Family Christmas Photos

Sarah is two month old & pictures of the kids after church

The kids looked so cute today & Sarah was officially two months old, so I decided to take some pictures of them after church. I grabbed my 'snap and click' camera, but the battery was dead, bummer -so I ran upstairs and grabbed Don's camera. I have never really used it before, but I was able to figure it out & took two pictures and then his battery died..... darn!!!! The kids were being so co-operative. Wouldn't you know when they look cute & aren't grumpy & crying, both batteries in both cameras die.... UGH!!! Don was asleep upstairs taking a nap, & I didn't know where his spare battery was. Luckily, after a little bit of searching, I found it - but then Sarah was screaming. So I quickly fed her, gave the kids a quick bite of food & then I was able to finish the photo shoot. It is soooo much more fun to shoot pictures with a nice camera than a 'snap & click' camera.
When the three older girls were around three months, we had a photographer take some really cute photos of them. They are all in the same dress & all about the same age. The photographer was really good, but end up having too many problems so after Emma, I wasn't able to use him anymore. I am hoping to do matching photos of Sarah with our camera in about a month, so today was good practice for me. I shot over a hundred. Here are some of my favorites. Sarah is starting to smile & coo when you talk to her, it is so cute!!

Thanksgiving

The Monday before Thanksgiving, Emma's class performed a play about the First Thanksgiving. It was really cute. Her one line was "Oh No!!"

Emma with her friend Ashlyn

Getting ready for the play.

For Thanksgiving, we went to Don's parents. Don made yummy rolls & I made pies, and Don's mom & dad did the rest. Everything was so delicious. It was a nice, relaxing day but it went by way too quick. We have so much to be thankful for. What a nice time of year to reflect on and to give thanks to God for all the wonderful blessings we have.

That evening, I dropped Don off at some friends where he went goose & duck hunting for the weekend. Camping in tents on a river in 40 degree weather with lots of rain..... yeah, that's sounds fun to me. LOL. Actually, they did have a fun time and Don was able to get one duck and one goose.

The kids spent the night at Grandma's & Grandpa's house, and Sarah & I went shopping with all the crowds. Friday wasn't really bad - but Saturday at JoAnn's was crazy. We had an hour or so wait to the register. I would much rather prefer to have stayed at home and have a nice, relaxing weekend with no where to go, but there were too many sales and I hadn't done any of my Christmas Shopping so I thought I would try & get it all done this weekend... (which I almost did).

YUM!!!

The apple pie -Emma asked me to put a smiley face with eye lashes on it.


Cute!!

November, so far....

Well, I haven't updated for a while- so over the past week or so, I have been updating like crazy.... I think I am finally caught up! Yay!!

November has been a relatively calm month so far. The girls are enjoying their classes at Homelink. We keep busy with homework from their classes and all of our homeschooling subjects. Courtney is knitting/crocheting away like crazy. Melanie & Courtney are going to perform a play in January for their Drama class so they practicing and learning their lines. They are also in choir, so they are practicing for a Christmas performance in December. All three of the girls are taking piano this year (from me). I want them to give a Christmas Piano Recital this year for the family up here and for the family down in AZ when we go down there. We will start working on Christmas songs in a week or so. They are excited to do that.

Melanie is still doing dance team this year. This year, there is a lot of older girls on her team (as compared to last year), so she has to really work hard to keep up as the older girls pick up dance moves faster. Emma is taking Ballet this year as well. They are both doing a couple of dance performances at Christmas time as well.

Courtney is still doing rec. gymnastics team, she is going to be working on making up her own routine with her coach. She is excited to come up with her own routine. Before she has just done the standard level 4 routines at the state games. She is not competing in any of the optional meets as they are all on Sunday :( I wish they had a couple on Saturday for her. The nice thing about rec gymnastics she can compete in one or as many meets as she wants (or even none for that matter and just practice with the team like she is doing). She will probably just do the state games again next year.

Emma and Dayton are taking gymnastic classes. This is the first time for Dayton, and he really enjoys running around & playing on the mats and the trampolines. Hopefully by the time Dayton is old enough for outdoor sports - we'll be in Texas. I have no desire to go watch kids' soccer or baseball games in the cold rain.

