Surprise Christmas Gifts!

My kids, like lots of others out there, had seen all the commercials and were convinced that they needed Zhu Zhu pets for Christmas. They asked for them all thru the Thanksgiving holiday and a week or so after before I decided I'd better give them all a little reality check. I of course had seen the news and been to the stores and new they weren't readily available. I even checked on ebay and did find some for $99! I explained to the girls that it looked like Santa wouldn't be able to make enough Zhu Zhu's for all the kids who wanted them, so what else did they want for
Christmas? They asked for a few other things and were still excited for Christmas. Well, Christmas morning came and we were in the middle of opening gifts and Luke opened a Zhu Zhu pet!!! You should of seen the look of shock on Macey's face (I wish I had a picture of that!) She looked at me and asked "Did Luke just get a Zhu Zhu?" "How?!?" I replied, "I guess he asked Santa for one." Then she wondered it she was going to get one, so I asked her if she had asked Santa for one. She said she was going to, but I told her that there was no way Santa could bring her one. (She was getting a little upset!) I told her, Oh well. We continued opening gifts and it wasn't long before all the girls had a Zhu Zhu! It was a fun Christmas surprise!!

I spent an afternoon making some Zhu Zhu condos. The kids opened these before the Zhu Zhu's and just looked at them and said thanks. I don't know what they thought they were going to use them for!

For Luke's New Years gift exchange he got a Zhu Zhu exercise wheel.

The Zhu Zhu's in their condos and sleeping bags.


Here is Kambree's

This one is Luke's, he named him George

The critters and their condos

Luke got some more accessories for his birthday. These little things really are pretty cute. They actually did even more than I thought they would. You can put them in this thing and they will go down the tunnels. The pink tunnel leads to the exercise wheel. They go on their own on the floor as well. They go forward, backward, turn, and make noises. Cute stuff!

Happy Birthday to my Baby!

We have been talking about Luke's birthday for about a month now. He had consistently told me that he wanted a Diego cake, but he was a little confused since Christmas was so close to his birthday. He wanted Santa to bring him a Diego cake. Santa didn't pull it off, but since he brought other great stuff, Luke as OK. Mom did pull it off and this is what I came up with.

I made the Diego by doing a "butter cream transfer" (I learned about it on the Internet)

Luke was happy with his cake!

Luke enjoyed opening presents. After Christmas and New Years he was really good at it!

He loved this car from his Hyland cousins!!

Getting ready to blow out the candles.

I can't believe my baby has turned 3! This is the first time I've had a 3 year old and not had a baby as well. Luke is such a fun kid. He has a great sense of humor and knows how to make us all laugh. He is smart and it is so fun to watch him figure things out. He had figured out how to always have his turn and he does a great job at being the caboose of our family. I'm so thankful that he came to be with us!

A Christmas Miracle

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas!!!!

The snow lasted for about an hour and nothing stuck to the ground, but considering how often it snows here and it is Christmas Eve, I'd consider this a dream come true!!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Thanksgiving!

We spent Thanksgiving celebrating with the Hyland's. This year the Day family hosted us all. I took some pictures of the Turkey Frying for my nonsouthern friends and family!

Here we are sitting around the Turkey Frying enjoying the mouthwatering smell!

This one is done! Chris fried two turkey's and a ham (if you have never had fried ham you are really missing out...just think bacon!)

Turkey number 2 ready to go for a dip!


After dinner and all the clean up we realized that there was water all over under the sink. Brad and Chris got under there to do some plumbing. (they fixed it yay!)

The babies were a big hit! Here we have Kayla and Brynn, Macey and Brylee, and Karly and Bo. The girls loved helping with the babies. The carried them around and entertained them.

It was a great holiday. We ate lots of great food, had fun visiting with each other, and of course Black Friday shopping! Thanks Audrey and Chris for having us all there!

Halloween

The girls had fun at the school's Family Fun Night

Now it's Macey's turn!

Can you see Brad hanging out with the scarecrows?

There they are again

The kids right before going in to the church for our ward Halloween party.

We had some creepy visitors during the month of October. We found this snake in our kitchen. It was only about 5 inches long, but we thought it was SCARY!

That same night we found this spider. It looks like it has claws!

During the day on Halloween we went to BOO at the ZOO. The zoo was decorated for Halloween and they even had a small haunted house.

After the zoo we headed over to our friend home to eat soup and pizza. Then the kids put on their costumes to Trick or Treat. Our friends live in a great neighborhood of door to door Trick or Treating. At the beginning of the night the streets were full of kids and hayrides! We all had a great Halloween!!

Fun Fabulous Fall!

What have we been up to since the summer? Well the kids have been in school and are now used to the routine of getting up early and homework. I am missing those sleep in days of summer. The weekends are too busy and too short around here! We had a wonderful month of October. October did get record rainfall around here, but amazingly the weekends were mostly dry so we were able to enjoy the fun fall festivities! We started out our fall celebrating at the Bell Family Farm where they were having "Pappy's Pumpkin Patch" This was our third year going and it was fabulous as usual.

Here are Nelson and Luke in a barrel of the barrel train. Luke stayed in long enough for me to get a picture, but he bolted before the ride started.

Kambree is ready to ride!

Annie is in the bejeweled barrel~


Luke's favorite part was racing his rubber duck at the water pumps. He left the pumpkin patch totally soaked!



Luke riding the big tire swing! (can you tell the rest of the kids ran off in all directions so I only had Luke to take pictures of?)

I did round the kids up to take our traditional picture by the ruler thing. They are getting bigger!

The catfish in the pond.

Kambree, Macey and Luke feeding the fish.

Brad and Annie feeding the fish.

Brad, Luke and I are scarecrows!

Annie picking out a pumpkin.

We went to the pumpkins patch that night with the Activity Day girls and their families, plus a few other families from our ward were there as well. Here are my kids with two of their friends. They had their pumpkins and are waiting for the ride back up to the barn.



Nelson hangin out with the scarecrow farmer!

Kambree has the pumpkins all loaded up and ready to go.

Cute kids! It looks like some are more in the mood for pictures than others.
One last picture before heading out! We'll be back next year!

I found the directions for these cute mini-pumpkin pies on Bakerella.

Here they are with their chocolate faces on!

We have a tradition of having our Spooky Halloween dinner on the Monday before Halloween. This year we had Mummy Pizzas.

Putrid punch, Eyeballs in blood (in the fluted glasses),

Vampire teeth with gut dip, pumpkin and bat chips with brain dip, and knobby witch fingers. The kids like to hear what everything is when we sit down, but want to know that we are just pretending before they actually eat anything.

We had spider cookies for FHE treats! (Thanks again to Bakerella!)

Ok I guess that is good for tonight, hopefully it won't take me too long to post the second half of our celebrations!

Last stop before home

After leaving Boise we drove to Riverton to visit our old Springville neighbors. We used to live 2 houses away from the Haynie's. I had a wonderful time catching up with Angie and seeing how much her kids had grown. (thanks so much for letting us spend the night!) In the morning we drove to the airport to pick up Brad. He flew back to drive us back home. Before leaving Salt Lake and the "West" we took the opportunity to spend the morning at Temple Square. We really enjoyed visiting the Church History Museum and checking out all the exhibits there.

After walking around the temple grounds til about 1pm we loaded up in the car and started our long 2 day drive back home. We had a great summer vacation! We can't wait to see everyone again soon!!!