Merry Christmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2011!

One is lonely number, especially when you realize you have only ONE picture from Christmas. 

And it is the one you used on your Christmas card.

OOPS!

No judging, remember we have already talked about this multiple times,

this is the year that I fell off the wagon as a mother.

Why not be consistent?

But before you condemn me and start throwing eggs at

my house and spraypaint "unfit parent" on my car,

What I lack in pictures Cam made up for with home movies.

Because we all know those will get watched....

The rest of the December highlights...

My very dear friend Susan who lives in Rapid City came to see!  YAY

We spent a wonderful evening at the Washington DC temple enjoying their programs and decorations.

A day in the District topped off with a visit to good ol Abe!



The one little snowman created by Creed in our only snow of the season. so far....
We just moved from South Dakota, so  I don't count out any spring blizzards. 

Who can resist a rare picture of brotherhood.

and for pete's sake the old girl is still looking good why not throw her in here too!

Church Christmas party

Grandma was in town for almost three weeks over the holidays!

She and my Dad came for Thanksgiving and then she stayed to

take care of the boys while we were gone on our redneck honeymoon. hehe

It is always a treat when we get to spend time with the grandparents!

Our ward party was also a real treat. Someone was a genius and had

the all the fixings for graham cracker houses sitting out on all the tables

for kids and families to work on while waiting for everyone to arrive the festivities

to start. Any LDS person will tell you that this time is usually filled with

kids running through the gym and playing on the stage and true chaos.

So this was Brilliant!

Please don't get worried looking at Callan's expression that he didn't get a house. He has that  perfectly good house sitting there on the table, made by yours truly, but  he had fallen asleep in the car on the way there and was too grumpy to participate for a little while.

Our fabulous babysitter has 2 daughters and one of them is named  Chelsea and she and  Callan flirt endlessly and are best buds and will most likely get married someday.
So here they are sitting and watching the primary nativity program.
 A friend of ours made this special hat for Callan out of the napkins because he was sad that he too
didn't have a costume to wear like his brothers. I don't know what kind of character he thought he was, but boy it was a special one!

Creed had the honor of being Joseph in the program. A role he took very serious. He stood their stone faced the entire time and had the appropriate amount of hand/shoulder contact with Mary throughout.

The boys in their getup. Another great use for the Jedi robes my mom made them a few years ago for Christmas!

Red neck honeymoon

Right after Thanksgiving Cam and I got to go for a week out

to the middle of nowhere to finish up some of our training.

Cam kept referring to it as our Red Neck Honeymoon and

oddly enough it was a perfect description.

Except for one night we took the opportunity with some

other couples  to try out this fancy famous HUGE resort and spa

(that  yes, happened to be nearby us in the middle of no where)

and eat at one of their many restaurants on site.

The food and company were great and the main hotel

was designed to replicate the Ritz in Paris.

I have YET to go to Paris so I will have to take their word for it.

But it was beautiful!

If it hadn't been so dark I would have tried

to capture the compound from outside. Amazing!

I haven't seen anything like it. They have their own ski hill, golf course,

off road driving course, fishing, horseback riding, a small zoo. You name

it I am sure they had it are were able to arrange it for you.



sorry more camera phone. :(

RIP Johnny.

This is a picture of our pet and friend Johnny. 

Johnny was a spade foot toad caught as a tadpole by Creed in Idaho and brought

back to South Dakota to eventually move with us a year later to Washington DC.

The fact he survived TWO moves in the middle of summer and THREE rough

and tough boys meant he was one awesome toad.

We also think he was kind of cute.

This is what Johnny looked like when we brought him back from Idaho,

here maybe he wasn't so cute. 

But come on...

Look how adorable this little guy got.

One sad Sunday morning in December we awoke 

to find our little friend had passed on to amphibian heaven.

He had given us a year and a half of fun and joy.

Sad day for the Shirley family.

I think Creeds face says it all, 

poor kid...

Doesn't it just break your heart.

The burial was a sweet tribute where we shared 

what we liked most about him and said a little prayer.

I hope the new owners don't care there is a little red box of bones buried in their back yard.
(and I think there is also a bird buried too somewhere...shh...pet cemetery anyone?)

December highlights begin...

National Harbor is really quite a treasure and

just across the potomac river from our house. It is a fairly new built

up area with great little restaurants, hotels and shops. And it is rarely crowded

due to the fact I am sure that many people haven't figured out how

cool it is. Every weekend  during the holidays they offer some sort of free family event

from fireworks, to performances and more.

However, the Gaylord Hotel (which I think might be the mastermind

behind the whole development) has its fair share of tourist traps.

I should be fair and say that some people really like

paying out the nose for the Dreamworks ice sculpture

experience that they offer every winter,

featuring one of their recent movies.

As for our family though, we weren't as impressed.

Don't get me wrong,

the artisans and craftmanship is truly a talent

worthy of praise and admiration. But the price and the lines

to get in to walk around in what feels like a -50 degree 

dome, wearing smurf blue parkas that go down to your knees, for us adults,

and nearly drag on the floor for the kids, all the while

losing feeling in any exposed extremety kind of

left us feeling...well.... COLD! 

I will give them props for the cool ice slides at the

end of the tour that offered umlimited tries

that is if you wanted to wait in line

and weren't a;ready a  popsicle by then.

Cam and Mack left after one time down

they had had enough, the other two and I

made it a few more.

But, hey,  its another thing in our life that

we can check off our list of DONE THAT!

And I apologize I really need to start taking a decent

camera with me places and stop relying on

my old phone so much. The quality is extremely subpar!

outside waiting to go in see the large dome behind us. That is where all the magic took place.

everything you see is ice. So like I said. pretty talented people out there spending months creating this.

More ice!

these guys are NOT ice but your every loving dressed up characters that hang out at the end hoping you will
spend more money for a professional picture with them. We opted for the good quality phone shot.
Wise choice, I know.

A must stop after any trip to National Harbor is a stop at the Peeps store for lots of free samples and a
good ol' handshake with the peeps guy.

And next to the peeps store and right next to the river they have a " Giant" sculpture partially buried in the sand. So this is obviously the hand sticking outand a there is a head at the top poking out and a knee pretty fun. The kids love to go climb on all the different parts. I would like  to see an arial view of the whole thing, I think it would be pretty cool.