Christmas is my favorite time of the year. Not because of the presents I normally dont get very many but I love to shop for people and find the perfect gifts. I love giving them to people and watching their faces light up with excitement. This year sadly I did not take any pictures of Christmas day because we got the whole thing on video. I did take pictures of the kids decorating. Aurora was so excited because this year she was able to go on the roof with daddy to put up the Christmas lights.


So here is a picture of my unafriad 5 year old on the roof!


Baby Leif loved the Garland and trying to get him to keep it on the tree was a task! He kept wanting to decorate himself instead.


Here is a picture of me trying to decorate the tree and the kids were helping too.

Leif with the Garland again! ext year I will buy himhis own garland so he can decorate himself if he really wants to.

I hope everyone had a merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving was different this year. Normally most of my family goes out of town and I cook here at home. This year my Uncle Tommy's Family stayed here and we went over to his house and had dinner there. It was a lot of fun. After dinner we attempted to play Pictionary and cranium but it was too hard to get everyone organized we still had fun.



Sadly my husband was not feeling well and spent most of the time on the couch with a stomach ache or in the bathroom. Poor guy!

My handsome son Leif
My uncle Tommy and Aunt Lisa. I am on the end and Erica has her back to us
My cousin Kyle and his friend. I cannot remember his friends name I think its Joel :(
Here are Jaycelyn and her friend Tessa. They are so much fun they remind me of what it was like when I was in High School.

Aurora and Baby Leif sitting and eating at the "kids table"
Here is a picture of my aunt Lisa and I setting the table and my friend Erica is sitting down. I loved Erica's shirt it was pink and brown stripes.

Here is the "kids table" my cousin Jayce and her friend Tessa and Aurora and baby Leif all sat at this table. Really Leif kept wandering over to see what mommy was eating tough.

5 years old with 25 years experience!

On Nov.23, 2008 my Husband turned 30! But I have decided he is not 30 he is 5 years old with 25 years experience! Leif has been dreading this moment in his life for a while. We decided to have a completely irresponsible night without the kids. My uncle Tommy's daughter Jayce babysat the kids for us overnight and we had a few friends come over to BBQ throw darts and drink with us. We don't allow smoking in our house and our dart board is in our garage so most of these pictures are in our garage. Even though we spent most of the time in the garage we still had fun.

My old room mate Keely and my cousin Jessica

Here is Blane throwing Darts in the Garage.

Here is one of me and my cousin Jessica

This is one of my favorite pictures of me and my husband. He is such a sweetheart.

Just us girls. We later noticed that everyone was wearing black so we decided it was a mourning the loss of the 20's party. (Everyone in this picture has come to stay with me at on point or another in their lives. )

This is our room mate Erica and our friend Blane. I love Blane's expression he looks goofy happy.

This is one of my co-workers and good friends Tammy. I am so glad she came and hung out she was so much fun. Someone was smoking and I thought the effects looked really cool on the picture.

This is Leif's best friend Charlie and I don't think I have one picture of this guy without his middle finger up!

"My Mother in Law"

The Dreaded Mother In Law!

Anyone who really knows me knows that I love to do the exact opposite of what I am told. Let me give you an example; I DO NOT HAVE A DIAMOND IN MY ENGAGEMENT RING! Yes this was my own choice. I have a very beautiful emerald. When I was in college everyone got a Sidekick and I got a Treo. I like to do things my own way and I like to stand out in the crowd. What does all of this have to do with my mother in law?

I am not the kind of daughter in law that hates her mother in law. As a matter of fact I love my mother in law. When my husband and I talk about her I just call her mom. She has such a kind spirit and I think she is one of the most wonderful people I have ever met. My husband and I are so very proud of her for taking a leap of faith and moving to Iowa to get her life back in order.

She just recently sent us these pictures and when my husband saw them he asked if I would please post them on our page because he likes them so much.

So this is my mother in law "Kat" and we love her very much!

Here are the pictures of Leif's 2nd Birthday and they are actually in backwards order so start at the bottom.


He didn't blow out his own candles, after mommy helped him he tried to blow them out again! Next year we will get him some trick candles and see how he does with them.


Its hard to see but it was a Curious George cake for his curious George party.




Leif enjoyed opening his presents, he got some great clothes and wanted to try them all on as we opened them.





We played pin the butterfly on George. This is our friend Charlie's daughter Tera.






Here is our friend Keely's Son Quintin he was so cute. Believe it or not he is only 6 months older than Leif. I wish I had a picture of them side by side so you could compare.





Aurora 's turn she was no where near George.

Aurora getting spun around

This is Keely's other son Addison and he won the game. He was so accurate I think he could see.

Our neighbor Kaylee's turn

My Niece Ravyn, she was peeking a little bit though on her turn.

