Merry Christmas!

For a long time, whenever Nate asked Grandpa what he wanted for Christmas, Grandpa always said "NATE!" Nate said he was going to hop in a box and get mailed to CA for Grandpa. But since that wouldn't quite work, we went for a wrapped box at the airport. Ash and Sadie ran ahead to meet G and G and said that Nate stayed home with Dad. So they were really surprised when they saw a box sitting there for them to open. Nate had to wait a few minutes and I couldn't believe how still he was. A couple times I poked my head to tell him that they were almost here. Nate would reply "Close it, Mom!!!"

It was a grand surprise! Sooooo fun to have Mom and Dad come for Christmas! Grandpa wore his reindeer ears so the kids could spot him.

We had a birthday party for Grandma while they were here. We didn't have 58 candles, so Dave had the idea to use our 6 and 3 candles to make 63 and then a minus sign, and then 5 candles = 58!

We played this trick at our Christmas party as well. It went over so well, we thought we should try it on Mom and Dad. We wrapped up a box with our snake in it. Rollo is getting big and heavy. Dave snapped the picture at just the right time. Dad dropped/threw the box and and the snake fell out and landed right under Mom's foot. It was quite a moment.

The girls spent a long time making a movie theatre for us. We had movie tickets (with ticket stubs returned to us), all sorts of snack choices, blanket rentals, etc.

The girls with their special dolls from special Karla!

For Grandma's birthday party, Sadie planned a talent show. Nate's talent was telling a dragon story. He got so into the story and acted out what the dragons were doing. Sheriff Dad and Nate came to the rescue at the end and after the people thanked them, they replied "Just doin' my duty."

Mom brought nativity costumes for us to use. Nate was the donkey and took his job very seriously. We heard "hee-haw" the rest of the night.

The day after G and G came, we woke up to a white Christmas Eve and the snow stuck the whole time they were here. That made for a couple snow walks around the neighborhood, buildling a snowman and sledding at the junior high.

Harry Potter snowman...attacking Ashlyn.

Sledding!

Stories with Grandpa!

Ash and I were racing to finish our books. The race started at the beginning of the books. I was reading Harry Potter and Ash was reading Anne of Green Gables. She was ahead the whole time but I came in for the win at the end. We were within 8 pages of eachother for the finish. The girls were about to go to bed, and I knew Ash would climb in bed and read to the finish line. So I ignored the dishes and we sat down to the final race. It was lots of fun. She wanted to win, but was sure happy to finally have her mom reading Harry Potter.

The girls and I made a special quilt for Grandma and Grandpa with pictures and drawings from all of the cousisn. It was lots of fun to make and even more fun to give!

African Feast

At school this week we've been studying about Africa in its earliest years that we know about. In our history book there were several recipes to create an African feast...using ingredients they used way back when. We spent the whole afternoon cooking up our feast. In those days, Africans would often paint shapes on their faces, hands and feet. So the girls made shapes on headbands for us for our costumes. We made so much food that we decided last minute to invite some friends over for our feast.

These aren't food magazine style pictures. I remembered that I wanted to take pictures to remember our feast once we were well into the meal.

Chicken over figs and grapefruit wedges. (Ashlyn's dish)

Papaya fried rice (Ashlyn's dish)

Yams and apples (Sadie's dish)

Date/Banana bars and Date Chewies (Sadie did the bars and we all did the chewies).

The chewies were my favorite.

The girls told/acted out a couple African stories that have been passed down from generation to generation.

Goodbyes :(

We found a wonderful home for our chickens. A family in our ward really wanted the chickens and chicken house. Dave wanted to move the chickens before we put our house on the market (Feb.) and before winter. We were all sad to say goodbye to our chickens.

We were so sad to say goodbye to Lizzy and James. The girls dressed Lizzy up in Sadie's dress and with a necklace for her special early birthday party the night before they left.

They had a toy for James and Lizzy on the cake. The cake was a last minute idea...hence the pudding on top instead of frosting. I didn't have the energy to make up frosting.

