{heart} day 2011

We had the flu at our house.  Oh how I hate the flu!  At least this year it wasn't a tummy flu, just super congested, drippy nose, fever and body aches kind of flu.  Amanda was feeling well enough by the 14th so she planned on going to school.  She was also kind enough to take the Valentines Emily made for her class and drop them off for her.  Sammy's Bus driver took his and gave them to his teacher.
Amanda had a special request this year.  Her teacher said that they were to design and create a 'box' for thier Valentines, and then they would all vote and the winner with the cutest box would win a prize!  The funny thing is that Amand and I had the EXACT same idea about how her box should look! :D 
I give you the Love Bug:

Seriously....how cute is THAT?

Izzy would NOT stop touching it long enough for

me to take a picture! ha ha ha

Yeah...that is a tissue box, red tissue paper,

red construction paper, popsicle sticks, heart punches,

styrofoam balls, and googly eyes.

We rock the craft supplies at our house.

Amanda is CONSTANTLY outgrowing

all her clothes.  So I took Valentines Day

as an excuse to get her some new duds.

Emily really wants to play soccor,

so here is her VERY excited to get a

soccor ball.

Now I just need to find a team for her

this summe! :)

THIS is what happens when I ask Sam to smile.

Sammy got a new Thomas the Train blanket.

This blanket is so soft, it makes ME want one!

He was VERY excited about it.

After Sam cuddled up with it for a bit he

demanded we take it upstairs and put

it on his bed, he LOVES it! :)

My cute little Biscuit.

She will almost only wear dresses,

and this cute little outfit makes me think

that she should be coming with me to

Zumba class!  She loves it very much,

and looks ADORABLE!

Happy {heart} day to my twerps! :)

Christmas Day 2010

I love watching the kids get SO excited about opening thier gifts.  It is WAY better than getting stuff myself! :)

Santa delivered...and was rewarded!

Amanda being patient while her

Camera happy Mom is satisfied!

It is just SO Emily to be hugging her stocking!

Sam with all his stocking loot.

Izzy wanted to unwrap and eat each candy

as she pulled them out of her stocking!

Amanda asked for a rock tumbler...VOILA!

A funny gift from Uncle Jared when he went to

Harry Potter World in Florida...

U No Poo...the constipation sensation thats gripping the nation!

LOL  We love Fred and George Weasley!

Despicable Me for the Kids

OOooo a Harry Potter Chocolate Frog from Uncle Jared!

Yummmmmmy!

Amanda got Hermione's Wand from Uncle Jared

 

Emily got Ginny Weasley's wand!

They even came in wand boxes JUST like in the movies!

Aren't they GORGEOUS!!!

Em also got the long awaited Pillow pet.  silly girl.

Em LOVES the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books

Sam was bewildered with happiness

at recieving a box full of new little Thomas

the Train little trains!

"OH its Bee-you-fa-dull!" 

"THOMAS REMOTE CONTROL!!!"

He acted SO shocked, which is hysterical since

he has been requesting it and talking about it for MONTHS!

Josh putting together Tidmouth Shed and all the tracks,

plus trying to figure out how the train and remote work.

Sam was juuuuust a bit happy with it all!

Mr. Conductor

I had saved the Care Bears that the older girls

had kinda grown out of playing with...

and Izzy loved them as part of her Christmas gifts!!!

I also pulled out all the next size up Church dresses

for Elizabeth and wrapped them up for her,

she had to change into one RIGHT AWAY!

Izzy kissing the Norweigan Ridgeback Dragon

from Uncle Jared.

Ahhh so picturesque...a Princess and her dragon!

Elizabeth attacking me with her Dragon,

complete with her roaring and 'eating' me up!

LOL

Izzy LOVES bugs, so she got a ladybug pillowpet

This groovy Mystery Machine holds ALL

the seasons of the original Scooby-Doo TV show

on DVD.

(Ours had been used so much none of them worked anymore!)

Christmas 2010 = SUCCESS!!! ;)

Christmas Eve 2010

We decided to open a fun family gift on Christmas Eve.

Harry Potter Clue, is SO much fun!!!

I am Santa's helper when it comes to Stockings.

The 'Haul'

I had a serious shortage of ribbons that matched.

Yes, I am JUST that OCD with my gift wrapping.

Luckily I have hoards of ribbon, so I made my own!

OH the prep, I have GOT to say I LUUUUUUUUUUUURVE wrapping presents! :) It is so much fun, I wish I had more space to do it! The excitement of getting all the gifts all ready for the kids is LOVELY!

Santa I want...

Our ward Christmas party was fun...CRAZY but fun.  We had a flood at our building so the day before we had to reschedule at the Stake Center, luckily Santa was in the loop and found us! ;)

We got there a bit late (um, yeah like THAT never happens!)

But the kids snuck in and were able to sing songs

with the rest of the ward Primary kids.

Emily told Santa she wanted a Dolphin Pillow Pet.

Sam wants a "Thomas Remote Control and Henry Toy"

He has been telling EVERYONE he meets for months

EXACTLY what he wants for Christmas, ever since

we saw it at Costco!!!

My sweet Amanda.

When they told the kids that they could come line up to

see Santa what did she do?  She went straight to the nursery

and picked up Sam then waited in line with him.

I just don't know what I would do without

this amazing girl! :)

Then what did she ask for?

She told Santa that she didn't know what she wanted

except she did want everyone in our Family

to have a fun Christmas.

*sniffle*

She is the sweetest!

 

THIS little devil wanted NOTHING

to do with sitting anywhere NEAR Santa.

She liked seeing him from afar and

kept saying "LOOK SANTA!"

But when I asked if she wanted to

go and see him she FREAKED!

Such a goose!!!

