Christmas morning

I guess we had your typical Christmas morning except that Jeff had to leave for work by 8am so we woke the girls at 6:45. Yes, we had to actually wake them up! They seemed genuinely excited about their gifts and Alison never asked why Santa didn't bring a giant T-Rex and Lily forgot that she had asked for a pony. They were happy with all they got and played with their things all day.

As I was going around tonight, picking up after our fun day, I noticed that Lily had put her new money bank, from Grandma Patsy, by our front door with a little sign on a napkin that says "Tips". I guess she's already planning ahead for next year...maybe she'll buy herself that pony!

Christmas Pics

A couple weeks ago we went to see Santa and got our yearly Pictures for free at the bank (Lily asked for a pony and Alison asked for a T-Rex) but today the girls and I hit the mall and what did we see????

Dinosaurs!!!

Santa was there too but it was the dinosaurs that were the hit of the mall today! Alison could not tear herself away from them so I finally gave in and let her get her picture taken with the Dinosaurs. She didn't want to ride them (they were animatronic) but she did want to pet them. To bad there were no pony rides at the mall today for Lily...I'll make that request to the mall for next year.

Merry Christmas to all our friends and family and a wonderful new year!!!

~Aimee

Thanksgiving

I'm glad for food, for friends and cheer

I'm glad Thanksgiving's once a year...

Well this year we had it twice. We had a great time with Jeff's family. thanks to Aunt Barbara and Uncle Dennis for inviting us all over on Thanksgiving.

On Friday the girls and I jumped on a plane to Phoenix and met up with my crazy family for a Thanksgiving feast at my grandmother's house in Mesa, AZ. My uncle Dave played host to all of us and our kids created our own brand of chaos including the stomach flu, which someone brought with them from the Bennett family Thanksgiving.

So after my girls had tons of fun meeting new cousins

and playing with the more familiar ones we finally fell ill on Monday morning as we were preparing to fly home.

Sorry people at the Phoenix airport today who had to witness our puke-a-thon and thank you to all of you who pretended not to notice the six times my children threw up into a stolen ice bucked from the Travel inn.

We finally made it home and no one threw up on the plane! The flight attendants came over to tell me how well behaved my children are....I have to agree, they were so good in spite of how they felt.

I am so thankful for all the love my family shared with me this Thanksgiving weekend and it was totally worth all of us getting the flu!

I love you all!!!

~Aimee

New school pictures

Alison and I got new school pictures a couple weeks ago so I just thought some of you might enjoy seeing them

.

Tonight we went to Jeff's brother Greg's house to have a little dinner and take the kids trick or treating. They live in a cul-de-sac within a circle so it's nice and safe with hardly any traffic. There were a bunch of kids including Lily' and Alison's cousins, Paige, Taylor and Jenna as well as Aunt Stacey and her extended family. When I asked the girls what the best part was Alison said the scary house with the heads and hands hanging around (which she was too afraid to go up to at the time) and Lily said, "Spending time with Paige". It's a nice tradition and once again we had a spooktacular Halloween!

Alison's BOOO-thday party

Today was Alison's 4th birthday party. We had a Halloween theme this year. Alison made some monster artwork for her invitations so I scanned them and used them like clip art on computerized invitations and just printed them out. We invited her whole school class and her primary class plus she verbally invited all her teachers and anyone who has been listening to her during this past month. So we had 16 kids and two of her school teachers plus lots of parents and family members here this morning.

Luckily I persuaded my visiting teacher and a couple of my young women from church to come and help me. We started out with decorating trick or treat bags, next was pin the eye on the monster and a spider ring toss.

Then we did a mummy wrapping race and did a freeze dance to "Purple People Eater". We ended with the Pinata of course and then the eyeball cake and gifts.

The whole party was done in an hour and 15 minutes! Perfect, cause I was exhausted! But Alison said it was the best birthday ever so it was all worth it.

Inside Alison's mind

This story is for all of you who love words, like my mom and Colby. Yesterday in preparation for Alison's birthday, Lily was singing the Happy Birthday song to Alison complete with the alternate ending of...

