A Really Long Post

We are home from Missouri, the Christmas decorations are down, the kids are back in school, and the Longhorns won their bowl game. The holidays are officially over. We had a wonderful Christmas with family and rang in the New Year with our good friends, the Flores. It is now time to get back into the swing of things but before I do here are a lot of pictures from our holiday extravaganza.....in no particular order......

My Mom's beautiful Christmas tree filled with gifts for all the grandkids

The cousins had so much fun playing together....from air hockey, to Wii, to jumping on the trampline and so much more!!
On Christmas day we played pictionary and sang karaoke. It was so much fun, especially the karaoke. I didn't think I would like it, but we were all singing at the top of our lungs.

Cary and Joshua started to put together this 1,000 piece puzzle. Joshua got bored and left Cary to do it on his own. I jumped in several times but got to frustrated. We never did finish it.

Braeden in his cool new hoodie and shoes. He is so proud of his new shoes that he hasn't worn them until today and he keeps them in the box they came him. He is such a nerd, but we love him anyway!!
We have a tradition to go out to dinner every Christmas Eve. All 18 of us were there....well, minus my Dad who is in Kuwait. We had our own room so that was so nice with all the grand kids. The food wasn't that great but the company was.

Joshua and Grandma's dog, Oscar, just chillin'.

Kate's favorite outfit of all time. I don't know how many times she has worn this thing since she got it. I could not pry the boots off of her feet on Christmas day. Of course, this is what she chose to wear to school today minus the boots because she has PE. She guaranteed me that she would be wearing them tomorrow when she has computers.

Braeden with his prized possession.....his Primary Children's songbook. He only had two things on his Christmas list and this was one of them. The other was slippers.

Me, my mom, and my sister Ashley sipping hot chocolate on Christmas morning.

Kate was so surprised by this gift. She got a gameboy. It was a used one that was her cousins. Kate didn't seem to notice that...which is great. Her favorite game is the Strawberry Shortcake game that came with it.

I love this picture of Joshua. His expression is priceless. We had told him before Christmas that Santa Claus sometimes brings things that we don't necessarily want but need. Joshua is forever getting holes in his pants. He is becoming really expensive to dress. So Santa took this in to consideration and got him some jeans. When Joshua opened up the gift he was so funny.....the picture says it all.

First look at all the Christmas loot...

My Mom and my niece Camille

Opening gifts from Grandma and Grandpa on Christmas Eve

My sister Ashley with the kids. She got the boys gift cards to Walmart and Kate got a poster of the Jonas brothers and some pocket puppies.

My sister Ashley with her boyfriend Clay. On Christmas Eve we called my Dad and this is Clay asking my Dad if he can marry my sister....so sweet!!!

Me and my beautiful sisters.....why is it that I always look like the fat sister??......not fair!!

Well, that is a condensed version of our holidays...I hope everyone had as much fun as we did and is home safe and happy.... (I am having such a problem with blogger and spacing and order...so hopefully you can read through this mess and it makes some sense......)

Only Because I have to.....

I have been in a blogging slump lately and have no motivation to keep my blog updated....so I am only blogging today because I feel like I have to. Lots has gone on over the last week and a half and I have tons to do to get ready to go to Missouri on Friday. We had lots of family in to visit, I got sick with tonsillitis....again, several school projects, Christmas parties, and trying to get ready for Christmas. But the most important event that took place was Joshua's Baptism. My Dad was able to be here from Kuwait along with my mom. Cary's parents, his sister, Jenny, and my niece Jenna were all here too. It was a really nice baptism and the spirit was felt strongly. Joshua was so excited he could hardly contain himself. He gets very wiggly when he's nervous or excited and it is hard to keep him still for any amount of time. It was a very special day!


Another big event that happened in our house was that Kate let me curl her hair. I have begged her for years to let me do this and she never lets me. She is a ponytail kind of girl with the occasional pigtails and braids but never a curl. She gave in once about a year ago so I curled her hair up all pretty and when she saw it she cried and cried until I washed the curls out. On Saturday we had Cary's work party to go to and I asked her once again if I could curl her hair and to my surprise she agreed....and low and behold she loved it this time. I was so excited and she looked so beautiful. We only have one problem and that is that the curls won't stay in her hair for very long. She has very fine, thin hair and the curls fall out within a couple of hours. Does anyone know a trick for keeping curls in?? She loves it so much now that she had me curl her hair for church yesterday and wanted it curled again this morning before school.....I think I have created a monster!

We are very excited for Christmas and still have tons to do to get ready. Only 10 more days left!! I won't be blogging again for a while so Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year too!!

Eight is Great!!

Joshua had a great birthday. He requested a chocolate cake covered in white frosting with chocolate chips. I also put together a scavenger hunt for him to find his birthday gifts. It went like this:

Today is your birthday and we have some gifts for you, but in order to receive them you must first read this clue: Gift #1 is under your bed. Open it up and see what it says.

Gift #2 is waiting for you in the hall closet where we keep the glue.

Gift #3 is under the tree. Next to the window.....I guarantee.

