Christmas Pictures

  Merry Christmas!

I love  how these turned out. It took a lot of convincing  before the kids would let me take some pictures of them. I had just bought these red frames and thought they would look cute, so we tried them out. The kids had fun making all sorts of silly faces. These were the best of what we took. 

 I love this one of Elizabeth. She looks so pretty and grown up.  

 She is the only one who had fun taking pictures and wanted me to take a lot. 

 Jocelyn did't want pictures taken at all and complained the whole time. 

 I really like the one  bottom of her. 

 Ethen was the hardest to get a picture of. I only ended up with one good one. He couldn't hold it up right or kept moving it around. We finally ended up just hanging it on him so we wasn't touching it. And this picture really says a lot  about him and his personality, so it's perfect.

 Trying to get all three  at the same time was hard. They were sick of pictures and Ethen wouldn't stop moving and Jocelyn complaining.  Elizabeth still the only willing to take pictures. This is as good as it gets. 

At least I have one good one of each individually! 

I went to Wal-mart and made a collage for family Christmas Cards.

 It's nothing fancy, but it works for me and my tiny budget. 

Family should be getting their Christmas cards in the mail in the next few days.

We love you and miss you.

Merry Christmas,

 from us.

Snow day

We finally have some snow. 

We've been wondering when we were going to  get a good amount. We have had a little here and there, an inch or two and then melt away. We are really hope to have a White Christmas.  

It been snowing for the last two days and here we are with about 7 inches! The kids are so excited to have so much snow. I have to admit I am too. The roads are snow packed and  cars are sliding off the roads so we are not going any where if we don't have to.  The snowplow comes around and we get this huge pile at the end of our parking lot. With this much snow it's piled up about 5 feet. It's great for sliding down. I'm just glad we don't have to shovel our walk ways. The guys who came this morning were not very happy to find the snow pile right in our walk way. It made their job a lot harder and longer for them. 

Looks like we will  have another 1 to 3 inches today.  I need to go buy some snow pants so I can get out and play in the snow with the kids.

Reflections winner

Elizabeth entered a drawing for the schools Reflection contest. The theme was hope, dream, inspire. They had several different types of entries: photography, poetry, drawing,  stories, etc.  Each grade had winners in each categories and  also  honorable mentions for each. Elizabeth was their honorable mention in the 3rd grade drawing category.

 Here are all of the other honorable mentions for each of the other categories for 3rd grade.

 She drew a pictures of herself climbing up a very steep mountain and her caption is

 "Doing Things I've Only Dreamed of Doing"

 Good job Elizabeth, We love you!

My Name is Rex!!

The girls were out of school on Monday and Tuesday for parents/teacher conferences and we needed something to do. A gal from church sent out a message inviting  others to come and play at the TREC with them. We have not yet been there and it sounded like a fun thing to go do with the kids.

The TREC (Tom Ridge Environmental Center) is at the entering of Presque Isle State Park. An Eco friendly center that displays all the various ecosystems on the isle; plants, animals, and landscapes. There is an IMax theater, Children s discovery room, food quart, gift shop, and various exhibit displays, and a bird watching area. You can also go up to a very high tower and over look the lake.

My name is REX.  T-REX.  This months exhibit is all about the T-Rex. It was pretty amazing to see! The kids really enjoyed  seeing the huge bones and other fossils. 

Ethen kept asking if it was going to bite him.

                                                   

This full T-Rex was quite impressive.  I think I came up to about the knees. Sure glad these things are not still around.

That's one big femur bone!  

Ethen had a great time running around.  He loved it and it sure was hard keeping him on the right side of the chains and not touching the displays. I turned my back for one second and he's gone.  A man kindly asked if that was my child  inside the glass area with the T-Rex. YEP, that would be my son! Now I just hope he doesn't try to climb on it before I can  get over to him and pull him out.  Good thing he's so darn cute!

Ward Trunk or Treat

We went to our ward Trunk or Treat the day before Halloween. The girls invited their frind Alysa to come with us. This year Elizabeth was a vampire witch, Joce was snow white, Ethen was a Fireman, and Alysa was a Monster High Character.

