Cole's enthusiastic Christmas!

Cole and his excitement made Christmas a little extra special this year!  He was truly excited over every present that he received!  It really makes me step back and remember the excitement that I had when I was a kid, not being able to go to sleep on Christmas eve, laying there and wondering what Santa was going to leave out in the front room for each of us, then finally waking up and being able to leave the bedroom to find that Santa had been and left us exactly what we had been hoping for!  

Now being a parent and being able to watch these same things go through each of my kids, makes it even more enjoyable!  Baylee, Tori, Kade, and Cole's  reactions to this and to the other gifts that they opened made it all worth while!

On the 12th Travis woke us all up at 5 in the morning because Santa had left an early Christmas present for us.  He had packed our bags, left us airline tickets, and tickets to the Cowboys football game.  It was incredible!  We had the best time.  And Travis wasn't exaggerating about how good the cheesesteaks and nachos at the stadium were.  We ate ourselves sick at the game!  We also found an American Girl store, ate some great food, saw the Temple there, went to church at a really cool ward, and had a great time being together.  Thanks Santa :)  And thanks to my wonderful mom for taking care of  Cole for the weekend.  Next time he will have to go!  And everybody cross your fingers Romo doesn't mess up and blow their chance at the playoffs this weekend.

Tagged

8 favorite TV shows

1. Amazing Race

2. Grey's Anatomy (I know, Denae classifies this as soft porn, but I put the kids to bed first :) and thankfully they have taken off the lesbian thing so I can go back to watching it

3. Desperate Housewives, yea I know another morally uplifting show

4. Biggest Loser

5. Survivor

6. The Unit

7. Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives (thanks honey, yes I do like this show too)

8. Extreme Makeover

8 favorite restaurants

1. Joe's

2. Austins

3. Cafe Rio

4. Lucilles

5. Buca Di Peppo

6. Geisha

7. Ruth's Chris

8. Hugo's Cellar

8 Things that happened yesterday

1. laundry

2. Jenny Jackson took Kade as a student for violin, YAY

3. Tori had gym, of course

4. went to like 5 stores looking for gumdrops

5. bought Travis's christmas present

6. went grocery shopping at Wal-mart, and apparently they do have gumdrops I just didn't look there!

7. Baylee had an orthodontist appointment

8. Cole had gym

8 things I am looking forward to

1. This weekend, more information to follow!

2. Christmas

3. the sand dunes after Christmas

4. sleep

5. finding out who our new bishop will be

6. Travis coming home from work

7. Kade's school program, kindergarteners are so cute!

8. Baylee's instrument ensemble performance Thursday

8 Things on my wish list (only 8?)

1. pool

2. black Yamaha grand piano

3. new cabinets

4. wood floors

5. one more bedroom in our house

6. built in shelves in office

7. facial

8. tickets to Wicked

 people I tag

1. Misti

2. Monica

3. Mandi

I think they are the only ones that read our blog! 

Family Pics from Maple Grove!!

We went up to Utah and went out to Maple Grove and had our pictures taken in May.  I finally figured out how to use the scanner and get them over here.  We were really excited about theses pictures!!  The kids took great pictures, and Cole was actually smiling in these:)  Tori of course was posing like the little model that she thinks she is!!  And of course my sexy wife looks great!!!  I may be a little bit prejudice, but I think I have the best looking wife and kids around!!!  My Dad's cousin Pat took the pictures.  Thanks Pat!!!

Dinner with the Mickelson's

My kids are so dang funny.  I didn't even know Bay was recording on her camera tonight, but I am so happy she did, cuz they totally crack me up!  This was at Claim Jumper tonight after the girls Christmas Concert.  When I think of all the different reasons I am eternally grateful for my family, one of them definitely is the fact that I laugh more when we are together than any other time.  I never knew that being a mom was going to be so darn entertaining!  I love you guys!!!

Are you sure you want to do this?

Oh the places we've been and the pictures that I have.  Are you sure you want to continue with this, and bring your so called unnamed e-mailing friends along with you?  They also should remember that I  have a camera also!    I shall start with this picture.  The look on your face says that you are a little worried what future posts could hold in store for you.  Like the great Tuff Hedeman says "When you mess with the Bull, you get the horn!"  I Love you!!  Happy Blogging!!!

Travis...

Well he is sitting on the couch, watching TV and eating ice cream so I thought I would add this super cute picture one of my loving friends just emailed me!  She will go un-named so Travis can wonder forever who is lucky enough to have this beauty for themselves!  Yes, he is still refusing to write a blog.  Although I'm getting a little nervous what he might write if he ever does do it! 

Travis

Well, I have to admit, this whole blogging idea was Travis's.  Not that I don't really enjoy it.  But it sometimes feels like one more thing I really need to do!  Anyway, I have been trying to convince him that it is way past his turn to write a post.  He won't.  So tonight I am taking a different approach.  I am just going to post funny pictures of him until he gives in and writes one of these!  Love ya honey :)

p.s. you know there are much worse ones, so just give in and take a turn already!

Baylee's Violin recital

It was so fun to go watch Bay at her recital actually not sound totally squeeky.  I love her to death, but listening to her play the violin the last few years hasn't always been pleasant.  She is beautiful, talented, kind and the most wonderful 10 year old in the world! 

