Christmas Day - Happy Birthday Jesus!

We had another blessed Christmas! I just love having littles to celebrate Christmas time with. It makes just that much more special! I sure love this little family I have!

 We woke up and had our milk and coffee first thing and then our tradition is stockings. I think stockings are my favoirte part! The kids were giddy!

 They were so helpful opening my stocking! They had gone with Daddy to the store to buy some things for my stocking and were so excited to show me.

 Our next tradition, as we did when I grew up, is to read the Christmas story. We are trying to keep the focus on the true meaning of Christmas and are always looking for ways to reinforce that with the kiddos!

 Our other surprise this fine Christmas morning was Cameron throwing up! Poor guy... We are not sure weather it was a quick flu bug or too much celebrating. Either way he threw up a couple times that morning in between presents. Sadly, we had to skip the Martindale family celebration. I was very sad to miss but we did have a nice,quiet family day which is always wonderful!

 Opening some fun gifts!

 Grammy, Grandpa, Jacob, Silas and Bianca all stopped by to say hi and Merry Christmas. We exchanged some gifts with them as well.

We had another wonderful Christmas season. SO thankful our Savior came and all he sacrificed for me! So thankful for the family I have to share this time with!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

Christmas eve morning  - breakfast at Brian and Sheilas. We get together every Christmas Eve morning and have breakfast. Cute pic of the cousins!

 Christmas Eve night at the McKinneys. Had a YUMMY tri tip dinner - Jason is getting good! And all the fixing and sides that we can't live without! After dinner we clean up and go to the Christmas Eve service. The service is one of my favorite parts of Christmas Eve. Such a special time as a family to focus on the true meaning of Christmas! After the service is presents and dessert!

Aunt Boo, Madi and Bro

 Almost all the cousins. The McKinneys have a neat tradition of hiding baby Jesus and the kids have to find him and put him in the stable. We do this before we open gifts.

Abigail got the new Just Dance so we HAD to try it out. Or they did, I was not brave enough to dance in front of all those people! Preggo Grace rocked it though! So did Abigail and Aunt Boo!

 The littles all got a chance too!

Another VERY Merry Christmas with my amazing family!

We are SO blessed!

Tree Cutting Excursion

November 25-30

Well the 25th was our long awaited day of FUN! Sheila, Jennifer and left for Boise at 7:30 and did not get home until 11pm! Whew....I didn't know it was possible to shop that long. It was such a fun day. Lots of visiting, coffee, good food and GREAT deals. We had a blast, counting down the days till next year. :)

Saturday was also a pretty special day. Probably one of my favorite this year! We had a slow morning drinking coffee and hanging out together. Spur of the moment - we decided to pack up and go to the mountains to cut down a Christmas tree. We go every year bt this was the first year for our kiddos. They had a blast! It was so fun having them go with us. We got a great tree and made some great memories! When we got back Jason and I got a date (woot!) Danny came over and babysat for us and we went to a movie. We picked up pizza on the way home and Danny stayed and ate with us. After Danny left Jason (who is not a fan of Christmas movies) turned on Elf for us to watch as a family. I am pretty sure it was a perfect day!

Sunday was another fun day. I think I am getting spoiled with special days! We went to church at Calvary Chapel with Jasons side of the family. It was fun going and seeing everyone there! After we went with Curt and Rene and had lunch at Primos. LOVE their dessert pizza! :) We had a very fun football game after lunch. Mike and Katie and their boys came too. Words can't describe (and I forgot my camera!) how FUNNY that game was! My kids learning to play was priceless. Madison raced around like a chicken with her head cut off. She would get the ball, run the wrong direction and just toss the ball in the air. Blake pulled the flags off his own players and ran in circles. Cam was SO serious about this game. Every play he yelled at me "Mom like this, you have to do it like this!" And he would show me how to be in the appropriate crouch when the we were on the line of scrimmage. Curt would holler "Blue 34, Red 22" and Cam shouted "34, 22 HIKE!" So funny!

I have been volunteering for Meals On Wheels. What a blessing that has been so far. It is way out of my comfort zone but so good for me! Monday was my first day in the deliveries. I helped Holly and Michal. It was great and so fun to visit with those ladies. Sheila kept the kids and we had lunch and visited when I got done. She is always so good to feed us, good lunches too. I always my PB&J for lunch, she's much more creative! :) Tuesday was my other MOW day, Rene watched the kids for me.

