Valentines and Melissa's 34th Birthday

After Christmas we didn't do much.  I spent most of January cleaning up after the holidays and taking a much needed break from all things creative.  But I'm back to blogging now and all that other fun stuff.  So here's an update on the past month.

I had a wonderful Birthday this year.  My biggest present... Ella learned to crawl on my big day.  

 She has been such a fun baby.  At 10 months old she has 6 teeth and loves to get into things.  She talks all the time and loves her brothers and sister.  And just like Luke she's constantly sucking her thumb.

 I had to take this photo.  It's a common sight at my house.  My kids sitting at the counter waiting for something to eat.

 Soon, Ella will be right there with them.

 Drew got me this yummy cake.  And he was so sweet to invite several of my wonderful friends over to help me enjoy it.

These roses from Drew were awesome.  They were striped like a tiger.  I loved them.

34 candles make quite a blaze.

 Instead of killing myself trying to blow them all out, I figured it would just be easier to use a piece of card stock and fan them out.

Geneva, me, Jen, and Kristen, with sneaky Darin in the back.

The next day was Valentines day, so I started the day off with pink heart shaped pancakes.  The kids loved them so much that I'm going to have to make them a tradition.  

Another great thing this month...The cute Activity Day girls gave me us a "Heart Attack".  So fun!

And one last shot.

I went to the church to Help Jen decorate for the RS activity and she was running a little late.  Of course Luke would need to use the bathroom and of course the church would be locked.  I had no choice but to send him to the bushes.  I tried to be sneaky about it but Luke doesn't know the meaning of the word and walked right over there and proceeded to pull his pants all the way down to his ankles.  So I was hanging out the window trying to tell him to only pull them down a little bit, when a group of teenagers walked by.  Embarrassing.  Anyway, I just had to take this funny shot and I hope I don't get in trouble for it.  It didn't work out well for me though.  Turns out he hasn't mastered the skill of "aiming" and ended up peeing all over his pants and shoes.  

The Remainder of 2010

The day after Christmas we drove up to Utah to visit our extended family.  Our first stop was Jill's house.  We had the Clark family Christmas party and almost all the cousins were there.  Some of them I have never even met before.  Jennifer moved back to the US after 10 years in Germany, and two of her kids were only known to us through photos on her blog.  It was great to finally meet them.  The kids had a great time visiting and opening presents.  

Drew spent the better part of his visit, remodeling my parent's bathroom with Brock.  It was a lot of work, but was the perfect Christmas present for them.

After a couple of days in the city we drove out to Drew's parents house.  What is normally a 2 and a half hour drive from Jill's, ended up being a 5 hour test of our anxiety.  The snow was pretty heavy and the roads were snow packed, but Drew got us there safe and sound.  The farm had more snow then we'd seen in a really long time.  The kids were in heaven.  

 Of course we had to do our traditional towing sled ride.  This year we used the mule and a MUCH TOO Short tow rope.  I'm surprised the kids didn't pass out from the exhaust fumes.  But you just have to work with what you have.

 Getting Mia some new snow pants was on my "to do" list.  Poor thing.

 NEW YEARS EVE was a lot of fun.  We had a party with Drew's best friends from his home town.  We played about 4 different board games at Dave's restaurant, and ate some of their yummy pizza.  And believe it or not (I'm not kidding), the temperature got down to 25 below zero that night.  It was painful leaving and even my car interior was FROZEN.  The normally soft seats felt like a wooden bench.  It was strange.  And sure enough, Drew didn't learn his lesson from the summer.  SODA CANS CANNOT STAY IN A CAR WITH EXTREME TEMPERATURES.  Here are the remains of his Diet Mt. Dew.  Luckily the soda burst out of the can when no one was in the car, and it left FROZEN Mt. Dew chunks all over the car.  Much easier to clean up than the Diet Pepsi episode last summer.

We're back home now and enjoying the moderate temps of the south.  Happy New Year!

Christmas 2010

 Our Christmas season started off great when Drew decided it was finally time to have a REAL christmas tree.  He bought this beautiful tree on base and we had a lot of fun decorating it.  I love the smell of fresh christmas trees.

I was able to finish Ella's stocking.  Mia helped me decide on the picture and my wonderful friend Deanna, embroidered Ella's name on it.

When the kids got out of school for the holiday break, we did a few activities, like the Children's museum, and saw the Christmas display at the Bellagio.  But the biggest hit was when we took them to see Santa.  

This is Cole's letter to Santa...

And Mia's....

To be honest, we weren't really even planning on seeing Santa, otherwise I would have brought my good camera with me, and made sure the kids looked adorable.  But alas, the kids were in regular old clothes and the photos were taken with my phone.  But it turned out fine. 

Little did she know she was about to be terrified by a bearded old man.

At first she seemed to do OK.

Not so much!

But the other three kids LOVED him!

CHRISTMAS EVE

We spent Christmas Eve with the Stuarts and Oldhams.  Amber hosted a wonderful ham dinner.  The kids loved it and so did I.  The company was perfect.  

Luke sat at the KIDDY Kid table with Carlee and Clara.

Cole and Mia sat at the regular kid table with the rest of the kids.  I wish I would have taken a photo of the adult table.  It was so beautiful.  

After dinner the kids acted out the nativity while Amber read the Christmas Story.  Cole was Joseph. Luke was a member of the audience.

 Mia was the shepherd.

 When we came back home the kids opened their traditional Christmas eve present... PAJAMAS!

 Christmas Morning was CRAZY.  Mia woke up way too early and had all her santa presents opened before anyone else was up.  Then she methodically woke up the rest of the family, starting with Cole.

 Luke was the last out of bed so we were able to see his excitement.

 The kids in their Christmas Jammies.

 Sweet Ella Bella!

 And OH what a mess.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Dance Class

Mia and her good friends, Katelyn, Aspen, and Makenna, have been taking a tap and jazz dance class for the past few months.  Last week the class had an open house where parents could come and see a mini dance.  It was a lot of fun.

Thanksgiving 2010

We had a great Thanksgiving this year. Drew's parents decided to go to California for Thanksgiving.  We couldn't join them because Drew had to work Thanksgiving weekend, so instead we decided to have Thanksgiving on WEDNESDAY while they were passing through town.  They had Thanksgiving twice and we were able to enjoy family for the holiday.  Win/Win!  They brought Drew's sister Meleena and her son Brecon.  Aunt Meleena always brings the best gifts.  But my kids love her the fact that she's a wonderful person (although the gifts don't hurt things).

 The kids were in school Wednesday, so set up was nice.  We didn't have to do much kid entertaining while we were trying to cook the meal.  Here's a photo of the kid table.  Mia and Cole get so excited to use the nice glasses.

 Here's the adult table.  Casual but beautiful.  We don't have a formal dining room, so everything is casual.

 Dinner was ready at 3:30pm sharp, just as the kids walked in the door.  After dinner we played monopoly until we were all too tired and cashed in.  It was a great night.

Everything turned out wonderful, especially Drew's pumpkin pies.  His first attempt and it was the best pumpkin pie I have ever had.

Getting all the dinner stuff out of the way on Wednesday was great, because we were able to spend the whole day Thursday, enjoying family time.  We went bowling - and some friends of ours had the same idea.  We were able to bowl by the Johnson Family and they took this great photo of us when the game was over.  I'm thankful for some many things.  So so so many!