You be the judge!

Some of the Manwaring Family think brad looks like Jacob from Twilight. What do you think? Maybe there is a little similarity?

New Family Pic

We went to Power Ranch park on Saturday to take a family picture since that is the only thing Mom wants for Christmas. There were SOOOOO many families there! yikes! Despite the many people and level of frustrations, we were able to get some good ones. I forgot to get one of just the kids so we may have to try again for that.......um, maybe not.....

The "studly" senior...The "sophisticated" sophomore...

the "energetic" eighth grader....

The "fabulous" forth grader.....and the "kookie" kindergartener!

....and some people were just plain HAMS!!! :)

Thanksgiving 2008

All because these two fell in love!

We had a fabulous thanksgiving. Alot of my family were able to come down. Mom and Dad, Susan, Bruce, Linda and Maria and their whole families. We had 29 people here counting my family.

There was a HUGE pile of shoes by the door....and I didn't even tell people they needed to take their shoes off, they are just true Manwarings and that's the first thing we do when we get home is kick off our shoes! ahhhh

It was basically a 3 day party for the kids. They had a blast with all their cousins. We even had an impromptu talent show and all the teenagers sang the theme from efy and the little ones sang If the savior stood beside me. Then many did individual talents. It was so good. I'm so blessed to belong to such an amazing family! We just kicked back on Friday and played games and such. Dad brought his "Shocker" and that was crazy! On Saturday we HAD to go to In N OUT for those less fortunate than ourselves who don't have one close to them. It was so busy there we took it to Discovery park and ate there.The kids all had a great time playing on the golf cartand the big boys palyed hide and seek in the dark with it. They made a fire (I'm not sure it's legal) each night in the back yard and it was great! Made lots of memories!!

This Thanksgiving was truly TOO MUCH FUN!

The only thing that would have made it better is if Michael, Amy and Mark could have been there with us.

Hairspray Girl

So Jenna gets out of the tub last night and as I was combing her hair, she straightened her hair flat to the side of her head and said, "can we do my hair like this, not curly?" I told her we could try but I didn't know if it would work since she has pretty curly hair, especially in the back. So we got the blow dryer out and began. She was pretty patient and by the end, she was kind of giggling. Her hair wouldn't straighten the whole way out, there was a cute little flip at the ends. So the conversation was like this.
Jenna: My hair looks different!
Mom: ya, it does, do you like it?
Jenna: Ya! Hey! I look like Hairspray!
Mom: Hair spray?
Jenna: Ya! you know, the hairspray girl!
Mom: Oh ya! Tracy?
Jenna: Yah! Can I have my hair like this tomorrow? Mrs T won't know who I am!
Silly girl! So needless to say, she wore it that way today. I'll post a picture later. She looks so grown up that way. Even Michelle couldn't believe how different she looked when she walked into the bathroom.

New Dating Deal

So, I made a deal with Brad that if he had a date set up on Friday nights then he wouldn't have to take his turn babysitting for me. It has to be with a different girl and not just a "hang out" date. Well, he is up to the challenge. He is finally past the "girlfriend" thing THANK GOODNESS! NOT a good thing for a young man who is preparing to serve a mission. It is so interesting that they can't see how wrong it is for them to steady date until they are out of the situation. He made a covenant (is that sacrilegious?) with me that he would not have a serious relationship with a girl till after his mission. He won't kiss, hold hands nor date the same girl more than a few times but always someone else in between. He and Mike are planning a pizza game night this friday. woo hoo!

Jenna's Veterans Day

Since Jenna doesn't really fit into the "teenage" mold, she had her own idea of what a fun day off would be. She begged to go to the park. So we asked her best friend Abby to come with us. We were at the park for about 10 or so minutes when whey came running over asking to go to a

different park because they were bored! Sheeze! I told them we could always go home and do some work! They didn't like that idea so ran off to play only to come back about 10 minutes later asking if we could go to the choo choo train park. Long story short, they finally just played and we stopped on the way home and got an ice cream cone from McDonald's. Then they sat at the counter watching the Spencer's "tiny" black and white TV eating their ice cream. Abby asked, "can't it change into color?"

They made lipstick with their ice cream and wanted a picture. Abby was very good at this, she must have lots of big sisters to watch and practice with! Jenna would rather be outside riding her bike or something!!

Silly girls! So glad that all my kids have great friends!

Our Veterans Day

Started about 8:00 a.m. with a bunch of teenagers making breakfast. I was surprised they started so early being "teenagers" but anyway, they made a HUGE breakfast of hash browns, eggs with sausage, waffles, crepes, juice, fruit with dip and french toast. They made the fire alarm go off and also flipped the power breaker twice. They did have a yummy breakfast with only a few waffles left over. They used about 2 1/2 dozen eggs and 2 loaves of bread! But the best part of all cleaned up after they were done. Then they all hung around till about noon playing games. Ahhh the life!