Friday, December 7, 2012

Traditions and Catching up

 WARNING! LOOOOONG post! I love this first picture! this is what Thanksgiving weekend looked like at my mom's house. I slept on the couch where you can see tiny Ruth laying, and there were 9 kids on the floor, it was wall to wall blankets and wall to wall fun!
 The next week we went and cut down our Christmas tree! We went one evening hoping to get it all done before the rain and the dark. We beat the rain... kind of, and almost the dark...

 We had a truck full of trees 3 for our house and several to give away. It was lots of fun! This is our favorite tree farm they have great big trees! It is a tradition for us to go chop it down ourselves!
 Another one of our Christmas traditions is to go to the tree lighting at WOU. There is a parade free hot chocolate, glow sticks and of course a giant Christmas tree to be lit at the end of the parade! OOOOHHHHH almost like being in New York!

 After they light the tree there is a concert in the Warner Center. Brock's school choir sang. They did a great job! This was the beginning of recital/ concert week for us! (Even though it is on Friday, but from this concert to tonight I will have gone and seen each 5 of my kids perform something different times...)

 Saturday night Larry and I put our Christmas tree up and the lights on, then Sunday evening after the First Presidency Christmas devotional we put all the decorations on.
 Ruth LOVES the tree. It has been up almost a week and she still points at it every morning and each time she gets up from a nap, she blows kisses goodnight to the angel. Luckily she is being good about not tearing it apart! Which is more then I could hope for!
 Everyone enjoyed putting on their favorite ornaments.
 Larry and I don't do the "theme" tree or the color coordinated tree... We have a memory tree. Each year we get ornaments that represent things that happened, or places we have been Sunday when we were done I felt like playing with my camera and took some pictures of some of my favorites. I thought I would share a few.
 These two mice are holding a cookie and a cookie cutter and it says "friend of my heart" on the cookie. This is the one we got the Christmas we were engaged. Awwww.
 This shell angel we bough in Hawaii the year we went to visit friends in 2005.
 This is the one we bought our first year we were married.
 The one above is the one we got our first trip to the Great Wolf Lodge. The one below is from when Larry and I went to Las Vegas when my little sister got married.

 The dog bone is for Dotty our dog
 The ballet slippers of course are from the year the girls started dancing and then I started teaching dance...
 The Nativity is just one I loved from a lady that hand paints them. I bought it the year I bought the bazaar.
 Brock has a "best friend" who is a little people. He loved him since he was 3. Grandma bought him this one I think.
 This silver bells one may be the first one my Great Aunt Amanda gave me. It has always been one of my favorites. They sound pretty when they chime together!
 The brown dog is from our first dog Snickers (those of you who know us will notice there is NO ornament from the horrible dog we had one Christmas Rodney. Although I can't set up the Christmas tree with out thinking about that DUMB dog!)
 Another Ballet one they love. Hanging next to a snowflake made out of one of Larry's white shirts on his mission. Long story short, he ruined his shirt in a bike accident, they found a scrub tree to put up in their mission apartment, didn't have ornaments, so made some. There is a tin foil ball on our tree somewhere that came from the same tree when he was on his mission.)
 This bear is another one of my favorites that my great Aunt gave me. (She sent me a new one every year, which is why I do the same for all my nieces.)
 This cute 1 is from Ruth's first Christmas.
 Tigger... well anyone who has known me since high school will know... to long of a story... but there was a time when my nickname was tigger, or Tiger!
 We got the flag the year 9/11 happened
 This WOU snowman simply because I went to WOU.
 This Koala bear is another from my childhood but what makes it extra special is if you look close you can tell it has been in the mouth of a dog.. My brother got a dog for Christmas the year I was a JR in high school.... self explanatory, good think I loved that puppy!
 Ethan's first Christmas
 The year we bought our first house.
 The bears are from when we went to Yellow Stone
 And Brock's first Christmas. They girls have one too... I just didn't find them while I was taking pictures....
 This is the second performance to watch this week. The girls dance recital. I don't have great pictures because my camera died. When will I ever learn to plug it in the night before not half and hour before big events... maybe when I am not the one running the show...  They all did a great job and I think Ruth thinks she was the star of the show!!! It was pretty cute!


