Sledding

While the whole family was here everyone wanted to go sledding (Heidi prayed we would have snow while she was here and she sure got her wish). So we all headed out to a great hill in the neighborhood next to us. The picture above is Sierra and I (yes my hat is falling in my eyes). It looks like we are having a cute picture but in reality we are hanging on to each other for dear life. It was so icy that no one was staying on their feet.

Gabe and Zach got on the sled ready to go down and posed for this picture. After this picture was taken they both hopped off because they were worried for their lives down the slippery slope.

This is Cheryl trying to make it up the hill. She spent a lot of time on her knees just trying to climb up. Great for the pregnant one.

Greg was being the hero for Sam and Tim as they wanted nothing to do with the icy hill.

Sierra and Gabe waiting their turn to plummet down and possibly hit the trees.

Just a picture of me and my hat from Sister Layman that loves us all so much to make us hats and pajama bottoms.

Christmas Day

Sammy and his storm trooper gun

Gabe with his Draco Malfoy wand

Sierra with her keyboard

This Christmas we had all the family together. We normally don't get to have every single member of our family all together. I think it happens maybe every five years. This Christmas Jason and Jon came out from California with their families and Tricia came out from Alabama with her family. We even had a last minute surprise with Ginger and her family coming out from New York. Yes it was very chaotic with twenty seven people around but it was fun. Unfortunately Brady and Emily were sick when they arrived and from there everyone started dropping like flies. We finally got to play with Brady the last day he was here but Emily was still out of sorts when she left. We LOVED seeing all of them and hopefully we are still on for our 4th of July family reunion and everyone will be healthy. Thank you all for coming out and making our Christmas such a joyous time. We miss you already.

Sierra's Program

Here is a little bit of Sierra's 1st grade music program. Sierra is the one on the end of the top row. I am sorry if it is a little blurry. I am a little bummed because I didn't capture some of the funniest moments. She was so funny up there. She is really a little ham and really likes to perform. There were times that she was the only one doing any motions. Everyone who knew she was ours kept looking at us and smiling. I got a lot of comments about it in the days to follow also. When she came off of the stage she said, "Mom, I was really shy." I thought wow, if that is shy I would hate to see her really go at it. It was cute and fun and as she gets older her personality makes me laugh and groan quite a bit.

Santa

Santa came to our ward Christmas party. Each of the kids sat on his lap and told him what they wanted. I was surprised because a couple of the things they asked for I didn't know about. Gabe is getting pretty suspicious so he has been asking a lot of questions lately.

Sam and Santa had a short conversation because all he wanted was a storm trooper gun.








Sierra wanted a guitar but luckily Santa told her she needed to learn to play the piano first before she started playing the guitar.













Gabe was a little hesitant to ask Santa for what he wanted. He wanted a Draco Malfoy wand from the Harry Potter collection and some games for his Wii.

Hughes Blues

I just have to say that I am having a real missing the Hughes day. I went in and looked at Ginger's blog to see if she updated it (which she hasn't) and saw the picture of the kids and got a big old pit in my stomach. We miss you guys so much. We are glad everything is going well out there and the kids like the school. We can't wait for you guys to move into your house and get settled. We still wish we could see you everyday though. Sam still asked when Timmy is going to come over and watch a movie at Grandma's with him. We love ya!

Decorating the Tree

Decorating the tree is always fun. Greg hands the kids ornaments and I suggest to the kids where to put them (not that they always listen, but hey)

Gabe felt that he needed to wear the Santa hat.

Sierra and her big smile

Sam couldn't get enough ornaments to put on the tree.

Weekend Fun

So this past weekend we did something we have never done before. We went to a Christmas tree farm a pick out our Christmas tree. It was great (a little cold as you can see). The kids had a great time. We got to take a little ride out on the wagon.

The kids already picked out the tree and are waiting for him to cut it down and put it on the wagon.

Greg watching the man cut the tree down.

The kids picked out the tree after walking around for a little bit. Gabe got to measure it with the stick.

Jake Update

Okay someone needs to explain the fascination with the chewy's. Jake goes through one a week and will just sit there and chew on it, throw it up in the air and catch it. It is like an enemy to him. Don't get me wrong I would rather him chew on that than my furniture. Anyway, we took Jake to the vet and he is very healthy. The vet was very surprised he was a stray. He loves to play catch with his tennis ball and luckily does not have any desire to run off. (We found that out when Gabe let go of the leash. He loves to be inside with the family and we have recently been trying to overcome the barking situation. If you have any ideas on that it would be helpful.

For Maddie

This post if for Maddie out there in Rochester. I talked to her yesterday on the phone and miss her terribly (I miss all of them terribly). So while I am sitting here getting bored reading my Art History assignment I decided to do this little video. Nobody else will care about it except Maddie. I love you and miss you all!!

Snow Fun

Sam was so excited this morning to see snow on the ground. He kept begging me to get dressed so he could go out and play in it. So he got all bundled up and spent quite a bit longer than I thought he would out trying to make snowballs. He keeps trying to get his brother to go out and play with him in it. Gabe could do without the snow and in fact when it does snow he is ready to go back to California.

Feast of Thanks

We had a great Thanksgiving. We went down the street to mom's house and enjoyed a wonderful feast and the missionaries even stopped by to share the meal with us. It was so nice to be with family and enjoy their company. Here are some fun pictures of the kids enjoying their meal. Our kids love turkey legs for some reason and they were so excited to eat.

Holy Moly!!

