Fighting

Another time Emily was talking to me and was telling me how hungry she was. She told me her tummy told her she was hungry, but that her legs didn't say they were hungry because her legs and her tummy were fighting.

Online

Yesterday, Emily was looking at a toy magazine. She kept showing Joe and I awesome toys that she needed. Then she said, "I see all these toys I want online"
I thought it was funny she didn't really know what online was just that on tv they tell you to go online to see things.

Book Giveaway

My friend just recently started a book blog. She is doing her first giveaway for The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks. Go here to check it out.

My newest nephew!

Ben and Sara welcomed Kaidyn Kimball Mefford into the world last Monday, January 4th at 12:29 am. He is a cutie. We love him so much and are glad that everything went well and that he is a healthy little boy. Congrats Ben and Sara!

Rachel's Wedding

Rachel got married on Dec 30th. She really wanted snow so that she would have beautiful pictures and sure enough we woke up to snow! It made the day even more interesting, especially because I had forgotten to bring Maddie's church shoes. I did have a pair of sandles and that is what she wore to walk around in the snow. Rachel's ceremony was wonderful. After her sealing everyone went outside for pictures and then we went over to the church that the luncheon was at. The kids played in the nursery while we talked until it was time to eat. Tim's parents had prepared lasagna, salad, and rolls. They even had Italian sodas which were delicious. After lunch we took the kids to my parent's house and headed over to the church to set up for the reception. Setting up actually went very fast. At 3 pm we did family pictures since we don't know when the whole family will be together again. Then they had wedding pictures at 6 and the reception was from 7-9. Some of Rachel's friends and Jared's girlfriend Kaci watched the kids during the reception so we didn't have to worry about keeping them entertained. It was very nice. Everything worked out well with only a few bumps in our day. Congratulations Rachel and Tim!

Giveaway on Hair blog

The story of a Princess and her Hair is giving away up to $100 to the 1,000,000 page load on her sight. I love her blog and use it all the time for hair-dos for my girls. Check it out at http://www.princesshairstyles.com/

Rachel's Bachelorette Party

Monday was Rachel's Bachelorette party. Before her party was Sara's Baby shower which was lots of fun. She got lots of cute gifts for little Kaidyn. For Rachel's party we went black light miniature golfing and then went to Olive Garden. Rachel had two of her good friends come along, Brook and Erika. She also had Sara, Amanda, our Mom, Kendra (sis-in-law), and Brittany (sis-in-law) and me. I love the Miniature golf place in Meridian because all the painting on the wall looks awesome in the black light. Almost all of us hit the last whole through their number 1 slot which gives you a coupon for b1g1 free the next time you go. I think that the workers didn't believe us when we told them how many of us did it. After we were done eating at Olive Garden we headed back to my parents house and made a sugar scrub to wash our hands with for smooth hands and then we watched Bride Wars. While we were at home with the kids the boys were taking Tim for his Bachelor Party. I am told they had a good time, but I don't know all the details of their party.

Bowling

December 26th my parents were able to watch the kids for us while all of us siblings and spouses (or girlfriend) went bowling. We had a great time. We went to the SUB at BSU and they were doing their black light bowling. Rachel was having a hard time because she had just gotten her nails done that afternoon for the wedding. I think I also go my lowest score ever. I was doing really good at getting gutter balls. Joe talked with me about how I was swinging and I tweaked it a little bit and started doing better, but I still didn't do as well as I have in the past. Here are some pictures to enjoy.