Are you getting annoyed yet or ready for more? Gift #4 is in Mom's top drawer.

Gift #5 is somewhere up high. It's in the attic where it's a pig sty.

Gift #6 is somewhere outside. Open the mailbox and look deep inside.

Just one more gift and then you will see all your hard work will give you great glee. It's hidden somewhere you'd never expect. Think really hard and soon you'll collect. The gift you've been wanting for a really long time is hidden in the place where Dad keeps his dimes.


The kids loved the scavenger hunt so much. I decided to do this because Joshua really wanted a Nintendo DS. He has wanted one for probably a year now. We told him that since they are so expensive that if this is what he got that it would be the only thing he got. I wrapped each of the clues up like gifts so it felt like he had more presents to open. It was really lots of fun.

Yummy Cake
Blowing out candles and making a wish
Reading his first clue

More clues??
Finally!!

It was the best birthday ever!!!

Happy Birthday, Dude!!

These few pictures pretty much sum up the last 8 years with Joshua. It has been an adventure with this guy and his huge imagination. We love him so much and are so proud of him!! Happy Birthday, Dude!!

Little Helpers

On Saturday we took the kids over to our friend, Sandy Anderson's house to help out wherever she needed them. They had so much fun and got a lot done.

The kids emptied all of these water jugs and then filled back up and put them back in place. They watered all of Sandy's plants and bushes around here house with the water they emptied out. It became a contest of who could do it the fastest.

Kate struggled a bit with the heavy water jugs but never gave up.

After emptying water jugs they started picking weeds. We only made a small dent but promised that we would come back soon and finish the rest.
I think Sandy loved having the kids there. The kids felt great after helping and checking off all the things on Sandy's to-do list. It was a great way to spend our Saturday.

Twilight.....The Movie

Yes, I was one of many people who went to a midnight showing of Twilight. My friend, Jeni invited me along with my other friends, Emily and Audrey. We went several hours before the movie started to stake our claim on a good spot in the theater.....and a good spot we got. We were the second group in line for the 12:03 showing. I had tons of fun and loved the movie even though it was a little cheesy in places. I would definitely see it again and I will most definitely add it to my movie collection when it comes out on DVD.

Playing Uno to pass the time.... I think I was the winner. :)

T is for Twilight

Melt My Heart

Last night as I was helping Kate put on her shoes to go to Braeden's Pack Meeting she said to me, "Mom, I just can't stop looking at you because you're so beautiful."

Isn't that the sweetest thing ever?! I love her so much!!

What Braeden Hates

As we were walking out the door for school a couple of days ago Braeden says to me, "Do you know the two things I hate the most?" I said, "No, what?" He said, "Number one the Devil and number two when it rains on any other day but Sunday because I can't play football outside."

It was raining that morning so I understand the rain part but how the Devil was thrown in there.....I thought that was completely random and so funny. He is such a good kid!

I Love Bakerella

One of my favorite blogs....... Bakerella has such cute ideas and of course they always look so yummy! I really want to try the cakeballs but am waiting for a special occasion to do so. If I make them now I will end up eating them all myself.

Becka and Ashley

My sisters, Becka and Ashley came for a quick visit this weekend. We had a laid back weekend and just hung out at home most of time. We watched a lot of Food Network together and let the cousins play. The highlight of the weekend was going to see High School Musical 3. I loved it and so did Kate. We give it two thumbs up. It was so good!! The only thing that could have made the weekend better would have been if my older sister, Tara would have been here with us. Love you, Tara!!

Is it a Turkey or Ballerina Bride?

Turkeys are in great demand this time of year. So, Kate had an assignment from her teacher to disguise this poor little turkey so it would not become Thanksgiving dinner for some family. I thought we should disguise it as Hannah Montana. She wanted to disguise it as one of the Jonas Brothers. We couldn't figure out out to do either of those so we made it a ballerina bride. Kate was very proud of it!

More Halloween

We had so much fun trick-or-treating this year. We were invited over to our friends, the Flores's house. We walked around their neighbor for almost two hours. The kids just wanted to keep going and going. We came across lots of spooky yards and even some haunted houses that the kids were brave enough to enter. We ended the night in the Flores backyard with lots of food, candy, a bounce house, and a fire in the fire pit. As usual my kids declared it the best Halloween ever!!

One of the many spooky yards we came upon

Indiana Jones otherwise known as Josue and his Red Ninja Sidekick, Joshua

We had some cute little cans of Jones soda. Each flavor was a special Halloween flavor. The Werewolf was Candy Corn, Frankenstein was Spookiwi, and the Mummy was Lemon Drop Dead. Of course, I had to take a cheesy picture with them.

These are the buttons I made for Braeden's costume. His whole costume cost me a whole 1.99. I love costumes like this.

Braeden with his politician smile. He played the part well, shaking every one's hands and promising to lower taxes.

Kate and her best bud, Audria. They were two very beautiful butterflies!

We had such a great time together and the kids are already thinking about what they will be next year.

Halloween 2008

Madam Butterfly

Red Ninja

Mr. President

Mr. President and his Secret Service Agent