Arsenault Family Reunion

Grandpa Dave started cooking meatballs and spaghetti sauce three days before the family dinner just to be ready on time. The older kids love stuffing manicotti.

 Everyone fit in the kitchen and living room. Can you believe it?

After dinner there were presents all around.

 Grandma Peggy made pillowcases for all the grandkids.

 Family reunions just aren't complete without a family wrestling match.

Bill and Tim didn't get the memo to wear red. Merry Christmas.

Getting Ready for Christmas

  Every once in a while you just have to sit down and read a book...with the whole family...in the same chair.

 We had our annual gingerbread house decorating party. We invited the elders and a few friends from the ward. We asked the elders to help make the gingerbread cement. They didn't know what they were doing.

Here are Grace and Anne with their finished products

 James wanted to do the decorating himself. He needed a little help with the icing bag.

Johnny has been cruising. He will occasionally stand on his own without noticing. As soon as he realizes he is not holding onto anything he will sit down. He'll be running races before we know it.

Treasures

 On Thanksgiving morning we went over to Mormon Handcart Park to go for a walk. We played under one of the pedestrian bridges over willow creek and found a few treasures. Here is Anne sporting an old tennis ball, a fuzzy grass end, and a vertebral bone probably from a cow.

 Jennifer's visiting teacher gave us a gingerbread train kit. The kids had fun decorating it. Please ignore the sleeping man and baby in the background.

 Grace is getting more independent. Jen asked her to make cornbread. Jen got out all the ingredients and left the kitchen to practice the piano with Anne. Grace did the rest. It was sure good cornbread for dinner that night.

 Anne was invited to a friend's birthday party. Here she is displaying the placemat she and mom made for her friend Abril.

 Jennifer has been doing a pre-school co-op. James and Kylie are riding the spiderman swimming board down the stairs. Kylie is wearing Grace's old lemonade queen Halloween costume.

Our neighbor participated in Girls on the Run at school. Her mom is about 5 months pregnant and couldn't run with her daughter. They asked Jen if she could run instead. Here she is just after getting back from the 5K. Way to go Jen!

Hawkeye Express

 Today was the last game of the season for the iowa hawkeyes. They have a train that runs from coralville to the stadium. The kids have seen it many times over the last couple of football seasons and have wanted to ride it. Today we finally decided to give it a try.

 Unlike most of the other folks on the train, we just wanted to hitch a ride to stadium and then ride it right back to our car. On the way there we rode up on the top level and rode on the bottom level on the way back.

Happy Birthday Grace

Grace, your mom and I really love you. You bring a lot of joy to our family and we're glad you're a part of it.

All things Iowa

The corn box seems to be a common finding in Iowa. Here's one we found this summer at the Johnson county fair.

Halloween

We had a visit from some of Hogwart's most famous including: Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ginny Weasley and Dobby the house elf.

Mom, James and John made it to the school for the Halloween parade and also got to see Mrs. Polly.

Fall Fun

 Jumping from the swings into a big pile of leaves

 Making a leaf maze

 Running around crazy

Hanging out and watching all of the fun.

Walking on the water

We got invited to a secret pond. I jumped off of a floating yellow dock. My foot was on the water and my other foot was in the air. I said I was flying on the water when I saw this picture.
-published by Grace

A few happenings

 John just seems to get bigger every day. He is now sitting up and also just started crawling. Watch out big brother and sisters. He will be coming in your rooms now.

 We had a recent trip to Nauvoo and just had to have a ride in the wagon behind the oxen before they close for the winter. When the oxen chew their cud you can feel the crunching through their horns.

 James turned three last month. His favorite present was a pretend cell phone.

 Anne had her first field trip to the local apple orchard and got to ride the school bus for the first time. Mom and James and John met them out at the orchard. Here they are on the wagon getting ready to go out for a ride behind the tractor.

 There was a recent epic battle in our back yard between a wicked witch and a brave knight. For a while it seemed the battle could go either way. In the end, the knight was victorious.

And one picture of mom and John for good measure.

Private Fishing Pond

 My neighbor Dave is my fishing buddy. One of his coworkers has a private pond a little bit out of town. We got invited to come out for a family day of swimming and fishing. They had a paddle boat and some life jackets.

 Grace and Anne had a great time playing in the water.

Anne caught a bluegill

Edwin caught a bass

 Jennifer found some big frogs and really wanted to catch one. Even if it meant taking off her sandals and trudging through some thick mud. If you look closely in the bottom left corner you can see that big monster.

Those are some tricky frogs Jennifer.