More fun over the Holidays

This is just a picture of the cutest, sweetest girl ever.


Elise had the camera and Cory was making me laugh. Obviously, I thought he was pretty funny. :)


Silly, silly, silly girl. She is soooooooo cute, though.


We love going to a nearby walking trail and walking or riding bikes. Even though its chilly, it was still fun to get out. Ian's favorite part is throwing rocks in the river.


My three brothers, plus Cory. They're a matched set, aren't they?


We may be old, but we're still in love. :)


Here is more trampoline drama. They boys taped their feet to skateboard (no wheels) and jumped like crazy. The things they think of....


After waiting his turn, Logan jumped in as well.


Later on, we painted sugar cookies. Merry Grace had no trouble figuring out what to do, even though it was her first time.


Ian at first thought we were using actual paint on the cookies. Realizing it was icing was a wonderful discovery for him.


As you can see.....



Unfortunately, Elise was worn out and missed the whole thing. She looks pretty comfy, though.

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning found us at my parents house, for a few more presents. Here is Elise with one of her favorite presents, The Littlest Pet Shop.


Elise and Merry Grace with cute matching headbands. They are just too adorable for words.


The big present this year was a riding toy for the kids to share. Santa Claus got a GREAT deal on it. There is room for Elise and Ian in the front and Merry Grace in the back. :)


The trampoline is lots of fun for everyone. My brothers love doing cool tricks and high jumps. Watch for future posts. It definitely gets more creative. Boys, boys, boys...


Here is Ian with one of his favorite presents--a remote controlled helicopter. He's actually a really good pilot. Everyone had fun flying it.


Here is Elise and the Uncles on the trampoline. Elise has picked up a few tricks of her own.


This is what happens from too much jumping. :)



This is my Grandma and her new little dog, Goldie. We think she's the cutest thing ever!!!!

Naturally, with boys around, things get interesting and dangerous. Here are a couple of my brothers on the roof.

Christmas Party #1 and #2

We started our Christmas celebrations with our little family Christmas. We put in our request early and had Santa deliver presents for the kids on the Saturday before Christmas. Here is a picture of Merry Grace with the dolls she got. She loves baby dolls.

We also made gingerbread houses. Well, technically they're graham cracker houses. But you get the idea. Here is the one I made. :)
On Sunday we went down to Cory's folks house to visit and spend Christmas Eve with them. Here is Elise with a couple of her cousins. It is a wild, raucous party with all the little kids running around, but it is so much fun.
A rare picture of my hubby and me. :) Very cute.

More funny conversations

This morning, Elise woke up and crawled into our bed for a few minutes. It hadn't been long before she let us know she was hungry.

Elise: Will you get up and cook me breakfast? I'm soooooooo hungry!!!
Me: Me too! What are you cooking for me?
Elise: Hey now! I'm not the parent here!

Should we be concerned? Obviously the "Sassy Sixes" are in full swing. :)

Popcorn Kernels

The other night Ian & Elise were eating popcorn and watching "The Incredibles" in our bedroom while Cory & I did some holiday wrapping. Elise fell asleep and Cory went to pick her up and take her to her bed. When he looked at our bed, there were popcorn kernels everywhere. He looked over at Ian, who was obviously the culprit, as he lifted Elise up from the mattress. As he picked her up popcorn kernels fell out EVERYWHERE. He again looked over at Ian, this time incredulously, and Ian just giggled mischievously. It never occurred to us that we needed to tell him not to put popcorn kernels on his sister. We'll know for next time. :)

Christmas Cheer

Yesterday, Cory took Elise and Ian out to do a little Christmas shopping for me. We like for them to pick out one present for each member of the family, so that while we play up the Santa-thing, we also give them a chance to give and receive. Later on in the evening, Ian was wanting to tell me what I had gotten because he was so excited about it. I told him how I really wanted to be surprised and then started teasing him with fake things he was getting like cucumbers, refrigerators and light bulbs. He then wanted Cory to tell him what he was getting and this is how the conversations went:

Cory: I think you're going to get a bag of switches.
Ian: (laughing quite a bit, because by this time he's in the swing of things.)
Me: Ian, do you know what 'switches' are?
Ian: Yeah! They're what turn the lights on.

Don't you love kids?

