Edited

Christmas recaps edited to include pictures!!! finally got the hard drive installed and was able to upload photos, it was a great feeling. Now if I could just get my hands on a better photo editing software and have time to edit all these photos life would be great. lol.

Pinkalicious!

During our scholastic book sale at school the kids decided that they wanted to get ryen the Pinkalicious book. They had both read it and thought that she would like it because she only likes pink right now. So she opened on Christmas morning and aunt shell read it to her during one of the calm moments. The story is about a girl who disobeys her parents and eats so many pink cupcakes that she herself turns pink. I had no idea how deeply affected she would be by this book, I have scarred my beautiful niece for life.

Fast forward to Syd's bday and the pink cupcakes that were served. That is one of Ryen's driving forces for taking a nap so that she can get to the party.......a cupcake! But as she enjoyed the celebration she realized that we only had pink cupcakes to eat, her little lips turned into a downward slant as she realized she could not have a cupcake! So when aunt shell asked her if she wanted a cupcake, she quietly whispered...."I cannot have a cupcake, because I do not want to turn pink!"

Party Like a Rock Star

Started the day with some guitar pancakes!
Working the red carpet, which was
decked out with all the girls names on it

the three amigos

disney sing it....so serious

she's nine!!!!

guitar hero....rock on!

competitions!! they were both rocking out to the music

Girls Rock Tshirt Designs

Pink Tower of Power

make a wish......

blow out the candles!!

Syd had a great bday party this year and it will be her last big one!!! She had about 8 girls come over all decked out in their finest rock gear. When they arrived the papparazzi was their to shoot them as they walked on the red carpet! We played a little sing it, which took some coaxing from everyone to get them all up there and singing. A couple of girls opted out, but everyone had fun. The best part was watching my dad, who was fascinated that they knew the words to all of the songs. They all sang along, wether they got up and used the mic or not. Then we broke out the real rock, guitar hero! Everyone got at least one turn.....some of them were really good and of the 8 that were there, 6 of them owned guitar hero. Syd loved her gifts and was really excited to get a gift card to her favorite clothing store.....limited too. Then we brought out the GIRLS ROCK! t-shirts that we had made and the girls were able to color and apply puffy paint and sign each others shirts. I am fairly certain that they all really loved this part, they are girls of course they love to craft. Then we did a video shoot to Fabulous and I am hoping to get it edited and pass them out as thank you's to all of the girls. After most of her guests left, the three that were staying the night all hooked up their DS's and played together, ate pizza and watched a movie. It was a blast.

Happy Ninth Birthday Sydnie

It has been nine amazing nine years with this beautiful little creation. She is everything we could have wished and hoped and dreamed for. We love you baby girl. Enjoy your special day.

Christmas

This Christmas was really fun for me to watch my niece and my kids interact together and watch their excitement and joy as they opened gifts and played together. Of course it is always nice to hold a cute little baby too and my nephew gave me that opportunity. Some of the highlights of the day were all about the funny things kids say and do.

he is just the cutest thing ever! look at those baby blues



As we sat down to open our stockings, Ryen opens the first gift and it turns out to be a mario remote control car, she looks at it and turns to noah and says: "this is for you noah, not for me!" She totally understood that mario is something her boy cousin is into and that the car could not be for her, a total princess loving 3 year old girl. But then my kids opened up their cars and they all put batteries in them and she ended up loving racing her little car around.

Noah is so intense when it comes to present unwrapping. He was able to contain his excitement this year and wait patiently for his turn. As we took turns between the four little kids opening stockings, Noah's turn finally came. He opened the gift with such enthusiasm, holds it straight up in the air and exclaims "SWEET!!!!" All of the adults stop and stare for just a minute and realize that maybe santa got the stockings mixed up, because in his hand he is holding a DS Purse carry case! It did not even phase him, he said "yeah, I knew it was a purse, but I just thought it would be great for my DS" In all of his excitement, it was truly just about getting something new, no matter what it was. Oh to be 7 again.

Sydnie, my almost 9 year old, was opening her present from santa when what to her wondering eye did appear, a white samoyed webkinz for her!!! The subsequent fall down and start screaming was the best joy to a mothers heart. She has wanted that webkinz for a very long, long time.




Back to another Ryen story, because well she is three and three year olds are the best. So last year after Christmas I did my usual target clearance toy shopping and found the motherload of all Christmas presents for my niece! The Barbie Princess Throne, complete with musical throne, dress, jewels and a mirror to look at yourself. I snatched it up and held onto this thing for a whole year, but it was worth every storage inch. The box was as tall as she was and she was just excited to open something so big. But once she ripped into the wrapping paper and saw pink (her favorite color, of course) and the throne, she threw her hand to her mouth and exclaims loudly for everyone to hear............"OH.....MY......GOSH!!!!!!" I am fairly certain there was even a little princess dance in there, not her usual shake your booty dance, but twirling and clapping. Of course a present this good could not wait to be opened, so we all stopped and watched as the magic of the throne (lol) unfolded. She instantly put on the dress, found the jewelry and bedecked herself as only a three year old princess can. While daddy put together the chair, she anxiously awaited her chance to sit and be queen. Finally she was able to sit her tooshie down on the beautifully pink velvet padded seat and she was complete. Until she found the hand mirror that was in the arm of the chair, as she picked it up to look at herself she knew her princess destiny was complete. I have to say that the mirror was the best part, she would whip that mirror up to her face and look at herself....she even got it out when she had her new dora skates and knee pads on and would hold the mirror up to her knee pads and just stare at them. It was the cutest thing ever!

here it comes...wait for it.....

