Award Winning Girls

Meri and Jessi both earned awards at school this month. Meri for Reading and Jessi for Citizenship. Way to go girls!

Robotics Tournament

Brayton and Ethan were on one of the middle school robotics team this year. They were on the Super Sonik Syborgz team. It was a lot of work and a lot of fun for them too. Shawn got to be one of the coaches too! They had two tournaments - the last one was this past Saturday. Over 80 teams were there competing and we got 21st place out of all those teams. They were also given a trophy for being the most gracious competitors because another team was missing some parts during one of the their runs (which is timed) and without hesitation the Syborgs quickly gave them the parts they needed. Way to go Syborgz!

Merry Christmas

Every year we go to the Lancaster Creche Festival at our old ward building with our good friends, the Goodwins. Lots of people from the community turn out for it. It is amazing. Hundreds of nativity sets all set up and choirs singing while you walk around. They also have an "eye spy" paper the kids can do. They go around and find certain nativities. It's actually really hard, but it's fun when you find one on the list. In the Primary room they have it set up for kids to do coloring pages, play with little nativity sets, and costumes you can dress up in. The last few years I have wanted to do this picture, but Jessi refused to dress up. Well, today was the day, because she did not want to take that angel costume off after the pictures were done! I had hoped to maybe use this picture on our Christmas card, but it didn't turn out quite as good as I hoped. But atleast I got my Christmas wish though! 3 wise men, Mary(Meri in our case), an angel, and baby Jesus. What more could I hope for! Merry Christmas everyone!

Giving Thanks in Arizona

For Thanksgiving we went out to the Arizona Teare's home. 16 kids, 11 adults, having a ball. The food was amazing and we loved seeing all the Teares. Thanks so much to Shannon and Cody for having us and all the delicious food. We had such a great time. One thing I'll always remember about this Thanksgiving is that Zac learned to crawl at their house!

all i want for christmas...

My childhood friend Behka has been featured on mormonwoman.org. Check it out here. You will be inspired. love you Behka.

Pumkin Carving

This year we carved a total of 7 pumpkins. It was crazy! And we did pumpkin carving at Pack Meeting and with the Young Women too! So we definitely got our fill of carving this year. And Jessi was even brave enough to put her hand in the pumpkin for the first time. Ethan you may notice, was not interested in pumkins this year. He has only wanted to finish reading "Diary of Wimpy Kid - Dog Days" The kids have been anxiously awaiting our copy we ordered and the 4 older ones have actually been fighting over it- yes, even smacking each other and grabbing it from each other like 2 year olds! We've had to set the timer on the microwave and take turns reading it because they all want to read it so badly. Honestly, it's so nice to see them so excited about reading a book. They have loved the Wimpy Kid series and we are getting excited about the Percy Jackson books too!
Well, now that Halloween is over I am so excited to start the holidays. Last year with being pregnant I really felt like I was just going through the motions and just trying to survive the holidays. I'm really excited to actually enjoy them this year!

A Spooky Surprise....not that spooky

Yesterday as part of our Halloween Day Jessi got a special surprise. A kitten of her own. Some friends in the ward had kittens to find homes for and yes, I was weak, I fell in love with this little blue eyed beauty. Meri has her own cat and I've wanted Jessi to have her own too. So this one is Jessi's. She named her Snowflake. She is getting lots of love from all of us, except from the other cats at our house-there has been some hissing going on in that arena. But I think they are starting to get used to her. Yes, now we have 4 cats - yes, 4! It's ridiculous really. We are officially a wierd cat family now. Not to mention our other pets! I think someday, maybe we'll get a dog for Zachary when he's a little older and after our other pets are in heaven. But the cats will live a long time so they are here to stay for quite awhile. But I've realized I really do love all of them. Even Luke, who I almost got rid of toward the end of my pregnancy with Zac. He was driving me crazy then, but now I'm okay with him again. Anyway, it's wierd how so much of our childhood shapes who we are as adults. As a kid we always had cats and had several litters of kittens that we all loved. Thanks to my mom who was so patient and for letting us love those little kitties and be a part of taking care of them and loving them. It was so fun! And thanks to Shawn for being so nice about having all these kitties!

Halloween was a Hit!

This Halloween was definitely one to remember. We had the Wright Brothers, Curious George and the Man in the Yellow Hat, a Witch, a Fairy, and a Mummy. We decorated our trunk like a jungle and had the Curious George movie playing and Shawn and Zac handed out candy while I walked around with Meri and Jessi. The big boys walked around trunk-or-treating with friends. After the church trunk-or-treat we went around our neighborhood for awhile. The kids were actually begging to go home - Shawn and I wanted to keep going! I'm so glad I have lots of kids so we can get lots of good candy! Shawn and I are not the classic good parents when it comes to trick-or-treating. While most parents are religiously divi-ing out candy that their kids are allowed to eat each day for the next month, we both believe in the "eat it til it's gone and then we won't have to worry about it anymore theory". So after trick-or-trunking and trick-or-treating we came home and watched Nightmare Before Christmas - kids munching merrily away on their candy. After church we had candy for lunch - and guess what, it's almost gone! Yay! So by tomorrow we'll only have the dum dums left that no one will eat anyway! I have to admit, I love Halloween. I love all the costumes and I love all that delicious candy! On no other night of the year can you walk up to the homes of strangers and they will give you candy for free. Who doesn't love that?

My Little Sisters

A few weeks ago I got to go to Boise to see my little sister Tess - for her baby shower. Her first babe is expected any day now! As an added bonus I got to see one of my other sisters Jandi too! I am feeling so old lately- My little sisters are having babies now! It was such a fun time being with them. And seeing Jandi's little Myles was so fun too! Tess is having a boy so now all 4 of us girls will have little guys born within about a year or so of each other. I'm so happy for Zac to have lots of cousins his age. They'll all be buddies! Krystal, we missed you! Dang it! Man I love my sisters!

Shawn's Birthday

For Shawn's birthday we went to Disneyland for the last time using our year passes. It has been a ton of fun using our passes this year! One question I have is "what is up with people who offer to take picutures for you in front of the Walt Disney statue and then cut off his head?" This is the 2nd time this has happened to us. Don't people know that he is the reason people are lining up to take pictures at this spot????? I loved riding on California Screamin' and Small World - my favorites. Lots of fun memories this year at Disneyland!

A Place of His Own

Zachary made the move to his own room. The piano is now out in the garage and Zac has his own space to sleep. Yay!

Pippa Rock

We lost a dear friend this week. Orion's pet rat Pippa died on Friday. We had a special dinner in her honor and ate sunflower seeds because those were her favorite. She was a friendly rat and a good friend to Orion. Last Halloween she played the part of Scabbers, Ron Weasley's rat- a fun memory. Orion had a few tears and made her a box and a headstone. When I was a kid we loved the Pippa Mouse stories and had a Pippa Rock out in our backyard. Now we have one too.

I love grapes!

Has anyone seen the new Willy Wonka? Well, Zac can sit on his own now and he rolled over from front to back a few times today. Exciting stuff!