Sledding Dec. 23

After a busy morning of laundry and shoveling snow, we went with 2 other families sledding. It was a blast and fun to watch the kids. I took out poor Audrey on the first run down the hill. I took a bounce and went over the top of her and spread her face with snow. Poor thing, she didn't want to go on the sled again with me. Lauren had some good wipe outs but got back up and went again. We've got about a foot or so of snow and more they say is on the way for tomorrow. Looks like we will be having a white Christmas. I shoveled out to the green house, half of the loop of our driveway, to the front door, all of the back patio and deck by the spa and a pathway from the back of the house to the front. It's a good thing our snow is pretty light.

Lauren's school party - we made trees out of sugar cones and green frosting.

Lauren's Christmas program

On December 18, Lauren had a school Christmas program. The play was really nice, but sadly non of my pictures turned out. Here is one of Lauren after the play.

Tree house

The snow came this weekend and today school has been cancelled not really because of the snow, but the cold. I guess they couldn't get the buses started this morning. I better get going, I'm babysitting 3 more children this morning.
Here we go again! Jeff is building the girls a tree house now. It's a little scary to me, but he says he'll make it safe for them. He's always wanted to build a tree house. My mom took out their deck, and gave us the wood.

Christmas tree

We went to go get our Christmas tree Dec. 6 with the Irvin family. It was a really nice day. No snow and pretty warm. We did a lot of hiking to pick out the perfect tree. We had a lot of fun.







Kaili and Audrey












Jeff cutting the tree down

The girls watching the tree

The James and Irvin girls

Thanksgiving

We had a nice Thanksgiving. We didn't have a big group this year, but it was still nice. We missed having the large group. I guess we like having the house stuffed. We had sooooo much turkey left over.

Hi

Audrey feeding my friends little boy. It's all about babies for Audrey. Everything is baby this baby that.







Friends at play











Hard work - the girls helped us stack wood on Saturday

Family Night lesson

Family night lesson, Jeff gave a lesson on King Benjamen and then afterwards we made our own tents out of paper. Lauren made her's like a pop up book - very creative girl she is.

Halloween

Happy Halloween - the Cheerleaders

apple time again

apple time again, yes I've canned 5 20lb boxes of apples into 2 apple pies, one apple crisp, 24 quarts & 12 pints of apple sauce that could be used for pie filling as well. The girls did a good job helping. The floor got pretty sticky.

pumpkin patch

Another year of going to the pumpkin patch. We had a lot of fun. Although my camera battery went bad so I didn't get too many pictures. Audrey had fun picking out her baby pumpkin (I wish I had a picture - it was the size of her hand) she carried it in her jacket hood all day.

Young Women Activity

We had a fireside night for the youth at church, we did a take off from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure - here is Phil and Ned's Excellent Adventure. I think the Bishop was shocked to see Jeff looking so 80's in his style of clothing and the Mohawk hair. Oh yes, Jeff did have those pants in High school.

New Color kitchen

Kitchen Before








Kitchen After

Kitchen make over

Jeff and Lauren are back in school, Lauren loves it! She goes to a half day kindergarten so she gone from 9Am to 11:40






My friend Heidi just bought her first home and she sent me pictures of her before and after painting of her new home. I guess it encouraged me to repaint our kitchen and then I painted the cabinets. It's been a big, big job. I just got the cabinets finished last Saturday. I'll have to send my before and after pictures when I get it all finished.

Busy Bees

One Saturday a while back we took a trip to go see the local caves in our area. Most of the caves are lava tubes. Audrey did get a little scared in the second cave we went to. Jeff in and the girls in front of the 1st cave - ice cave - long time ago this is where Bend would go to get ice for the summer months. There's not much left to see of the cave now. Shawna and the girls in front of the second cave we went to, yes you have to climb down a ladder to get into the cave, this was a large lava tunnel - we didn't get to explore too much of it.

Crazy last minute trip - we took a trip to a VW car show in Washington one weekend. It was a ton of driving for just a weekend, but the girls were great! We had planned on camping but when we got there, all the camp sites were taken. The girls had fun swimming in a pool at the hotel, so that was ok.

Lauren at the park where the VW show was, she really good at doing the monkey bars, it's her favorite thing at school.

school

1st day of school for Lauren.

This was oreintation day - the first day of school for everyone else

more olympic fun

This event is synchronized sprinkler dance


where we had opening ceremonies, lunch and our meld stand

Mom getting into the action! Not the best form, but who knows how long it's been since I have jumped and I was a high jumper anyway.

The little girls waiting for the day to start

Lauren doing gymnastics

girls sprints

Go Lauren go, doing the long jump

Wieghtlifting, the buckets are full of water

Audrey on the run doing her gymnastics