Happy Birthday Colten!!

The big 6!

Ward Christmas Party

Last night was the ward Christmas party. It was fun, but quite rowdy at times! We had a yummy ham dinner, singing by the young women and, of course, a visit from Santa! When we left it was snowing again - but no accumulation :( I think Prosser is the only school district in the region to NOT have had any closures/delays so far.

It would have been nice this morning to sleep in!

Baby it's cold outside!

We've gotten our first snowfall of the year and it brought us 6"!! Which is a bit strange since the rest of Prosser only got 1"-2". Kaylee said it was because there's a line of longitude that runs between our house and Prosser so that's why the weather is different. Ummmmm - OK. I dunno why it's different but if anyone has any correct theories, I'd love to hear 'em.

Here's the view outside our front door this morning as the kids left for the school bus: And here's a picture of the weather station that we have - taken at 7:24 am:

The top temperature is the OUTDOOR temp! Yes, that's right it's NEGATIVE 2 degrees!! It warmed up to a whopping 16 here today and I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to get much warmer until after the weekend. YIKES!!!!!!

Stationary Box

I warned you all that from time to time I would post some of my stamped creations on here. Here is my latest project . . I finished it today! It's a stationary box - here is the outside: Here it is with the lid removed . . . the part that lays flat has an address book and a pocket for postage stamps . . . then the back of it has pockets to hold different sized cards:

Here are the regular size cards - 5 1/2" x 4 1/4" - there are 6 of them.

Here are 3 - 3" x 3" cards and 3 - 2" x 3" tags:

Sugar Cookie Time

We made sugar cookies tonight. I baked them and the kids helped to decorate. Our friends - the Giles' - came over to eat them with us! Some of the beautiful creations:

6th grade Band Concert

Tuesday night was Kaylee's first band concert! She and the other 6th graders did a great job! As well as the 7th & 8th grade bands and several solo performers. I know this picture is a bit dark, but the lighting in the gym was horrible! Kaylee plays the flute and she is 4th from the left wearing a black and white dress. Our nephew, Jacob, REALLY loved the music. He rocked out and danced and swung his arms to the tunes and gave out VERY hearty "yay's!" at the end of every song.
There was also a silent PTA auction at the concert. We ended up with many treasures, but this was the favorite:



The boys LOVE it!

Marshmallow Creme anyone?

TMNT

On Friday nights 'round here we have Family Movie Night. We make appetizers for dinner and all watch a movie together. Rarely does a Friday go by without a movie night and if it does, boy do the kids give me the third degree about why it didn't happen. Anyways . . we watched the movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles last week and this is what my boys wore for the rest of the weekend . . . Andrew with Kaylee's book cover on his head and a broken piece of the bunk bed is Donatello.

Colten with a belt from Kaylee's skirt tied around his forehead and hot wheels tracks stuck in his shirt is Leonardo.

How creative is that?!?!?
I'm pretty sure that Kaylee was dressed as Raphael and Natalie was Michaelangelo, but they would not let me take their pics. I think they knew I would blog it!

Fishin' with Dad

It's always a great day when it's your turn to go fishing with Dad, but even better when you land and reel in your very own fish!! Way to go Kaylee!

After Halloween Stamping

Halloweeen fell on a Friday this year and combined with that fact and the fact that Monte went out of town for SCUBA diving trip, my friend Mary and I decided we wanted to stamp. All. Night. Long. So with the plan in motion, we scurried out of the church after trunk-or-treat, went to our respective homes and put the kids to bed. She then drove out to my house where we got out all the stamp stuff, made some potstickers, and stamped to our hearts delight. We ended up going to bed around 5:30 am - woke up at 7 (she had to feed Bella) and woke up for the morning again at 8:45. We were both very tired the next day, but had a ton of fun and had 17 cards to show for it! Here we are with our collection!

Halloween

Every year our ward does a Trunk-or-treat party for Halloween. We have a baked potato/chili feed and then go around to everyones cars for the candy!! Here are the monkeys sitting on the stage.
Natalie and her fellow ballerinas - Sydney, Kamille and Kali.
We made the girls their skirts using 6" wide tulle and an elastic waist band - no sewing!!!
My kind of project!


Kaylee with her fellow Gryfindors - Hailey and JayDee.


This is Colten and Andrew at Colten's school party. I was in charge of the games so we used about a dozen rolls of toilet paper to turn the kids into mummies!
Thanks for the great idea Maria!

Grandma's Halloween Party

Every year my Mother-in-law has a Halloween party. The kids all get dressed up and get to show their costumes off to Grandma and Grandpa. Here are all 13 grand kids (plus Mark holding Jacob). From the left is Brenden (not dressed up) Eastyn (farmer) Tyrelle (pig) Haiden (football player) Natalie (ballerina) Emily (Snow White) Colten (Spiderman) Kianna (Diva) Maeson (Spiderman) Lyndon (Power Ranger) Andrew (frog) Jacob (lion) and Kaylee (Hermione Granger)One other highlight of the Halloween party is the food. We make nasty looking food and come up with weird names for them. Here are the bug rolls:
The Skinned Rats & Bones



And a picture of the rest of the meal that included bloody popcorn, puss, vomit, dog food, monster eyes, mold, diaper dump, fungus, and blue brains. I tried everything except for the diaper dump. It looked so bad that I could not bring myself to try it and gagged when my bro-in-law did eat it.

The Halloween party is always the highlight of October and the kids look forward to it every year! Thanks to my mother-in-law for another great party!

