Our Christmas

Carter LOVES animals, and wants to be a "Pet Collector" when he grows up. We decided it was times to let him get a pet and see how "responsible" he can be! Bryan and I had a couple bearded dragons when we were first married, and they were relatively easy to care for, and very mild tempered, so we decided to get a couple for Carter. The original plan was to get them a few days early, and hide them in our bathroom until Christmas. Well, that plan didn't work too well! The morning after we brought them home, Carter noticed a bright light in the bathroom. I hadn't locked the door yet, so he goes to check it out. He comes running upstairs shrieking "Mom, Dad, did you buy me a lizard?" Us pretending to be clueless: "No, why?" Carter: "THERE IS A LIZARD IN THE BATHROOM!!!!!" We run downstairs acting completely clueless. We eventually told him they were from us, but it was funny as he was trying to figure out where they came from. This is a really foggy picture because I left the camera outside. We will get better pictures of the new additions soon. Carter named them Hashbrown, and Puff.

For Christmas Eve my parents came over. We had dinner and watched "The Christmas Shoes". This is Carter opening the traditional Christmas Pajamas. Unfortunately Hailey soiled through hers before the night was over, so I didn't get any of her in her cute Jammies on Christmas morning.

Carter wanted to give Hailey his present first on Christmas morning. He made her a little beaded necklace, and gave her some chocolate kisses. After she got the chocolate, she did not care about any of the other presents. She just wanted to sit on Grandma's lap and eat chocolate!

I took Carter to the dollar store to pick out a present for Dad. He saw this Star Wars helmet, and was sooooo excited to get it for him. Bryan wore it all day, it was pretty funny.

Hailey got this baby doll with bottle. She couldn't figure out the "milk" wouldn't come out.

Bryan in his Star Wars helmet, with ammo. Bryan had a hard time waiting for Christmas to open these guns up. Hmmmmmm.....were these for Carter or Dad? Now I am constantly picking up nerf arrows all over my house, what fun!

After opening presents, Mark came over and we had breakfast. My parents left and we headed for the hills to go sledding. I didn't get any pictures, but we had a blast! Carter got off lucky though. The place we went has a huge hill, a sidewalk, and then a playground right past the sidewalk. Carter wanted to go down the tube by himself. Bryan figured he could follow behind in another sled to make sure Carter was safe. Carter's tube went a lot faster than Bryans, so we watched in horror as Carter zoomed down the hill, jumped over the sidewalk and zoomed into the playground. We were just waiting for him to collide into the slide or something. He slid right through a bunch of poles that went underneath the slide, and didn't hit anything. He got off LUCKY! Lets just say he didn't do that again, although he wanted to, he thought it was awesome!

The day after Christmas we went to my parents house. We opened more presents, had brunch, and let the cousins play for the rest of the day. Here is a picture of Hailey with her cousin Izzy, and my brother Bryan.

Zippin and Slidin

Bryan put up a huge zip line that goes about a half acre from our yard, to our neighbors yard. We tried it out for the first time tonight. No broken bones....yay! The pictures are a little dark, but here's Bryan trying it out.

Here are our friends Mike and Hayden braving it. For the record, I DID try it, and it was a blast! The scariest part was climbing the ladder for me, not lovin the heights thing!

We pushed and pulled the kids around the yard in the snow tube too. As you can see Hailey was in heaven.

Our Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a fun Thanksgiving weekend. On Thanksgiving we went to my parents house. We stuffed ourselves with all the nummy fixins, and my mom did some fun games for the kids. My sweet mom wanted to get a picture of all the grandkids for her Christmas card. Why is that always harder than it sounds? Trying to get 8 kids to look AND smile at the camera at the same time is near impossible! Anyways, it was nice being together as a family.

As Carter and I were putting up the Christmas tree today, Hailey thought the decorations made great necklaces. I guess we won't be using those this year!

Bryans parents came up the day after Thanksgiving to celebrate his moms birthday. We stuffed ourselves yet again with fried chicken and cheesecake. My insanely creative mother-in-law surprised the kids with this adorable gingerbread house that she made! Its pretty big, all four of us can pile in quite comfortably. My mother-in-law can make pretty much everything, she amazes me! The kids have loved playing in it.

This year has been a challenging year with Bryan losing his job, but in a way it has been the best. How often do you get to change career paths at the age of 30? We feel so blessed to have the opportunity for Bryan to go back to school and begin a new career. Bryan has been home more this year, which we have loved. I have been spoiled, and am not sure what I will do when Bryan graduates and starts a real career again! I am so thankful for everything we have been blessed with and so lucky to have such wonderful family and friends. I could not ask for more.

Future Hobo of America!

I think I have mentioned before that Hailey loves to pile as much as she can in her stroller and push it around. Here she is with several blankets and stuffed animals. She reminds me of a homeless person pushing a shopping cart cart around with all of their stuff in it!

Carter's Quote for the Day

Bryan asked me to get something for him because he wasn't feeling well. I went to get it and Carter rushed in saying "Mom, I'll get that for you since you just got your Intestines taken out."
(I got my appendix taken out a couple weeks ago, but I think it is funny that he says "Intestines.")

Happy Halloween!

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween! We had fun! Bryan had Halloween off this year, which is a First! It worked out well because I wasn't able to go very far with them tonight. I just had surgery and was still feeling kind of sore, so Hailey and I bailed after about a block of Trick-or-Treating.

Carter was a Vampire and Hailey was the cutest Pumpkin ever! I felt kind of bad because she could hardly move in the thing, but she looked so adorable!

Hailey was more like a "Drunkin Punkin". She could hardly walk, which I can't blame her with that big Punkin Belly.

Showing off the Loot afterwards. Isn't it funny how every child, including myself, has to come home and sort through all the candy putting it in piles? Too funny.

TheRapY??????

So, I think Carter might need some therapy in the future. I think...............he is..................a HOARDER!
He wants to keep everything.....and I mean EVERYTHING.
If he catches me throwing something away, he literally has a breakdown. Starts breathing heavy, and tries not to cry.
Some examples of things he gets upset about:

1.He didn't want Bryan to bag the leaves from the yard and throw them away. He wanted to keep them ALL. After he collected about 10 leaves(that I will be sneaking into the garbage in the near future), I convinced him to take a picture of all the leaves so that he would remember them.

2.He wants to keep every single worksheet that he does in school. I do try to keep my favorites, but for heavens sake I cannot keep them all!

3. Those little stickers that come on fruit and vegetables.....he has to peel them off and keep them. If I have a piece of fruit without him and don't keep the sticker, boy am I in trouble.

4.Cereal boxes, milk cartons, pizza boxes, you name it.....yep, he wants to keep it. The only thing he hasn't asked to keep is Dirty Diapers.........I guess that's a blessing in disguise right??

Fortunately I have convinced him that taking pictures is a great way to remember things. Unfortunately I am sick of having the go through and erase the hundreds of pictures off my camera that he took of "garbage" ! I think I see Santa bringing him his own camera in the very near future!