Captain America!!

This kid is totally into super heros, and his favorite is Captain America. LOL, with thanks to after Christmas 50% off sales, we found this little get up. Not a day has gone by yet without putting his armour on...Or having someone else put it on. You're such a good sport Grandma Ellie! Sure love you Carson!

Birthday Wishes

SHE'S EIGHT!!!We have a tradition for birthdays in our family. Pancakes with money (thoroughly washed ;). Inside these cute, smiley, red faced pancakes is 8 cents. They love it, finding the money when cutting into it or hoping not to bite down too hard on a copper coin... we get a kick out of it. (A tradition Jeremy's mom got started when they were little). We spent the day as a family, including Grandma Elli, out shopping for white sunday shoes and visiting Grandma and Grandpa Cheeto in Tri-Cities. She said, "This is the best birthday ever!" I love how such simple things can be so meaningful for her.

After a lasagna dinner, (her fav), we had birthday brownies.Uncle Randell came up to join the celebration too :)Browine cuttn' Brownie eatingThen bed time. Last year I did prob one of the biggest bday parties I've ever done.... to be honest, probably not again til she's 16. So this year, (especially with so much going on with holidays, family, and getting ready for baptism stuff), we made it very simple and small. We don't do sleep overs all that often so I told Cami she could have one for her birthday. But only a couple of people. So she asked for her good neighbor friend Serell and cousin Tate to sleep over, (little cousin Kenzie didn't want to be left out we made some room on the floor ;). Of course none of them fell asleep before 11 o'clock, haha. Classic sleepover happenings ;). Then in the morning after breakfast we went on a 2 mile walk, threw rocks in the river and enjoyed the warm winter day before heading home.

Happy Birthday Cami, love you so much!!

Merry Christmas 2011

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! We had Christmas with just our little family this year in the morning. Then church at 11, (what better day to celebrate the birth of our Savior!!), and then headed to visit family for the rest of the day. It was a wonderful Christmas, and the kids went to bed saying, "This was the best Christmas ever!" I told them, (and do every year), that they were spoiled with love and to never forget it. Early risers, what kid doesn't ;)
Merry Christmas to ALL!!

Early Christmas

Papa Steve comes up before Christmas every year to deliver his presents. :) And it's tradition that he lets them open up one present before he leaves. Alex got a Star Wars gun that has been thoroughly used already. Carson got a submarine bath toy that propels itself in the water. Funny thing with that is, most of the time I have Make the kids take a bath... well not with this new toy. They all wanted a bath the next day to take turns with the cool submarine. :) And then Cami got a camera. She carries it with her almost everywhere. And she wanted to blog her pictures in hopes of making an online journal and to share her version of life. :) So for family and friends who are interested it is: http://www.camiland03.blogspot.com.
I hope you all have a Very Merry Christmas! We are thinking of you.

The Best Time of the Year

It really is the best. :)We woke up to a sheet of ice over everything. So the kids decided to take advantage of our drive way skating rink.

Grandma Elli

For the past 2 years Grandma Elli has come to our home to do a 'Grandma Elli' Christmas party. They all make a gift for mom and dad, share a sweet story, and play a game, (and the best part for us is, that we have to be out of the house while she does it. So we can go do whatever we want, kidless :). I love how Grandma Elli goes above and beyond to make this season special for everyone, and I mean Everyone. Thank you for everything Gail, we love you!

Gingerbread

If there is an extracurricular activity that I hope to always keep, and have done since a little girl, at Christmas time... it would be making and creating Gingerbread houses hands down! All day yesterday the house smelled of gingerbread as I was preparing for several Achievement Day girls to come over and decorate to their hearts' content. It literally took all day, but I LOVED every minute of it.
Ann, Kara, Kay Kay, Sariah, Rivers, Evelyn, and our sweet neighbor Serell made masterpeices. And left with quite the sugar high ;).

It's Cold...

...I'm taking that back, It's FREEZING these days! But you have to get out every once in awhile anyway. So Carson and I went to the river park after some Christmas shopping. We were the only ones there, but it made me think... by the end of May, one on one time with this little guy will be shared with his little brother that's on the way. (Yep, gonna have another boy :). So, I'm glad we had a moment today to share together. Couldn't pass up throwing rocks in the river... haha funny part was that he ended up going down by the geese and throwing rocks at them. Or maybe that's not so funny, I ended it quickly ;).Poor geese, he really gave them a run for their money today. And the squirrels... lol. I love this little guy.

Color N' Lights

This year's arrangement. :) It's been fun trying to figure out where to put things.We have had a small tradition in the past to color a Huge Christmas scene on paper. Cami and I did it last year, and Alex at the time wasn't interested. Well this year when we pulled out our old picture, Alex was a little frustrated that he hadn't participated in it much last year. So he took it into his own hands to create a Christmas scene all on his own. Not bad Alex, not bad.Sure love you buddy.

Snowflakes

Last Sunday, I decided to teach the kiddos how to make their very own snowflakes, and it was surprisingly a hit! As they have gotten older, it's been so much fun to see them do more things on their own without any help. Carson just liked to cut paper in general, getting him use to the feel of using scissors.Cami suggested that we hang all of our snowflakes, so with a little tape n' yarn we've got them hung. Every day they make a couple more, and the flakes have gotten half way through our living room already! Hopefully we can fill the rest by Christmas :).

Thanksgiving 2011

I try to make an apple pie every year: 1-Jeremy likes them 2-So I can hopefully someday make one good lookn', darn delicious apple pie. Last year, it looked like a heapn' mess. This year I piled in the apples... as you can see. But it is somewhat decieving, because as the crust cooked, it kept it's 'mile high' look. But all the apples sunk. Haha, so as we cut, it deflated the apple pie. It was the joke of the dessert section ;0), lol. On Saturday we took family pictures because to our sweet pleasure, we had every single family member all present! What a treat! My brother Jake and his family flew in from Missouri and we played hard! I don't think the kids got to sleep before 11 o'clock all weekend, and that's including no naps, yikes! But what memories we all had. These are some pics of all the grandkids. Poor William, he was so miserable that day, sick like no other. He was such a good sport about it all. So from left to right we have: Carson, William, Mick, Logan, Colton, Mason, Alex, Kate, Brooke, Cami, McKenzie, and Tate. And 2 more on the way... so in a few years we'll have to do this all over again :). We were missing William on this one because he was feeling so awful, poor guy.Haha, now here is our true colors ;)
It was such a fun weekend. Who knows when this'll happen again, but we'll soak it up when it does! Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! And only 27 more days til' Christmas :). (I'll be posting more family pics when I get them from my mom... oh so fun :)

Protection

We must make him nervous when we drive ;)

Stack It

We've been enjoying some simple activities here. The kids at school had learned a timing game/sport called Stack it. To keep it on a low budget we improvised and got a couple of sets of cups for only a dollar each. It's fun to see the kids get into it. And Carson will just keep stacking and stacking and stacking and stacking.... might have to get a few more cups to get a real good pyramid going ;).

Okay....

MUCH BETTER! I love snow on Saturdays. The kids get up and they're out in the snow first thing, forget breakfast! So Jer and I took our time this morning getting ready and breakfast on the table while the kids were occupied. No rush to get kids off to school. Love it. And I always get a kick out of our white dog in the snow :).

No matter

Whether it's a foot or a half an inch, it's snow! And the kids are going to play in it no matter what. :) (One benefit of this premature winter is it gives you the opportunity to test out your kid's snow gear. To see what still fits and what doesn't. And, yeah, Alex definitely needs new boots ;).