Christmas Activities

Since I've been a horrible blogger this month, I'll just put up a few of the sparse pictures I've taken of stuff we've done.
My mom and the kids and I painted/decorated these little wooden bears and made ornaments out of them. We had the best time.
Ian is all decked out for Christmas. He's wearing two of our Christmas stockings and of course the Santa hat. :)
Merry Grace decorated the tree in only one spot. By the end she had about 8 ornaments on the same branch.

Here are the ornaments we made (cinnamon, glue, applesauce). The kids only wanted to use our Halloween cookie cutters so we have quite a few witches, bats, spiders, skeletons and so on. Unique, to say the least.

Christmas Stuff

I have a hundred other things I want/need to write about but here's a quick Christmas survey. I'd love for you to post your answers to any and all of the questions in the comments section.

1. What is your favorite Christmas food? I can't think of a "real" food that is unique to Christmas. I enjoy eggnog, though, and gingerbread cookies, and peanut butter balls. Oh yummy!!!!!

2. Have you finished your Christmas Shopping yet? No. But almost. Mainly stocking stuffers, is all that is left.

3. What is your favorite Christmas song? The list of songs I don't like would be shorter. But two standouts are Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree (by Brenda Lee) and Oh Holy Night.

4. What is your favorite Christmas movie? White Christmas, Charlie Brown Christmas, and the animated Grinch. :)

5. Who do you want to kiss under the mistletoe? Without a doubt, Cory. In fact I may put up some mistletoe, just as an excuse. :) (Sorry to gross you out Adam & Logan)

6. Do you have a real or fake Christmas tree? Fake. Two fake ones, actually. When Cory
& I first got married, we had real trees and swore we'd never have anything but. Turns out you can still have the Christmas spirit, even with a fake tree. :)

7. Have you ever had a White Christmas? Not that I can think of. The closest one was one year when we got some ice on Christmas Eve. It wasn't snow, but on Christmas morning everything was sparkly and wintery. Beautiful.

8. How many Christmas cards do you send out? I sent out around 40 this year, but the more I address, the more I remember other whom I ought to mail to. There are at least 10 more I really need to do, but we'll see.

9. How early do you wake up on Christmas morning? Whenever my kids do--6 or 7.

10. Do you like gingerbread cookies? Oh yes. :)

Sometimes Pictures are Worth a Thousand Words

It's been a while since Elise lost her first two teeth. A couple of days ago we noticed that she had another tooth loose and she was wiggling it for all she was worth. Last night we realized it was ready to come out, so the pulling out process began. And what a process it was. :)

Cory started off getting a little bit of tissue to try and pull it out. Elise was pretty wiggly and nervous herself, so this proved more tricky than you might think.

When it didn't immediately come out, Elise started to get even more nervous, and yes, even started to freak out a little bit.

So we took a break and relaxed and Elise said a couple of prayers to calm her nerves. I love how Merry Grace just assumed she was the focus of this shot and stopped what she was doing to say cheese. I mean, the camera was pointed in her direction. :)

Merry Grace, not remembering the previous tooth pullings, was more than a little intrigued by what was going on. Elise was such a good sport to let her feel of the loose tooth.

Once she'd thoroughly examined the situation, Merry Grace even tried to help out by trying to pull out the tooth all by herself.

That was so much fun, that she decided to see if she could pull out any of Ian's teeth....

...and her Daddy's teeth...

...and her own teeth.
Finally, when things settled down a little bit and Elise felt ready, Cory was able to pull out the tooth with almost no drama. So, once again, Elise is snaggletoothed and loving it...especially when it means a visit from the tooth fairy! Isn't she cute?

Pictures from the Holiday

The cousins had fun climbing Pa's plum trees in the backyard. The tree-climbing may be like a tomboy, but the pose is all girl.
The kids also love playing on Grandma & Pa's swing. The bigger kids take turns pushing.
Uncle Adam & Uncle Logan took time to teach Merry Grace how to play the X-Box. :)
Luke and Kristie, officially married. Aren't they sweet?
It was bitterly cold outside for the pictures. Poor Kristie, in short sleeves, just about froze. But you'd never know it from her smile.
And they lived happily ever after...Cory & I had such a fun time going back to DC to the temple we were married in. It brought back lots of good memories for us.