You live in a zoo, you look like a monkey and you smell like one too. Alison replied with a strait face...

"What does one-two smell like?"

Jack-O-Lantern Teeth

Lily has a perfect Jack-o-lantern smile just in time for Halloween! Tonight she lost tooth #5! I wonder what the tooth fairy will bring tonight....I wonder if the tooth fairy has any quarters in her wallet...

New Pictures of Lily

A couple weeks ago we got Lily's pictures taken. I get the girls picture taken every birthday and then together at Christmas each year. Here are Lily's birthday pictures. She is now a big six year old with missing teeth! We love you Lily!!!

Santa Cruz Weekend

This weekend we took a trip to Santa Cruz. Jeff's parents rented a really nice house near the beach and both of his bothers, Aunt Stacey and the cousins were all there as well. We had some really yummy meals together and the kids all really enjoyed the boardwalk and playing on the beach. Sunday we met up with Geoff & Jenny and thier daughter Abby and we went to the warf for lunch and to look at the sea lions. The sea lions just hand out under the warf and bark at all the people watching them, The girls really had fun "talking" to the sea lions. Thanks to Jeff's parents for a great vacation!

Pumpkin Farm

We went to Bishop's pumpkin farm on Friday and met up with some of the other families from church there. It was a warm day so the girls look a bit wilted in these pictures. Lily has a field trip there tomorrow and Alison has one on the 8th. We have all month to visit again. It's such a great place to hang out in the fall...plus it's free if you don't cave to the pressures to buy a carmel apple or any of the wonderful treats they have there.

Mortified

I got this idea from Colby and thought I'd share in my humiliation. This is the concept I took from her blog...
Has anyone heard about the project Mortified?? I saw the creator on a lat e night show and love the concept. The idea is for people to go through their written treasures from growing up-journal entries, poetry, songs, movie scripts, whatever-and perform or read them to audiences. I saw a few clip of people doing this-it's so painfully funny. This is how Mortified describes what they do:"The project began in the late 1990s when founder Dave Nadelberg unearthed a notably awkward love letter and began sharing with friends. Formalizing as Mortified in 2002 with co-producer Neil Katcher, the project has since sifted through thousands of volumes of otherwise forgotten notebooks, photos, and envelopes in an effort to crack the lid off our cultural shoebox and expose our inner geek. Participants include a wide range of people, from professional performers (comics, celebrities, singers) to total amateurs (architects, ad execs, salesmen) all in the noble pursuit of self-degradation. Personal redemption through public humiliation. There are a million stories buried in the pages of people's lives. Mortified's mission is to simply help people find them.Share the shame."

Here is my journal entry, I was 15. The spelling is really bad, but that's part of the mortification. The poem was written for Mike. What's more mortifying than adolescent poetry...Right???

Best Buddies

This year Lily and Becky have become quite inseperable. When Veronica decided to take a little house hunting trip I jumped at the chance to have Becky over at our place since Lily loves spending time with her so much. Over the past two days they have had a blast! We will really miss the Bartles, we're so sad they're moving but we know it will be great for them!

Sarah the Guinea Pig

Over the Summer we were lucky enough to take home the preschool pet, Sarah the Guinea Pig. She was about 9 years old and had been with the preschool since the beginning. We kinda wondered all summer if this might be her last year and how rough would that be for the girls if she passed while at our house. We really loved having her all summer and she seemed happy here, probably because we fed her lots of fresh dandelions and watermelon and cucumber. We were sad to take her back to school this fall but the girls said hi to her every morning when we got to school but when I got to school she looked sick, her eyes were yucky and stuff. I volunteered to take her home and call the vet to see what I could do, since the other aide is pregnant and shouldn't be handling animals. I called the vet and they said they'd have the Dr. call me back. In the mean time I cleaned her cage and wiped her face with a warm wet paper towel. She seemed better when I put her back in her cage. She wandered around a little then I went to help Ali with the computer and I heard Sarah moving around but when I went back in to check on her she was not breathing and looked dead, which she was. The vet still has not called me back 4 hours later. Alison didn't really seem to care and keeps trying to make jokes to make Lily and I feel better but Lily was just sobbing until a few minutes ago. Alison offered her special shoe box that she decorated to bury Sarah in. So I dug a hole in the back yard and we all said some nice words about how sweet Sarah was and how we love her and will miss her. Alison suggested that she could have her box back and we could see Sarah again if we buried her with her head out of the ground. We didn't do that. I buried her in the box under her favorite patch of weeds by the lemon tree. We talked about what will happen to Sara's spirit and how she's like an angel. Lily said, "but she already was an angel." Lily's right Sarah was the sweetest pet.
Lily just asked me for some chocolate chips because, "that might help her feel better" She is totally my kid!