Wednesday was a quiet morning at home, playing with the kids and getting caught up on life. Kristen and Sage came to visit that afternoon with baby Jonah! Can't get enough of the cutie! The kids LOVE him, love to hold and mother him! Been enjoying our life group that is every Wednesday. Aunt Boo is in our group this year which is sure fun!! The kids are coming with us this year which makes it a little hard to concentrate but they are learning to be quiet!

That wraps up our November. What a blessed month! Lots of good memories - the Lord is so good to us!

Festivities

We had an early Christmas celebration with my Grandparents. We weren't going to be able to at Christmas this year so we added one more party to the mix. Can't have too many! :)

 My grandparents adore my kids - and my kids are pretty sweet on them too. I think that is pretty neat! I have been blessed with some pretty great Grandparents!

 We had a yummy dinner and some visiting. My kids did a bang up version of Angels We Have Heard on High! That is their all time favorite song, I am sure they will still be singing it in June!

 Aunt Jean is a pretty special lady. They love her cane!

 Pop-Pop is pretty much the greatest guy ever. NEVER stops working or serving. LOVES these kids (and the rest of us) to death! They LOVE Pop-pop and can never get enough of him!

 Grammy and Baby Jonah

Fun night! Kids got some really neat wooden toys from Grandma. They love them! Great evening so thankful for the family we have to share these holidays with!

Christmas Tea

Our annual girls Christmas tea! Such a fun girly time we have! We also celebrate Katie and Grandma Dannys birthdays. Always good coffee, brunch and dessert. Can't beat that!

We allowed James - since he is so cute - otherwise no boys allowed! :) Fun to have Madison come do some girly stuff with me. My mom had the boys and I am sure a party of their own!

Me and my favorite girl, a very messy girl but my favorite just the same!

Thanksgiving 2011

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving! This year Kristen and Sage hosted since they had a new little one. They weren't quite ready to take him into a big crowd. Jason has a new found love of smoking meat. So he decided he wanted to smoke a turkey this year. It takes 6 hours to cook so we headed over pretty early. My mom and Dad took Cam and Madi until they headed over in the afternoon. Blake got to come with us and have some special 1 on 1 time!

 I had fun getting lots of baby cuddling time! Jonah is such a sweetie!

 Everyone else got arrived around 4 and we had a blast just visiting and hanging out. It was Jonahs first Thanksgiving and Bianca and Silas' first Thanksgiving too! Ahhh....glad they shared it with us!

Love that they are still so in love! :) Something else to be thankful for! 

 What a crew they have huh? What special Grandparents my kids are blessed with!

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving. Another wonderful year - full of a lot of blessings!

November 24th

I am VERY thankful that I have all my family so close! What a blessing to be able to spend all our holidays (and a lot of other days!) together. What wonderful memories we have from all these times!

November 21-23

I am thankful for:

Time with girlfriends!

Sisters!

My new bedroom color scheme :)

Brotherly Love

Love these boys!

Funny memories

 Cameron keeps us laughing, this kid talks like he's ten so he always has something to say. It's usually pretty funny too! :)

Last night he was talking to Jason and randomly came up with this, details and all, by himself: "Daddy we are going to spend the night at Sheila's house. I need to sleep by Brogan, but maybe we need to bring my bed because I need to sleep ther by Brogan.
Jason: "Where will me and mommy sleep?" Cam: "In Sheila's bed. But Sheila can't sleep there, cause there is not enough room." Jason: "Where will they sleep then?" Came: "Um....on the couch. And Blake can sleep with Briscoe." Hmmm...really planned out! He forgot about Madison though!

Jason has been teaching the kids how to be respectful when we hear the National Anthem. He's only shown them a couple times. Football was on the other night and I came into the room and found Cam standing with on hand on his hard and one behind his back. SO CUTE! I asked what he was doing and he said "Well I heard the song Mom!"

Cam is now into boxing/UFC fighing. The other day Cam was sitting in his chair when he suddenly jumped up arms swinging like a crazy person shouting to Jason "YOU WANT A PEICE OF ME????" and at the same time tripped and fell flat on his face! Oh dear, poor boy!

Cam is forever asking to cuddle, telling me he loves me SO much (and monkey, he always has to throw in that he loves monkey!) that he loves his Daddy and that he misses him when he's gone. Sure love this happy, go-lucky, always has a huge smile, knife fighting, UFC fighting boy!

November 20th

We are thankful cousins!

You can't beat cousins - our kids are blessed with a bunch of them!