She's Home!

Yes it's Thanksgiving but this post is not about food. Instead I get the pleasure of reporting that our neice/cousin Sister Mary Shepherd returned from serving in the Geneva Switzerland mission today. This could not have been a better Thanksgiving for our family. I wanted to get these pictures up so everyone could get a feel for this homecoming.

The family reunited. L to R- My nephew Joey Shepherd with his wife Kim in front, (expecting baby Alivia any day), my sister Debbie Shepherd, Mary, and brother-in-law Lynn Shepherd.


The anxious mother.




There she is!







Well done Mary. We love you and are so proud of you. Thank you!

William and I ended up in a matching color scheme today so I tried to take some pictures. After a couple of failed attempts because I kept closing my eyes William started to get silly. Note for future picture taking with 4 year old: 1-2 tries maximum! (Especially after church.)



It also didn't help that Dylan was taking the pictures. It's not one, two, three, click. It's one, two, three/click. He would push the button as he said three! OK I'll also admit that I don't do pictures well. For some reason my eyes go funny with the flash. I guess now that I look back it was a pretty funny experience with us all goofing up and blaming everyone else!
But look at that little guy, is he a goof ball or what?

Jokes

Thanks to the recent influx of Laffy Taffies at our house, there have been a lot of jokes going around. This morning I was eating breakfast with William when he said "Why did the monkey fall out of the tree?" Thinking I would nail it I said "because he was monkeying around." To which he replied "No because he was DEAD!"
I gotta admit, I didn't see that coming. Good one Will!

Salsa!

Tomatoes were so late this year I was worried that I wasn't going to be able to make any salsa. I even broke down half way through August and bought a box of tomatoes from the local growers so I could get started. I finally ended up getting enough tomatoes to do 3 more batches in Sept.
The kids helped me for Family Night a couple of weeks ago and we whipped up a batch in about an hour. I didn't process it that night because it was late but it was great to see how well it worked with us all pitching in. (Glenn was out of town so he didn't get to help.)
Here were the assignments:
Dylan-Onions, peppers, jalapenos, garlic
Garrett- Blanching tomatoes
Abby and Emily- Slipping skins off and mashing tomatoes and making a general mess of sink, walls, ceiling, counters, cupboards and floor
Me- Coring tomatoes with occasional stints at onion, pepper, garlic station
William- Running in to pose for pictures

Here are some pics. Note Dylan's snowboarding goggles for the onions. He said it really worked.