Santa

Picture with Santa at our Primary Activity

Ready for Church

We were actually ready in time to take pictures. We had church an hour later today because we had a special combined Sacrament with another ward.

My Baby is ELEVEN!

Jonah had his 11th birthday today. I can't believe it!

Where does the time go?

He was home sick from school yesterday with a cold. He wasn't 100% better but still went to school on his birthday. They had a 1/2 day. He was tired when school got out even though they just had an assembly, ate lunch and watched a movie. :)

He waited (almost) patiently until Joe got home from work so he could open his gifts.

Jonah is a great helper and a good example to his younger brothers and sister. He has a great sense of humor. He does well in school and his teachers know they can trust him.
We Love You Jonah! Happy Birthday!

Secret Santa

Our ward did a Secret Santa thing this week. Each night we would give a gift to a family. At the end of the week we reveal who we are. We also got a gift each night from a family. My kids loved it.. both the giving and receiving. Jonah dressed up like a burglar (all in black with a black ski cap and black gloves) and we had our walkie-talkies to communicate. We would drop him off a couple of houses away, and get into position. Joe would 'radio' to Jonah that he could go. Jonah would 'stealthily' ring the doorbell and run and hide! We would wait in position until we saw in the binoculars that the package had been picked up, and then we would radio to Jonah that it was safe to return to the truck. We all had such fun! The things we did for gifts were:

microwave popcorn with a note that said: We hope your holidays are "POP"-in!

2 liter Rootbeer and vanilla ice cream: We're "ROOT"-in for you to have a Merry Christmas!

A bag of rocks: We hope your Christmas "ROCKS!"but we also put in a coloring book and a snowman figurine from the dollar store

a plate of cookies: May your holiday be filled with Sweetness!

and the final day, we gave them a whisk and some Hershey Kisses.
When they opened the door, we came from the side of the house singing "We "WHISK" you a Merry "KISS"-mas!"

On Friday, the doorbell rang in the late afternoon, and when Jonah answered it, his jaw dropped! I wondered what could cause such a reaction so I looked out and this is what we found!

We opened the door and I was trying to think of the people that had babies from our ward. The family came from the side of our house singing. We all got a good laugh. They didn't let us keep the baby, but they did give us this:

At the park after school on a windy day

I put a video together of the kids having fun at the park back in November. The sound of the wind in the speakers was so loud so I put some fun music to it. (Fun to Do, from LDS.org)

Christmas Tree

Merry Christmas!

Dogs

Jonah was asked to take care of our friends' dogs while they went out of town. He has been so excited because he really wants a dog. He is trying to show us how responsible he is. He is doing a great job. Tonight we brought them here during a walk. They played in our back yard and the dogs chased balls and had lots of fun. There was also a beautiful sunset to top it off.

Jacey and Me

Jacey and I went to a Mother Daughter Activity! We got to eat dinner, make crafts, decorate sugar cookies, and sing "I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" (which gets stuck in your head forever!!) The best part about the evening was that we got to leave the boys at home! :)

Update

The leaves on the trees finally started changing colors, so last Saturday I forced my children to dress in matching color shirts and go take pictures. I guess the forcing part was the downfall, because the pictures didn't really turn out. With four kids all going in their own direction, there wasn't a single picture where all of them were looking at the camera. I told the kids we WILL try again another day.

We saw this truck parked outside our friends' house,

and Joe had to take pictures of the kids under it. :)

This Saturday, the 3 younger kids and I went on a Fire Station tour. Jaxon was a little scared of the whole thing and kept hiding his eyes. But it was fun.

Joe had his birthday yesterday!
Happy Birthday Joe!

Jacey lost another tooth!

Here is her almost toothless grin!

Time Change

The time change did Jaxon in. He just couldn't make it one more minute. He was eating dinner and started falling asleep. He went to lay down on the couch and was out the rest of the night except a few minutes while we changed him into his pajamas. Poor thing.

Happy Halloween

Jaxon the Monkey

Jaren the Knight

Jacey the Witch

Jonah the Pirate

Joe was in a serious accident on Halloween....
Luckily he recovered the next day.

Here's a slideshow of more pictures:

Carving Pumpkins

Happy Halloween!

Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

Jaren's preschool went to a Farm/Pumpkin Patch for a Field Trip.

They each got to pick out a pumpkin.

We got to feed the goats. There were also horses, donkeys, pigs, bulls, long horn, chickens, turkeys, and geese..in no particular order :) And we got to go on a "Hay Ride."

It was a fun couple of hours!

Jonah's Camp Part 2

Jonah took a roll of film at camp. Only a few of the pictures turned out. I guess that's what you get with a cheap disposable camera, poor lighting, and an inexperienced photographer. :) Oh well. A few weeks after the boys got home, they sent these professional photos home and said, "either pay for them or send them back." I think they make a lot of money that way. I wasn't planning on buying them, but once having them in my hand and seeing them, it was hard to say no.

I turned this one to black and white. I thought it made it look more rugged. :)

If they had a parent go with them, a photo was taken of them together.

This was the group of boys Joe was in charge of. The teachers thought highly of Joe and how he handled tough situations. I recently went to a Parent Teacher Conference and heard again how much they loved Joe and how well he did with the boys.

Below are pictures from the disposable camera...