 This year Trunk or treat was a lot better than last year. We gathered in the gym for some carnival games, cider and doughnuts. There were games like bowling, fishing, and  bean gab tosses.
I couldn't get Ethen to keep his hat and jacket on for very long. i was lucky to get this picture.

After the kids got candy from the carnival games we went out to trunk or treat. Not many dressed up their cars. As you can see we were not one that did. I walked with the kids while Scott sat and handed out candy. The kids received quite a bit. I am glad that they did, because we didn't get much on Halloween.

 Halloween night, Scott was able to go with us again despite his need to really study. He really needed the break. We joined a few others from our ward and went trick or treating on Elsworth st. (Where most of the families in our ward live) Not many people were home and only 10-15 minutes in, the weather turned bad.  Big winds and rain. The kids were troopers and we all trudged through it for a little while, but the other families with us soon  bailed out one by one. I think we were out for about 40 minutes total. At least it wasn't as cold as last year!

Happy Halloween!

Pumpkins

A few days before Halloween, we finally went and picked out pumpkins The kids picked out four medium pumpkins. Ethen and dad shared theirs. Scott cut them open and the girls dug right in to get them clean. Ethen would not touch them. He just enjoyed playing with the tops and picking up the few seeds that fell on the floor. 

 Scott carved his and Ehten's pumpkin and Joclyns too.  I carved mine and Elizabeth's 

 Hello kitty for Jocelyn, an owl for me, the bat mouth and moon eyes for Scott and Ethen. Elizabeth choose the "Monster High" skeleton logo.  They turned out pretty  good. The owl took forever to do, as well as the skeleton for Elizabeth. The kids had fun showing them off to their friends.

Happy Halloween!

Ethen Scott

Welcome to Ethen's world!

 Now that's it's just  he and I at home we are glued at the hip most of the time. He is a mama's boy and does not like to share me with anyone. 

Most days are filled with watching Toy story, Tinkerbell,  and Thomas the train. He loves his legos and playing with trains and play dough. And of course  I get roped into playing along with him.   And some days I spend most of my day chasing him around trying to get him dressed and re-dressed.  I think he is trying to potty train himself. And this is what that looks like. . . .

 I'm pretty sure that's not where the potty seat goes Ethen!

 And I'm pretty sure it's not used for casual wear either!

He is all boy, but he does love a few girl things too. Like his sisters Pj's. We are struggling with girls wear girls clothes and boys wear boys clothes. No you can't wear you sisters pink cupcake pj's. If dad says no way, than that means no way! I guess we know how dad feels about his son wear girls  clothes. 

 Ethen loves to have me take pictures of him. I take a lot of them and I delete a lot of them.

But these are too cute to delete. I love this boy, but man does he drive me crazy sometimes! 

I love you my son!

PORT FARMS

Port Farms family outing!!!

Scott was able to take a day off from study to come with us to Port Farms. 

I've taken all the kids, but Scott had not been yet. It' so much fun.  It's  known as the "redneck Disneyland" around there. the weather was great. It was actually a little warmer than we thought. It was so much fun

 Little slides, big slides,  baby slides. 

 These huge slides are so much fun. Ethen coming down and Scott at the top.

 Posing on the wooden horses

 They played on the hay maze

 We saw bees and milked  a fake cow.  The line was too long for the hayride, so we bagged that.

 I was the only one who  couldn't go on the derby cycle cars. Too hard on my hip.  So I took lots of pictures while Scott rode with Ethen and Jocelyn. Elizabeth was big enough to go by herself.

 Scott passed up Elizabeth,  so she sped up from behind and ran him off the rode. Good thing Ethen was buckled!

 Jocelyns turn. They had the whole track to themselves.

We tried to go through the  big corn maze, but it was just too hot and we we were all pretty thirsty.  This years maze design is the Niagara  flagship, celebrating 200 years.

 After getting water, we made our way over to the corn pit. Everyone loves the corn pit. The kids have so much fun playing in the corn. Scott took some really good pictures on  his phone, this is the only one good one that didn't get blurry. When we get home we always find corn kernels in pockets, socks, shoes, and even Ethen's diaper. 

 Here's the little kids cycle derby bikes.  Scott pushed Ethen around the tack a few times.

We don't get to spend very many days with dad , so days like this are pretty special when we can be together!