her own and had apparently swallowed the leaf. She was scared and holding onto me pretty tight. Kaden became very nervous when the ambulance arrived. Thankfully, one of the fire fighters saw that and took him to check out the fire truck. Although that moment was the scariest moment of my life I feel so blessed that she did not need CPR or something more invasive. Everyone knows to keep small objects like legos & marbles from babies but never in a million years would I have thought a leaf could be so harmful. I am also very thankful for that still small voice and the comfort I was given to stay calm in such a scary situation. We did take her to the doctor afterwards just to have her checked out and thankfully everything checked out fine!

Trey's first field trip

During the first week in October Trey went on his first field trip at school. He was so excited to ride the bus for the first time and they were able to pick their own vegetables. He spent the day at a local farm and ended up picking a pumpkin, a potato, a carrot, a radish and some indian corn. He had such a great day and can't wait for next time!

Cereal Girl

That's right Avrey is a cereal girl living in a cereal world.

I am not sure but I think she likes the cereal!! I love this picture!

Yummy Traditions

Jeff's family has a great tradition of making homemade doughnuts on General Conference Sunday. This year was another great success.

The boys never complain about this delicious breakfast!

And neither did Avrey!! You're never too young for a doughnut!