Thanksgiving Day.....

We hosted Thanksgiving this year. Our WONDERFUL friends, who are pretty much family, joined us, the Berryman's & the Meier's. We enjoyed some delish food & nummy desserts!

Kiley took the boys out early in the morn to play in the annual Turkey Bowl with a bunch of people from church (no pics :(). It was a nice relaxing day!

A day at the park....

November 25th:
The day before Thanksgiving, we decided to go to the YMCA & then have a picnic at the park that is right behind the YMCA. It was a beautiful day, so we loaded up the bikes & scooters & packed some lunches. We had a great work out & then headed out to play! The kids enjoyed being outdoors, however the bees were also enjoying the beautiful weather! Kiley worked with Brayden on improving his bike riding skills.....a few tears shed & frustrated words & all was well! Good job Brayden! Way to not give up! :)

NOVEMBER????

Okay, so once again I am a bit behind on the Mortensen Blog, but if those of you who are not close by could see me & maybe even be me for a day or two, you'd be behind as well! :) Yes, I know Christmas is only 2 days away, but I just couldn't forget the rest of November & not blog about it. So here we go!

Back on November 21st, the boys had their first formal piano recital. It was quite the Saturday! I think we had 101 million things going on that day! The recital was at 2 in the afternoon & Teagen had a bday party to go to before hand. So the plan was for Kiley to pick him up & meet us at the recital......of course, he was late & Brayden was the first one to play & he played his piece PERFECTLY & Kiley missed it! Luckily, they arrived in time for Teagen to play his piece! They both did SO incredibly well & had their pieces completely memorized! They also had to share 10 interesting facts on a composer & did an excellent job presenting those! Brayden received an award for being such a great listener & always doing what his teacher asks him to do! What a good boy!! Our boys have truly improved so much in their piano playing & we are just so grateful for their amazing teacher, Emily! Thanks for being so patient with them!

Corpus Christi here we come!

These are pics from our trip to Corpus last weekend....the 6th through the 9th. They are all backwards, but I am to dang tired to try & get it right! Enjoy!
I really enjoyed fishing, even though non of us caught a single thing! Not even a tug, but that's alright! We had fun anyway!

The Girls! So cute!

Even Liv got to fish!

Fishing with daddy!

The boys!

Liv & daddy mini golfing!

Bowling!
Teagen LOVED the ocean! He played out in the water for the longest time! He loved boogie boarding!

Teagen in the sand!

Brayden thought it was pretty cool to be buried in the sand!

Trying to catch the cool little crab things before they buried themselves into the sand!

Collecting sea shells!

Kiley left the week before Halloween to do his LAST away rotation. He is in a fun little town called Corpus Christi. It is only 2 1/2 hours away, so he was able to come home for the Halloween festivities & the following week the kids & I headed down there to spend the weekend with him! He's been down there with one of his good buddies & so I don't think they've missed their families much because of all the fun they are having together. His family went down the same weekend we did, so it was fun for the kids to have friends to play with as well! We left late Friday night, Liv was sick that day with a fever & we almost didn't go, but the boys were DYING to get there. The drive was quick & we were all so excited to see Kiley. We spent the day at the beach on Saturday. It was perfect weather! The beach was full of dead jelly fish, but we still made the most of it. Sunday Kiley was on home call & just our luck, they called him in. It rained all day as well! So I took the kids bowling with our friends. Always a fun activity for the kids! Kiley finally got home around 3ish & we were pretty much lazy all afternoon. That evening we took the kids to an indoor glow in the dark golf course. They had a great time! Kiley had Monday off, so I decided we'd stay another day. So the kids missed school, but it was worth it to spend time with dad! We went fishing & enjoyed a little bit of extra vacation time before heading back to reality! It was a quick trip, not a whole lot to it, but fun & relaxing & ALWAYS wonderful to see Kiley & pretend we are all together again.....thank goodness he will be home for good this Friday! We've missed him terribly!

Olivia's adorable Hair Cut!

Nov. 2nd-

I have cute Olivia's hair a few times in the past, but decided it was time for a drastic change! I chopped it off into a cute little bob! She looks so adorable & grown up! Where has my baby girl gone??? She was so good & sat still! I was worried I'd butcher it completely, but I must say I did a pretty good job! Isn't she so cute!

Happy Halloween....a little bit late!

I feel terrible that I totally STUNK this year at taking pictures of my kids on Halloween. The boys literally darted out of the house, saw some of their friends & took off! Liv wouldn't hold still for two seconds for me to catch any decent pics, so these two are about all I've got. I may need to make them all dress up again so I can document it for the future! Halloween in San Antonio is a one of a kind experience. I really don't want to be mean, but really people!?!?!? Grown adults asking for candy, parents TELLING you to give their kid some extra pieces of candy, old ladies not even dressed up trick or treating, people taking their newborns out & collecting candy for them???? It is mind boggling to me, but I guess I don't really know the rules to Trick or Treating. All I do know is that it is always amazing the different people we encounter on the 31st of October in the Lone Star state!

Annual Friends Halloween Bash!

Fosters & Atwoods pulled off another fun Halloween party! I had the hardest time trying to figure out what we were going to be this year. Kiley had left the week of the party to start a rotation down in Corpus Christi (about 2 1/2 hrs away), so as usual I left the deciding until the LAST second! I did a bunch of searching on the internet & decided that we would be a plug & socket! I made it in a matter of 45 minutes & it was MUCH cheaper than buying it online. Kileys plug didn't quite make it through the night, oh well! As you can see, there were some great costumes: 80's Aerobics people, UFC fighters, Polygamist family, Spooky people, Wendy & Peter Pan, Biggest Loser, etc. It was a good laugh! We sure do enjoy our friends here in San Antonio! Thanks Fosters & Atwoods for a fun time!

The Whole Gang! Happy Halloween!