22.12.08

Oh Christmas tree

Well, we've had our tree up since the beginning of December and I finally got around to taking some pics of it. Decorating the tree is one of the kids's fave things to do. Spencer was totally into it this year. Here's what it looks like lit up.

Another fave thing the kiddos enjoy is snow painting. It's a lot of fun and fairly enexpensive. What you need:

A spray bottle


Water


food coloring


Snow


This'll keep 'em busy for a while!

18.12.08

Snow is falling....

and falling. We have gotten at least 36 inches in a 24 hour period. The kids were totally ecstatic when they found that there wasn't any school today. This is a view from our diningroom, looking into the backyard.It took us probably an hour to get everyone bundled up but it was worth it.As you can see,they are thoroughly enjoying the snow.

15.12.08

My fix-it man!

The wait for the plumber yesterday was irritating Rob. He's not one to just sit around and wait for someone else to fix a problem. So he decided to go outside in the 7degree coldness and try to remedy things himself. Rob tore off the soffet(?) from the overhang under the master bedroom. Put in some more insulation, filled cracks with foam and put a plastic cover on for a vapor barrier. When all was done he'd been out in the cold for two hours! About 15 minutes later the hot water was running again. Ten minutes later the plumber showed up. When Rob told him that it was working again, the plumber's eyes nearly popped out of his head with disbelief. Between reinsulating and the warmth from the furnace things fixed themselves thanks to my do-it-yourself hubby.

14.12.08

Blessings

Today we found that our hot water pipes had frozen. In the day to day business of life we do tend to forget how important the little things in our lives are. I realized that until the situation is remedied we cannot take a hot bath, my washing machine won't work without hot water and you can't wash dishes very well with cold water. This has made me stop to think that it doesn't take much to throw your life into complete chaos. We are very grateful for a house with heat, food in our fridge, clothes to wear and most importanly we thank our Heavenly Father for all that we have. May you all be warm and safe this Christmas and throughout the winter.
Merry Christmas!

9.12.08

Christmas lights

I finally got tired of waiting for Rob to put the lights up on the house. So Jessi and I took the ladder,some lights and a staple gun, climbed onto the roof and put the lights up ourselves. Go girls!

3.12.08

Festival of Trees

Every year Coeur d'Alene holds the Festival of Trees. This year Jessica got to perform with her school's special choir at the Festival. The picture isn't too good butJessica is in the top row just to the right of the center.
We took Emily and Alexis with us. There was an area with kids activities.Emily and Lexi got their faces painted.

The reason for it being called the Festival of Trees is that there are about 25 trees that are decrated in different themes that are auctioned off to benefit local charities. This one is done up in an ocean theme....
this one is done in a "time" theme, there were clocks in the tree......
here we have all sorts of snowmen, my favorite.....
here we have a disco themed tree......
There were others but these were my faves.







1.12.08

Food, fun and family

The week of Thanksgiving kept us very busy this year. We started off with parent/teacher conferences. Jessica has empressed us mainting straight A's while having a few estra cirricular activities. Her teachers says that she works hard and is glad to have her in his class. Alexis is doing well also. she is a little behind in her reading fuency but with a little practice she'l be reading like a pro in no time. Kaylei, well what can I say? SHe is ahead of the majority of kids in her class. She is going to be in a reading group for kids who already know all of the letters and their phonics. Tuesday we went shopping to get our baking supplies for pies, brownies and pumpkin bread(my favorite). Wednesday we baked our goodies. Emily and Kaylei helped out (mostly by licking the bowl). We baked two batches of brownis, one regular size loaf of pumpkin bread and seven mini loaves. Thursday we went to Rob's Aunt Susie's house for Thanksgiving dinner. Their were over 50 family members there! All had a wonderful time playing with cousins. Friday I headed out at 4:30 in the morning to brave Black Friday shopping. To my surprise there wasn't hardly anyone out this year, here anyway. Oh yeah, we brought our niece Ella home with us after Thanksgiving and had aher with us until Sunday morning. We enjoyed having her! Then Friday night, Grandma Lyn and Aunt Cherie joined us and we went downtown Coeur d'Alene for the Festival of lights parade and Lighting ceremony. We saw one of the best firework displays ever. Then they lit up the resort, boardwalk and surrounding area with over 30,000 Christmas lights. It was a wonderful way to start off the Christmas season.

