We Wish You a Merry Christmas!

Jenkins Cousin Gifts

We opened our Jenkins cousin gifts tonight.  They were all a big hit.  Griffin got Star Wars Legos--a must have for the big guy.  Lewis is all about trains and was thrilled to get 2 new engines!  The girls like webkinz and got 2 each plus iTunes cards--lucky!  They were all thrilled with their gifts and appreciate the cousins sending them out for us! We also got a family gift--a jar full of Family Home Evening ideas.  What a time-saver that will be!  Thanks everyone.

STARWARS LEGOS!

Webkinz and iTunes

FHE Jar

Peek-A-Boooo!

Newest Brace Face

Helen got an early Christmas present from her orthodontist, Dr. Hilgers, yesterday.... braces on her top teeth!  She is soooo not excited and her teeth are killing her today so she is on a soup and protein drink diet for a couple of days.  I told her she should have chosen red and green bands for Christmas but she went with her favorite color-blue.  So if you see her sad face just know she isn't sad just sore!  Merry Christmas sweetie!

Red Crayon

We have some friends who are getting married today--yeah Kristin and Shelby--and my parents offered to watch my children so we wouldn't have to get a babysitter for 8 hours for the wedding and reception which is in Scottsdale. So, last night I dropped off my children with my parents in Camp Verde--a little over 1/2 way to Flag but my parents had so much snow it was better they didn't have to go all the way to Cordes Junction.

So here me and Brad are--childless for the first time in about 2 years and we are really going to party it up with dinner and a movie and maybe a little romance when I got home at 7:30. I just needed to check the laundry since I washed all the bedding from our bed and it sometimes gets bunched up in the dryer and doesn't dry. As I pulled out the white sheets and mattress pad I noticed A-LOT of red. Yes RED CRAYON!!! Red Crayon. RED SWEAR WORD CRAYON!!!! When the sheets were thrown downstairs they must have picked up a red crayon off the floor and saved it for the drying process. So now our dryer had melted crayon all over it and so do the sheets. UGH!! I had a load of clothes in the washer which we were able to take over to our friends for some laundry service and then we went and got some dinner and came back home to party.

1st--Taking apart the dryer. Luckily Brad is super handy and he was able to take it apart so we could get into it to remove the crayon with the crayon.com recommended WD-40 which worked great!

2nd--Clean the dryer. Let's just say there was a lot of lint build up which required lots of vacuuming and wiping down. Next we had to really wipe down the barrel of the dryer with 409 to get rid of all the oil residue from the WD-40 so the next load wasn't covered in oil.

3rd--Putting the dryer back together. Lots of fun but luckily the Internet had detailed instructions on how to take it apart and how to put it back together.

4th--Getting the ReD CrAyON out of my sheets. We went online and found a secret recipe--tide-borax-white vinegar-shout. Just equal parts of each and put it on as hot as your clothes can handle it! I was skeptical but--miracle of miracles-after 2 washes--no more red crayon! Hallelujah!!!

5th--get rid of every crayon in the entire house! I swear Satan created them. I hate them. They ruin walls, carpet and romantic nights for 2!

By now it was 1:30 a.m. and we still had no sheets for our bed so we did what any self respecting parents who were dead tired would do-- we slept in the kid's twin beds. We had had a fantastic time on our 1st night alone in 2 years! Aren't you jealous?!?

Family Photo Shoot

Here is our family in our latest photo shoot. Our friend Beckie took some fab pictures of us and we even found one we liked for our Christmas Card. Thanks Beckie!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! Aren't my kids so cute? I thought so too! We had a great time seeing Santa, Lewis kept petting his beard and saying

"Hi Santa!!! Hi Santa! MY LOVE U SANTA!"

He loved Santa so we had to pick the picture where he looked the cutest but I think they all look great!

New Moon

How can you have any more fun than getting together with 30 of your friends to go see a midnight show of a teeny bopper film? It was so fun and the movie was pretty great except I couldn't handle the way Bella was gasping all the time, maybe the cold Forks air is making her asthma flare up! Get that girl an inhaler. It was good friends, lots of giggling like teenagers and even some 3 a.m. breakfast afterwards.

