Merry Christmas to us

Here is the first present we opened this morning.  It took a couple of seconds for Avery and Lainey to realize what it meant.  Then Lainey said, "It better be a boy".  

Jolie wore it the rest of the day to all our family get-togethers.  Which were: first my parents house with all my siblings and families, then Morgan's parents house with all his siblings and their families.  After Jolie's nap we went to my extended families for a delicious late lunch and straight to Morgan's extended family for dinner and dessert.

So they all got to see the good news from Jolies new shirt, which was fun.

I'm due July 15th. Which means the end of June, cause I've had all my kids 3 weeks early.

That puts a damper on summer plans.  But I know it will be well worth it.  

I am also planning on waiting to find out the sex of the baby until delivery.  

I know it will be so exciting.

LOVE IT

 One night after the girls were all clean and in jammies, it got real quite.  

I went to investigate what naughtiness was going on.  But instead I saw this awesome sight.  

Oh how I love my little girlies.  

I wish they would have invited me to join in this snuggly reading fun.

BROWN FAMILY GINGERBREAD HOUSES AND NATIVITY

My wonderful in law family gets together every year to make gingerbread houses and put on the nativity.  We all had a blast.  The Stokers made their house very professional looking.

  Rowan sure had fun making her families house super cute.

I think ours turned out dang good also.

This is Morgan's sister and her two cute boys and fiance, Mike.  They had fun decorating. 

Jolie had fun watching and eating the candy.

After the decorating, we dress all the kidos up in their nativity costumes.  Then we read the birth of Jesus story and sing songs.  It is such a great spiritual feeling.  We all love Christmas.

My little angel.

"Look, see the star over there in the sky!"

All the angels.

DADDY DAUGHTER DANCE 2009

This year was Lainey's first year to go to her school's Daddy Daughter Dance.  She was super excited to be able to go on a date with Morgan.  Last year Avery got to go all by herself with him. This year Lainey got to go all by herself.  Avery had a birthday party the same night and she chose to go to that instead of the dance.  So Lainey had him all to herself.  

They danced the night away, came home late and I'm sure had dreams of dancing with daddy all night. 

ORNAMENT EXCHANGE 2009

Early in the month, I was super busy making 18 cute butterfly ornaments for the ornament exchange party I was a part of.  My mom helped me come up with the butterfly idea.  The butterfly's body is made out of this stuff called Paper Clay.  It is like clay but it dries hard in about a day. Then I glued a pattern of glitter on the wings, both sides and the body.  I had glitter EVERYWHERE.  I think they turned out super cute.

Here are all the ornaments I got in exchange. Cute stuff.  

It was so much fun. Thanks Diane.

SEARS PORTRAITS

I took my girls to Sears to get their pictures taken.  I first made the appointment for Jolie, cause she hasn't had her picture taken professionally for over a year.   But then I thought I could bring them all and get a few shots of them all together in their cute Christmas dresses.  I told the photographer that I wanted a lot of Jolie and a few of them all together.  I think that went in one ear and out the other. Cause she only got three of Jolie by herself and they were bad.  But at least I got some good group shots.  I guess I should be happy about that.  So I think I just need to take more pictures of Jolie by herself and maybe one will turn out to be professional quality, (ya right).

So here are some of them.

HER FIRST TOOTH LOST

Lainey is one happy girl.  She lost her first tooth.  

Monday night the tooth was barely wiggly.  She came out of her room like 5 times to show me it was more wiggly and it was bleeding.  I told her to not worry, it was not going to fall out that night and probably not even for a few days.  

To my surprise, the next day she came home from school with it in a zip-lock bag.  I asked her how it happened but she wouldn't tell me and was kind of embarrassed.   I told her it was OK. Then she told me she pulled it in the bathroom.  

The tooth still had a lot of root left.  Lainey wanted to loose a tooth so bad, she worked it and worked it.  There was still a hole were it was.  

She was excited more the next morning when she found the $5 the tooth fairy left her under her pillow.  

She is my big, brave girl and she yanks out her own teeth.  That makes me smile. 

I ALWAYS LAUGH AT THIS

My family is crazy funny.  I laugh every time I see this picture.  I have some very funny brothers.

Family Pictures

GIVE THANKS

We started our Thanksgiving day off with some good old exercise.  My family has been going to the Mesa Turkey Trot for a very long time.  My first one was in 1995. (I'm even wearing my shirt I got way back then.)  The girls and I, along with their cousins did the 1 mile family fun walk.  They ran/walked and Jolie and I walked.

Morgan's brother and his wife ran the 10K and did awesome.

My dad always runs the 10K.  He is great.  He came in 3 in his age group and got a metal.  My brother Dallas did awesome and beat the turkey. (that means he ran faster than someone who raced in a turkey suit.)

Morgan ran the 2 mile run and did great.

The whole fam.

After a long day hangin' out out home (nap), we finally had our annual Thanksgiving feast at my aunt and uncles house.  There was quite a big croud.  I think it was about 80, kids included.  

The girls with their cousin swinging.

One of my cousins even proposed to his girlfriend before we ate.  It was fun to be a part of that.

After the Woolf family dinner, we went to the Browns for dessert.  I brought my famous Hershey Bar pie.  It was gone in about 5 minutes. 

 I guess I need to make two next year. 

 (The Woolfs knew better and we had 5 chocolate pies.)

MORGAN HAS A BIRTHDAY

I have been a real slacker at this blog for a little bit.  

We celebrated Morgan's birthday last week. It was on Sunday, so we did the normal Sunday things.  And then we has a nice dinner with his family at his sister's house.  

I think it was a good birthday for him.

He got a bunch of gift certificates for dinner places and for the movies.  

His family know him so well. 

OOO. . .  Cheesecake.

Happy birthday sweety. Love you tons.

JOLIES BIRTHDAY

Good morning to the birthday girl!. 

I love to take my kids pictures first thing in the morning on their birthdays.  

Here's Jolie walking out of her room in the morning.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Three girls ready for the party.

For Jolie's birthday party, which we combined with her cousin Grady, cause he was born the day before her, we had all the family to Freestone park.  We had grass sleds and bikes and parks and frisbees and yummy food and some super cute cakes.  Jolie's favorites were the slides at the park.   She just loves the slides.

Look at this cute Elmo cake.  My sister in law Jayme made it.  Jolie loved it. 

She was so cute opening all her presents.  She made he "Oh" face at everything.  She got lots of books, toys and clothes.

I can't believe she is already two. It went by so fast. Too fast.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOLIE

WAAA!!! My baby isn't a baby anymore. 

I'm kind of sad about it. 

 I'll blog more about all her birthday happenings later.

But she had a great birthday.

Here she is trying to show me "two" on her fingers.

 I love my little Jolie.

BRAIDS = CURLS

My mom use to do this to me and my sisters hair when we were younger.  

My girls wanted curly hair.  So I sat on the couch and braided, braided, braided.  Then the next morning for church, their hair was nice and curly.  They loved it.

Two curly tops.

Jolie loves getting her picture taken.  She wanted in on the photo shoot too.

Man I got some cute girls.