Christmas Tree through the years

2005 - Wymount apartment at BYU
we bought a little 4 ft artificial tree and figured it would get us through our student years

2006 - 1st Delaware apartment - same tree

2007 - 2nd Delaware apartment - same tree

2008 - same apartment - same tree

2009 - same apartment - same tree

2010 - same apartment  - same tree

2011 - same apartment - same tree

2012 - Texas apartment - same tree

2013 - HOORAY! Texas house - beautiful new 9 ft tree!!!
(and look how BIG all my babies are now!)

Thanksgiving

My blogging gets really sparse when holiday time arrives, but here are some pictures from Thanksgiving. Which was like 2 1/2 weeks ago. Oh well.

My parents and Gran came to celebrate the occasion with us, which was AWESOME. We LOVE visitors, and especially holiday visitors.

McKell became instant friends with Grandpa when he whipped out the Skittles.

We had a difficult time answering the question, "Am I bigger than a mouse?" Um . . . no?

Carrying on my childhood tradition of making spice drop turkeys.

Our food turned out well, and we had a lovely day together. :)

We are thankful for . . .

Over the years we've tried different ways to write down or express all the things we're thankful for during the month of November. This year we brought back our "We are thankful for . . . " posterboard. 

Here's the final product. I love it. :)

And here are a few of my favorite drawings for this year:
(mostly by Ashlyn, because she's REALLY funny)

Russ was out of town when we put up the poster, so when he returned the girls were showing him all the things they had added. Ashlyn told him she drew the sun and the earth and herself. Russ commented, "So, you put yourself at the center of the universe?" So funny, even more so if you know Ashlyn. ;)

Can you tell what all Ashlyn's holiday representations are? holly berries, four-leaf clover, heart, pumpkin, easter egg

Brenna's first additions to the board were, "My Dad, My Mom, and My Baby Sister"

Kaylee drew an individual picture for each school subject. Crazy girl.

And the first thing she put on the board was PIANO. Hooray!

Ashlyn's not ashamed to admit she's thankful for chocolate.

And she LOVES her "SISDRSS". :) So sweet.

We have so much to be thankful for!

Grateful

Here's a sweet paper I found among the schoolwork Kaylee brought home this week:

Poor Baby

McKell has had it pretty rough the past few weeks. Two weeks ago she was cranky and a little feverish. I finally took her to the doctor a few days later - ear infection.

She started feeling better pretty soon after we got her on an antibiotic.

Then this week she's had a runny nose, and Wednesday night she was up coughing quite a bit.

She was doing much better last night and slept great, but woke up this morning looking like this:

Time to go back to the doctor! It's worst on her cheeks, but she's got polka dots over basically her entire body. I thought it might be an allergic reaction to citrus, since she tried oranges for the first time Wednesday and Thursday. However, the doctor said it's due to some virus. Not contagious at this point, and it should clear up in a few days. 

I sure hope this little girl can enjoy some healthy days after this rash is gone. :(

Make It Do

The creativity of children always impresses me.

I came into the kitchen one Sunday evening to find A and B waving their "batons" around while K sang a song. Who knew kitchen stools and cookie sheets could make such nice music stands?

Everything Else Related to Halloween

I'm not really into carving pumpkins (I think because we've been living in humid climates where it only takes a few days for the pumpkin to turn disgusting and moldy), but Russ asked about it this year, so I picked up a pumpkin at the store for Monday's family night activity.

Russ made the girls do the dirty work (except Brenna, who refused to touch any of the inside goop).

While Russ carved, Kaylee practiced her photo-bombing skills (thank you, Studio C).

We named him Chuck.

We had Halloween activities going on Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday night. This pic is from Tuesday, and was the only night Brenna wore her clown nose. She couldn't keep it on. The following night we painted her nose instead, but on Halloween she didn't want anything done with it. So I'm pretty sure most people guessed her costume to be a scarecrow or a hippie by then. Oh well. 

"Mary had a little lamb" was not fond of her bonnet.

Gypsy

50's Girl

Clown

Russ, unlike me, always likes to wear some sort of costume. Your guess is as good as mine in terms of what he was going for this year.

Hope ya'll had a very HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Halloween Eats

This year I tried to be a fun Mom by making lots of Halloween themed food the last week of October. Most items were a success, though there were a few failures as well. 

We are still new enough in our neighborhood that we don't know everyone on our cul-de-sac. So, we decided to deliver some holiday cookies to the 11 other houses on our street for our family night activity on Monday. The cookies were a WIN with the neighbors, and my own kiddos. 

I found this adorable recipe for Candy Corn Quesadillas that I decided to try. My kids eat quesadillas all the time, so I figured they wouldn't mind some cheese, crushed Doritos, and sour cream on top. Wrong. This was my biggest FAIL of the week. Russ and I ate them, and everyone else ate up the few pieces I had left plain for McKell.

We've done Mummy Dogs in the past, and I think they're fun and tasty (definitely a labor of love though, especially if you buy cheap crescent roll dough that falls apart). The Mini-Orange Pumpkins and Banana Ghosts were pulled from a friend's Facebook post. Easy and cute and the kids all love fruit. WIN.

We've also done Pumpkin Pancakes and Spider Sausages in the past. Ashlyn doesn't like pancakes, so I wasn't planning to make any for her. Russ doesn't care for chocolate chips, so I was planning to make some plain pancakes for him. And when I asked Kaylee if she wanted plain pancakes, or pumpkin face pancakes, she said plain. I only made a few pancakes with chocolate chip faces for me and Brenna and I patted myself on the back for catering to everyone's wishes. But when we sat down to eat Kaylee and Ashlyn both grabbed one of my jack-o-lantern pancakes. I was like, "What!? I specifically asked each of you what you wanted, and you did NOT want one of these pancakes." So, in the end they were a WIN, but I was sad I only got to eat one of them. Boo to fickle children.

But hooray for holidays and doing fun things to celebrate. :)