The Birthday Boy Leif I thought he was the cutest of them all.

We didn't spin him he was already wobbly!

Playing in the backyard during the party with his new jeep.

The jeep was the hit of the party!

On a Big boy swing and loving it!



Leifs Jeep

Leif got his jeep the Wednesday before his birthday party but, it was so cold I did not let him take it outside. So here they are on Wednesday night in the Garage.

I just love this picture. He has the cutest smile when he decides to wear it.

His jeep is so cool. It goes in forward and reverse and it makes starting sounds and has a horn and blinker! My favorite thing about it is that it has a radio and so when he is driving he can jam out to music.

He loves it and he has told me everyday when we go to daycare that he wants to drive. Maybe next weekend we can drive to the park.

Going in Reverse and looking back just like Mommy does when she drives.

The tailgate opens and so they were putting stuff in the tailgate and looking underneath. I don't know why they were looking underneath.

A little unsure of what to do!

Halloween 2008

I told Aurora this year that for as long as I could I wanted her and brother to match costumes. Last year they were flounder and Ariel from the movie the little mermaid. I am so proud of Aurora this year because we had a hard time getting costumes. This year she wanted to be the Incredible's and this was a much harder task for me than I anticipated. Leif was too small to be Dash and I could not for the life of me find a Jack Jack costume that was in my price range. I thought I would make the costume myself but I did not manage my time very well and did not have enough time to make it.

We went to the costume store in hopes that I could get a Dash and hem it. The first costume store we went to was Party City and there were no Incredible Costumes at all. We headed over to Spirit which is a dedicated Halloween costume store. They did not have any incredible's, Drat. I told Aurora they did not have her costume and she would have to pick something else. She decided to be an Angel and brother could be a Devil. If you know my kids you understand how perfect these costumes were.

Spirit is a little expensive so I told aurora that we would go back to Party City so I could save some money, always a good thing in my opinion. Back to Party City we went and when we arrived they were sold out of Angels in her size. So I didn't get to save any money and probably spent more money on gas going back and forth between Party City and Spirit.

But here are pictures of my little Angel and my little Devil and I have to say that Aurora rocked this costume it is by far my favorite one yet.













This was before we started trick or treating and they were so cute.














On a side note Aurora just recently got the new movie Tinkerbell and said she wanted wings like Tinkerbell and I told her she had wings, she informed me, "those wings don't work, they don't move and we need some magic"

Daddy did not go trick or treating with us he stayed home and handed out candy to all our trick or treaters. We have very generous neighbors and the kids only had to go around the block once before their buckets were full.

Leif was too cute while he was trick or treating this year. He did not understand it at first. The first house we went to, we knocked on the door and he kept looking back at me as though to say, "What are we doing here and why do I have to wear this?"

What do you think happened next? They opened the door and put candy in his bucket! Then we went onto the next house and guess what? They put candy in his bucket! By the third or Fourth house he understood and he took off leading the way.

The kids buckets were so full that after a block they were done and ready to go home.

We did carve pumpkins this year but I did not think to take any pictures of us doing it.

McCall's Land and Cattle Co.

Every year since Aurora was 2 we have gone to a place that we call McCall's Pumpkin patch. It is a family owned and operated farm that is about an hour and a half from our house. Normally we just go ourselves but this year D.J. was in town and so he and his girlfriend went with us. We also had some of our other friends who live in town go with us this year as well. There was also a Maize Maze and I wanted to post a picture of the maze but I lost my picture with a view from the top.

I love this place because they change at least one activity every year. I did not get as many pictures as I would have liked because the batteries in my camera died. This was Aurora going down the giant slide and this year they added the white smooth surface so the kids were really flying!

This was just outside Animal Alley and as you can see Aurora is a Scarecrow!

This "little" guy who as you can see is not so little sits at the very top of this thing and waits to be fed. I am assuming that he gets fed all day by the kids. I know my kids really enjoyed sending the food up to him and watching him eat it.

Here are the kids in our group from left to right: Tera, Aurora and Leif. If you look close you can also see DJ and G in the background too.

Charlie, Tera, Leif, Baby Leif, Aurora and DJ all had a duck race. You had to pump the water as fast as you can and try to get your duck to the end fastest. Some of the kids needed help and so did some of the adults too. It was much harder than it looks.

D.J. is so silly he rode the cow train with the kids!

Who wouldn't want to ride a lawn mower painted like a cow?

Baby Leif did not want to ride alone and Aurora was with her friend Tera and so Daddy got in with him! As you can see so did Uncle DJ right behind him.

These two Angels are leading the pack! Aurora and Tera in the front cow.

Here we are at the country store. Leif found a chair that was just his size and Aurora as you can see bit off more than she could chew!

Here are Aurora Tera and Leif on the haystacks posing for me and of course none of them are looking at the camera!