Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night....or maybe not

We had the flu for the few days before Christmas, it went through all 7 of us!!! I got it Christmas Eve night. I wasn't sick at all during Christmas Eve until about 7:00 that night. So as you may have guessed I had a very restless night. I was up so long in the night that I even got to see Santa drop off the presents to our kids. whew, what a long night. But, with lots of prayers I was feeling much better by 7:45 when my older kids woke up, Gage was already up, he missed me too much to sleep in too long. All of our kids had a great Christmas, my parents were out of town visiting my sister in Iowa and my brother in Michigan so we didn't have any obligations till 2:30. It was a great relaxing Christmas!
Every present Gage got that morning was some kind of cars, race cars, matchbox cars, cars from the Disney movie etc. And every time he opened a present he would get so excited to see more cars. This was about the fifth present he opened and each one before that was cars.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a better nights sleep!!

Tis the Season

We had a wonderful and fast Christmas season. We started out the month of December by celebrating Tyson's 35th birthday. WOW! I can't believe my man is middle age. Don't tell him though he still thinks he is spiderman. Kelsey had a Christmas program at school and had a speaking part "He was dressed in all fur, from his head to his foot, and his clothes were all tarnished with ashes soot. A bundle of toys he had flung over his back and he looked like a peddler just opening his pack". One night for family Home Evening we went Christmas Caroling with the Bowens. Everyone loved it except for Gage, I guess our singing did not meet his standards.
On the Thursday before school got out I was able to go on a field trip to the fire station with Porter and his class. It is my favorite field trip of all time. We walked to the fire station, I just think it is great when we can walk anywhere.
Every year we let the kids decorate their own gingerbread house. We get it set up for them and then we let them have at it. This year the house lasted about 2 hours, then the roof fell off because it was so heavy with all the candy!
We had our traditional Christmas Eve breakfast of Creme Brule' french toast, eggs and bacon. Yum. Then we took the kids to see Santa!!! Notice how Connor is trying to listen intently as Macey tells Santa what she wants.

Thanksgiving

We started our Thanksgiving morning out with a friendly race. Connor and I did the two mile race at the 39th annual Turkey Trot. My Mom ran with us, this was her first race ever. Way to go mom! I was so proud of both of them, Connor trained with me for a few weeks before the race and he did great! It was a great way to start out the morning, Kelsey and Porter both want to do it next year. We had Thanksgiving dinner at our house this year with Tyson' s Family. Everyone was able to come except for Kari and Bree who we missed and it is just not the same with out them. This is such a fun holiday, eating until you are sick, hanging out with good family, looking through the Christmas ads (which were lame!) , watching Christmas movies and finishing the night off with more pie. What a glorious day! I hope everyone is having a great Holiday, it is going way too fast.
Kelsey and Ava.
Koby and Porter
Annalise, Macey, and Connor.

Halloween

Yes, I realize that Halloween was almost a month ago, but I love this day. I love that all the neighbors get out and it brings a community together. Plus we had perfect weather that night, one of the few times you LOVE living in AZ. We had a great day, with a preschool Halloween party, an elementary school parade, pizza with Grandma and Grandpa Freestone (thanks Grandma for helping wrap Porter). He was a pretty great mummy!
Macey was a beautiful butterfly!
Kelsey was a rockin 50's girl!
Gage was a handsome vampire!
and Connor was many things that night, started as napoleon dynamite and ended as Steve Erkle with the voice and everything.
I made Tyson dress up in 70's isn't he hot? This is our sweet friend Wendy, she was one of the dancing queens! (we had to make use of our costumes!)
oooohh yaaaa!

Cruisin in the Caribbean Baby!

In October we went on an Eastern Caribbean cruise with all the adults in Tyson's family. We had a BLAST! It was so much fun to be with everyone. We have never done an adult trip with his family and it was long overdue.
Our first stop was Princess Cays, owned by the cruise line. It was very pretty but, very expensive and not much to do. So we got to spend the day laying on the beach talking, it was paradise!

We enjoyed St. Thomas the most, we rented motor scooters and toured the island all on our own. We saw Megan's Bay which is supposed to be one of the top beaches in the world. (we found out later that it had been closed until the day before we went because of a sewage spill, ummm, yep I guess we swam in poo!) It was still pretty, and I have chosen not to think about it and only remember the good times.
On our back to the ship we found an ice cream shop that made milk shakes. They used home made ice cream with fresh cream they got from their dairy. I am not a real big ice cream fan but, it was delicious!!!
In St. Marteen we rented jet skis and played on those for a while. We shopped in all of our ports but we were not impressed with the shopping. Our best prize we found on the trip was the monkey head that you can put your drink in.
The boat was great, our rooms were the best floor plan I have ever seen for a cruise ship (I know I am weird but, I appreciate good floor plans!). We enjoyed sleeping in, resting and relaxing, playing games, and spending time together.
On our second formal night my sister-in-law and I ended up wearing the same dress! (ya, we planned it!)
One night my father-in-law started asking each of us what we would do for money. He asked Ryan if he would lick the banister from top to bottom then back up to the top for $100. Ryan agreed and did it!!!! So, disgusting but really hilarious, kind of made you gag and laugh at the same time. (good times!)
Ryan used the money to buy us all virgin daiquiris, yum.
We had a wonderful time in paradise!

Sweet Baby Bree

My darling sweet, precious, beautiful niece was diagnosed with cancer last week. She is so happy and smiley that you would never know that she had a tumor growing inside her that was cancerous. They gave her, her first dose of chemo last week, please keep her in your prayers. Her parents are amazing and are staying positive and brave through all of this, but please pray for them as well. We have faith that Heavenly Father will bless her, we have seen answers to prayers even this early. We know that Heavenly Father has a plan for baby Bree, we are praying that it is the same as our plan.

Rocky Point for Fall Break

We headed back to Rocky Point for fall break with the Buhrley's and the Seare's. I love going there it is so relaxing, and you really can't beat the 4 hour drive to the beach. We opted to not stay in the rental house that we did last time and we rented condos right on the beach. I loved it!!! We got condos that were on the ground floor so we could walk out the back door and go right down to the beach. The weather was a little crazy the weekend we were there, the waves were big and the undertow was really strong. We had to keep a really good eye on the kids. Of course the best beach day was Sunday.....we stared out at the beach with longing in our eyes, wishing we could play in the water. We went to a Spanish branch for church and it was pretty interesting. Yep, we couldn't understand anything but, still could appreciate the sacrament. It was really cool to see how the organization of the church is the same everywhere. We ventured into the city a little more this time and it was crowded and crazy especially with five kids (we did not get out of our car!). The highlight was riding the banana boat and the jet ski, Kelsey kept yelling out "Rapido!!" There is no fear in that child! The evenings were great, hanging out as adults, playing games and enjoying all the "me monster" stories. We love the ice cream bars and are always sad when we have to leave and they are not so easy to get. Tyson literally bought his last one from a little Mexican man 100 yards in front of the border before we crossed back into the U.S. It was a great final treat!