Gingerbread Houses

We went to Grandma Vickie's for our annual gingerbread house party. We had a lot of fun. And Grandma made lots of yummy food.

Zac had a blast playing with BoDee and Cameron. Can you say triple trouble?

I helped Keira with her house this year. I did most of the decorating and she did a lot of eating!

Jared helped Zoe. She told him she wanted a princess house. Ummmmm ok? Notice the crown on the roof. Yes that is my creative husband! Sometimes it scares me ;)

Zac was so cute decorating his house. He had lots of fun, and was very creative too.

To say it was a full house is an understatement!

When we were done the girls went outside to see Grandma's lights. They thought her deer were the coolest. One's head moves. They were pretending to fee them with the rocks in the flower bed! Silly girls:) Thank you Grandma Vickie for all the fun!!!

Basketball

This year they did a little junior jazz basketball clinic for the first and second graders. It lasted four weeks and was one day a week. It was perfect! The kids were so cute. And I can't believe the things they learned in only four weeks.

Sixteen boys. You have to have the patience of a saint to take on this group of boys:)

They made lots of shots too. They seemed so little and the basket was so high!

The girls basketball coach came and coached them for the four weeks. Zac says " he's sooo cool"

Doing some dribbling. Zac did great he never once bounced it off his toe! (Like I'm famous for doing) I was a cheerleader for a reason;)

And his favorite the "arm guard" I learned a lot too!!

Zachary's Baptism

This was a very special night for our family. Zachary was baptised by his dad. I never thought I would be able to say that. We've worked hard as a family to get to this point in our lives. Jared used his priesthood for the first time to baptise and confirm Zachary. He did an amazing job. There were not many dry eyes. I'm so proud of both my boys for making the choices they have made. I'm a lucky girl:)

Congratulations Zachary! We love you so very much.

Zachary's Birthday

I can not believe I have an eight year old! It amazes me how much this little boy of mine has grown. He is such a good kid and he brings so much joy to my life. He's my little side kick. This was a very exciting special birthday for him.

His birthday was on a Friday so he was able to celebrate and be baptised on the same day, it made it super special. He's a big harry potter fan so all of his presents from us were harry potter things. He got so many fun gifts from friends and family. We so appreciate all the love everyone has for him:)

Traditions

Well I find myself playing catch up again...
It's just that crazy busy time of year again. We started out the Christmas season with two of our favorite traditions. A Christmas book every night and of course our fun elf on the shelf Fiddle Flap! Who has been into a bit of mischief this holiday season :)

Zachary got to open the first book this year. He was really glad it wasn't Fancy Nancy again. However a week later he did open the Fancy Nancy book for the second year in a row!!! He opened it and said " are you freaking kidding me?" That's starting to be a tradition too. I thought I had it arranged so one of the girls would open it. Oops:)

On December 2nd we woke up to find our elf had decorated the living room for Zachary's birthday! The kids were so excited!

And one morning we woke to find he had been eating our chocolate!

We're wobbling!

We had a really good Thanksgiving. We ate so much we're still wobbling!!! We went to my mom's this year for dinner. We missed my dad, it was weird counting out twelve place settings instead of thirteen. It wasn't any harder of a day than any other we just miss him all the time.

Our family.

Thanksgiving isn't any fun with out a little PS3. Call of duty for the boys.

Zac's a pretty good shot. He hit the bulls eye like 3 or 4 times! We went to the ranch a couple times. On Thursday I drug everyone up to take family pictures and then on Saturday we went back to shoot guns and take mom. We only went to the bottom of the hill but it was still lovely weather and really nice to get up there. Next summer for sure we'll spend more time up there.

Ohhh... Gun stories!!! This was my favorite picture of the whole holiday:)

Morgan and Zac rolling a tire down the hill. It's amazing what will entertain boys:)

Halloween Lunch

For as long as I can remember the elementary lunch has a contest at Halloween time to guess what's for lunch. They name everything a gross name. Like sometimes witches brew is soup. Anyway this year Zachary won first place in the entire school. He got every one right! I find this rather amusing because he doesn't eat school lunch, he takes his own. I can see how he was good at it because that's probably what he thinks of food anyway since he's a choosy (not picky) eater.

His prize was this adorable pumpkin:) Way to go kiddo!