So to recap...
$10 for a ticket to New Moon
$5 popcorn and Diet Coke
$5 pancake bites at Denny's
Leaving the house at 9 p.m. and getting home at 4:15 a.m. for a 2 hour movie--priceless.

Happy Birthday Princesses

Happy Happy Birthday

May All Your Dreams Come True

Happy Happy Birthday

From Grammy and Pap To You!!

Locks of Love

The girls have been growing their hair for 4 years to cut for Locks of Love. They thought it would take until they turned 12 but amazingly it only took until they were 11.

So, for their birthday they cut it off to donate. They ask that you have at least 10 inches, they prefer 12 inches and Helen gave 15 and Mary 14 so I think we are covered!!

The end of the crib

It is that time for us, after 11 years of almost constant use, the crib is ready for a break. This has been a fantastic crib for us. It is my crib from 40 years ago and both my brothers also slept in it. It was a lovely green shade with lead paint when we got it from my parents to use for the girls. It also didn't meet the new safety standards for width between posts. We stripped it, varnished it and Brad added spindles we had custom made to match so it would meet safety standards. It has held every one of our children. Helen and Mary shared it for the first 6 months of their lives until they got too big to share and then Mary used it for the next 18 months while Helen used Brad's old crib, Griffin used it for 3 and 1/2 years and Lewis has graduated to a big boy bed at the age of 3. It has been fantastic and I love that it was my crib too.

Girls crib in our room when they were first born without the extra spindles attached yet--note the wires which are hooked to the babies and their monitors to check their breathing and heart rate. Both girls are in the crib.The crib in Griffin's room in our Pleasant Grove house with his matching bumpers and blanket made by our fantastic friend Michelle Rich and the new spindles attached.In Lewis' room, we used the same bedding and bumpers. Now it is time to say farewell until we need to pull it out for grandchildren in 20 years.

The beginning of the end....

"My want the baby bed." This lasted about 30 seconds and turned into....

"My help Daddy"

The end....

No more crib, just the big boy bed!

Funny Lewis

Today I was at the church with Lewis helping set up for a dinner based on the 100 Dresses book. There were 3 women-Tori, Veronica and me decorating 10 tables 80 chairs. Veronica had her 2 children Diego and Anysia there and the 3 kids played the whole 4 hours we were there.

Lewis and Anysia had a great time overflowing the toilet in the nursery, flooding the floor, and getting themselves drenched. Diego didn't get in on the toilet action but he and Lewis had lots of fun playing with trucks and running around the whole church building.

We were there for about 3 hours when Anysia hit her limit and melted down. Her mom decided she needed a break and took her to the store to get some food for the kids leaving Diego to keep playing with Lewis. About 15 minutes later Lewis finally realizes that Anysia is missing so he comes and asks....

"Where Dora go?"

I was killing myself laughing!

On a side note Griffin and Diego are closer in age and have played together before with Griffin calling him "Go Diego" the whole time.

Happy Halloween

This year we were all pirates. The boys could still wear their outfits from last year and I found the girls outfits on clearance for $4 each. SCORE! We had a fantastic Halloween. We had the school carnival the week before, a trunk or treat on the Wednesday before and then we were off to Flagstaff for the real deal.

Note the difference between the costumes in these pictures. Flagstaff (above) 40 degrees and Phoenix (below) 70 degrees. No long underwear and gloves in Phoenix!


Here are the girls learning to play gin rummy from Paps before going out trick or treating. He's a great teacher and the girls learned pretty quickly.

Aunt Amie did the girls hair when we were in Flagstaff. She did 'pirate' hair for them and it looked fantastic! Mary had ringlets in both of her ponnies and Helen had lots of braids tied in knots for ponies--which you can see in the gin rummy pictures. The hair lasted 3 days after Halloween so Aime did a fantastic job! Thanks.

Here we are pulling Aleksia in all directions because we love her so much and want to spend time with her! Get the bee!!

Our halloweenie family

Here are my parents with the grandkids. Brax is a scarecrow on his bale of hay. You can't even tell that's a wheelchair! Everyone that came to Grammy and Pap's house had to do a trick for Brax before they got their full size candy bars. It was pretty fun.