Welcoming A New Year

I thought I'd do one last post on how we spent our last day of 2010.

We bowled like we've never bowled before. Well, we've actually never gone bowling as a family before and at 50 bucks a game we never will again. So here's to a first and last bowling outing.

Bryce is always great with moral support.

We hiked on trails that we've never hiked before in weather that is not up to our Arizona standards.



But the view was worth it.

And here's our little reminder of what lurks around here in this beautiful state. Lovely.



And Makayla didn't want to let you all go into 2011 without a hug.

Happy New Year everyone!

It's Christmas Time!

We had fun Christmas Eve and Christmas day. Our Christmas Eve was a bit unorthodox with a hike in the mountains (Erik's idea)

and our Chinese dinner (my idea).

But we got back to traditions with our treats of peppermint bark and fudge

and Christmas pajamas.


And on Christmas morning, everyone opened their Christmas cereal to eat


and then there was the all important business of ripping into the goods that Santa brought.


We were fortunate enough to have Erik's sister Kirsten and his cousin Mike celebrate Christmas with us. I didn't force everyone to go out to eat Christmas day (mostly due to the fact that most places are closed on Christmas) so we cooked up a feast.

We hope you all had a very merry Christmas and the best New Year!

The Story Of A Girl And Her Would-Be Cat

There once was a girl who didn't have a cat.
She begged and she pleaded but dad would have none of that.
"They're dirty and smelly. They scratch and they claw.
Go over and make friends with the neighbor cat I just saw."
So off she went to pet this cat of which dad had spoken,
but the cat ran off and she was left hurt and heartbroken.
Everyday the naughty little cat would stop by
and everyday the sweet little girl would cry.
Then one day, the little girl had a plan.
"Maybe he'll come to me if I cover my eyes and stay as still as I can."
The cat came by looking for far away attention
and the little girl decided it was time to put her plan to action.

She crept on over trying to be as still as can be,

covering her eyes so the little cat wouldn't see.

She saw her mom standing at the door and got all excited,

for this was as far as she'd ever been invited.

She said,"Mom! Come look! The cat is right here!"
Only to turn around and feel utter despair.

The cat got all huffy with the little girls commotion
thinking "I'll not stick around. What a thought! What a notion!"

The girl was taken back, totally stunned.

She looked at her mom and thought "What have I done?"

This time the little girl didn't cry and go to her mom wailing.
She marched over to the wall and proceeded with screaming and yelling.

She said, "Come down little kitty! Come down right now!
It's easy enough, you know how!"

But that grumpy old cat just sat there that day
thinking "When, oh when will this little girl go away?"

But that little girl would not go away on this day.
Just yelled and yelled, "Come down! Come down I say!"

The little girl finally turned around in defeat,

and walked to her mother with her sad little feet.

She sat and looked on at the cat who sat with such pleasure
and thought "Maybe I'll try one more yell, you know for good measure."

"Look little kitty I've had it with this mess!
Come over here right now and end this distress!"

She pointed out the cat to her mom as he sat on the wall
and proclaimed "Some day I'll pet that cat! Someday I'll show you all!"

Her mother just looked at her smiling and said, "Oh honey."
The little girl said, "Stop laughing mom. It's really not funny."

But this tale hasn't ended, no not in the least.
With this cat coming over looking for a bird feast.

The little girl has plans, you can plan on that.
She definitely has plans for her would-be cat!

Note: We've been reading and watching A LOT of Dr. Suess lately. :)

The Almost Perfect Thanksgiving

Erik made plans to go to Mexico and climb a mountain with some friends over Thanksgiving. So I have been thinking about our Thanksgiving without Erik for months....trying to figure what to do. Just before Erik left I came to this conclusion: we will do NOTHING! Ahhhh, the perfect Thanksgiving.

We started out our day by sleeping in until 8 am. We were lazy all morning eating cereal, watching cartoons, coloring in pajamas, and not doing dishes. By 11 am we had to get outside. And since we were having the coldest Thanksgiving since 1933 (meaning it was 60 degrees) we wore long pants accordingly.

The problem with getting Transitions lenses is that you can never see the eyes when outside. So I asked Preston to take off his glasses. He does have my eyes!

We had some lunch, played some games, read some books, I finally gave in to their constant nagging about video games and then we ate our Thanksgiving dinner:

Pizza! I don't really care for turkey and the kids don't care for turkey but we do care for pizza. It was a no brainer.

We concluded our Thanksgiving day of nothing by getting in pj's, making kettle corn, and watching a really stupid movie that the kids liked.

I really loved this day. With the boys being in school all day and just running around we don't really get that much time to just hang out and not worry about anything. We got to do that this Thanksgiving. It was almost perfect. But Erik was really missed by all. It put a damper on things but we talked about when he gets home (Sunday!) and how much fun we'll have at Christmas. I've already had a request for a pizza Christmas. Maybe we'll try something different for Christmas...Chinese take-out maybe?

We Think We're Pretty Cute

You may have noticed some new pictures on the blog. My sweet friend Trisha has started her own photography blog and she offered to do our family pictures for 2011. Of course I jumped at the opportunity and of course Bryce had to be shoved off playground equipment the day before pictures...oh well. This is our life.

So we met in Mesa and we spent an hour running around trying to get kids to look at the camera, kids to smile for the camera, kids not to make silly faces at the camera, kids to return from La-La Land or wherever their mind has taken them, kids to stop crying, kids to stop pouting, etc.

Fast forward two days later when Trisha calls to tell me that she couldn't find ONE picture of the family without something going on. Like kids making silly faces, kids not looking at the camera, kids pouting...you get the picture. And then when the kids did look good, the adults were messing up the picture.

She apologized repeatedly and offered to do a mini photo session at a park close by. I apologized repeatedly for having a difficult family. We went out a week after our first session and we got more family shots.

We got our pictures the other day and I LOVE these pictures! Even the ones from the first photo shoot were adorable. She got some really great pics of the kids and we got some great family pictures. I'm having a hard time picking which ones I want to get prints of so I'm thinking I might have to get a bunch and just go buy more frames.

Here are a few of our pictures.




Makayla just kept scrunching her face up in almost all the pictures. I don't know why she kept doing it but it was driving me crazy! Just like with the broken arm and Prestons glasses that kept glaring, I had to let it go. This is our family as it is right now. And it's awesome! Thank you for taking such beautiful pictures Trisha! And for dealing with our difficult family! :)