Jefferies Family Reunion

A few days after Christmas, the entire Jefferies family got together here in Peoria for a family reunion. Everyone except my nephew Andrew who is serving a mission was there. Because there are so many of us, we spent most of the time at our church building.

 All the grandchildren (minus Andrew) in order from oldest to youngest.

 We did a five mile hike at Thunderbird park and had a great view of the Phoenix temple.

Abbey, Ashley, Audrey, and Audrey - At the top of Thunderbird. These girls were pretty proud of themselves for making it.

In the afternoons, Jack was in charge of running the "snack shack" and collecting tickets.

These three crazy four-year-olds loved wrestling Uncle Sam.

The twins squaring off in an intense game of pictionary.

We also had a few intense rounds of human scrabble.

The cutest Audrey combo I know!

I'm so grateful for family. I'm grateful for cousins that play together and love each other, despite differences in age. And I'm especially grateful for parents that make the the effort to keep us connected.

Christmas 2014

We were so lucky this year to have my brother Mike and his family join us for Christmas.I loved having my three cute teenage nieces around. On Christmas Eve, we acted out the nativity, made cookies for Santa, and sang Christmas carols.

We also all opened up new Christmas pj's!

The whole gang on Christmas morning - about 6:30am.

A Visit With Santa

We went to the annual children's Christmas party at Ty's office on Friday. Santa came, as usual, and the kids were so excited to see him and tell him their wish lists. They got a lot of laughs out of him, too.

Audrey asked for a baby moose, lemon, and lime.

Elliot asked for a camel and tomato.

Jack asked for a remote-controlled car.

Thanksgiving Week

We spent Thanksgiving in Page this year and enjoyed the "cold" weather. It was so nice to get bundled up and want to stand by the fire in the morning. These are things we have not been experiencing in Phoenix at all. We spent the week geocaching, hiking, shopping (yes, at Walmart on Thanksgiving), and spending time with family.

With our cache "High Desert Island."

All the kiddos - Elliot, Jack, Madi, & Audrey

Too many cooks in the kitchen - Ty, Granna, Papa, Les, Grandpa Rick

Ty rappelling through Birthday Arch

November Happenings

It turns out that November is a great month to go to the lake in Phoenix. There were almost no other boats and the weather was warm and breezy. These little beach bums love nothing more that tubing, playing in the sand, and fishing off the boat.

Jack's soccer season ended especially well because his team won the championship game in his age division. His coach threw a party at Peter Piper for the whole team. Jack got the "toughness" award. I'm pretty sure it had to do with all the times he took a ball to the chest while playing goalie.

The twins had a Thanksgiving party at preschool for all the parents. Here is the whole class dressed as pilgrims and Indians:

We also had a ward service project cleaning up trash in the desert. The kids enjoyed the work but I think they liked catching lizards more.

Soccer Season

All three of our kids played soccer this fall and the season just ended. We spent two hours at practice every Tuesday and several hours at games every Saturday and they all improved so much.

 Jack - "Goofballers" #8

Audrey - "Ladybugs" #3

 Elliot - "Purple Dragons" #5

Halloween All Week

We had a great Halloween week completely full of activities and parties. It all started with the ward trunk-or-treat the Saturday before. About twenty minutes before it was time to leave, we had a costume crisis and Jack decided he didn't want to be Scooby Doo so we came up with a last-minute Link costume (from Zelda). Then Elliot, who was supposed to be a bumblebee, decided he really would rather be a vampire just like Jack was the year before. So here you go:

 On Monday night for FHE, we carved our pumpkins.

On Thursday, the twins had a preschool party. I talked Elliot in to trying his bumblebee costume on and I'm so glad he did because there two bugs were so adorable together. The kids all sang songs for the parents and then we played carnival games together.

This is their hilarious teacher Mrs. Goodrich. Audrey and Elliot love her so much.

After the preschool party, we were invited to go to another party with some moms from the ward. The kids had a little Halloween parade through the neighborhood to show off their costumes.

Finally we made it to Halloween night. It was warm and we were worried the kids were going to overheat in their costumes, but they did all right. They got loaded up with way too much candy, but we had a really fun night.