OH MY GOSH!!!

the twirly dance of a princess

the queen of all things

The other stand out moment came when we gave my mom a pix blanket that we had ordered from Costco. It had a pix of all four grandkids on it, larger than life and we knew that once she saw it she would cry!!! And we were right. As Jenn and I sat in front of her with our cameras at ready, my dad realized he should get his out too even though he did not know what she was opening. We yelled at kids to move out of the way....lol.....serious crying will occur and we need photos of it!!!! Oh the Memories!

the shot i was dying to get

the object of her breakdown

Needlesss to say it was an excellent Christmas with my family. Just being together and hanging out watching the kids. My kids are almost to the age where it is still fun to open, but they don't express it the way little kids do. When noah opened his huge, gigantic nerf N-strike gun with 100 bullets, he did not even react.........and I know he wanted that gun. Of course once we got home he has played with it non-stop and my house is littered with bullets.

it really was a great christmas, memories and time together.

Our Christmas Morning

new pajamas!

Christmas comes early to our house each year, we always open gifts with our kids on Christmas eve morning, so that we have an opportunity to just be alone with them and open. Let's just say that this year was a wii year for us. Lots of new games, 5 to be honest, but we got them for such good deals and these games were top on their list. we opened mario kart and pajamas the night before, which we had bought extra wheels for so that made it even more fun. noah got lego batman and lego indiana jones (to go with his lego star wars that he got for his bday). sydnie got hsm sing it and disney sing it, so that her and i can sing our little hearts out!!!

i am pretty sure that this face is about this.....

his source of begging and pleading for the last several months

her life is now complete. she kept pecking me

with it saying "raising kids is like being

pecked to death by a chicken" I guess she

literally wants that to happen to me.


noah also got a knex set that i bought last year after xms....lol and he saw it and kept asking me who it was for. sydnie got her nick jonas tshirt and a chicken webkinz, because you can never have too many webkinz (25 and counting). But the best part was when they opened their stockings and both were more excited about getting their singing toothbrushes and club penguin one month membership than all their other gifts combined!!!

the kids got thad an OSU blanket and an OSU cell phone case, which he promptly told the kids that they could not touch his blanket and drag it all over the house to make forts with. the kids got me a cover for my new ipod and my "truly blessed" bracelet from fig. It was an excellent Christmas together and then we packed up and headed down to my parents house to spend the evening and then wake up and open presents with them.

Christmas Past

Christmas 2002

Syndie 3 Noah 1
Christmas 2003
Sydnie 4 Noah 2

Christmas 2004

Sydnie 5 Noah 3

Christmas 2005 No family shot this year?

Sydnie 6

Christmas 2006
Sydnie 7 Noah 5

Christmas 2007

Sydnie 8 Noah 6

It is sad, but true

there will be no more posts with current pix, because my hard drive is full! I have gingerbread house, i have pre-christmas eve opening, sugar cookies, and more ice/snow pix. Good thing I am opening an external hard drive tomorrow morning!!! then I will just need to get in hooked up and move all my pix over so that i can free up space. I truly cannot open photoshop this morning!!! So sad.

The Last Time

it snowed with similiar amount of snowfall, this is what my kids looked like. It was January 2004. We got about 8 inches of snow, then suddenly got hit with an ice storm and had about an inch of ice on everything. But more about my babies. are they not just so adorable? It was noah's first real snow, so of course he ate as much as he could. sydnie loved making a snowman and throwing snowballs at noah, which in turn caused crying and lots of good fun.

Noah - 2 Years old


Sydnie - 4 years old

Now look at my monsters!

SNOW STORM

Winter Wonderland

our house saturday afternoon -early before there was a lot of snow


the bench in our courtyard - saturday


the bench in our courtyard - late monday

monday - that is alot of snow and ice!

the tree out front with 1/2 inch of ice then fresh snow on top

you cannot tell where the yard begins and the tree mound ends

This snow storm that we had this year has been the worst that I can remember. I don't know if I have ever seen this much snow on the ground in the valley. We were pummeled with snow on saturday, about 7 inches in total. Enough for us to really enjoy the snow and build an igloo. But that night it turned to freezing rain which covered the snow with about a 1/2 inch of ice. The trees started bending and snapping with all the weight. The news of course kept getting our forecast wrong for our town, so we kept expecting a warm up to happen and it has not yet. The real exciting stuff happened yesterday, when we were suppose to warm up to about 40 degrees, we ended up getting another 6 inches of snow and stayed below freezing all day! It was so beautiful outside, it snowed all day long again. We took the kids to their birthday lunches at Red Robin and shopped a little at the mall. As we hopped on I-5 we ran into about 25 cars along the side of the road stopped, putting chains on! Tons of trucks too. It was amazing. We were lucky that we were in our jeep, which does an amazing job in the snow and ice. Of course I "suggested" that we stop at starbucks to get a coffee as well, hello eggnog latte, my little lover....I have missed you. I still need to get a pix of the house after yesterdays storm, just to compare. You could not even see our Christmas lights last night, they were completely covered in snow. It really has been a winter storm like no other! Amazing and Beautiful!