Sadie has begged to learn the violin for some time now. When I discovered what a great violinist my friend is, I asked if she'd be interested in teaching us. Lucky for us, another friend had 4 violins that we could borrow...all different sizes. We had our first lesson and couldn't get enough. We're such beginngers but are practicing and can't wait to learn more notes at our next lesson. The girls take the lesson, and then at night the girls teach Dave what we learned.

Ash saw this idea in a magazine and wanted to go for it. It's green colored hummus with veggies, crackers and eggs to make for a spoooky graveyard. We had fun making it together.

The girls have had so much fun playing soccer this fall.

a little history and science at our school

Dave is the girls' science teacher. Boy does he do a good job! He tells me about what they do and I think I need to go to his classes! They are learning some really cool things. The kids can't get enough of it.

My pictures are coming up out of order. Oh well.
I have wanted to attend Wilder Days since we first moved here. It is a day full of celebrating Laura Ingalls Wilder and her wonderful books. We drove southwest to Mansfield, MO (the middle of nowhere) where Laura lived for 60 years and wrote most of her books. My favorite was seeing the cute little desk where she did much of her writing. We got to tour her old home and gorgeous property full of acres of trees and rolling hills. It reminded me just of the Little House books.

There was a Laura look-a-like and farmer boy contest. We all competed. I guess you had to have fancier costumes to win. Not your baptism dress with an apron over it. Oh well, we had lots of fun dressing up! There were so many girls competing. They had to go up on stage one at a time to compete. I told the girls that if they did a little jig when they got in front of the judges, they might stand out and maybe could win. All 3 kids did a jig and I was laughing pretty hard.

Such a TREAT to have Auntie Em come and visit us! Emily is an amazing photographer and took a bunch of family pictures/individuals/pictures of our foster kids. We had so much fun. The kids didn't want to leave her side. They just LOVE having a special visitor. I loved it too! Thanks for coming!

Ash designed this combat uniform for Nate out of material scraps. He looks so tough.

Our history field trip to Mansfield.

Laura Ingalls Wilder's home.

Sadie is a little mama in the making. She begs to take care of the kids. She loves to give them baths and get them ready for bed and read stories. We are all going to miss having these cute faces around!

A few pictures from our trip to CA

Fun visiting our Walton cousins!

Our kiddos at Lake Tahoe

Happy little James

The girls LOVE doing Lizzy's hair!

A wonderful trip to the cemetery.

A fun visit with the Fillmore's

Happy Birthday Nate! He wanted the whole box of candles on his cake...and he got it.

Ash wearing Grandma Shelly's dress-up wigs.

The girls love teaching Nate at our school.

Ashlyn with her huge cabbage she grew.

Nate was a happy little camper at the lake.

Oh what do you do in the summer time?

Sadie had a lot of fun with her book club this summer. They learned about WW2 and when it was our turn to host book club, I taught the girls how to embroider stars. Then we put the quilt together and gave it to a WW2 Veteran. The girls sang a patriotic program even doing some cute actions to the songs.

Of course Jamalex gets a turn with Dave's trick. He sure liked it! He is army crawling all over the place now. Time to get the gate back up!

I got a free night at a local hotel, so I took the girls on a fun girls' night. The girls wanted to paint their nails like a piano, so our first stop was to get some black and white nail polish. Then we headed to McD for an ice-cream cone. We got settled in our room, then went off to the pool and hot tub and had soooooooooo much fun. Then we played Harry Potter Clue, ate lots of treats and watched a really fun singing game show til 12:30 a.m.! We snuggled close and fell asleep while talking because we were sooo tired. The girls spent an hour at the continental breakfast. They got everything they possibly could and took their sweet time eating. I loved my time with them and none of us wanted it to end...except probably Dave who was at home manning the 3 little ones.

We each got to pick a sweet and salty treat. Yum!

We are loving our huge berries! This was what we picked one morning.

And these are the huge berries up close so you can see how big they are!

We saw Bambi in our backyard. Everyone came running (when mama called that Bambi was here) and hurried to the window to watch. We had just finished Saturday night baths - hence all of the wet hair (or fro, in Lizzy's case).

Nate said "Can I hold the little deer?"

"Can we bring him inside?"

I just love the white spots.