Christmas Eve and Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. We were so lucky to have all my siblings and their families together for Christmas. Emily and Madison had a fun time playing with their cousins and were really sad when it was time for them to leave.
On Christmas Eve we did our traditional Christmas program. Each family brings something to share; a story, movie, song, or whatever they would like to share. Everyone this year did a great job and we sang a lot of Christmas songs too. After the program we eat appetizers for dinner. This year we ate some before and some after. Everyone thought that everyone else would be bringing something sweet so we all ended up bringing non-sweet items. I brought home made taquitos, but I didn't end up making them until later in the week because there was too much that had to be cooked in the oven already.
After snacks the kids got ready for bed and layed out their stockings and then went to bed. Then I started wrapping presents. I was to busy all week doing wedding stuff and snack plates that I didn't have time to wrap presents until Christmas Eve.
Christmas morning we ate pancakes for breakfast and waited for the dishes to be done before we went in to see the presents.
Every year my dad puts up a sheet so the kids can't see what Santa brought until they are asked to come in. (I think he likes to see the expression on their face.) Above is everyone waiting to go in to see what they got. Here is JJ's gift from Santa. He got some Mega Bloks. He loves them and was very upset the rest of the morning because he just wanted to play with them and didn't really care about everything else. Here is Maddie holding one of her presents and Emily opening a present. Below are some more pictures from opening presents.


After presents we spent the rest of the day relaxing and enjoying time with all our family. We ate a yummy dinner together and played Apples to Apples and Hand and Foot. I am so thankful for our Savior and I love that we have Christmas to help us remember his birth. Emily and Madison's favorite part of Christmas was watching the "Jesus Movie" as they call it. The real title is Finding Faith in Christ. They asked to watch it several times and they love to talk about Jesus all the time. Maddie is always telling me, Jesus was baptized, and Jesus Died for me, and Jesus has holes in his hands. I love that they can feel that testimony of our Savior at such a young age.

Gingerbread Houses

We decorated gingerbread houses on the 19th. This is our second year doing it and we have a lot of fun. I made gingerbread for 8 houses. It took quite a while and I don't remember the dough being so temperamental last year. They all turned out good though with some minor burnt pieces. Each adult got their own house to decorate and everyone was asked to bring 2 types of candy to decorate with. We asked that they bring quite a bit of whatever candy they brought because last year we didn't have enough. This year we ended up with quite a lot left over and somehow it all got left at our house. Emily and Madison decorated graham cracker houses, with assistance from JJ. He ended up screaming quite a bit so he was put to bed earlier than them. They really loved decorating their houses and then they got to eat them. I am hoping that we can make this a yearly tradition.

Tim made his retro- and decorated it on its side. It also sports Rachel's name on the back.
This is Rachel's sister-in-law Brittany. She was able to come decorate a house as well. She made a beautiful house which included Santa stuck in the chimney.This is Rachel's beautiful house. She did a wonderful job being creative with the tile roof.
Jared and Caci had to share a house because I was short one. They each took a side to decorate and ended up with quite the conglomeration. On Jared's side the roof ended up collapsing because of the heaviness of the candy.

This is Jared's friend Brendon. His house had a tree fall on it and Santa was climbing up to it to get to the chimney.
This is Sara's beautiful house. She put marshmallow snowmen on the front yard to represent her and Ben. One of them even looks pregnant. She was assured several times by Madison that she was doing a very good job. Here is my house. I had a lot of fun decorating it and tried to include all the candies I might want to eat.

And last but not least is Joe's house. He did an amazing job and included a reindeer turd pile and an in-law igloo for the in-laws to stay in when they come to town.

Emily's Preschool Christmas Party

We have had quite alot going on around here the last couple of weeks and I have been slow at updating. A couple of weeks ago Emily had her Preschool Christmas Party. She had a lot of fun and was so excited for it. Maddie was even excited because we got to join in on the fun. She got really upset when I dropped Emily off for preschool and we didn't go in right then because the party was only the last 1/2 hour of preschool. During the party they decorated gingerbread men, sang some christmas songs, had a book exchange and enjoyed some treats. We have discovered that even though Emily loves to talk to everyone, she gets really nervous in front of a group of people. Most of the songs they sang for the program she had been singing to me all week at home, but you couldn't even hear her during the program. I still thought she was cute though. Here are a couple of pictures. One is the book exchange and the other is during the program.