22.11.08

Twilight






I must say the movie wasn't quite as good as I had hoped it would be. I felt it was a little choppy and Patterson's facial expressions didn't always match up with the mood of a situation. To it's credit though, it did stay true to the book as far as no swearing,no sex.
This is closer to how I imagined Edward while I was reading the series.
He even has the teeth for the part.
Tom Welling even cleans up better than Patterson too.

In my opinion it's not too late to recast Edward for the Twilight movie sequel.

13.11.08

This and that

The past week has been full of fun and sickness. Last Thursday and Friday the kids's schools had their Veteran's Day programs. Cody really impressed me. He's not one to enjoy going to music class but he knew the songs and motions. I tried to load a vidoe but it wouldn't load. So here are a couple of pics. Cody had a great time doing the motions with his classmates. Cody is the one in the blue and white shirt with his back to us.

Here he is on the far right waiting to sing.







On Friday Grandpa Gary came to Jessi's school program. Here he is with the other Veterans who attended.






Jessica is in the special choir at Atlas. They're getting their flags for one of the songs.


Here's our troop after the program. Some of us were not having a very good day:(

Later that evening we dropped off the kids at Grandma Lyn's house for a sleepover so that we could have a wonderful date! Rob and I had a nice evening. But the next morning I was woken up by the sound of vomiting...Rob was sick. So the rest of the date was spent with Rob sleeping and throwing up while I did laundry. Saturday evening my stomach started hurting. Luckily I got away with just stomach cramps for a couple days. Then when we thought no one else was going to get it, Emily threw up at 4am on the morning of her birthday. By noon she was doing fine so we kept our birthday plans.




Emily the 4 year old birthday girl!

Thankfully Emily is not picky when it comes to her cake. Her only request was that it had to be pink and purple.
Finally getting the cake they've had to keep their fingers out of all day!
Where'd did Emily go? We had a wonderful evening.

1.11.08

A Happy Hallloween

Halloween day started out kind of hectic. I ended up having my neighbors two boys at 7:30 that morning. So, not only did I have my six to get ready for their school parties and parade, I had another nine year old and a ten month old to get dressed up as well. We got everyone to the school with about five minutes to spare. Whew! All the kids looked so great in their costumes during the parade. After that we got ready for Emmy and Spencers halloween party at their friend's house. They had a blast. After school was out we re-did make up and hair do's to get ready for the trunk-r-treat and trick-r-treating. By the time we were done trick-r-treating it was 9pm. They all had so much fun! Here's our Vampira Lexi. I've decided that with the makeup she looks too grown up and can't wear any again until she's fourteen.
Ninja Cody striking a pose.

Our little Emily witch.

Spencer Lion.

Happy Halloween!

24.10.08

Jack-O-Lanterns

Yesterday we were finally able to carve our pumpkins. Emmy helped by sitiing in Dad's lap.
Cody surprised us by not only scraping out his pumkin but helping emily with hers too. While everyone else was busy carving, Jessi sat around pulling faces at us.

Alexis did a little bit herself. Then Dad had to take over. I think he ended up carving four or five besides his own. Rob says that next year if they can't carve it themselves they don't get a pumpkin. What a partypooper!

Here are the finished produscts.

The puking pumpkin is Rob's. He's got a twisted mind:)

23.10.08

Green Bluff

Last Saturday we went on a family fieldtrip to Harvest House. We found some of the cutest goblins.










Some how I talked us into pony rides. It's really hard to say "no" with four little faces looking up at me with big grins and Spencer saying "Ride horse, pleeeaaassse mommy?".




Of course there was the hayride out to the pumpkin patch.

Jessica, being quite stubborn, decided that she was too good to look for a pumpkin with the rest of us. Dad and Cody with their pumpkins.


Emily and Spence decided to pull the wagon back to the hayride. Only they didn't have enough muscle to move it even an inch. They gave it their best though!

We had a blast :)