Dayton is still in a preschool class for his speech; he goes three times a week for 2 1/2 hours. He has really improved in his language skills. He mainly needs to work on his articulation and correct grammar usage (using she/he instead of "him/her did it", etc.). He likes to call his class "his work". If you remember from my earlier posts, or if you have been up to see us in the last little while - you will know Dayton likes to call himself "Daddy". If I ask him how school was? -- He will say, "you mean work." It is quite hilarious all the things he says.

Sam and Jeannine came for a really quick visit earlier this month. They came up to see Sam's mom and were able to come up here and visit us for a day. It was so nice to see them. We love having people come and visit us.


Stuart's birthday was also earlier this month so we had fun celebrating it with the family up here. I can't believe he is 17. I remember when I was engaged to Don and first met Stuart. He was just a 4 years old cute little boy (Dayton's age). Wow, where did time go?? I still feel the same age - how did he manage to grow up so fast???

Happy Month Old Birthday to Sarah!!!

Can you believe it has been a month.... Here's our cutie -one month old!!


These two pictures were taken on her actual month birthday (10/27/09)


These pictures below were taken on a Sunday- so she is a month and a few days (5 weeks old). I took tons, this is just a few of the many....

Sleeping Beauty

but I woke her up for pictures....

"I've had it!!!! Enough pictures, let me sleep!!!"

Happy Halloween!!!!

For Halloween this year, we went to our church's ward party. Each family brought chili or soup, and we ate and socialized with everyone. They had cupcake decorating, face painting, and a guessing jar full of candy for the kids. They had a costume judging contest, and our family won!!! Second year in a row that we have taken first place. Last year, we did The Peter Pan theme. This year we did The Wizard of Oz theme. Call me a kid - but I love it - it's so fun!!!

Then, we had trunk or treat outside the church. After that, we took the kids trick or treating with a few families in our ward. We drove to a big neighborhood in town, this neighborhood goes all out. They really decorate their houses for Halloween; one family even made a haunted house out of their garage for all of the kids to go through. The kids scored LOTS of candy (so we all have been eating it for weeks) We were very lucky again, even though it had been pouring all day long, it cleared up a bit so we could trick or treat without getting drenched!! Yay!!

The Wizard of Oz!

The Tin Man (Don), Toto (Sarah), The Scarecrow (me-Gaylynne),
Dorothy (Melanie), The Good Witch of the North (Emma), The Wicked Witch of the West (Courtney), and the Cowardly Lion (Dayton)

Lots more photos of everyone below:

Halloween Fun!!

We (Don) carved Jack O'Lanterns from the pumpkins we picked at the patch. The kids drew faces on the pumpkins and Don carved them. Unfortunately, Melanie dropped her pumpkin on the way to the car & it cracked, and Courtney put her pumpkin on the back porch - so both of those pumpkins rotted away super fast before we could carve them. So we did two sided pumpkins with Emma's & Dayton's pumpkin. Each kid got draw a face on one side of the pumpkin. I think they turned out pretty cute!!

One side of the Jack O'Lanterns.....

and now the other side.

Dayton - showing off his Jack O'Lantern - it matches his Jack O'Lantern Night Light (OK so Don helped Dayton with drawing the face too).

Courtney is showing off her Jack O'Lantern - it matches her Jack O'Lantern Night Light as well.

Emma's Masterpiece

.... and here's Melanie's scary Jack O'Lantern.

I had cooked & froze pumpkin from last year, so I figured I better get busy and use what I already had, before I cooked and froze more pumpkin this year -- otherwise we would have a whole freezer full of pumpkin. So I made about 6 loaves of pumpkin bread and a pumpkin cake (shaped like a pumpkin) - we called it "Pumpkin, pumpkin cake!"



While my mom was up, she helped me make Halloween pillowcases for the kids. I bought material for Fall/Thanksgiving pillowcases, but haven't had a chance to make them yet -- they'll probably get them next year...