 Performance number 3. Brock's choir sang at the state capitol this morning. Performance number 4 will be tonight when I go to Amelia, Brock and Ethan's piano recital.



Friday, November 16, 2012

Hayden turns 6!

 So I do have more pictures of her birthday but they are on my camera's internal memory and I can't find my cord.... so if I find it I will add some more pictures later. Hayden had a fun birthday though. On her actual birthday she got to spend time at the bazaar. (My kids actually love this and think it is a treat! Which makes me happy because it was the only time I got to spend with her on her birthday.) I did make her her Mickey Mouse pancakes for breakfast though. Daddy also took her out to the Pink House cafe for lunch. Super fun big deal for her! She had her special bubble bath and kisses from me when I got home from take down. Sunday we had Grandma's and Grandpa over for her favorite dinner of stuffed shells, Purple jello, bread sticks, and salad. She and I made her ice cream cake. It was soooooo yummy! We used chocolate cake, mint chocolate chip ice cream, mint Oreos, hot fudge, and frosted it with chocolate cool whip, and crushed mint Oreos. It was GOOOOOD! It's nice to make cakes that just taste good. I have made LOTS of cakes that were more about how they look, I would still and will still do them but I have to admit that I LOVE eating them more when they pick something purely for taste. Anyway she got a new Barbie "Jasmine" one she didn't have and she loves her, she also got a new game for her Leapster, and her very own giant pack of batteries!
On Monday they didn't have school so we had some of her friends come with us to the Bounce House for a party. It was tons of fun and NO work for me which was AWESOME! She got some great presents from her friends that she loves. It was a great birthday and I am so glad she is our Hayden!!!

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Haloween 2012

 We have a mishmash of costumes.... for a few reasons, a few of them would NOT commit to a costume, I didn't have much money to spend on costumes, and I had less even less time to spend putting things together. For those who don't know I run a bazaar and we open in a week from today, so I am SLIGHTLY busy... But we pulled of a super cute lion that has been in our box and Brock has worn 2 times when he was littler. Ruth loved it and loved ROARING at everyone!
 Amelia wanted to be Harmine Granger which was nice because she had a black dress, Ethan had a Harry Potter robe from the year he was Harry, and she found a stick in the yard for a wand, I did do her hair in a bunch of braids the night before so she could have really fluffy hair.
 Brock would NOT commit to a costume, Monday he finally said he would be a Zombie Cub Scout, then this morning!!! Halloween morning! Brock said "I'll be a book worm" I was a little overwhelmed because today is one of those days where I am crazy busy! But I thought no I can do that I have some red fabric I will just make a "pillow case" style worm costume and we will pin a bunch of books to it so that is a BOOK Worm... ha ha. He loved it and I was happy because lets just admit it sometimes he is hard to please when he already has something in mind! Infact he told me it was his best one ever and he would wear it again next year and just add new books.. .We will see.
 Hayden came up with this idea to be a Monster she wanted a box and she wanted to decorate it herself. So I got a box for her, Don't worry I went and bought myself a pair of new boots just so she could have the perfect box. She had a great time coloring, and gluing all kinds of stuff to the box. She loved it and I drew a few extra eyes on her face she LOVED it!

 Here we are the church. Larry wore his old Mr. Potato Head shirt. (we were Mr and Mrs. the year I was VERY pregnant with Hayden) I wore my Snow White Costume my mom made me the year Larry and I were dating. That's right it fits!!! :) Ethan is not in the picture because he had a football game, he got home just after we got done at the church. He got to go to a few houses on our street. Our nice neighbor saw his empty bucket and cured that!


 Ruth LOVED the pumpkins!!! She climbed right in and LOVED it! It was so funny!

 We all had fun carving pumpkins. They all looked cute! It was the first time Ruth participated and she had a blast. It was so sweet. She was so enthusiastic about the whole thing. She didn't want to be done!