Balch Family Blog

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We did! We joined my mom, Ken, Cheryl, Ben, Crystal, Traci, Lee, Pat, Stacey and Dakota for Thanksgiving dinner in Tucson. The company was great and the food was delicious. We had some new pies and the Gingerbread Pumpkin was my favorite. The boys helped decorate Gramma Tucson’s house and tree. Camden made our family out of gold ball ornaments! We spent a few days there and came back home Saturday morning. We have decked our halls and put up our tree. The house looks very festive and I have 2 boys that are very excited about Christmas! It is hard to believe that we are just about 3 1/2 weeks away! Can that be?

Here our some pictures from Thanksgiving Weekend:

Stacey, Cheryl, Heather and Crystal at Thanksgiving holding a picture that was taken 15 years earlier.

The big group out to dinner on Wednesday.

Our Tree:

While at dinner this evening, Carsten dropped his second fork on the floor (which happens to be covered in peanut shells). He climbed down to pick it up. I stopped him and brought him back up to his seat. He was so mad at me he bit me! It was the upper inside portion of my arm. It is very tender right now. Ouch!

We are excited to announce that Camden rode his own bike all the way to the park and back today. It is very exciting because he has been so apprehensive since his fall several months ago. Yeah Camden!

Mark went to the Cardinals Football game last Monday for his birthday. He had great seats and really enjoyed himself. I picked Camden up from school that afternoon and he kept asking when Dad was coming home. I told him not until late because he is at a football game. He burst into tears saying, “I want to go to the game too!” Poor guy he was devastated. Trying to calm him down I looked to see when the Rattlers play next. It turns out their season runs March to June. That sent Camden into another crying outburst. (Did I mention how tired he is after school?) To offer a bit of hope I told him I would ask Jodie (the school psych I work with, and her husband is a Higley High School football coach) if there were anymore games. We were in luck! The first playoff game was scheduled for this Friday and it was at Higley High. Last night we went to the game. We paid our $5 admission (far better amount to lose if the boys were miserable over the $100 Cardinals tickets) and we were off to find our seats. We sat with Jodie and her family. She has two boys very close in ages to Camden and Carsten. They were so excited! Carsten was a little nervous but had a great time! He kept yelling “Touch Down!” Camden cheered like crazy! We headed home after the third quarter and went to bed. It was a lot of fun and we might have to go to more next year!

I took Carsten to see Madagascar 2 this morning. He really enjoyed it. He sat through the whole movie and did great! Tonight Mark and I are going to The Salt Cellar for dinner to celebrate his birthday and then to see the movie Fireproof. The reviews of it are all glowing. The Reed’s have seen it and highly recommend it. The boys will be with Gramma Tucson and Papa Ken for the weekend. Mark is playing in a softball tournament all day Saturday and possibly into the night depending on how well they play.

I fear for our country.

Yesterday was a lot of fun. Camden went to school, no costumes, no party. His teacher did work in themes: pumpkins, bats, monsters, skeletons and scarecrows each day last week. I think Camden had a lot of fun.

Last night we had some friends and family over for hot dogs, games, and trick-or-treating. It was a lot of fun!

Here is our family (plus Nathan 🙂 !)

Camden:Air Force Pilot *** Nathan: King *** Carsten: Darth Vader

Here are a few more pictures from last night:

Camden is holding his pants up because they were too long.