1st party of the season!

Grandma Toni loves having all the family over during the holidays, even when she is not feeling well, she still insists on a big party! She gets all 23 GREAT grand children sweatshirts which they love!!! And does not forget any of the 12 Grandchildren. She is amazing and I love her so much! I am very thankful that she holds this party, otherwise I am not sure when I would ever see my cousins. Being with family is my favorite party of the whole holiday season!

Family Photos....

What a JOY! We took real family photos this summer but I wanted some of the kids in their Christmas attire so we attempted self-photography. Yeah it wasn't great! We set the timer and it gave Doug only about 5 seconds to get in the picture. Needless to say this was the only shot that was somewhat OK. All the rest are of him not quite in position, or his tie in swing motion, or one of the kids cracking up and looking at Doug instead of the camera. Next year we will try something different!

Skylar 5 years old

Rylie 12 years old

Ashton 9 years old

Davin 7 years old

Festival of Trees!

We are starting the hustle and bustle of the holiday season off on the right foot!

At one of my favorite places the Festival of Trees. (I will say it is much more enjoyable

to go friends vs. my wild, handsie, continually hungry, tired legged, Santa obsessed children, but we still had fun).

Ashton's singing group performed there this year so we made it a family event!

She even had a little solo part that she was very nervous about, but she did great!

Davin Decorat'in

This year Davin's class got to help make decorations for Heritage West Credit Union's Christmas tree. Their class had been working on the decorations for a few weeks so they were ready to put it all together!

It helps having tall children when you are trying to get a picture!

This is a few of his classmates that were chosen to come to the credit union to decorate!

It was a cute tree with a cowboy theme! After all their hard work they got to eat a yummy Christmas do-nut for the credit union as a thank you for all their help!

Rylie turns 12!!!!!!!

We decided to have a video scavenger hunt birthday party this year and it

turned out to be a lot of fun! We drew numbers to see who would be on who's team then drew for drivers. Me, Doug and my mom were the drivers for our teams. The scavenger hunt took them all over the town and caught them doing things that made us laugh all night as we watched each video to see who actually filmed the most items on their list! My mom's team won, but it was close!

We came back and ate pizza and had banana splits while we watched all the videos then it was time for presents!!!! And after all the gifts were opened, her friends revealed a last surprise gift that they had all pitched in to buy THE WORLD'S LARGEST GUMMY BEAR!!!!

(Rylies favorite treat)
She could not believe that it really weighed 5 pounds so we double checked just to make sure!
It was a great birthday, I am sure one she will never forget!

Skylar's Birthday!!!!

Skylar turned 5!!!

She is growing up way to fast! I want to freeze her at this age forever! She is so funny, sweet and kind. Even her brother and sisters like her, she really is a joy to be around!

She wanted a MiNi MOuSe Birthday party
so we did our best to turn all our guests into little mini mouses!

Two of her best friends are boys so we had to throw in a couple of MICKEY Mouses too!



Her favorite part was not the presents, it wasn't the games, or the prizes it was

having everyone sing Happy Birthday to HER!!! It was fun having all of her friends here at the same time, they all got along and took turns so well, I was really impressed!!

Friends, Fun and Food...

Who could ask for anything more????

I was able to get together with a few of my high school friends thanks to Celeste who put the luncheon together! It was so much fun catching up with everyone! It did not take us long before we were laughing about larrietts, cheer leading, bus trips (I will say no more about that), sports, teachers, and of course good friends! Pretty soon we all felt 18 again! In fact this is the only appropriate picture I could post-but the others I will keep as blackmail for the future!

We really missed all of you who could not come, but we vowed we would do this on a more regular basis, so maybe next time! It was brought up that next year is our classes turn to be honored at homecoming and of course ride a top the fire truck,. We all promised we would be there, so let this be a heads up to all of you who are riding the fence, come join us it will be fun!

Carving Pumpkins!

Picking out the pumpkins!!!

Skylar found hers first, it did not take her long it was big, round, orange and a pumpkin- she was sold!

Rylie went for the big and green pumpkin!

Davin was happy with his find of the perfectly round pumpkin!

Ashton had the most difficult time making her decision. Should she go for the biggest, the roundest, the greenest, the weirdest??? The sun was going down so she finally settled on this one!


Everyone carved their own this year even Skylar (with just a little help). I hate that my kids are getting bigger but the fact that they can finally cut, gut, and carve their own pumpkins I have to say I am actually happy about!

Rylie went Trick-or-Treating with her friends this year, but she wouldn't go as Daphne so she put together a costume using Papa Jacks big bad wolf mask, she looked pretty scary and everyone thought she was a boy, go figure!

HaPPy hAllOwEEn!!!!!

Well it's that time of year again!!!!
The annual family Halloween party brought out all kinds of spooks, lots of laughs and fun for all!

We went as the Scooby-Do clan! And sad to say we did not bring home any awards this year.

Doug and the kids were mad at me because they wanted to go to the party dressed as their dads idea, even though they had no idea what it really meant, but I had to put my foot down . Doug's great idea was to dress Davin up as Tiger Woods and Doug would be his caddy and all of us girls would go as, well you know where this is going, as his mistresses. I said NO-WAY, and now we lost, so they are all blaming me

Great minds think alike!!! Kadee and Andrew also came as the Scooby clan!

