So Much To Be Thankful For!

First of all, thank you so much to all of you who voted in our contest with SoFi!  We were one of the 5 runners up and won $10,000!  What a fantastic prize and amazing blessing!  We are so grateful to all of you who voted and shared :).

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend staying with Christi's parents in Ferron, UT.  It's about a two and a half hour drive for us.  We headed down there Thanksgiving morning and joined up with many siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles and friends.  Her parents hosted about 35 people for Thanksgiving Dinner in their home!  Great sports :).  About 20 of those family members stayed overnight the next two nights as well.  It's so great to get together with family.  It's particularly fun to see the young cousins having so much fun together.

As I reflect on Thanksgiving, there are so many things I'm thankful for.  Here's a short list of some of the things that come to mind off of the top of my head:

Christi, Cali, Conner, Elli, Graci, Jesi, Lexi, Sophi, Parker, Taylor, Xander (Xander, if you're reading this, I listed our kids alphabetically ;), the gospel, our home, extended family, college football, hammocks, mountains, good physical health, a good job, a great country to live in, adoption, good doctors, and so much more.  I'm grateful to have my wonderful family surrounding me during this holiday season.  They're the best!

Here are some pics from our weekend in Ferron.  I kind of got into hammocks this summer during some off our campouts.  With some guidance from a friend, I even learned how to make them a cozy place to sleep in 20 degree weather!  Christi and I slept in them while we were in Ferron:).

Parker and Christi accidentally dressed as twins!

Parker's hair is long enough for braids?!?

And the aftermath...

Sophi and Lexi loved taking care of baby Harmony

Sophia's ready to take off on a 4-wheeler!  Thanks uncle Danny:)

Conner and Dad

That's Christi tucked in snug as a bug in a rug!

Two peas in a pod:)

Fantastic Beasts

Thanks to Jon Hasebi and the team at Citywide Mortgage, our family was able to go see Fantastic Beasts and Where to find them...for free!  Taylor, Parker, Lexi, Jesi, Xander, Cali, Conner, Christi and I went.  It was a fun show for all of these Harry Potter fans :).  (Notice that Parker positioned himself next to the cutie in the pink coat in the first pic.  We made him take up a close up after.  You can see from his face he wasn't too distraught at the prospect ;)

Help needed! (:

LAST DAY TO VOTE!!! So... we've been checking out the page views for the other videos in the Social Finance Inc, contest and we are about 600 behind first place. That's a lot of views! And yet, if we could find 100 people to each get 10 people to vote, that's 1,000 votes! We could do this-- we could win $150,000! Remember, voting only takes 1-2 minutes, and if everyone in your family votes that makes it so much better!!! It's crazy to be just a few hundred votes away from such an amazing prize!  (:

:Again, our goal for today is 1,000 votes-- can you help us reach it? One of the best ways is to have everyone in your family vote and then share! Or perhaps you know someone with a big following that would share this for us. We'd love if you comment here after you vote so we can show our kids. They have been having so much fun with this! We are so grateful for such great friends and that tomorrow, we can stop bugging you.!  (: (: (: 

Click HERE  to vote.  After you vote, they will send you a confirmation email and you have to verify it in order for your vote to count.  But no worries, you will not be on their email list unless you check the box to do so.  

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!

Parental Evaluation

Christi is out of town for the weekend so I got the kids off to school on my own this morning.  Well, I did have some very valuable help!  Jessica did Sophi's and Lexi's hair :).  (Thank heavens!)  As I was getting the little girls' shoes and socks on before driving them to the elementary, Sophi asked for me to pack her a snack "like mom always does."  Lexi wanted one, too.

Me: "What do you want."
Lexi:  "Some of the mint oreos."
Me: "Those are all gone."
Lexi:  "But you said you would pack them for my snack yesterday and you forgot!"
Me:  "Sorry.  I'm a terrible father."
Lexi:  "But you're not like Snape, though."

So what exactly does that mean?  Yes, Dad, you're a terrible father, but you could be worse if you wore a black dress, had greasy hair and intentionally made my life as miserable as possible at every opportunity.  Thanks for the vote of confidence, Lex ;)

Jer