trying to win something...

trying to win this

Sammy-doo

Sam's latest look. Someone asked me yesterday at church if he lost a bet or something -- I said "You missed his long-hair phase. He just likes to change it up."

I will take this over the long hair ANY day!! :)

obsessions

My children have a couple new obsessions.

Last month we took a week and watched all of the Star Wars movies with them. They LOVED them -- although Addie really has a hard time dealing with the fact that the sweet little boy Anakin turns into Darth Vader. She doesn't like that one bit. But everything else about it - they love. Jackson wakes up in the morning as Luke and wakes up his sisters by yelling "Leia - wake up!!" It's pretty funny. We of course only feed into it by calling him Luke - at his request. Plus Santa brought him light sabers for Christmas. We also got each of them little Star Wars action figures.

Gwen has taken interest in what all of their real names are and what they look like now. They were pretty disappointed to see what Luke, Leia and Han look like now -- old. :)

But Gwen still loves Padme -- or Natalie as she now calls her. Her little mind is always busy trying to determine reality from pretend.

Next is Michael Jackson. They took a big interest in him when he died. They knew mommy always like him -- but once he died they got much more interested.

And now -- we got the new Michael dance game for the Wii. It is a ton of fun - and they love dancing to it -- but they also love to read along to the words of every song and analyze what they mean.
And now they have made a link between the two. This morning Gwen came running into the room and said "Mom!! Addie figured it out! The song 'Annie are you Ok' (that's what they call Smooth Criminal) - it's about Star Wars. Anakin's mom calls him Ani -- so Michael must have made that song about him since Ani turned into a bad guy and they want to see if he's okay!"

They are set on this theory. So I just go with it. :) It's fun to see them all so excited about the same things. So long live Michael and Star Wars!!

organize

I found this really cute jewelry holder at Maurice's in the mall. I really wanted it but it was $20 and I didn't want to pay that. Then I thought... hey maybe I could make one myself. I thought about that for a couple of days -- then thought.....hey - I'll never make that!!

So I went back to Maurice's and bought it - and what do you know - it was on sale - $15.

And now my jewelry is all nice and organized and it looks cute --AND it has a back side to fill as well.

Next on my list to organize -- my pantry. I found this site yesterday -- looks like WAY too much work for me -- but it does inspire me to at least get a little more organized in there.

Christmas, Christmas, Christmas

First of all -- there are a lot of pictures - BUT you need to appreciate every one because it took me FOREVER to upload them. We recently cancelled our Comcast cable (because they just kept upping their prices and we were sick of it) -- so now we are with Quest or something like that -- so our internet is much slower. So appreciate my patience. :)

Anyways here is all our Christmas highlights. Lots of family, lots of food, lots of presents and lots of fun.

Christmas Eve

My side of the family -- most of the cousins

kitchen help..................

Silly boys..................

Me and my neighbor Shirley. We brought her to Christmas Eve with us since her family is crappy and was only going to drop food off for her on Christmas day. Sam set it up to bring her because he is a sweetheart. We loved having her with us.
Here I am trying to show Jacksons poor squished fingers.(click to enlarge) They were really dented on the outside and purple and red on the inside. He got them smashed pretty bad in the door. It was very sad. Lots of tears. Some by me too. :(
Tony -- spilled his dessert -- so Sam thought it'd be nice to take his picture.
Keith, Alicia and kids - Maci and Tori
Misty and Paul and kids - Mercedes and Alyvia..........
All the kids with their new pal - Shirley :) --we are printing this one and giving it to her to go along with the frame my sister Amber got for her..........

Christmas Morning

Here the kids are eagerly waiting to dig into their stockings and gifts from Santa. They had to wait - because we invited our neighbor Shirley to join in this as well. They were very patient.

Sidenote: Despite Sam's look -- he does love us. :)
Santa Came!!!!!
the excitement.......

i dont know why this one posted twice -- and i don't know how to get rid of it......
Light sabers for Jackson -- his MOST favorite gift...........
Gwen's favorite gift - Tangled hair. She actually got this from my parents the night before but I wouldn't let her get it out till that morning - when we were on our own so it wasn't ruined immediately. It's no longer is in that condition..........
Master Jackson ...................

Christmas Day

Back out at my parents for many more gifts and food. At the end of the day all of the families did a little performance. We sang "Christmas Bells" -- we even did a round - we sounded GREAT!! ;)

The rest of the families did their own things.

Here is Alyvia and Mercedes singing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town"........
Dallin singing "Here Comes Santa Claus".....
Maci and Alicia sang a duet of "Away in a Manger" (i think)
Ambers Family sang - I can't remember - sorry Amber
And then by special request Thomas sang "Mary did you Know" --- beautiful!!
To end the entertainment -- the kids did the nativity scene and sang Silent Night. They did a great job.
Then after the official Christmas portion was done - we switched gears and had a little birthday party for me. That is an ice cream cake that Jess got for me -- just to make my birthday a little extra special. And it was -- can you see my eyes - they are on that cake!! :)

Ward Christmas

Sam's parents came up stayed with us a couple of days before Christmas and then we met up with them and Sam's brothers family and his sisters family up in Washington a few days after Christmas.

Sam's parents gave everyone personalized towels - very cute.
After Christmas -- but before we left for Washington - it was my birthday. My 31st birthday. It was pretty low key -- but my favorite part was at the end of the day we rented the Michael Jackson Experience for the Wii. You dance along to all of Michaels best songs. Here's me and the kids -- I TOTALLY beat them ;)

Ok - now onto Washington. We had lots of fun there. More cousins to play with. They just got RockBand for the Wii -- so we all had fun taking turns playing with that. They also reserved the church building so we could go play. Everyone played kick ball and hide and seek -- and then just liked running around.

Here are the girls -- with child. A little young - yes - -but they thought it was funny!!
Here is the little prego girls dancing
On New Years Eve we bought passes that got us into a few different museums in Tacoma and some shows that night. I got to see a lot of it -- but my day turned out a little different then planned. My leg had been really bothering me the whole time we were up in WA and I ended up going into the ER because they suspected a blood clot in my leg. After a couple hours there - they said everything should be ok. No blood clot that they can see. So then I joined everyone at the Glass Museum and then went to the History museum.
this was an art room for the kids to create things - they spent forever in there........
Addie made herself a mustache..........
love the cousins..................
outside the glass museum..............
history museum -- the trains were pretty exciting for Jax............
more fun with cousins :) .................
We had a great trip. Great vacation. Now back to life. We got back last night - the kids started school today, I started watching little Pete again today and Sam left for work early this morning and will be working out of town for the next few days. It was nice while it lasted :)

**we would have had even more pics -- but our nice new camera is already broken -- good thing we got it at Costco!!

snow day

Mary's Peak

Gwenny ...............

Me and Jax................
Addster.................
Sam shoving his mom down the hill...........

Addie turning the snow yellow ( look bottom right corner) -- she wasn't happy about the pic :)
Sam's dad - laughing at us all :)
Sam's ride down - he's so cute
And then we were done............