Christmas Pictures

Well we took our Christmas pictures on Saturday. Actually I should say Ellie took our Christmas Pictures!! She did an excellent job!

We decided to have a western theme this year. Which some of you might find as odd, since I am not really the western type. Chris is. He was excited I chose this. No Spencer this year in our pictures. I was excited I chose this. HA!!

We took them at Eagle Mountain Park. If you have not been there, you should go. It is a beautiful place...and if you go, this might happen:

That is right, this little baby deer (fawn) came right up to us and let us pet it! It was amazing! And totally cute!

Here are a few of the pictures I liked best, but I will not be posting my favorites, you will have to make sure I have your address so you can get a Christmas card with the actual picture in it! Ha! Merry Christmas!

See the lake?

Surrounded by Charlie Brown Christmas Trees (as I like to call them)

I wish we would have noticed the grass and branch in the way!

Ellie caught us in a midair skip!

Craft Time with the Girls

A Baby Changes Everything...

A new song I love...here are the lyrics. Go to my myspace and take a listen or google it.

Faith Hill – A Baby Changes Everythng

Teenage girl, much too young
Unprepared for what’s to come
A baby changes everything

Not a ring
On her hand
All her dreams
and all her plans

A baby changes everything (x2)

The man she loves
she’s never touched
How will she
Keep his trust?

A baby changes everything (x2)

And she cries, oh she cries
Ooh, oh

She has to leave, go far away
Heaven knows she can’t stay
A baby changes everything

She can feel it’s coming soon
There’s no place,
there’s no room
A baby changes everything (x2)

And she cries, and she cries
Oh, she cries

Shepherds all gather 'round
Up above,
Star shines down…

Choir of Angels sing
Glory to the newborn king
A baby changes everything (x2)
everything, everything, everything

Hallelujah x4

My whole life has turned around
I was lost, but now I’m found

A baby changes everything, yeah
A baby changes everything

Happy Thanksgiving!

I was just informed that we are allowed to leave work at one today if we skip lunch! WOO HOO! Happy Thanksgiving!!

I hope that all of you enjoy the time you are given with all of your extended families!

A few things I am thankful for:

• a loving Savior, Jesus Christ
• my loving husband, Christopher
• family
• good friends (Jamye, Ellie, Jennifer, Connie, Anjolee, Stevie, just to name a few...)
• a home
• a stable job (something to be thankful for in this economy)
• enough money to pay the bills
• sweet, sweet nieces and nephew (I know they are part of my family, but they deserve special recognition...hehehe)

Oh what a wonderful feeling...

That is right, a wonderful feeling...you know why?


Well because Chris and I FINALLY got the guts to fill shoe boxes this year for Operation Christmas Child. Our church does this every year and every year we say we want to do it but the time comes and goes before we realize and we miss out. Well, not this year!! We got our boxes from church last Sunday and we will be bringing them back this Sunday! We are so excited to give gifts to small children across the world. To read more about this awesome ministry click on this link http://www.samaritanspurse.org/index.php/OCC/


Here are our boxes:






















We decided to do two boxes...one boy and one girl. We chose the age range of 5-9. Want to know what we stuffed these with? Well here it is:


Boy Box:
3 mini Christmas puzzles, 3 bars of soap, 6 washcloths, 1 ball, 3 cars, 1 truck, 3 traffic cones (that go with the vehicles), 8 tic-tac containers, 2 veggie tales tooth brushes, 1 tube of Aquafresh, 1 crayola doodle pad, 8 Dallas maverick themed colored pencils, 1 NBA themed pencil bag, eraser, sharpener and ruler, 4 packs of gum, 1 Mavericks themed spiral notepad with pen, 4 shrek themed automatic pencils and 6 push pops.


