Brooke's Birthday

Brooke decided to go birthday shopping this year instead of having a party. We were going to be gone on her actual birthday, so we decided we would go the Sunday before we left. She was really excited and wanted to leave early Sunday so she had her purse with her birthday money in it on the couch Saturday night! We headed out Sunday morning and our first stop was at Cook's to get doughnuts and Smart water. (This is her new favorite water-I'm not sure what makes it so smart.) Our next stop was at Wal-Mart where she got a Mickey Mouse shirt that she immediately changed into once we got into the car. We went to Target and Barnes and Noble since the mall wasn't open yet. She got some bookmarks at the book store, and a new SIMS game for the computer at Target. (The SIMS game is "seasons", and after we got home she was playing it and she let her girl wander around too long out in the snow and she fell down and almost froze to death. We had to really give her a hard time about almost killing her character.) Once we got to the mall she bought (among other things) a whole new outfit..pants, sweater, scarf and bracelets.

Then it was off to Taco Bell for lunch, then we came home. Dave fixed one of her favorite meals...steak.

I can't believe my baby is twelve already. She is growing up way too fast. Some fun things to know about her right now are.....

1. She is taking track-we have an agreement that during track we will not drink pop. I'm not sure whether she is liking track yet or not. Her legs are sore, it has been really cold, and no pop!

2. She is playing spring volleyball with the sixth grade girls. This is her first time getting to play other teams and they had their first tournament on Sat. They came in second out of 16 teams and they played really well. She loves volleyball.

3. Her phone is her favorite thing ever. She just got a new phone because her other one got broken. It is hot pink and she absolutely loves it. She hugged her phone one day and told me that "this phone is my life."

4. She spends lots of time on the computer. Whether it is "My Space" or SIMS or looking up videos on utube she likes sitting in front of the computer.

5. She is my only child that occasionally cleans the kitchen without being asked. She also went out a few weeks ago and helped her dad all day while he was cleaning the yard. She even helped pick up all the dog poop. He didn't ask for her help, she just wanted to make his job easier.

6. She makes us laugh. She has always been funny, and she makes me smile pretty much every single day with something she says or does.

7. She loves her IPOD, Taco Bell Mexi-melts, Hot Cheetos, movies, Grey's Anatomy, Friday Night Lights, steak, taco dip, and lounge pants (or jam-jams as she calls them now), and her camera.

8. She still hasn't outgrown some of her clumsiness. Just today she fell out of Brittney's car and got a scrape on her elbow and a big knot on her knee. Even at twelve she still has bruises and scrapes all the time.

That's a look at my girl...we sure love her a bunch.

New family member

My sister Danelle had her baby a few weeks ago. She weighed 4lbs. 11oz. Her name is Ellie Shae (I'm not sure how they are spelling it, so I am just guessing) She is sooo tiny and so cute. We went down to Albion so the girls could see her and visit their cousins. She is so little that even the premie diapers are big on her! She is healthy and doing very well. I love holding little babies-they don't do anything but sleep, and they always smell so good. (Well, not always, she had to be changed twice while we were there!)

Valentine's Day Shirts

I never realized how handy scrapbooking supplies could be until my kids started using them for all kinds of different things. My scrap supplies have been used for school posters, election posters, school projects etc. For the Valentine's Dance Lindsay decided to use the foam stamp alphabet set to make a shirt. She drew a big Cupid on the front of the shirt and then used the stamps to write "Happy Valentines Day" on the back. She made little hearts all over it and used the period stamp to put dots all over. She spent all evening on it and it turned out so cute.

Brooke spent the night at a friends and made a shirt also, but we are having trouble getting the pictures from her camera onto the computer. Hers was really cute too. They both said they had a lot of fun at the dance and Brooke was so excited because she "almost" danced with a boy! (I hope that is the closest she gets to boys for a while.)

So Sad

This has been our latest addiction.... Tabby, the photo center manager at Walmart, has been telling me about this series for a while, so I finally got season 1 on Netflix. Dave, Lindsay, Brooke and I were totally hooked. It is a very realistic show based on football in a Texas town that has a lot of teenagers making choices and how those choices affect their lives. There are times when the daughter and parents are fighting and I swear she says the EXACT words Brittney has said to us before. It isn't as funny as Grays Anatomy, but it is really good. (Side note...this is not a show for little kids, lots of grown up stuff) We got done watching it one night and Dave seemed a little grumpy so I asked him what was wrong. He said, "I just want Tim Riggins (character in the show) to get his life in order and he just isn't doing it."! Obviously we have been really into it. Lindsay and I got Dave and Brooke Season 2 for Christmas and we have been slowly watching it because Season 3 just started and we missed getting it set up in our DVR. So we knew when Season 2 was over we would have to go without for a LONG time. We just finished it the other night and we are already having withdrawls. Brooke has decided that we need to buy Season 1 and just start watching them all over. I'm guessing Season 3 won't come out until fall, so we just might have to do that!

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,