It's Official

Actually, I didn't join the guard. Timing wasn't right, and at this point, probably never will be. Now, more than two months after the fact it didn't seem right to have the last entry be misleading.

Snow!! Time to make a Snowman!

Snow right before Christmas! The kids were excited to get out and play and Mark and I convinced them that a snow man would be a fun thing to do. It helps that it was a LOT of snow, and snow that was great for packing.

Emily trying out her new coat and boots from Grandma

Shelly checking out the driveway


The snow was so deep!! Jason was fun to watch while he tried to walk in snow that deep!

Toto - how does he even walk through that?

It's almost up to her knees :)

Snow angel while we wait for Daddy to get back from feeding the cows to help with a snowman.


She's mostly got the coordination down...

Such original artwork!

Daddy's back and he brought Ethan to play! Time to build!

Emily would have been up to her waste in the snow, so she spent most of the time watching from the porch.

First ball - check

Time for the second


Don't tell anyone - but the second ball kinda fell off...


At least he was one of the more loved snowmen out there. He got quite a few 'hugs'

Jason didn't last. Daddy took longer than we thought getting back from feeding, and Jason was done before snow man building really even got started.

Shelly and Ethan though - they had a lot of fun!

Trying to clean up all the dead leaves and grass that were poking out...


Giving the snowman arms. Emily did come out to play for a little bit once there was a clear spot for her to stand in.

Burr?

Ethan sharing snow with Emily. So thoughtful!

Cheese!

She is not amused. (name that Dr. Who episode!)

Making sure the 'arm' is right

Ta Da!! Snowman!
(like the leaves for eyes? He kinda looks like he has a marshmallow for a head...)

Ethan's School Christmas Program

Ethan's first grade class put on a Christmas Program that we got to go to. It was super fun to watch all these 6 and 7 year old singing fun Christmas songs. We got some video, but the files were all too big for this site to let us put them up. It's too bad - they were stinkin cute!!

Ethan is in the back row, second from the teacher

Jason is bored during a short break while they switched songs.

Shelly was excited to see her cousin! Jason got caught in the middle...

Ethan with Aunt Nanon (really she's Mark and JB's cousin, but that's not the point)

Ethan is trying to hard to put up with Shelly... :) He's a sport!

Mark and Emmie Sue

JB, Ethan and Shelly enjoying each other after the performance

Here's us! (my belly is just starting to show)

And Grandpa - The only one without a picture is the one behind the camera - Grandma...

Talking Time with Mrs. Clause

Jason has been going to speech therapy through the school district in the form of Talking Time. He quite enjoys going every week. They start each session in a group where they sing a few songs, focus on a sound and then read a book with that sound in it. Then it's craft time where the kids get to make a craft related to the book while the 2 teachers each take a child in shifts for individual time. Then they get back together for the goodbye song.

The week before Christmas Break there was a special visitor. Mrs Clause came to give the kids a present and talk about some fun stuff about the kids (from a paper the moms filled out the week before)

Here's Jason taking his turn with Mrs. Clause

She gave each child a copy of the Gingerbread Man book with a recipe on the back. The kids pestered us for days until we broke down (and found the time) to make some gingerbread cookies. I had to go on a hunt for a gingerbread man shaped cookie cutter, and we had to fake it with some play dough toys. Don't worry, we washed them well before they touched the cookie dough.

Making Christmas Ornaments

Becca let us have one of her old fake Christmas Trees since she and Bryan have decided to go with only Real Christmas Trees. The only problem was that we don't have any ornaments. I could have gone and bought some, but we are on a student budget, so I thought we could try our hands and making some. I found a few ideas online and set the kids to work - two birds style. Entertain and distract the kids - and - decorate the house with fun memories!

This idea involved painting some popsicle sticks and gluing them into a snowflake shape. Out came the paints and painting shirts! Our table mostly survived... The one downfall to not getting the newspaper. See our homemade advent calendars in the background? There's the big one and two small ones above it. The kids loved those! Thank goodness for printers and brilliant people in the online world who are smart/talented enough to do most of the work for me!

Jason used more water than paint, but that didn't stop him from having fun

Shelly had a lot of fun with these and asked to make more of them for days...

Random Stuff

Here's some completely random pictures from all sorts of times/places. I just didn't want to put them all on their own post... I'm lazy like that.

Katie came to visit and slept on the air mattress... I think this is the last time it was used, but at least it went out with a bang!

Before we moved from CA, Shelly was spotlighted in Primary. This is the plate that she got with fun facts about her. She calls it her 'special plate' and loves when we pull it out for her to eat on.

The kids were keeping Emily company one morning and decided she needed lots of stuff in her crib with her. She still has her pacifier, so this must be before she turned about 14 months, cause that's when we took it away from her.

Jason looks like he has eye make-up on. I think he had a black eye, but it was so long ago I don't remember now.


Here's Emily about a week after she started walking. She's not quite 13 months old here.

Jason in Talking Time. Mrs. Clause came to visit that week and gave the kids a present and told some fun facts about them. It was cute!

He's been doing really well with Talking Time. I think he would do better if I could get my act together better with practice time...

Shelly Turns 5!

Shelly turned 5 yesterday! We had a fun party for her with the Schofields. Becca also made Shelly a cake, but I don't have pictures of it... I'll have to see if I can get Becca to send me those. It was a cool cake, and the kids had fun.

Aunt JB helping Shelly not have hideous 3 day bed head for pictures (Shelly only sometimes lets me do her hair without a fuss... It's often not worth the fuss)

Silly Goose!

I'm sure she got that from her dad, and not from me.....

Waiting for the cake

See, Shelly gets it from the Schofields! Ethan is my proof.

She's trying to wait so patiently for us to finish singing so she can blow out the candles

Make a wish!

Those strange tombstone looking things on the cake are Reese's Christmas trees, couldn't you tell?

Emily enjoyed her piece

Shelly opening presents from Grandma and Grandpa

Fun dress!

Awesome craft box! Thanks for the presents!