The Matthews Family + Aaron Vera (Megans date to the Masquerade party at the high school)!

Jolynn came as a drill mistress with her 1980's drill team girls!

I Loved Bob's costume!!! Only none of the kids knew who he was! But to our surprise "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown was playing on the TV!!!! So I had to get his picture with Charlie Brown!

The Allred family showed up with the TOOTH FAIRY!!! ( Bub had been wearing this costume down at his practice for a few days, we are getting a little worried he may actually like wearing this).

This is Laurie and Jody in case you don't recognize them! Laurie won Best Overall Individual costume!

The Allred Family took home the grand prize of Best Family Costumes!!!!

I've got you Babe! Deanna and Paul took home Best Couple Costume as they so precisely portrayed the actual Sonny and Cher!

We were all so happy to see that Grandma and Grandpa had new costumes this year, we are not sure who they were suppose to be but they took home theaward for Best Thrown Together at a the Last Minute Costume!




Nana and Papa Jack came as Little Red and the Big Bad Wolf! The came in second for best couple, I thought they were great! My dad even painted black hair on his legs!

These guys were great too!!! I was not sure who they were for a minute,

but once I figured it out I didn't know how I did not see it immediately!

Drew Carrie and Mimi, with a cute little Lady Bug!

Ok, I had no clue who these two were and Doug was very disappointed. (I thought Dallin was Wayne from Wayne's World and I thought Derrick was a omish baseball player) because I guess they are the spitting image of the two pitchers from the Giants.
Dallin won the award for Looks Most Like!
Now that I have seen pictures he really does look like Tim Lincecom!

No party would be complete without Lady Gaga!!! Thanks Kylie for bringing her to ours!

Nikki as Dorothy with the scariest scarecrow costume I have ever seen,

I will have nightmares about this.
Her boys were Zombie skateboarders, Daxton was not happy I had to ask him what he was!

Gilda came as the cat from Shreck, Puss in Boots????

Megan and her friends stopped in before heading over the the High School Dance. We had Cinderella and Prince Charming, Deb and Napoleon, and Little Red Ridding Hood with the Big Bad Wolf. (Megan did the make up job and it was great!)

Thanks Jo and Bob it was great!!!!!

Tooth Fairy?????

Skylar lost her first tooth. I am still not sure exactly what or how it happened? She was at gymnastics when the loose tooth was first discovered so I am wondering if she knocked it on something. She seems a little young to be loosing teeth. All I know is she was ecstatic. I have never seen a child so excited for the tooth fairy to come.That being said, she did have a major melt down when it actually feel out. She started crying, so hard we could not understand her, and none of us knew why. Finally she held out her little hand and in the middle of her palm was a shiny white morsel of a tooth. That was when I realized what was causing the tears. I explained that it had to come out in order to leave it under her pillow for the tooth fairy. Luck for her she has older siblings who happily explained the whole thing to her and replaced the tears with utter joy and anticipation. She could hardly fall to sleep that night she was so excited. And can you believe that our tooth fairy nearly forgot to do her job. Not only is she cheap ( Or so I have been told by every single one of my children every single time they lose a tooth... So n'so gets 5.00 for their teeth, and some of their friends get 20.00 per tooth. So, it is confirmed our tooth fairy is cheap) But there have also been countless times she has completely stood us up. So I am looking for a replacement tooth fairy if any of you know any good ones I am hiring!

Help!

Can anyone tell me why my new family picture is a quarter of the size I wanted it to be? I just removed the old one and selected this one to replace it? I dont' get it????

School Dayz!!!

Even though I felt like summer flew by my kids were as excited as ever to get back to school!

Davin is in 2nd grade his teacher is Mrs. Nicholls. I showed him this picture of me in 4th grade with Mrs. Nicholls when she was my teacher. I also worked with her when I was teaching. I loved her as a teacher, as a co-worker and as the teacher of my children. She is wonderful! Other than the style of clothes I think she looks exactly the same, I hope I age that well!

I am the tallest one in the back. That was always my permanent spot, I never got to stand by the teacher I was always too tall, I am still a little ripped about that!

Ashton has Mrs. Walker and is in 4th grade! She is in a portable again this year, but this should be the last time because the new school is coming along great!!

This is the progress on the new school , I am amazed at how far they have come!

Rylie is in the Jr. High building, but is not technically a Jr. high student. She is only in 6th grade this year. Did I just say ONLY, I mean I cannot believe I have a child old enough to be in 6th grade, how old am I again????
Already we have had some great conversation. Like this one...

me: Rylie who was that girl?

Rylie: Oh, she is in my class.

me: Oh, I have never seen her before.

Rylie: Yeah, I don't think you know her, her mom is a pole dancer, and I am

pretty sure you two don't run in the same circles.

me: Oh, right.

me, in my head: Did she just say pole dancer? And does she really know what that is???? Maybe we need to have another mother-daughter talk.

Also, I was forbidden to walk in and take a picture of her at her desk, sniff sniff, she is really growing up!

Last but not least, Skylar started 4 year old preschool at Miss Karmas Kiddie Korner!!!

Skylar loves everything, so of course she loves school! She really thinks she is one of the big kids this year because she is in a "Car Pool", and apparently that is way cooler than just having your mom drive you everyday!