My boring post

After reading Denae Handy's blog and laughing until I cried, and reading Darci Buhl's and seeing her blog change Hollywood's mind about the lesbians in Grey's Anatomy, my blog stinks! (k- I know Darci didn't change hollywood, but she should get some credit for saying something about it!)  Anyway, I think I will take Denae's cleaning tips and go wash the kids with paint thinner... I will let you know how it goes :)

Not a whole lot going on here.  We went to Dumont for Veterans' Day and had an awesome time.  The weather was beautiful, and the kids were a ton of fun.  The only down side of the weekend was that Tori stayed home because of gym.  She had a really good time with Grandma Connie though and got spoiled rotten!  No pics of this trip though, because both Trav and I forgot to bring a camera.  But you can just picture in your mind Cole and I flying over the sand dunes in our Rhino, right?  

Sad Day

My favorite "thing" is my halloween village.  I put it up the week after the kids go back to school. (yes the last week of August).  And it is a very sad day when November gets here and I am forced to take it down.  But it gives me something to look forward to next year :)

Halloween

I LOVE HALLOWEEN!!  My kids were so darn cute in their costumes this year.  Bay was a vampire, and of course a gorgeous vampire.  Because as we all know from the Edward saga, vampires are all beautiful, so the costume fit my beautiful Baylee perfectly :)  Tori was a witch, but she wouldn't let me paint her face green, so she was a pretty witch. Kade once again was Obi Wan Kenobi.  We are seriously hoping to NOT be some form of a Jedi next halloween!  I would even be happy if we could be Yoda or Darth Vader or something, just not Obi Wan AGAIN.  And Cole was Chief Mickelson of the fire department.  And the cutest dang fireman I have ever seen (and there are some cute ones out there :)!!  Anyway, we had alot of fun trick-or-treating at the ward trunk or treat and dressing up for fall festival.  

Barry's Wedding

This last Saturday we went to St. George for my nephew, Barry's wedding.  He is such a sweetheart!  We are only 2 years apart in age so we grew up like brother and sister.  I was much closer to him in age than my actual brothers and sister.  He is such a great guy.  He is always smiling and a ton of fun to be around.  Cole was the ring-bearer in the wedding and actually did pretty good!  He wanted me to hold his hand walking up the isle but besides that he stood in the front and did really well.  My other nephew,  Brock and his girlfriend catered the entire wedding and did a great job.

I am officially a normal person again!!! The primary program was yesterday, and if I do say so myself it was FABULOUS :)  My primary kids are so dang cute, and the teachers are wonderful.  At the end of the program we had a girl who just turned 12 sing Teach Me To Walk In The Light with the bishopric, and i don't think there was a dry eye on any teacher I could see!  I am so blessed to get to be in primary.  And I feel that alot more now that the program is over.  I feel bad I didn't get to enjoy October, but I sure am glad it's over.  Our lives aren't going to slow down any, with gym meets, violin recitals, and everything else that November and December bring but we can handle that stuff.  I am looking forward to Barry's wedding next weekend.  It will be nice to be out of town, and spend some time with my family!  And now that the program is over,  I can decide who I am voting for and get that mess over with (not president, Baylee would divorce me as her mom if I voted for Obama! But all the judges and other stuff).  I can't wait for the elections to be over so we can see what is going to happen to our country.  Hopefully all the dumb economic stuff will be done and life can get back to normal.  Anyway, it's dinner time I better get cookin' before Travis gets home and sees all I have done is play on the computer the last hour.

Espi and her cute tummy!
Espi, her sister Adrianna, niece Natalie, Victoria, her mom Mony, and sister Monica.

Yay, I made it through this weekend!!!  I had a baby shower for Espi yesterday, which was a ton of fun to do.  Then today we kept all the kids in the primary room and went through our program.  I was so scared it was going to be like 2 hours long, but I think it should be about perfect on time.  Anyway, as soon as I can get the program over next week I am going to be a normal person again!  I don't know what I would do without my wonderful husband.  He does SO much to help me, I could never do all this without him.  He actually did all the cooking for the baby shower yesterday!  He truly is the best husband in the world :)  And all the kids helped a ton yesterday cleaning and getting ready for the shower.  They did everything I asked, and did a great job.  They really are hard workers when the need to be.

Alright, so I was blog-stocking and found some blogs from others I know.  So I added them to our blog list.  I have no idea if that is against any "blogger" rules or whatever.  So if I added you and you would prefer I didn't please let me know.  Cuz I'm not really sure what the rules are here.  Hope everyone is haven' a happy day :)

Today we had our first gym meet of the season.  It was alot of fun.  Tori did a great job, although her nerves got the best of her today.  She finally gets the whole score thing, so she was really nervous.  We were so proud of her.

Baylee and her daddy jumpin'

Annual General Conference Weekend at Dumont

We were so excited for the first weekend of October this year!  We loved conference, and loved being at the sand dunes with the Whitaker's.  The kids rode awesome and the weather was beautiful.  On the slight downside, we had no hot water because of the wiring getting wet from the water leak.  And we couldn't fuel our bikes because the fuel station wouldn't work either.  But we still had a great time, stinky, but good!  Bay is doing awesome.  She can probably out ride most 10 year olds.  Kade has finally caught onto the riding thing, and hardly ever got stuck.  His only problem is he has no fear, so he thinks he can jump like his daddy and big sister.  Cole even rode by himself for a little while around the trailers and did pretty well, until he forgot to pay attention to where he was going and ran into Bob's grill.  Sorry Bob!