Saturday, January 9, 2010

SANTA!

Is it just me or does this Santa look a little scared?
Our neighborhood (that I LOVE) throws a little Christmas bash up the street from us every year and we actually went this year! They had face painting, hot cocoa, fake snow, a snow slide and of course, SANTA! We had the inside scoop with Santa this year - a professional photographer that is a good friend of mine. Check out her stuff at http://www.suzanneboxphotography.com/. She graciously voided the $5 picture fee. Thanks Suzanne!!!!

More party pics...

Not the best picture but it'll do
Aunt Becca!!!
Birthday girl with her beloved balloons and her kick-ass boots!

Friday, January 8, 2010

Baby #1 Turned 4 on December 13th

My Little Cowgirl
Most of the Crew: Kaitlyn, Spencer, Tanner, Keifer Ellis, Matthew Hare, Kendall, Avery Fereday, Matthew Moss (not pictured Chase, Lauren & Cooper Ellis, Zak & Megan Sury)
Yee-haw!!!!
Kendall and her best buds from school: Keifer & Matthew

My sweet firstborn child turned 4 on December 13th. Currently she loves to sing, thinks that she loves Hannah "Ontana" although she really has no idea who she is, adores school, and smothers her little sister. Tiger and Duck are her bestest snuggle stuffed animals. She really is so darn funny sometimes. When we were getting Avery's cupcakes mixed and put into the pans I was about to put them in the oven and Kendall yelled from the living room (in all seriousness) "try not to burn them mom!" I about fell over laughing but was slightly insulted. She doesn't trust me after the Christmas cookie burning accident.
So for her birthday I came down with one heck of a sore throat and fever - not strep but mimicked it. I was SO happy that we did not have a huge blow out party. I truly hope that anyone that sees these pictures that was not invited is not offended. I love each and every one of our dear friends but we just could not do a party to host 60 people!!!! I'm blessed, what can I say? Anyway, we did just a little shin-dig with a few friends. It was a cold, wet, rainy, dreary day at Clay's Restaurant but I think that the kids still had fun.

Christmas

Twas the night before Christmas...
Unsuccessful attempt at a Christmas Eve picture in matching pjs (blurry Avery).
Christmas morning! Kendall was all about it, Avery just wanted to sit in her wagon.Again - SO OUT OF ORDER!!!! Here are Christmas morning pictures. This year was fun because Kendall actually gets it this year. We put out cookies and I told her that I would put out a drink for Santa...AND HE ACTUALLY ATE THE COOKIES AND DRANK THE BEER!!!! Er, milk I mean.

Good morning Birthday Girl!!!

Every year I take a picture of the girls in their bed on their birthday. It's fun to see how they change. However, I have not gotten Kendall's picture yet because she gets out of bed before me. I'm going to have to make her go back to bed so that I can get a picture! But here's our sweet tired Avery on the morning of January 5th.

Christmas tree

Our tree, in all it's lighted glory. It took something like 10 strands of lights. Jiminy Christmas!
I'm going backwards on these posts but we went to find a beautiful Christmas tree this year. We picked out a perfect one! Well, I should say that Mike picked it out. However this year I found myself being incredibly paranoid about the tree - getting enough water, burning down my house. Maybe because I have 2 more precious beings under my roof? Probably. Nevertheless I'm seriously considering just getting a fake one next year. We'll see.

Oh and did I mention that our beautiful, gorgeous NINE foot Christmas tree FELL OVER one night? Kendall came into our room in the middle of the night and as I walked her back to her room I was thinking of what a mess our living room was. We'd finished folding all of the girls laundry while they were asleep so we left it out on the furniture until morning...anyway, I looked all the way over - something just didn't feel right and hoooooooooooly crap, tree down! 2 ornaments broke (surprisingly only 2) but one was our "I DO!" globe that my mother-in-law gave us the year we got married. I had to get Mike out of bed to help me lift the darn thing up. Upon finding the broken "I Do" globe, I lifted my hands in exaggeration and said loudly "NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! It's a sign!!! The marriage is over!!!!!" Then we laughed and got out the vacuum. What else do you do at 3 am when you find a horizontal Christmas tree?

Baby #2 Turns 1!!!!

Avery turned one on January 5th. I felt guilty for not throwing her a big party (it's mom guilt brought on only by myself). I cried in the morning - it's ridiculous, I know. There are so many other things to cry about. Some days I guess I just feel overwhelmed by all of the blessings I have in my life and feel incredibly undeserving. I'm so happy that I got to see my baby turn 1. It's a huge accomplishment that she is alive (er see blog - What's wrong with this picture?)
So due to my guilt about not having a huge party to celebrate this very special Tuesday, I called my neighbors and a couple of good friends and luckily they didn't have anything to do on that cold winters day and came over! We were joined by: Suzanne Box and her 3 boys Braden, Truitt & Blake (bday buddy); Marsha Mitchell & Jackson; Leslie Simank and Mikah, Gracie, Luke & Eli; Stephanie Bryson and Joseph, Catherine & David.
It quickly became a full house! Avery cried most of the time and then started with a fever that night - great. Found out it was due to a 3 week old ear infection that never went away.
Despite it all, I had fun and it relieved my guilt. It was just nice to have a full house of special friends on my baby's birthday.
Happy! (for now)
With Birthday Buddy - Blake Box. He was born the next day, same hospital.
I accidentally snapped the hat strap against her skin and the crying ensued. Blake is reacting like a typical male "What's wrong with her?!"
Who knew chocolate icing could cause such horror. Cake!

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Snow Princesses

Well, I wrote something but tried to move it twice and dangit, it won't cut and paste...that's what I get for doing this at midnight...Here are just the pictures. I'm tired and hate technology right now.
...Hates having his picture taken but he's so cute...Snow bunny #2 - snow is cold - but fun!

LET ME OUT!!!
Big sister during the first flakes!
Snowman - we FINALLY got to make our own puny one (while running a 101 degree fever). No wonder he melted so fast!


Saturday, January 2, 2010

Kendall's Christmas Program

One video...for you mom! Only a grandmother would appreciate this. It looks totally overexposed on blogger and Landon is standing right in front of OUR STAR!!!! THE NERVE! He's not even DOING ANYTHING! Kendall is hitting almost every other word and ALL of the motions.

T-A-L-E-N-T.

She can write her letters too.

It's beginning to look a lot like....

...my dad's office.

Yikes! Computer screens everywhere!