Girl Box:
1 baby doll, 2 bars of soap (the 3rd one just wouldn't fit no matter how hard I tried), 6 wash cloths, 6 push pops, 8 tic-tac containers, 1 crayola doodle pad, 1 tinkerbell themed box of crayons, 1 care bear themed pencil bag, sharpener, eraser and ruler, 8 princess themed colored pencils, 4 packs of gum, 3 mini Christmas themed puzzles, 18 care bear themed hair ties, 2 veggie tales tooth brushes, 1 tube of aqua fresh, 12 sets of care bear themed stick on earrings, and 3 care bear rings to match.





All sealed and ready to go! Merry Christmas kids!

Saturday

Saturday Connie, the girls and I went to the Botanic Gardens and then to Casa Manana to see The Stinky Cheese Man and other fair(l)y (stoopid) tales - and yes that is exactly as it is printed on the program. It was HILARIOUS! Even more so funny because there is a cast member that I went to school with so it adds to the hilarity of the program. I highly recommend this one to all people - children or not...if it is still playing. Here are some pictures from our adventure to the Botanic gardens.















The girls and I on our picnic blanket...we had a "sonic" picnic at the Botanic Gardens















Connie & the girls




















Mia and Jules trapped in a vine...AHHH - that is what they were doing in this photo...screaming!!





















Jules trapped in the vine...she doesn't look so scared!
















Mia stopping to smell the roses





















Checking out the turtles in the pond

And here is a video of Mia dancing at Casa during the intermission. She LOVED this play!

Halloween & Heart stopping moment...

Halloween - a time to give out candy and see all sorts of kiddos in crazy costumes.

This year Chris worked nights, so my parents came over and we (mostly me) handed out candy and entertained Atlee while Laci went to a costume party :) Laci dressed up as Jennifer Love Hewitt...and looked pretty darn good!! The first thing Mia said to her when she walked in the door was "Laci you grew your hair long" HAHAHA! Laci had on a hair piece to make her hair longer...kids just don't understand that sorta thing...I could see how that would be confusing, but it was funny nonetheless. Mia said she loved giving our "customers" treats. Hehehe! Our trick-or-treaters were customers! Here are some pictures from our evening.

The little Chicken and I

Jennifer Love Hewitt


















Jules, Mia & I












LOOK a new one of Connie & Levi!!! And Connie's new pixie hair do!












Spencer in his costume! HA!














A pretty ballerina, a rock star and a silly chicken!














A pretty ballerina, a rock star and a GANGSTA chicken! Haha! Atlee cracks me up! She is so hard to get to smile when we take pics!!








Now for the heart stopping moment: Chris is converting our deck (that used to be on the edge of the pool that we removed) into a play ground/club house of sorts for the kids. Well he added a new climbing wall feature of sorts to it this past week and the girls just had to go test it out. They think it is so cool that this will be their area to play. Well you see Chris is not finished and so the side that used to be open to the water is now just open to the ground. He has started on a railing, but is not finished. The girls really wanted to play so we moved the excess wood pieces to the side and gave them flash lights and let them play. I gave the warning not to get close to the edge and to pay attention where they were walking. They played up there really well for about 30 minutes I would say. THEN Atlee all of the sudden does some sort of sit/lean thing backwards towards the edge and off she goes flat on her back on the ground below. Instant crying and me running towards her, my heart stopped at this moment wondering what she hurt, because she HAD to hurt something and WHY did I let them play up there?! I rush to her pick her up and take her to the back porch where I give her to mom. We are all trying to get her to tell us what hurts while she is just crying and crying. Well then she finally gathers a breath and tells us "my whole body" we had to laugh even though she was obviously hurt, but we checked all bones and every inch of her body and found nothing but a red mark on her elbow and a couple little ones on her back. If I would have fell from that, I most definitely would have jammed or broke something. Kids are so resilient...not that I want to test their resiliency. Since she fell in a pile of sand I think that must have helped cushion her fall, but she was COVERED. So off we go to put her in the bath. I found nothing else wrong with her and she was back to her normal crazy self in no time. She did leave my tub with a sand ring around the bottom though. When Chris came in at the end of the night she said "Chris, I fell and it cracked me up!" She is so nutty! We said, you weren't cracking up, you crazy girl!! Sheesh! I think she is fine.