Thanksgiving 2010

Thanks to some nasty weather, and other stuff that keeps people from travelling we were on our own for Thanksgiving this year!  Just our little family had a nice day and fine eating was done by ALL! ;)

While it was fun to be all comfy at our own house,

we all certainly missed our various relations!

Hopefully next year we will see more family for Thanksgiving!

This year Thanksgiving Day was also Josh's Birthday...it happens every few years.  He has been furiously studying for the Board Exams this month and so we put off actually gifting him the gift he wants...the newest version of World of Warcraft, too much temptation when studying must be done, he says! ;D 

Happy Birthday Mister!!!

Halloween 2010 = SUCCESS!!!

I know that everyone thinks that thier own kids are the cutest ever...and I just so happen to be one of THOSE people! 
ESPECIALLY this halloween!

There were more costume changes at our house than on Broadway this Halloween!  So bear with me...

It was Super Hero Day on Wednesday 10/27

Super Girl and Wonder Woman were NEVER

this cute...or this modest! LOL

They actually dressed up again at school the next

day on Thursday 10/28, for thier class party's...

but they only took thier costumes to school

to change into them for the last hour of school,

so no pictures for me!

For Activity Days on Thursday evening 10/28

the girls went 'haunted caroling' and

trick-or-treating to a nice

home for the elderly.

Amanda is the Angel

Emily is the Pirate...

strangely appropriate.

Sam's class Halloween Party was on Thursday 10/28

Here is the eager Batman!

Elizabeth didn't care much about dressing up,

she was just really HAPPY with the cute little

treat bag that Sam's AWESOME bus driver, Ms Nancy,

gave both her and Sam.

Candy = happy girl.

Mummy dogs for dinner.

Onto the big Halloween Party for us,

Saturday 10/30 was the big Church

Trunk-or-Treat:

Izzy calls Butterflies "Bug-flies",

her favorite color is pink,

and her favorite thing to wear is a "peety dress"

So when she wanted this skirt and wings

at the store I caved!



I actually bought this Lightening McQueen costume

last year...and Sam did NOT want to wear it then.

Luckily he loved it this year!

I know he has REALLY gotten into

Thomas the Train, but I just couldn't see spending

any more money on costumes when we

had one he really liked!

Maybe next year he can be Thomas!

Pay no attention to my feeble attempt to stablize

the floppy, droopy, foam car with bent wire clothes

hangers and duct tape...all of which fell out

before we got one treat!

Emily wanted to be a Wizard, like

 on Harry Potter or Wizard 101,

but we couldn't scrape

together an acceptable outfit, and I wasn't

going to pay like $30 for a cheapo one.

Luckily we have a big old bin of dress-up clothes

from which we created:

The Corpse Bride

Who knew that reanimated Corpses

were so happy with thier lot! ;)

Cleopatra, Queen of ALLLL Egypt!

Seriously has there ever been a prettier Egyptian?

I usually get so annoyed when people

post tons of pics of basically the EXACT same thing

over and over and over.

But Amanda was just SO gorgeous I

can't stop myself!!! :D

Yup, that is a REAL tarantula.

I am SO impressed with my crazy older girls for

being brave enough to hold this nasty creature!

Some friends of ours had thier pet spider's terrarium

as part of thier trunk decor!

(YUCK!)

Emily even wanted to hold it a second time after this!

//shudder//

Sam would look but wanted NOTHING to do with

actually touching it!

Izzy FREAKED out and ran away the second she

figured out that that beastie was real...

THAT'S my girl, she takes after me after all!

Beautiful Snow Queen

and

The Corpse Bride

Emma looks so pretty, 

and Emily looks SO CREEPY! 

That's my girl! ;D

I love the ward Trunk-or-treat/Chili Cook-off

we have each year!  Not only is it fast, safe and easy-

but the kids get to celebrate Halloween

 with so many of thier friends!

(not to mention I don't have to cook dinner)

This was as close as I could get trying to get JUST ONE pic

of all four of my twerps together!

Elizabeth just WON'T cooperate on group shots lately!

Here they are tending the candy bowl,

while the other kids finish up the trunk-or-treating.

The annual

dump-out-all-candy-on-the-floor-to-divvy-up-into-piles

activity.

Lizzy couldn't be bothered with ANYTHING but

stuffing as much candy in her mouth as possible.

Gee, ya think he was happy about his haul? :)

Emily and Amanda were a bit more sophisticated

thiers is sorted into 'like' piles, nevermind

that it all got dumped into gallon bags with thier

names on them so I could hide eat safeguard it for them.

Amanda and her stash.

I told them to sort through and pick out the stuff

that they didn't want so I could get rid of it when

trick-or-treaters stopped by our house the next night.

There were only about10 pieces of candy that they didn't want!

Silly little gluttons!

HA HA HA HA

OK, here is ACTUAL

Halloween Night Oct.31st.

Since it fell on a Sunday we mostly 

just had a fun time at home as a family. 

I did let them dress up,

yet again,

and go visit a couple of our good

friends and neighbors.

All in all it took longer to get dressed up

than it did to visit our friends!

Elizabeth had gooed the Bug-fly costume,

so she was happy to have this

Cinderella Dress.

I {heart} these Batman PJ's,

so multi-purpose!

Zombie Pirate

Cleopatra...gorgeous!

The skeleton on this door started talking,

you can just see Izzy starting to make a break for it!

She did NOT like the spooky skeleton!

Cleopatra: "You cheated!"

Zombie Pirate: "Pirate!!!"

(if you didn't get that reference you must

go watch Pirates of the Caribean again)

and...I'm spent!

Here is to 12 months until we have to

do Halloween again, and it will be on a weekday I think... 

so most of the activities should be done all in one day! YAY!!!

Excuse me while I go snag a mini twix bar from the stash,

what?  It is where only I can reach it!

MUH-WAH-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!