Merry Christmas!!

We have counted our blessing this holiday and have tried to do for others as much as possible. It breaks my heart to have my neighbors cry over money and other friends tell me of hardships they are having and I wish I could help more. We have drilled into our kids how thankful we are that daddy has a job and we have a house and food. Poor Conner prays every night that we can keep our job and house so maybe we over did it a little but I just want them to realize how much they have. I have resorted to only buying presents on birthdays and Christmas for this reason so some days they think they are so deprived.
This next year we resolve to do more as a family that doesn't include money ie: going to the park instead of the movies or bike riding instead of going out for dinner. We will see how it goes. Good luck to everyone on their new ambitions for the year 2010

What is Love?

No this is not some sappy entry about love it is about Nickolas quest. After seeing Chipmunks the Squeakle she was singing in the car, "I wanna know what love is... I want you to show me." She then pauses and says "no mom, really I wanna know what love is, really what is it." I told her its when you find someone that you want to be with all the time like mom and dad we love each other. She says, no I love daddy you can love him too though. Thanks for sharing your daddy Nic

Lesson learned

Zackery likes to ride on the back of cars while they are moving. Mom warns him to be careful and that he can get hurt. Well one Weds while i was having a combined scout meeting (so there were lots of cars coming and going) he decided to lay on the back of someones van. This mom was not aware of him and took off, leaving Zack rolling down the street. I just figured he learned a valuable albeit painful lesson. Dar showed up shortly after that so I let him tend to Zacks wounds and that is where these pics came from...cool huh!

He and Dar came up with a cool story about him getting attacked by coyotes. He went to school and told his story quite convincingly because when I went up to the school later the aide told me some teachers where very concerned about the attack and the story was now up to 5 coyotes. I had parents calling me with concern after what their child had told them. So I have learned my son is quite the storyteller and I will remember that when he is a teenager. Truthfully though, coyotes are much cooler than rolling off a bumper.

Winter sing

Conner loves to sing so each year when his school has the winter and spring concerts, he is always excited to go. He even got to tell jokes during one of the class changes. Good job Con!

Zackery tends to fight me about going. He always goes and has a great time but getting him there is the challenge. This year he wouldn't wear his Christmas shirt because "stripes are for dorks" , in case you didn't know. Then he wanted to wear his sweat pants, I compromised and told him if he wore dressy pants he could wear his red shirt. As we are walking out the door I told him to grab his black shoes. We get to the concert and I notice he has on his black tennis shoes not black dress shoes which he replies "you said black shoes". My pet peeve: tennis shoes and church pants, so just remember when you see a boy wearing this don't judge the parents to harshly because he may just be a head strong 10 yr old boy.

The concert was great though even though we had to clear out of the bldg for a while because someone pulled the fire alarm...... at least it wasn't mine!!

I love Halloween!!

I grew up having block parties. Each year the neighbors and I have tried to pull one off but it never happened until this year!! Between 5 of the houses on our street there are 17 kids of all ages. Most night when the weather is cool you can find all the kids riding bikes, playing and us adults visiting. It reminds me of my street growing up. We had such a good time eating bbq, playing games and then went trick or treating!!

What a good looking group.

Even though I kept reminding Con he was just a vampire, he was convinced that he was Edward just with black hair..... not to self, black hair spray needs to be sprayed outside to avoid a black film all over the bathroom and expect to clean a ring off the tub after days of washing it out!

I enjoyed making this costume!

Of course I love making Nics costumes each year. I always get so excited to buy all the cool, shiny and silky halloween material and then I grit my teeth while sewing on it and ask myself why I buy this stuff but then when it is over I feel content and will probably buy this nightmare material again next year!

We have started a pumpkin carving tradition with us and my brothers family. We all love going to get the pumpkins, eating dinner and then we get to carving. Our kids have gotten quite good at it and really enjoy it. D gets into it just as much at the kids. The only down side is with our heat they always seem to shrivel by Halloween. Kandy told me to put vaseline on them right after we carve them and it helps so that is on our to do list for next year!

Conners dragon

Nickolas cat

Zackerys clone trooper

Dad, this one is for you.

This is my new hairdo. When I wear ponytails and pull it back everyday, I can't justify keeping is long....so I went and had it chopped and layered and thinned. I love it. This is also a tribute to my dad.

I attended 6:00am seminary growing up because that was all we had, no release time. I was usually late and sometimes drove fast. I inevitably got a speeding ticket. Instead of getting angry, my dad wrote up a contract which included me getting a "low maintenance haircut" (since I was late because I took to long doing my hair). So I had to be under contract to cut my hair. This time there was no contract!