Okay I have to say that miracles do happen. The quarter for school has ended and I went in to look at my grades. I was pretty sure I got an A in my English Comp class which I did and then the grade posted for my philosophy class was a Z. I thought, "what the heck?" I knew I wasn't doing well in that class but my goodness it couldn't have been that bad. When I checked the Z meant that the instructor hadn't posted any grade yet. So I sat and sweated for two whole days hoping and praying that I at least got a C in the class. Before I submitted my final paper I had a D but was very close to a C so I figured if I didn't totally stink on my paper I would get the C. You all know how much I have struggled in that class and how highly I thought of the class. Well, yesterday I checked my grade and I am not kidding I got an A. Oh my gosh!! There is no way. I would have had to get every possible point on my final paper or he graded on a very serious curve. Either way I got an A and I am jumping up and down in astonishment and joy!! Happy Thanksgiving to me. I am very blessed to have a Heavenly Father who knows that I tried my best and softened that teachers heart. That is what I like to think anyway.

New Addition

We would like to introduce you all to the newest member of our family, Jake. We went to the Humane Society today to look at dogs and actually took one home with us. He is seven months old and is a really great dog. He does really well with the kids and loves to play with tennis balls. His name was Julian but Sierra didn't like that name so we call him Jake. He actually responds better to that than to the former. I don't know why the pictures are a little fuzzy. Hopefully you can still see them well enough. Jake seems to like to follow me around everywhere and is now laying on my feet under the desk. We are so excited (Greg is warming up to it, he wasn't there when we picked out the dog, oops.)

Like I said, he doesn't mind when the kids lay all over him.

Zach was over spending the night, so he got to experience the fun.

Red Belt

Gabe was eligible to test for his red belt today. He was very excited and did a very good job. We are very impressed with how far he has come with his movement and skill. Here are some fun pictures from today. The post before this one has a video of him breaking his board.

Gabe doing his form

The end result. Look at that smile.

Of course Uncle Paul was there cheering him on.

Red Belt

For Red belt it is required to break a board. Gabe gets to pick whatever strike he wants to do. He chose to do the elbow. Here is some video of him breaking his board.

Halloween Fun

I love Halloween because it is the start of all the great Holidays. This time of year is the best. We did Halloween at our house this year and had a lot of awesome soups and company. The kids all looked great. Maddie was so cute with her Abby Cadaby costume from sesame street. We had the devil, Gabriella from High School Musical, two Indiana Jones, two ninjas, and ninja turtel and a witch princess. They all had a great time trick-or-treating and Taylor and Sierra stayed out so long we almost had to go get them.

My crew in their costumes.

Sam just looks so mean!

A Time Out Needed

Once again mom comes through. Last weekend mom treated us girls to a much needed time out. She wanted to have a girls weekend (I know we just got back from one). She bought us girls tickets to Time Out for Women put on by Deseret Book. What a great time. The first night I fell in love with Jenny Oaks Baker (hope I got that right) who played for about an hour and a half on her violin and we got to listen to sister Ardeth Kapp. We then stayed at the Hilton and had a great time just being girls. The next day was filled with more wonderful speakers and great music. And to top it all off we got an awesome bag (which we filled with goodies from the Deseret store that was set up there). Thanks mom for a great weekend and being a great mom.

Just for "Cuteness"

So I bought these way cute shoes (at least I think so) while we were in Kansas City a couple of weeks ago. I was very excited to wear them for the first time at Time Out for Women. In fact they are the only shoes I brought for the two days we were there and I made sure both of my outfits matched them. Let me tell you, before the night was up I was wishing I was in tennis shoes. They hurt my feet so bad that I was walking like a duck by the end of the night, and we sat for most of the time. Anyway, I love the shoes but by the second day I am glad I put my slipper socks in my purse because that is what I walked out in. Maybe if I just break them in a little bit?

Fun with Papa

Saturday night Papa wanted to set up the fire pit and roast some s'mores and of course our kids were all for it. They could never say no to s'mores (me too)!

Pumpkin patch

While I was out of town Greg took the kids to the pumpkin patch with his work. Here are some fun pictures of the kids from it. Sam is pretending he is a bat.

What a sweet pose Sierra!!

I guess Gabe didn't appreciate getting his picture taken.

Gabe riding the go cart.

Can you tell she likes being in front of the camera??

Yellow Belt

As most of you know a while ago Sam started taking karate and has been a part of the little dragons program at the karate studio. This summer he broke his collar bone so we had to take him out for a bit. Right after the kids went back to school he started up again and he was able to test from his white to yellow belt on Wednesday. The one above is him doing some of his form.

At the end they do an obstacle course and it is pretty funny because most of them skip over a lot of the stuff to get done faster. Lots of fun to watch.

Yeah Sammy, he got his yellow belt.

Awesome!!

I just got back from 3 1/2 days at a scrap booking convention. I got to go with all my sisters Tricia (flew in from Alabama)which was so AWESOME, Ginger and Tori and Anne, Angela and Tonia came up from Springfield (Yeah!!). I can't tell you how much fun we had. We volunteered at the convention so we worked but it was sooooooo worth it. There are some pretty serious scrap bookers out there and some are pretty crazy. We got to meet some interesting people. I don't have any pictures of it because I left the camera home for my husband to take pictures of the kids at the pumpkin patch his work hosted. I am hoping to get some from those that did take pictures. We had a great hotel room, great company and best of all great memories. Some of those pictures will not be making it to the blog though. We were at the convention very late and were feeling pretty crazy by the end of the night. Thanks to Ginger for coordinating everything and giving us the chance to experience that. I loved it all and definitely will be looking forward to that next year. I am grateful we all made it to and from safely and wanted to say GREAT TIMES!!

Parent Night

Last night was parent watch week at dance. It was so much fun to watch Sierra dance. She seems to enjoy it when she is not talking to the person next to her. She is doing some turns in the picture above. I think all the girls spent most of the time looking at themselves in the mirror and waving at mom and dad. It was cute.

A little tapping!!