Grandpa Turpin's 80th Birthday Video

My Grandpa turns 80 in January.  Since the family was all together (minus my little family) for the annual Turpin Christmas party, my mom and her sisters decided to celebrate Grandpa's birthday a little early.  For the past month they have all been emailing me pictures.  I've been going through old pictures, trying to brighten them up a little in Photoshop, and made a movie using the photos.  It was so fun to go through the old pictures.  My mom and her sisters were some stylish little girls!  

Tammy, Tari, Tonya - Christmas

Grandpa with baby Ethan

I love this photo of my Grandpa as a little boy with his Grandpa. 

Grandpa, my cousin Melissa, and me

Colleen, Tari, Tonya, Tammy

Weston, Grandpa, me

I love this one!  Grandpa and Tari

Tammy, Tonya, Tari

I love this one.  I think my 10 year old mom hasn't changed a bit.

Daddy's Girls

For some reason I can't embed the movie here, but here is the link on Youtube to see it:

Grandpa's Movie

or type in:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_FoDR-d9ak

The Prayer of a 3 Year Old

Quinn is an old soul.  He cracks us up all the time with the things he say.  The other night he prayed, "bless our grandsons, bless us to have a nice Christmas season," and then as soon as the prayer was over he grabbed Caden's special penguin from his bed and ran as fast as he could to his own room.  He wasn't quite fast enough, but I have to give him an A for effort.

Thanksgiving Week

We were all so excited to host our first Thanksgiving in our new home!  We were so lucky to have my parents, Weston, Erica and Scarlett join us for Thanksgiving week!  It was a great time!

Little 2nd Grade Thanksgiving Show!

The boys were out in the driveway (it was already dark) when Grammy and Grandpa pulled up!  They just couldn't wait any longer!  It was a happy reunion with horse rides and snuggles.

The next day I took my parents to Royal Gorge Basin.  It was windy, but it died down enough that we could ride the gondola.

Quinn had been talking for weeks about taking Grandpa on the gondola.

Grammy's magic suitcase never disappoints.  

On Wednesday we hit up the Pueblo Electri-critters.  Then we put the kids to bed and the adults hit up the new Hunger Games late movie to celebrate Weston's birthday.

My little cactus family in our new desert home.

Thanksgiving!  Clark was so excited to fry a turkey for the first time.  The turkey tasted great and our house didn't burn down, so we consider it a success!

It happened to be the coldest day of the year to sit and watch the turkey fry.

That night my mom, Erica and I hit up a few Black Friday deals.  We came home and played a fun game called Things.  I've never seen my Dad and Weston laugh so hard.

On Friday we all put on our jammies to go to Canon City to ride the Santa Express train.  It had snowed a lot!  It was a beautiful time to visit the North Pole!  There was hot chocolate, cookies, and entertaining elves to make the train ride quite magical!

The boys thought it was pretty fun to walk through the moving train to find the outdoor car.

Once we arrived at the North Pole Santa got on the train.  The elves on our car did a great job building up the hype for Santa.  At one point everyone was chanting, "Santa, Santa..."  Clark got so into the spirit of the moment that he had Quinn held high above his head and was lifting him in to the air with the rhythm of the chant.  We thought he was enjoying it, and then we quickly realized he was terrified.  I still giggle when I see this picture.

He warmed right up when Santa gave him a magic bell from one of his reindeer.

So many things to be thankful for this Thaknsgiving season!  Family is at the top of my list!

School Boys

At the beginning of November the boys had Career Day at school.  Ethan dressed like a doctor, and Caden dressed like and entomologist.  The little entomologist, who we loving refer to as our absent minded professor, was so excited about his magnifying glass and bug lanyard that he forgot about his shoes.  Clark dropped him off in front of the school and he took a few steps before he realized he was barefoot.  He ran back for his shoes and made it in before the bell.

Caden LOVES crafts!  He was so excited to bring home a piece of paper with a turkey on it.  The assignment was to disguise the turkey.  Caden wanted to make his turkey floating away in a hot air balloon with his feather disguised as clouds.  Of course!  I think he succeeded.

The school had a fund raiser in November where they hired a company similar to build a bear to come in and the kids could make their own stuffed animal.  Of course my boys really wanted to build an animal, so I told them they would have to earn the $17.  They put quite a bit of money away one afternoon clearing the tumble weeds from our back deck area.  It was unbelievable.  The winds storms we get out here are insane, after being up all night thinking the roof was going to blow off our house we woke up to this:

Caden picked a penguin to stuff and Ethan picked an eagle.  They got to put a "wishing star" in their animal before it was stitched up at the end.  Caden told me he wished that our family can all be safe.  Ethan told me he wished for an X-Box (at least he's honest).

Their Thanksgiving art from school reflects their personalities perfectly.
Ethan:

Caden:

I love these school boys!