Christmas Spirit

Sunday we decided that we would put up our Christmas decorations. Dave concentrated on the outside and got all his lights hung. Marcy and Lindsay worked on our main tree, and they did an awesome job. Marcy thought white and red lights would be nice and it turned out really well. McKenna, Brooke and I worked on the rest of the house while they did that. We listened to Christmas music and had a table full of snacks to eat while we worked. I bought some Evergreen oil for my oil burner and it smelled soooo good, just like we had a real tree. After we were all done we relaxed and watched our new Christmas movie "Fred Clause."

Of course we had to have a silly picture!

This is the stocking holder I found at the craft fair. I have been looking for years for one but have never been able to find one with more that four pegs till now. (Now that it is Britts last year here, isn't that how it always goes.)

Our main tree in the living room.

Britt didn't help much with the house, but she did help the girls put up their tree that has their ornaments on it.

I thought it was really cute while we were pulling out all of our stuff the girls were saying where we got certain things, or asking where we got things. I kept saying, "Grandma made us that, Great-Grandma made us that, Grandma made that." Lindsay finally said, "It's a good thing we have Grandma's!" I told Lindsay that when she grew up she was probably on her own because I'm not very good at making things like that. She informed me that her Grandma would still be around and would take care of her! So thanks Grandma's for making our holidays special.

Oh no

I just spent half an hour doing this post and somehow when I went to edit it all the typing I did disappeared. It didn't show up until after I posted it, so sorry I will try to quickly tell you what all this is.
Halloween...Lindsay was an 80's rocker and Brooke was a dead prom queen. We had no kids at home, so Dave and I and Knopps rented scary movies and had junk food. It was weird not having to take kids out trick or treating.
The last pictures are of Jakes birthday. We went to the movie Twilight and it was actually really good. Lindsay and McKenna talked Jake into reading the books and he actually really liked them. We had a good time celebrating his birthday with him.
Last Sunday we were in the add-on room watching tv when Colton said he saw something poke its head out from under the couch. Perry lifts all of the couches and finds nothing. We return to our tv and pretty soon Colton says he saw a mouse run into the game closet. So Perry and Antonio go into the closet and start taking everything piled onto the floor out. Brittney goes towards them to look..she sees the mouse and start screaming at the top of her lungs (which if you know Britt is really, really loud) and running backwards so fast she falls over the coffee table. In the meantime Marcy, McKenna, Lindsay, Brooke and I are all standing on the couches screaming. I am yelling at Brooke to go get her dad so he can do something. Dave had gone to bed and was not happy to be woken up in the manner!! Thankfully we caught the mouse (our first and hopefully last) in five years. Britt ended up with a big bruise on the back of her leg!
Well, that is a little of what we have been doing in the last month. I will try to do better at posting and keeping everyone up to date.

Update

Ok,

Super Saturday

Last Saturday Marcy and I headed down to Rupert to go to the Minico Craft Fair. I have not been to this craft fair for probably seven years, so I was excited to go again and see all the latest trends. I bought a cute stocking holder sign that the kids really liked, and Marcy bought some really cute things for her house. Afterwards, we went somewhere else I haven't been for several years...Docs Pizza. The taco pizza with extra hot cheese at Docs is absolutely the best taco pizza ever. Then we went to my moms and worked all day and most of the night on an advent calanders. We had no idea it would take as long as it did, but we got most of it done. (Finished poduct is on my moms blog)
Meanwhile, seperately Dave brought the girls down to a cousins Halloween party Danelle and Sally planned for the kids. Some of the kids dressed up...Sam was a skunk...
Christopher as a mad scientist...

They made a huge pile of leaves and the kids took turns jumping in it...

Natalie...

Then they got to paint pumpkins..this is Brooke, Natalie, and Whitney..

Taylor, Christopher, and Trevin

The kids said they even made Sally dress up!!

After they left Sally's house they headed to Albion to go to the Spook Alley at the Albion College. Dave said it was "ok", but the girls seemed to like it, they talked about it all morning on Sunday. They all said they were screaming, so it must have been at least a little scary. (special thanks to Clyde for taking such good care of Lindsay) My only complaint was that they dropped fake blood all over Dave's sweatshirt and ruined it. Over all, it was a good day for all of us.

Yum

We tried Amber and Gary's recipe for sweet and sour chicken tonight and it was really good. (No pictures though because I didn't work today and I look like crap!) Dave even liked it, and he doesn't like his main dish food to be sweet. I missed the step of dipping the chicken in the eggs for the first batch I cooked because Brooke was playing "Sims" and I couldn't get on Ambers blog, but it still turned out fine. So thanks guys for the recipe, it was great.
The snow really motivated us..we spent our time last weekend doing all the fall things that need to be done. We took out our air conditioners, put away the hoses, took out the jet ski battery, put away the grill, put up the bikes, cleaned up our yard and cleaned out the garage. Dave even cleaned up all his tools, nuts, bolts etc. (I think it helped that he hooked up a tv in the garage so he could watch football at the same time!) He is now trying to work on the deck every night so we can get that done before winter really sets in. Hopefully it won't snow again for a while.

Birthdays

We went out Saturday night to celebrate Megan and I's birthdays. We went to La Fiesta for dinner, which of course came with the sombrero's, blankets, singing and a big surprise. After the waiter had put our hats and blankets on he suddenly reached around me and smashed whip cream into my chin! Megan tried to get away, but he got her too! So Jen took a few pictures since he had lost his camera and we cleaned up. A few minutes later he came around again and sure enough he slaps more whip cream on us since he had found his camera. I had whip cream everywhere, even on my clothes...Megan almost dropped a big glob into her purse on the floor! It totally had us laughing, so I guess it was all worth it.