The Long Haul

We logged quite a few miles over our Thanksgiving Holiday. The fun began Tuesday evening with a drive down to Cory's parents, an hour and a half away. We spent the night there, visiting with some of his siblings who were also down. Wednesday morning started early with decorating. Cory's baby sister was getting married on Friday, so Wednesday we began decorating the church in anticipation of that. After several hours of work, Cory & I & the kids began the 3 1/2 hour drive up to my parents house. We spent the night with them and enjoyed the rare treat of being together for a traditional Thanksgiving. After dinner we hugged and kissed the kids and left them enjoying some time with their grandparents while we started off on the 5 1/2 hour drive to the DC temple for the wedding. We spent the night there, enjoyed the wedding the next day, and did a little shopping before heading back to my parents house. We (again) spent the night and got up early the next morning and began the 2 1/2 hour trek back home. We rushed in, put the finishing touches on Kristie's wedding video, got dressed for the reception, and drove an hour and a half to get there. After the beautiful reception and a speedy clean-up we crashed for the night. Yesterday evening, we finally made it back to our home sweet home. My cozy little house and my cozy little bed never seemed so wonderful. I was thrilled to get up in my own home and make breakfast for my own little family this morning. It was so peaceful just to be. So there you have it--our travelogue. Everything went off without (much of) a hitch. Aside from all the driving and the hectic-ness of everything, we enjoyed lots of family time and made lots of memories. But now its time to sit back, put my feet up and breathe a deep sigh of relief that we made it.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgivings when I was a kid were anything but traditional. Although my mom and dad have six siblings between them, they all live out of town and most live out of state. Mostly growing up my "extended" family consisted of my two Grandmothers. They both lived close by and did almost everything with our family, so they didn't seemed extended at all. That being said, Thanksgiving was never the traditional feast with lots of family and friends that most people think of. Most years Thanksgiving days found my three siblings, my parents, and maybe one of my grandmas, driving six hours to Atlanta, GA. We'd get there late in the day, check in to a hotel, and either go out for or order in Chinese food. My parents would spend the next day or two at the temple, trading off turns while the other stayed with us kids. We'd get to hang out in a hotel (a rare treat, indeed), and maybe even swim in the hotel pool. Even the TV was entertaining for us, since at home we only got one channel at it was fuzzy. :) It was far from the tradional Thanksgiving, but it was tradtional for us in its own way. We made memories, enjoyed being together and were thankful for our blessings. And that, really, is the Thanksgiving spirit.

So Happy Thanksgiving to each of you. I hope, whatever you are doing, that you are happy, healthy, and basking in the Thanksgiving spirit.

This is why people hire professionals

Yesterday we had such nice weather, I decided to go outside with the kids and take pictures of them for our Christmas cards. I got them all ready, dressed in complementing navy outfits, hair gelled, styled and matching bows for the girls. They were fresh-faced and beautiful as we went out in the yard for some photo ops. What happened next reminded me why most people pay someone to do this for them. What a disaster. :)

Merry Grace, our sweet, lovely child was grumpy and crying from the get-go. No amount of soothing from me or her sibs did any good. Also, we began with a major compromise. If you'll notice, Ian is wearing his Spiderman slippers--actually, that was more of my compromise than Ian's. :)
The cheez-its you see to the right were part of the shameless bribery techniques I was using to get a nice shot of the kids. Obviously it didn't work. I can just see the Christmas card now, "Merry Christmas with love: Elise, Ian, Merry Grace, and the box of cheez-its that we were too lazy to take out of the picture." Oh well.
Just plain silliness. What can you do? What can you do?
Every time I told Ian not to be silly and let me get a nice shot, this is the look I got. Great. Just great.
Typical shot. Elise is being nice, good, obedient and sweet. Ian is being silly. Merry Grace is devastated.
Then Max joined the fun. MG looks horrified by the whole thing.
The one time I had everyone looking happy and sweet, the photographer ruined it. In my defense, I was jumping from behind the camera to say "Boo" and other silly things. It worked, in that all the kids were smiling and giggling. Unfortunately, I couldn't hold the camera still and make them laugh at the same time. Sigh. I need a tripod.
More attempts to soothe Merry Grace. Unsuccessful.
After a discouraging 30 minutes of trying everything to get a Christmas card picture, we packed everyone up and called it a day. Sometimes, you just have to admit defeat. :)