We love you Sarah the Guinea Pig!

~Aimee

Camera issues

So for those of you who never heard the story, I got my camera just before Lily was born, 6 years ago, for FREE! Yes, free. We bought it at Target but when we got it home realized that it had been used then returned with some pictures on the memory card that were of a naked guy. YUCK!!! So we returned the camera and complained so well that they gave us a new camera and refunded our original money. So therefore it was free. Well, it has been great for a free camera but it's starting to bug me. Everyone else seems to have these beautiful pictures of their kids but my camera just doesn't do a very good job. It's blurry, pixelated and sometimes has those little light orbs around. I would like to think they are really ghosts but I'm pretty sure it's really a problem with my camera. Does anyone know of a good and not too costly camera that I can put on my list for Santa this year?

This is an example of my problem. This is the youth last night at Skyzone.

6 Random Things about me

6 Random ThingsTagged by Colbyhttp://wackywarnocks.blogspot.com/

These are the rules:

1. Link to the Person who tagged you.

2. Post the rules on your blog.

3. Write six random things about yourself.

4. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

5. Let your tagger know when your entry is up.



1. I used to be too afraid to order my own food at a restaurant so I would ask whatever friend was with me to do it for me. When I got to college I made a goal to do more things for myself and I started going to movies alone and other places alone. Now I would love to go someplace alone but somehow I never get the chance.



2. I, like my friend Veronica, like kid music including anything from B-I-N-G-O to Hannah Montana and the Joe Bros. But I have also gotten my kids into the B52s and anything else 80's. It does make for easy car trips as long as daddy doesn't come with us. No kid music for daddy!



3. My sock drawer is never clsed all the way because it is bursting with old socks. Plus I really hate cleaning!!! My mom always said, if someone doesn't like you cause your house is messy then they weren't really your friend.



4. I wish the Twilight books had come out when I was in high school. They totally appeal to my Goth side that was more obvious in those days.



5. I secretly love being in the middle of drama. I don't like the drama to be about me, I just like to hear about it from everyone and hear it from all the sides. I really try not to repeat what anyone has told me but I love to figure it out from all the sides then give advice accordingly in hopes that everyone will come out happy in the end. Like Emma!



6. Although I appear to be pretty realistic I am actually a hopeless romantic, all hearts and flowers on the inside.

Tooth #4

Tonight after a lot of pleading, trickery and finally an accidental bump of the mouth while trying to get one more wiggle from that loose tooth, Lily lost her fouth tooth. It's her top right tooth. With Lily, the drama of the loose tooth is far worse than when it actually comes out, so we are glad to finally be rid of it! The Tooth Fairy better bring somthing good!

YAY LILY!!!

Happy Birthday Paige!

Yesterday we went to Pump it up to celebrate My niece Paige's 6th birthday. She is actually four days older than Lily but because both of their birthdays are so close to each other and the start of school we never end up having their parties on their actual birthdays. The kids all had a blast!

We were also extra excited that Jeff's brother Scott was able to come home from China in time for the party. Scott was in China doing translation to English for a Chinese author. Scott brought home some beautiful Chinese outfits for Paige and Lily and t-shirts for the younger girls. Thank you Uncle Scott!!!!