After dinner we headed to Side Winders, which if you have never been there, is actually like three different clubs hooked together. We played some Foosball, danced in the hip-hop club, and even did a little karaoke.

Troy and Caleb losing at Foosball to Dave and Vanessa

Sundi, me, Megan and Jen

Dave, Sarah and Megan

Jen rocked the house with her rendition of "Shoop" which she sang with Jesse (a friend of Troy's). I think she knew every word without even looking at the prompter...they sounded really good.

Then the boys did an outstanding performance of "Bohemian Rhapsody". They sang, they swayed, and they rocked out at the end. They even had onlookers singing with them, and when it was over the crowd cheered which was the only time that night that had happened.

Football and a Haircut

This week was homecoming so Brittney was busy dressing up every day for the different things they had to do. Wed. was the powder puff football game and she got to play in it. She played offensive line in the first half, then switched to defense in the second half. She said she liked defense a lot more because it was less boring! The juniors ran the opening kick off for a touchdown, but then didn't even get a first down until the last couple of minutes of the game. The seniors scored so the game was tied..all they had to do was hold them. With 2 (yes 2) seconds left the juniors had the last play of the game and scored just as the buzzer sounded. Britt wasn't too sad though, she had thought they would get killed so she was just happy they were so close. She had fun and we had a good time going to watch her.

My next news is the Dave has finally cut his hair. For anyone who may not know, Perry had told him if he wouldn't cut his hair for six months he would pay him a hundred dollars. (This was on May 3rd so he had to go until Nov. 3rd) This photo is Dave on July 3rd, two months into the deal.

(sorry, I didn't rotate this right in my folder, and I'm not sure how to fix it here!!) This next photo is Dave (with Ori) on Labor Day Weekend in September. All through the summer his hair wasn't really getting long but once September came along it just went crazy.

By mid-Sept. he was going crazy..he felt like he looked like a total bum. We told him he looked like Lloyd in Dumb and Dumber with his hair all sticking out everywhere! So he worked out a deal with Perry and went to work the next day to have it cut. They put his hair into ponytails all over and Perry just started cutting them off. Then he shaved the rest.

Then they decided that they would make a New Orleans Saint symbol with a little bit of hair. He called me at work to tell me and I couldn't quite believe it, I had to have Sundii send me a picture on my phone!! He says he's leaving it until they win the Super Bowl....we have all told him that it isn't going to look good in the 5-20 years that might take!! I am glad to have him with short hair again.

Scrap Fun

I got to spend some time this weekend scrapbooking and hanging out with some great ladies. We all got a lot done, and had a great time together. I am slowly trying to recover...I have had very little sleep, and I think I have gained ten pounds in the last few days!! Also I am already having withdrawls...I'm not sure I can scrapbook anymore without having a Cricut machine, it is that awesome. Unfortunately I did not take any pictures while we were there, but I did take some of our fun projects. Danelle brought stuff to make these fun Halloween picture frames.
Marcy brought everything to do these amazing blocks that I totally love. I am so ready to decorate my house for fall/halloween and these look awesome on the table by our front door.

Thanks girls for all the food, giggles, projects, and help with my layouts.

In another note, my mom has started her own blog...check it out at http://flwblog.blogspot.com/

Cheer

Its official, I am a cheer mom now. If it were up to me I would not be a cheer mom this year...Lindsay tried out for cheerleader last year and didn't make it. It broke her heart, and it broke mine to see her so upset. So this year I didn't want her to try out again..I was afraid of the same situation as last year. She was determined though, and she practiced for hours to get her routines down right. I was a mess the day of tryouts and the day they found out..it was quite stressful. We were all excited when she made it. I am so proud of her for not letting one failure keep her from trying again, and I'm proud of her for not letting my negativity influence her decision to go for it. I have been going to the volleyball games to watch her cheer and I am really loving watching her cheer and McKenna play on the volleyball team. I try to clap and cheer with them (because Marcy says I'm a cheer mom so I have to) but at this point I have to say that I'm not very good at it! But, I'm sure I will get better. She seems to be having a great time and she is really good at ignoring us when we call out to her or try to get her to look at us!! So last week she had her first football game and she had to cheer for both the 7th and 8th grade games. Brooke, Dave and I all came to watch her.

At the volleyball games I have McKenna to watch and cheer for, but at the football games we really don't have anyone special to watch. So by the time we got to the end of the last game we were getting at little bored. Brooke was doing her homework and then we started taking pictures...

( Brooke was mad at me because she thinks she looked really good in this picture and I had to ruin it! )

Cousins

The kids don't get to see their cousins as much now that we live in Gooding, so Saturday we met Danelle in Twin so they could spend a little time together. We shopped and ate at the mall, then went down into the canyon to Centennial Park. We played some volleyball and then sat on the grass and just visited. Danelle and I used to spend tons of time at parks with the kids while they were growing up, so it was kind of like old times. It was nice getting to just hang out with them and catch up on what they are doing.
Mikayla and Lindsay

Trevin

Chelsea wouldn't let me take a picture of her at all...Brooke finally grabbed her and tried to hold her so I could take one. This is the best I could do!! Of course Brooke is the total opposite. She always lets me take her picture, and she even does all kinds of funny poses for me.

She so cracks me up...she makes me laugh every day. (She just walked in and told me she was trying to make this look like a professional picture!) I'm sure as she gets a little older she will grow out of this, but it sure is fun for now.