1. A cool looking flower
2. There's an owl in this picture somewhere

3. A picture of Dad that actually worked ok

4. His teacher

5. A friend

6. A friend playing tetherball (a highlight)

Geckos

I can still remember the first time I saw a gecko in our apartment when we first moved here. I was both frightened and amazed. Eight years later, when I see one crawling up the wall or scurrying across the floor, I'm not so alarmed anymore, and I think they are cute. Jaxon calls them "Yuck-o's" He used to call them "Deck-os."
We've caught a couple, to observe, but mostly our cat Jamaica gets to them first. The other night I saw one in our family room. It gobbled up a spider that was hanging out up in the corner. I've heard they are good for that, so I just let them be. They are only about 2 inches long.

Here's a close up, and the next picture shows how small they really are.

You can barely see it up there above the curtain.

Oh, and we also have squirrels and rabbits in our yard. Those are fun to watch too. It almost feels like we live in the wild.

Texas State Fair

The State Fair. We have only been once since we moved to Texas. It is pretty expensive, but the kids get a free ticket at school. I think it's a trick because the kids have a free ticket, which gets the paying parents there.

In addition to the corn dogs, turkey drumsticks, funnel cakes, and other common fair food, each year they have a contest to come up with new fried foods. In the past it has been: twinkies, snickers, Coca-Cola, cookie dough, etc. This article was in the paper telling about the winners for this year. CAUTION: Just reading this might clog your arteries!!

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CHICKEN-FRIED BACON-- Really, are you going to go to the fair and not try it? It is what it is: a wide slice of bacon, breaded and fried, with a side of ranch (yes!) or honey mustard. It won the best-taste award. Bonus points for being easy to share, which is good because something bad might happen if you eat a whole order

FRIED BANANA SPLIT--Oh, man. Tell your compadres it's too messy to share, then eat the whole thing yourself. The fried element here is balls of banana and honey peanut butter, all buried under caramel and chocolate syrups, peanuts and more. It was named most creative.

TEXAS FRIED JELLY BELLYS --Imagine, if you can or want to, fluffy balls of funnel cake batter hiding a scoop of Jelly Bellys. Each ball contains a different flavor. Buy an order for the kids – they're not too messy and are easy to share.

FERNIE'S ALL-AMERICAN FRIED GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH-- Panko coating adds crunch to this basic grilled cheese. Tomato soup stands in as dip. It's good but lacks the outrageousness factor.

DEEP FRIED S'MORES --The original is stunning in its simplicity. Battered and fried, it becomes transcendent, the flavors melding into a fabulous, gooey whole. Don't burn your tongue.

FIRE & ICE --The buzz here is the topper of whipped cream frozen in liquid nitrogen. But do you really want hard chunks of smoking whipped cream on top of your dessert? The fried pineapple ring is a yummy base for strawberries, syrup and the curious banana-flavored cream.

FRIED CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES --These are more like chocolate-filled donuts. The filling is made with dark chocolate, which seems oddly sophisticated in this setting.

CHOCOLATE-COVERED STRAWBERRY WAFFLE BALLS --Big strawberries, dipped in chocolate, battered and fried? I could eat a lot of these – given a plate and fork. But they're served on a tiny stick. Mine went spinning after each bite. Proceed with cautious abandon.
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If you want to know all the food that's available, here's a link to a list of even more, including "Crispy Fried Cantaloupe Pie" http://www.bigtex.com/foodlocator/

It was fun the year we went, but we will not be attending the fair this year. My bank account and arteries have already thanked me.

Camping Boys

Jonah had 5th grade camp this week. Joe "got" to go chaperone. They were gone for 3 days and 2 nights. They had fun. This is after 3 days of camping, walking, canoeing, walking, archery, campfires, playing, walking, sleeping on cots, and walking. Jonah didn't like the walking, and the funniest part was Jonah had Scouts on the day they got home. Do you know what their activity was? They went on a 3 mile 'hike.' ( not many places to hike in Texas so they walked from the church to a nearby park and back) Jonah slept very well that night! Jonah took some pictures with a disposable camera-I need to get them developed and see what fun things he took pictures of.

My hubby after 3 days of not shaving :)

True Texan??

Balloons

There was a balloon festival near our house this weekend. We were able to see them from our house and saved tons of money.

This picture is taken from upstairs. The kids were really excited and running from room to room and shouting out how many balloons they could see.

There were quite a number of them up in a big cluster.
On Friday the wind was blowing in our favor and all the balloons started heading our way. On Saturday and Sunday none of them even came close so we were glad we got to see them on Friday!
This was taken from our kitchen window Friday night as we ate dinner.
This safari balloon landed just across the street in a vacant lot. A friend that lives in our neighborhood called and said that there were 2 landing close to her house.

This one was heading our way.

This was also taken from our kitchen window.

It continued over the side of the house was flying right over our backyard.

It was close enough to get a closeup of the people inside.

This one is a pirate one.

The Moon

This is what I saw this morning when I woke up and looked out the window.The moon was so bright. The picture doesn't show the brightness and beauty of it, but it was a great thing to wake up to.

Hurricane Ike

Ike veered to the East so we didn't get the severe weather that some did,

but we got a lot of rain and wind.
Singing in the Rain. The boys had fun playing out in the rain

Almost Twins! :)