Little Hunters

Last month I went shopping with my mom and Jared had the kids, it happened to be during the deer hunt. Jared didn't have a tag but his brother and some of his family did. So Jared decided to tag a long for the ride. The kids didn't have any orange so my very CRAFTY... yes I said crafty husband got some of his old orange work shirts out of the closet and made them some hunting shirts. No kidding!!! This man is hilarious! He cut some length off the bottom, cut down the sides, turned them inside out and sewed up the sides with my sewing machine. He broke the number one rule in the house and touched my sewing machine. I was so flabbergasted at his creativity I instantly forgave him :)

Aren't they cute. The girls informed me what happened the minute I got home. They also told me they were hunters now and when they get bigger they can have a B B GUN;) I love it! I'm glad they had so much fun!

Halloween

We had a really good Halloween this year.

We carved our pumpkins and the kids thought it was really gross. So Jared and I did all the messy work)

~Their masterpieces~

Zachary's pumpkin is Harry Potter!

Keira was not happy about all the picture taking.

One cute smile out of Zoe. She wanted her pumpkin to be a princess and I sure didn't make it look that way. Bat girl maybe ;)

My two little princesses!

We went and watched Zac in the parade. Jared was even able to come watch this year.

Cinderella

Harry Potter

And a very upset Snow White. Or if you ask her it's Snow Wipe!!!!

I've decided I do not have very co operative posers! But they're mine and I think they're pretty cute. We hope you all had a very safe and happy Halloween!

Jared

Jared received the priesthood this weekend. His dad was able to come down and perform the ordinance for him. He's taking big steps and we're proud of him!

WOW!!!!

WOW!!! I've just got to brag. Zachary has been checking out the first Harry Potter book since Kindergarten. Each year I asked my mom why she kept letting him. She told me she thought everyone had the right to check out whatever book they wanted. It has really helped him become a very good reader. He doesn't pick a book by how many points it is, what level, or even how big or how hard it is. He just sees a book he thinks looks good and just well reads! Anyway long story longer he read the first book!!!! I'm just amazed. It's a really big book and he's only seven:) He tested on it for his AR program at school and passed and met his quarterly goal! I love that he loves to read, it makes me a happy momma:) Way to go Zachary.

OLD!!!!

Well it happened again I got older! Damn I hate it when that happens:) We had dinner at our house for my birthday. It was really nice and everyone was able to make it even my older

work-a-holic brother! It was perfect except I really miss Dad. I really wished he was here to forget it was my birthday. I do think he wished me a happy day. It's hard to explain but I had a moment where he was there with me, I really felt his presence:) Thank God for moments like that or it would be absolutely impossible to cope with the loss. Anyway...

The kids had a fun game of football. They really enjoyed the dog pile part:)

Keira thinks she's as big as everyone else. Not much slows this girlie down!

Not everyone is in love with my camera ;) Man I love him!!!!

Ty's energy level is perfect to keep up with Zoe. The kids just love him.

Dinner time. Nice Dalton!!!

Zoe patiently waits for her dinner. Thanks for making my day so great family. I would not be the person I am without each and everyone of you:) Loves...

Sprinklers in the Fall???

The other day the girls and I were out back and I got distracted and of course the girls found mischief! In the form of the sprinklers out front. I could hear them giggling and laughing and didn't really think much of it. But this is what I found. Little twerps:)

They soon realized it was getting a little cold and not really sprinkler weather!

They did have fun:)

New Bikes!!!!

We went camping for labor day (no pictures because my camera was having a bad case of operator error) with Uncle Brandon and his family and Zachary and Cameron had their bikes there to ride. Cameron has a bigger bike and Zac's was too small for him. Anyway all the bruises he had on his knees from hitting the handle bars convinced us it was time to upgrade to a bigger bike. Plus we felt it was time for the girls to get big girl bikes too. So we went shopping..

Zac is in heaven with the bigger bike. It has trick pegs and everything! More often than not when I can't find him he's off riding.

Keira can't figure out how to pedal just yet. But she tries. She keeps going back and forth from brake to go, brake to go. I'm sure she'll figure it out someday:)

Zoe hopped right on and off she went. She's pedaling that bike like she was born doing it. She was doing so well I didn't realize we didn't show her how to use the brake. The other day we walked up the street to the high school parking lot with my Aunt and her granddaughter and Zoe came flying towards us with big huge eyes and she kept going until she went headfirst into the stroller. Luckily nobody was hurt and we had a good laugh. And a lesson on braking.

We were going to wait until next spring for new bikes. I'm so glad we decided to get them now:)