Family Pictures!

Last week, we finally got some family pictures taken. It had been a while.

Our last professional family picture, was before Abree was born. FINALLY Abree made her debut into our family picture. About time.
I think it took so long for a few reasons:

1. Jason hates to do family pictures with me, because I want everything to be PERFECT, and it stresses him and everyone else out.
2. I don't like the way I look right now (and haven't for years), so why would I want to capture that moment. :o)
3. Money.
4. Time.
And probably a few more lame excuses. :o)

Ahhhh

The kiddos

It was really cold that day (the day before it snowed!), but the pictures don't really reflect that. I'm so pleased. I was a little worried we'd all have red rudolph noses and wind blown hair.

I think this may be my favorite. Too bad Treyson isn't smiling. We capture a lot of non-smiling, almost sad faces from him in pictures. Is the poor boy depressed?

Between each shot, we'd take off our coats/jackets and think "tropical thoughts".


I like this pose too.
The girls

The boys


Rylee

Taylee

Treyson
We got at least one smile from him!

Abree
A little "poser".
The traditional kid airplane-arm picture. Jason and his siblings did this in several pictures, as he was growing up. We're carrying on the tradition.

THE END

Our photographer was someone I found on Craigslist. She was AWESOME! She was friendly, put us at ease, tried learning all of our names, very up-beat and in general just made the whole experience great...non-stressful. She was VERY reasonable too. She only charged us $30 for the disc and copyrights. Her name is Cheryl and I would highly recommend her.

Fall Decor

I LOVE Fall! It's the best time of the year, in my opinion. I love the crisp air, the beautiful colored leaves, the beginning of the holiday season and all the smells associated with Autumn.

This year, when I started frequenting Real Deals, I was excited by all the holiday decor. A few items jumped off the shelf and came home with me. (A lot more could have come home with me, but I sadly had to tell them NO.)

I have to admit... I actually started decorating for Fall/Halloween in September, but held off posting pictures, until it was well into October. Didn't want to seem too crazy or over-anxious. :o) Here are a few of my finds and more... New "trick or treat" sign from Real Deals.


A strand of black silk leaves, with big candycorns intermingled throughout. (I didn't get a good picture, but you can see a little here.)
A big candycorn and battery-operated candles. They have a cool flicker, when switched on.

Stay tuned for the Thanksgiving Real Deal finds. Some Pilgrims and Indians hitched a ride to my place.

Happy Unbirthday to Me

My birthday is not here yet, but Jaime's baby will be coming soon, so we celebrated early and went to lunch. Both Marianne and Jaime raved about the sweet pork salad at Costa Vida, so I had to go and check it out. It was yummy. We also ordered the nacho chips and cheese (can't remember the name of it) and I LOVED the lime flavor on the tortilla chips. Way yummy!

After lunch we went to a little boutique craft fair in my neighborhood clubhouse and then headed to CraftWarehouse just for fun. What a great afternoon. Thanks for playin' girls!

PS- We also went to a movie earlier in the week. We saw, "Get Smart". Funny, funny show, especially if you like Steve Carelle (sp?). I'd recommend it.

Abree turns 4!

This week Abree had a birthday. My baby turned 4!

I can't believe it.

Some of her favorite gifts were; Dora's twin baby sister/brother dolls, a princess clock from Grandpa Waite, and Snow White dress up shoes.
Abree requested that she have a Snow White cake. (This isn't my best birthday cake decor job. It's far, far from it. I'm even a little embarrassed to show it.)But Snow White is on there. :o) When she saw her cake in the morning, she HAD to go get on her Snow White dress-up.
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On Monday, we all gathered for our monthly big family FHE. We had a lesson on prayer, talked about conference, found out Tim and Karen are going to have their 3rd little girl, Abree opened some b-day gifts and we sang Happy Birthday and had cupcakes.
Then some of us decorated gingerbread Halloween houses. These were fun. Ours had taken a bad fall, so I had to piece it back together. (Kind of a hard puzzzle actually.) But I pretended that it added to the "creepy" affect of the house and covered most of the broken area with frosting.
We are so blessed to have so many great family members so close. We love our family and look forward to each time we get together. We really do like each other and I'm finding out that, that is not always the case in some families. Love you guys! Next get together: Saturday... BSU football game... our house. See you there!

The Long and the Short of it...

The other day, I was on the computer (surprise, surprise) and Abree came up to me and told me she had done her hair. She said, "Look mom, I made my piggytails all by myself!" Wow, she had actually done a very nice 3 year old job of it, so we took a picture. I told you she was 3, going on 13!
Then on Wednesday, we went over to Aunt Tawnya's house and she got a new do. We cut her hair short and gave her bangs. She was SO excited to have bangs (funny pre-pre-teen girl). She felt SO beautiful and kept flipping her hair and smoothing it behind her ears.
She walked around for the next 3 days with an aire about her... the beautiful princess is gracing you with her presence.
It's so nice that her hair actually has a "style" now. It was getting so long and stringy.

Finally!

Last Tuesday, we FINALLY got pre-school started. (I say finally, because Abree was anxious and ready, more than a month ago.) We have 6 cute girls in our pre-school this year. They are all so sweet and have made friends easily and quickly.

This week we learned about the letter B and the number 1.

Abree

"B is for Butterfly". We made butterfly wings using to big letter B's, back to back. The girls decorated them with stickers and then we stapled elastic straps to them, to be worn like a backpack.
Lauren

Josey
Andi
Emylie

Audrey
Each girl brought a towel to sit on for "circle time". This is an awesome idea. Last year, we didn't use towels. It's so nice to be able to say, "Abree, please sit down on your spot." It helps not to be too crowded by little faces, when reading stories or doing activities at circle time.
We all contributed to a pre-school supply bin; crayons, scissors, pencils, glue, weather chart, calendar, ice cream colors, name plates, playdough, etc. This will be passed as each mom takes their turn teaching. I love this idea and think it will be a very valuable thing.