Christmas

So sparkly! I love having a tree up all month. We put ours up Thanksgiving weekend and keep it up a few days past Christmas. I keep the lights on all day everyday! In fact if I saw the lights off I told the kids there would be no presents, so they raced each morning to be the one to turn on the lights. It was fun.

Here is the pre-morning mess "beauty" shot. All is calm....

We spent Christmas day at home this year. Mom, Dad, and Deb went to Michelle's in Idaho. Karen and Karolyn came over for presents and cinnamon rolls (yes I made them. For the first time EVER!). We had fun opening presents and playing with the kids. We didn't do a big dinner. We just snacked and enjoyed the day. What a great day it was.

Let the crazy mess begin!! This was the first year we did not have to wake up kids. They were up at 6:30! AWESOME!!!

Connor was THRILLED to get sillybands in his stocking.

Cody was so happy to get a new leapster game.


Elizabeth got the doll she has asked for all year!

MORE legos. Who would have guessed Tyler would get more legos!!

The little boys even got their own legos. Here is hoping there will be less lego wars. (Cross your figures too then maybe it will happen.)


We have WOODY!!!

and BUZZ!!!!!

Elizabeth also got the horse to go with her doll. I believe she wanted the horse more!


All the kids got a new game for their DS or leapster.

Karen AKA LEGO MASTER! helping Tyler put together his new set.

Me doing one of my top five favorite things...READING (Karen got a new book, but I read it first!)

So I can only stand the chaos so long. By Tuesday the living room was back to normal. Ok so way cleaner than normal. I was sitting there thinking , "Wow, it is so clean and peaceful." Then I looked at the kitchen and just started laughing. WHAT A DISASTER AREA! Nope the will be no pictures of that. LOL!!

First Day of school

Tyler is in 3rd grade this year. He is in Mrs. Burger's class. She teaches a 3/4 split Quest class. Quest is our district gifted program. Yes we are proud!

Elizabeth is in 1st grade this year. Her teacher is Miss Mitterholzer. She is so smart. She has new reading glasses for this year. It took he forever to pick out her outfit. She LOVES cloths!!

And the green grass grow all around!

In August we hydro seeded our back yard. After taking out trees and the play house we leaved it, and brought in ALOT of dirt. Then we hired someone to hydro seed it.

Before

After (these pictures are taken in late September)

AHHHHH Grass!!! My kids are SO happy.

The ants go marching one by one...

hurrah hurrah!!

SOOOO.....this so does not show how BIG the swarm of ants was. I didn't get a picture until James had already went bug spray crazy.t the back door and saw a LONG line of ants walking across the deck we followed them to the bathroom wall. The wall had turned to mush. FUN!

The good news(I know really) is we had already planned to replace this wall and had almost everything already bought. Bad news was that now we also had to get an exterminator $$$$ :( .

The window is out. Doesn't he look happy?

Dad is here to laugh at us and help. We had a great view from the potty.

So here is the finished product. It took way longer than we thought. James learned more than he wanted to about plumbing and I have never been so grateful for my shower!!

August Oh August!!!

So we had THE WEDDING, THE HEAT WAVE, THE ANTS, yard work, and SCHOOL. This post will focus on.......

THE WEDDING!

Our friends Rob and Mary are parents to a wonderful little dork named Hollie whom we love. Well Hollie went off and fell in love with Ryan and so we had a wedding. It was the weekend from hell but it turned out heavenly. James was the photographer. Here is my FAVORITE picture. There were tons but this was my favorite. I even ran and got it printed and framed for their reception.

And the .........

The HEAT WAVE.

It was awful hot humid and gross. I have no other words. I will take Arizona in August over those days. Those of you who live or have lived in Arizona understand. I love dry heat but those days were not dry AT ALL!! We sat around like zombies in a blacked out fan crazy house. NUTS!! We did visit a friend who has a pool and had a great time! (Thanks Carly!) We also played in the sprinkler.

Tyler

Elizabeth doing some crazy water dance.

Connor knows how to cool off!!!

July ended with a THUD!

We took down three of our ten back yard trees. James' best bud Rob came and chopped them down for us. It was two plus weekends of crazy hot messy work. The kids helped clean up the mess too (their choice for the most part) and they enjoyed watching the whole tree dropping business.

Then we took down the play house or toy garage as Tyler called it. What a mess. Again it was a family affair.

James and I got to grind out the stumps. Ohh Ahh! Then the big boys (James and Rob) took the bobcat to the yard and leveled it out.

So that wraps up July!

July.....in a nut shell

July 1-July19

Well July started off with a bang!

Daddy took all the kids on rides. Connor kept asking for Dad to go faster!

Cody making sure he stomped all hid pop-its!

Ryan was so cute helping the little boys with their sparklers.

We spent the eaving out at Rob and Mary's as is our norm for the 4th. The kids had a blast. And besides lighting a tree on fire the night went great!

On July 8th:

Auntie (no my kids do not call them auntie lol!) Karen and Auntie Deb took Tyler and Elizabeth to Seattle for the day.

There are ton of these crazy pigs all over Seattle!

The main attraction for the day was the Seattle Aqurium.

I guess Tyler thought he otter take a nap. Ha-ha-ha!

Elizabeth playing Next Top Model!

This is on the train coming home. Elizabeth was napping. She looks a little out of it. LOL!!

The Next Day

Then the next day they took Connor and Cody to Point Defience Zoo & Aqurium.

Aunt Deb and the boys. (Connor yellow/Cody blue)

The big FISH!

Con-man peacking through the log! He is so fun!


The Next Week

The following week Tyler started Scouts with a BANG at scout day camp. He had a blast!! He made a flower box, shot bows & arrows, shot BB guns!! And oh so much more.

No pictures sorry.

That Thurday (July 16th) Tyler turned 8!!! WOW!!!

Again oddly no pictures. I know I took some....I will add them in when I find them.

Saturday the 18th Tyler was baptised a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints!!!!!! I will have to make a seperate post for all the gush on this!

We had a big family party afterwards. It was Tyler's b-day party, Karen's b-day party, & a Rhonda & Andy's "we got a little girl" party. It was nuts!
I thought I had pictures of this too, but all I can find are the pictures of KAren's birthday cake Dustin made!

On Sunday we went out to see the garden and beach by Point DefianceAhh She is so perty!

Tyler and Elizabeth climbed up the side of this big ole hill with Ben, Kristine and Aunt Deb. then they slide down. Dirty, dirty, dirty!

The gang.

Across the back: Ben, Karen, Deb, Michelle & Robert

Front: Aralee (Ben's friend), Karolyn, Grandma Shirley (try not to judge the pants LOL!) Elizabeth, Tyler, Me with Cody, Kristine with Connor and then Grandpa Dean.

So that is the first two weeks!!