Christmas2011

What a fun season Christmas is. Having our new house has truly made all the difference. I had a place to hide presents, and a place to have people over for our "Ugly Christmas Sweater" party. That was on the 23rd and it was pretty fun. I did a little shopping at Goodwill and Walmart and voila, ugly outfit. The really nice part was having enough room for kids to party and stay out of our way (but not out of earshot!), and having plenty of parking.

Rebecca, Cyn, Katie, Nasca, and Jenny.

Rebecca and Katie obviously weren't in the "ugly sweater" mood.

I also enjoyed decorating the house for the holidays. When we went to get out tree Darren figured our front room could handle a tall tree. We got it home and it's a whole heck of a lot taller than it looked in the u-cut tree farm. We had to drag it over to the staircase to get the lights and ornaments on the top. We estimate it's height to be at about 15 feet. Not looking forward to unstringing the lights.

Gavin and Darren really wanted their Christmas pj's to be "real tree" camo. I lucked out and found some that are pretty close to real tree (as far as I'm concerned) at Walmart.

Darren got me the coolest present ever. He bought a Weeping Willow tree. My favorite kind of tree and I've been talking about wanting one in my yard since we moved here. The tree company comes and plants it and everything and guarantees it for a year. Hooray! So thoughtful. Oh, and I got a new vacuum, but that was out of necessity.

And now for the present that the kids and I got for Darren:

He named her Shadow and she is an adorable 6 week old Lab. And yes, I know that makes 4 dogs for us. And yes, I know that's crazy. But Darren has wanted a Lab forever-- a "real" dog as he says. It was always in our plan to have a Lab but in our other home it wouldn't have worked. Then along came George, Holly, and Roxy. But Roxy is pretty much like a guinea pig. We even brought her to the mall the other day to get Santa pictures. So anyway, the puppy reveal went pretty well. D took the kids to church this morning and I was too "sick" to go (actually my stomach really did hurt). Then I drove 10 minutes to where the puppy lived, luckily I found one close, and had her sleeping on his pillow when they got home from church. I believe he was genuinely surprised, and I was very relieved that he was happy.

Drew had a 6th grade Fun Run on the last day before break and this was her outfit.

The Great Pumpkin Massacre

One of the benefits of living on 10 acres is that you can shoot on your property. Gavin has set up a gun range. Darren and the kids shot up the pumpkins that we never carved for Halloween. Beware any home intruders.... my kids are armed. All of our neighbors have acreage too so there is plenty of space between us. Still, Gavin's friend called him while we were in Utah and asked Gavin what was going on at our house. He said it sounded like Baghdad over there. So I called Darren and he said he had his friend Mike over and they were shooting Mike's guns and blowing stuff up. Gavin was sad that he was not home for that one. Now he wants explosives for Christmas. I wonder if Santa has anything against giving tannerite as a gift.

I'm almost an animal hoarder. I have 3 dogs and 5 horses. Yes, I am living out my childhood dreams. A few weeks ago our friend Bryan found 2 horses that were being given away and he wanted to take them for his kids. I said that he could keep them here. He ended up not being able to take them for now so I took them. They are beautiful. Both paints. Their names are Rodeo and Eli. I have hair envy over Rodeo's mane. His mane is long and wavy, it looks like it was just taken out of a braid. We quickly made 2 makeshift stalls in the barn and it works well. For the most part the kids love going out to the barn and cleaning stalls. Their chores have increased but so far no complaints. Gavin is especially loving it. In the evening we all go out to feed them and put them away for the night.

Gavin and Eli

Gillian and Rodeo

I am not one who usually likes to put signs up in the house. But this one, I just could not resist. It pretty much sums it up for me. Is it too much to ask for?

A Mormon/Muslim wedding

The week of Thanksgiving I took the kids with me to Utah to go to Ginger's wedding. A few years ago she was traveling in Egypt and met a man named Hesham and they fell in love. He is really awesome and I am so thrilled for them both. The kids were so happy that they got to go to the wedding. Ginger is like family to them. Gillian wanted to be a flower girl with Ginger's niece Hailey so we put some flowers in her hair, bought her a "fancy" dress at Walmart and voila, flower girl.

Gillian and Hailey