Oh Christmas Tree!

I can't believe it is time to get a Christmas Tree! I have always loved looking for the perfect tree, and it is always fun with the kids and getting their opinions.
Liam was happy with his free little candy cane they gave away at the lot. He had a blast just running through the trees, he thought he was in some kind of amazing forest!

Emily posing as usual. She loved looking for the perfect tree.

Brett was more interested in playing with all of the sticks on the ground. He begged me to take like 20 of them home, I let him take 2.

Such a sweetie. This is the shot before she took a big bite of the candy cane. I wish I would have taken an after shot as she spit it out and all over the place. She didn't realize it was "hot".

We had fun decorating the tree, Liam was so excited to put on the ornaments. He is now enjoying "un-decorating" the tree every chance he gets.....



Emily with her New Baby ornament we got for her in 2002, I can't believe how fast time flies.

Brett begged Mike to let him put the star on the top, ha ha ha!

So innocent looking. This is right before he started to tear them all off, lol.


Brett really enjoyed decorating the tree this year and had fun reminiscing on all of the old ornaments he had. Because ornaments that are 5 years old are "really, really, old!"
I have around 10 pictures of Savannah in this exact pose with an ornament. She kept grabbing them and telling me, "Mom, take a picture of me with this one!"

I know our tree is really busy, and all of the ornaments do not match each other, there are some homemade ones that are pretty sad looking but I love our tree. I love that each time I look at it I can see ones my grandma gave me, see my first baby's Christmas ornament. Mike has one his Mom made in '85, we have some I made our first Christmas together and some from my mom. We have ones the kids made and some we got in our travels. I love the memories that are attached to them and for the rest of my life I hope that I will always have the crazy eclectic tree.

Once There Was a Snowman

A few Saturdays ago when it snowed for the first time Emily and Brett could not wait to get outside and make a snowman. I was initially sad to wake up that morning and see so much snow. I cant believe it is already that time of year, my Fall went to fast! But, watching these two outside, having a blast playing in the snow and making snowmen brightened my day.
Yes, Brett is wearing Emily's old purple snow pants, and if he were to see I posted this for all the world to see he would be mortified. The only way I got him to put them on was by repeatedly assuring him that no one would see him in the back yard. :)
Cutest snowmen ever, complete with candy corn eyes a carrot nose and chocolate chip faces and buttons. Of course this activity ended with a nice cup of hot chocolate.

Halloween

We had a really fun Halloween. Mike was able to take the day off of work and we had fun carving pumpkins, making potato soup and eating it in pumpkin bread bowls, watched the Headless horseman and of course there was a lot of candy.
My sweet Belle.

She set up this pose herself, she folded her hands and pronounced, "Now I look like a really real princess."

Cute little bee.


Yep, pretty difficult task getting this little guy to glance at the camera.

I love the spider on her face.

I love the costume we were able to put together! My friend made the pants and shirt, I made the skirt and we found some adorable socks to go with it. The cape was a Christmas gift I made for her last year.

Showing off his Ninja moves.
Doesn't he look adorable, even dressed up as a scary "Skeleton Ninja Fighter" as Brett puts it.


Mike did a great job painting the kids faces! I think this is something they will all request for now on.


Liam sat still the entire time Mike painted his face, I was impressed! I think he was just confused as to what in the world was going on!

All ready for Trick or Treating! It was the best weather, we were able to trick or treat for a couple of hours, Mike and I traded off taking the kids out so we could pass out candy too. The kids each brought in quite the haul!

Our pumpkins. Savannah and Liam's are in the front, Em and Brett's in the back.

Hope everyone had a spectacular Halloween! If you want to see some fun things we did for Halloween see the previous two posts.

Halloween Party at Grandma and Papa's

This year we went to my parents house for a dinner and Halloween party on the 30th. It was so much fun and it worked out great that we could be together and see everyone's costumes. We missed Mandi in Texas.


When I took this picture Brett was just starting to squeeze the frosting on, when I finished I think practically the whole tube of frosting was on his cookie!

Sweet Cassidy with her cookie.


Yes, Mike did paint Emily and Brett's faces for Halloween and for the party. He also painted their faces for the Utah game and Brett's for the school parade! I was just glad he did it and that it came off fairly easy.


My handsome hubby with his sugar cookie creations, yum.



Liam dressed as a cute little Lion. On the way to the party Emily was teaching him how to roar, he picked up on it pretty fast!

Yes, this is my little princess chatting away on her pretend cell phone while holding her case. She asked me when she got ready, "Does Belle have a cell phone?" When I told her I didn't think she did she looked confused for a second, then grabbed it and said. "Well I do!"



Emily and Haylie looked so cute in their witch costumes.

This is the best picture I got of the grandkids. It was pretty hard getting them to all sit and look at the camera, lol. Aren't they a cute group of kids?

Pumpkins

We went to Dicks Market this year to get pumpkins, might not be an awesome patch, but they had some amazing pumpkins! Liam loved touching them all, he was in heaven.
Emily and Brett each picked pumpkins that were over 15 pounds! The scale maxed out at 15, luckily they just charged us for that.
I notice since I am usually the photographer there are never any pics of me on the blog. So, here I am with my cute little man, even though he is distracted by all the pumpkins.
Mike is the expert pumpkin picker. He had a row of 8-10 pumpkins lined up that looked like they were worthy picks. He cracks me up, I love how he is just like a little kid and gets so excited about anything to do with holidays.
Brett, always the poser for the camera.

Now for the fun part, the carving! We picked out our pumpkins a couple of weeks before Halloween, but we actually carved them on the day of.
The kids all dug right in, I was impressed! No one was squeamish at all.

We took the seeds and baked them, so delicious!

Beautiful Heartbreak

This is an amazing song with a beautiful message. We have all had heartaches in life and can relate in some way. Our strength comes in working through them. Hope you enjoy this as much as I did. Thanks Ashley for sharing it.
Remember to pause the music at the bottom of my blog so you can hear it. :)

Emily turns 9

I can't believe my little girl is 9, time just keeps on flying by...... I am so grateful to have Emily in our family, she is so sweet and loving, she is constantly helping out. She also likes to make everyone feel special. She is always working on some sort of project, surprising people with little gifts and pictures. I love this pic, she really likes to pose for the camera and so when I told her I wanted to take some pictures of her on her Birthday, she quickly grabbed the fake flowers to pose with, lol. Such a beautiful girl :)


Of course, Emily loving horses so much she just had to have a horse cake. Here is the awesome cake Mike made, she loved it. It looks great, but it tasted even better. Emily always has a pumpkin cake and so she requested it again this year. It was delicious with the cream cheese frosting and coconut.

Fun Balloons!


Emily and her Grandma, she loves her so much.
Mike put trick candles on the cake so they kept re-lighting. It was so funny to see how confused Em was about it. Such a fun day, so glad our family could come out and celebrate with us.