HSM3 Opening night

Friday night we had a girls night out to go see High School Musical 3: Senior Year. I'm so glad there are movies out there like this that my girls and I can enjoy together. We all had a great time. We went to the movie then out to Shari's afterwards - I know , not such a great place to eat, but it was 6:30 on a Friday night - where else were we going to be able to get a table for 7 right away? Here we are with the cast of HSM3 - Back Row: Ryan, Sharpay, Troy, Gabriella, Chad & Taylor Front Row : Jessica, Kaylee, Natalie, Stacy, Hailey, Sydney & Mary.
Hailey and her Christmas present!

You caught him Jess!


Sydney had to have her picture with Troy too!



Ahhhhhh!!!!! Look a Twilight ad! We are SO going!!

Mary looks so natural . . . as if she isn't even aware of Edward behind her . . . look at her leaving her neck all out in the open . . . doesn't she know there's a vampire right there???

PS - Do you like our doofy friend in the yellow shirt? He ruined my shot!

Belated Birthday Shout-Out!

Just wanted to throw out a belated birthday shout out to my GREAT friend Mary!! We celebrated at the new Mexican restaurant in town (ummmm just go to El Cap . . trust me!)Hope you had a great day - love ya!!

Blustery Day Activity

It's a nasty, blustery Monday here in Prosser, so I've been doing a bunch of house cleaning while Andrew bugs me every 5 seconds that he's bored. I checked on him a little while ago and found him stamping in the kitchen! Look - he's even using the stamp-n-scrub to clean the stamps!! What a good boy!!!

(for now)

Pumpkin Patch

Last night we went to the pumpkin patch that is near Toppenish. It was a blast! We got there around 5:45 pm - with plenty of sunlight left - so I thought. We started off in the hay bale maze, climbed around the hay bale pyramid, pet the animals in the petting zoo, and then walked through the corn maze. It wasn't really a "maze" just a walk on a path through the corn field. Then we realized that there was a real maze and the kids decided that they would like to go through it. BAD IDEA!! It was soooooooo long! At first there were no new pathways to take and we were afraid it was just like the other one. Nope, they just take you deep in the corn before starting to confuse you. The kids were having fun for the first 20 minutes we were in there. Then we just wanted out! It was starting to get dark and we started seeing kids in costumes making their way through the maze. It was then that I realized that at dark it was going to get haunted!!! ARGHHHH! I hate being scared! And I didn't want my kids traumatized by the experience! So we started walking faster and even asked some of the "crew" if we were near the end. "You've got a hour left" is the answer I got. WHAT?!?!?! AHHHHH . . . obviously we made it out . . . 50 minutes after starting!! And just in time - we didn't get haunted. PHEW! After all the panic-y good times we ate hot dogs and roasted marshmallows for s'mores. They really have a great set-up there and we all had a fun time! What would a family outing be without the mandatory "silly face" picture?
Sliding down the hay bale pyramid.
Andrew being creative - corn stalks make great horses!
The petting zoo - bunny exhibit.
One of the 5 campfires. We had gotten a family pass and it included hot dogs, drinks and s'more makings, but we saw other people bringing in their own food and drinks.

Go Mariners!

Ok - so they are in last place . . by a LOT . . . but they sure showed the fans a great couple of games! We went to 2 Mariners games and they won both of them - 10 to 8 and 7 to 3. Here is the Safeco field sign from our seats on the Saturday game (seriously zoomed in) Do not be fooled by the gray look of the skies - it turned into a gorgeous day! Here is the view from our seats (not zoomed in):
Here are Monte & I - self photography is never the best:
and the Monte Man - the seats look really empty because we got there about 2 hours early!
Here is a picture of the scoreboard after the 1st inning of the Saturday game - if you can't see it, the score is 6 - 0 in our favor!
We had a really great time in Seattle this weekend! We walked alot, talked alot, and just relaxed! We ran into one of my best friends from jr/high school! It was so random - we decided to walk around for a bit during the Friday game and literally ran into her and her hubby. We haven't seen them in at least 7 or 8 years! It was great to see them and get to visit with them for a while.

If I were a Super Hero . . .

Last week Andrew brought this picture home from preschool:

I guess I just don't feed that kid enough! He eats more than the other 3 combined these days! Would that make his super hero name "Flys home to Eat-Man"? And what would his suit look like? I guess I should be thankful that he wants to fly home to eat and not McDonalds :)

I got an early birthday present!!

Monte surprised me with 6 Mariner's tickets!! 2 seats for each of 3 games - for Friday, Saturday and Sunday September 26, 27, 28! His boss has season tickets and he let us have them, plus stay at their condo on the waterfront. I am sooooo excited!!

My little stamper

Last Thursday, after school , Natalie came home and got a bunch of my stamp stuff out. She stamped for about an hour and had come up with these 3 cards. I only helped a little with the ribbon. I like her brown one so much that I'm going to have to copy it!! she even cleaned up the whole mess by her self - that is a huge task considering how much stuff was out. I will have to take a picture of the "creative space" next time. UGH - still working with my camera settings! Sorry you can't see the bottom one - it was light yellow cardstock.

Saturday night fun!

Every year at the end of the summer our friends have a big get together/bbq at their house. Their kids invite their friends and they invite us! This year it happened to be a little later than normal - more like a back-to-school party since school had already started. They set up their 2 jumpers - they have a velcro wall and a bungee run. It's sooo much fun to play on them! We also had a fire in the fire pit and lit fireworks. They have a large chess/checkerboard board made of cement squares permanently in on part of the lawn. They use giant chess pieces and black/red cones to play. It was a great day!

Here is a picture of Kaylee playing in the chess pieces with my nephew Jacob. She really seems to like playing with the little kids and they love her! The teenaged boys stuck Colten high up on the velcro wall - he couldn't get himself down! I have to say that Dale & Jessicas friends are always so good to play with and include my kids in their activities when we are all together. Even though my kids are way younger than them. (Dale is 18 and Jessica is 13)
This is what the velcro wall looks like.