Christmas Day

I can't believe another Christmas has come and gone and tomorrow it will be 2009!! We had a good Christmas, the kids had a blast and their grandparents spoiled them! Click on the pictures to enlarge.



One of Derek's favorite toys was his big remote control Hummer. We took it over to my mom's that day and he and his cousins had fun driving it up and down the street. Paige started with a dress on that day, and when she opened a present from her uncle and saw Tinkerbell Pajamas, she of course had to put those on and wear them all day. Kevin just about lost it he was so excited when he opened a present and saw a box full of dinosaurs!



Paige also got her very own nurses scrubs which she wore all day today! And Derek got a huge T-Rex that he and Tad spent a few hours putting together. He wanted it on his dresser in his room so he could look at it. That night, when Tad walked by his room, he noticed the T-Rex head was pointed away from Derek - Derek said he didn't want it looking at him. Then about 20 minutes later, he heard crying, so he went and checked on him. Derek had his face covered in his blanket and was crying because T-Rex was scaring him! It was really cute! So now T-Rex lives on top of our hutch in our dining room.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve we made a fire out in our backyard. It was nice and chilly that night.

Tad made us the perfect fire.

The kids loved their hot cocoa and marshmallows



That night we let them all sleep on the floor in Derek's room. I made them all new blankets - you know the really difficult kind where you tie the fleece! They loved them.

Last week Grandma Toni and Papa Pat decided to take all 7 of the grandkids for an entire day and night! It's amazing they survived! They went to a railroad park in the rain and road the train, watched movies, ate snacks, went to the airport and watched airplanes and went to the zoo! Here are some pictures. Click to enlarge.

Winter Leaves

Our leaves have started to change colors... click to enlarge.


Derek has learned to ride his bike without training wheels!



New Hobby
Well, I've been inspired by my crafty sister-in-laws to become more crafty myself. So I've attempted to make some bows for Paige's hair. These are the first one's I've made, so don't expect much, but I think they turned out pretty good. I'm excited to make more.

Snow pictures

Well, it hasn't snowed here in Gilbert, but it did snow all over the state. Tad liked these pictures and wanted me to post them. The first one is from Prescott, Arizona. The other pictures below it are from my dad's house near Seattle - he got over a foot of snow just today! Click on the pictures to make them big.

Videos

Paige has been singing to us for months now and I finally sat down and got some video of her singing some songs...



Kevin loves sports. He's actually really good, just like Derek. Here's a video of him throwing a football. He likes to say "hut hut" before he throws it and he gets so serious about it.

Derek's Gingerbread House

I was able to go to Derek's kindergarten class with him this week and help him make a gingerbread house. He was so cute decorating it.

He also had fun eating some of the candies off of it when we were done!

Holiday Fun and New Traditions!!

We've been trying to do a lot of fun things with the kids this year for the holidays. We've seen Santa. It's really cute, Paige calls him "Ho Ho". She'll say, "Ho ho is gonna bring me baby doll?". She knows he's santa, but she likes saying Ho Ho. And with the Christmas music on the radio, every time we're in the van, they'll start singing jingle bells or Rudolf or a mixture of a few songs. Derek's even learned a few songs at school that he's teaching us! And the best part about this Christmas is we have a Secret Santa this year! The kids are all very excited each night when we get a knock on the door and the goodies have been pretty good! Tad is excited as the kids are - he's never had a secret santa before!


We got lucky with Santa this year. We found out he was outside a store on Saturday and we were the first ones in line to see him (there wasn't even really a line). They got a free picture with Santa, a frame and some cookies, all for free! It was great! All the kids told Santa what they wanted - Derek wants a remote control car and a dinosaur, Kevin wants a car, and Paige wants a baby doll. We'll have to see if Santa thinks they have been naughty or nice!

Luckily no one was scared of Santa this year.


We decided to make our own stockings this year using foam Christmas stickers and glitter.

Derek made sure all of his reindeers had a red nose!

Kevin wanted his entire stocking covered with stickers!

Paige really liked the present stickers the best!






We love going to the boat parade at Tempe Town Lake each year!

It was pretty cold and windy that night!


Everyone loved watching Frosty the Snowman!!


We started a new tradition of making our own ornaments each year. I love all the cheap stuff you can find at Michael's and JoAnn's!!

These are the finished ornaments that we made... we still need to put in the photos. I made the wreath, Tad the reindeer, Kevin the polar bear, Paige the angel and Derek the santa. You will notice that Paige's is almost all pink.... I opened the markers and she immediately grabbed every shade of pink she could find!


I had to include a few pictures of Kevin all dressed up. He looked so handsome and grown up in Derek's old suit!

All About Tad

OK, so Tad is always saying that I never post anything about him... or any pictures of him, so here we go..... This is a husband tag I saw on someone's blog a while ago....

HUSBAND TAG!!
Where did you meet your husband? On a blind date in Mesa... Tim Bryce lived in an apartment above me and my roommate and he set us up after constantly being hounded by Tad (he says he didn't hound him) to get my phone number! We'll always be grateful to Tim for that!

How long did you date before you were married? Almost 6 months. I gave Tad an ultimatum after a few dates. I told him if we weren't engaged or at least talking about marriage in 6 months, that I was moving to LA. He's lucky he listened!

How long have you been married? A little over 6 years

What does he do that surprises you? A lot of things.... he surprises me with a clean house after I come home from work... he surprises me by dressing Paige in cute clothes (most of the time)... he surprises me by never stopping... he's always doing something. He says he's not romantic, but he surprises me a lot with flowers when I get home from work.

What is your favorite feature of his? He's the "total package". He's been saying that for years.... Get your mind out of the gutter!! I'm not talking about that!! He used to joke around saying he was the total package, meaning he was good at everything and who wouldn't want him! So, that's what I'm talking about - he's perfect (almost perfect) in every way!!!

What is your favorite quality he has? His integrity and honesty.

Does he have a nickname for you? I can't tell you that.

What is his favorite food? He wont admit it but he loves desserts.. Sure he'll complain that they're not healthy and bad for you, but he'll eat whatever it is! But... he does work out 6 days a week, so I guess he's allowed to eat things like that a bit. He's pretty crazy about working out.

What is his favorite Sport? He loves watching football and listening to college football on the radio sometimes. Small town guy... in fact he's at my sister's house watching the big ASU vs UOA on their massive big screen TV right now.

When and where was your first kiss? 2nd date in my apartment.....

What is your favorite thing to do as a couple? Couple time... what is that? With 3 kids and one on the way, we hardly have time together, but we like relaxing and watching movies together at home. It's a cheap $1 date night now that Redbox is around.

Do you have children? 3

Does he have any hidden talents? He has a lot of talents. And he'll always try things that he's not good at too, like things around the house. And to my amazement, he does a pretty good job at fixing things!

How old is he? 34

Who said I love you first? I think I said I was falling in love with him first and he seconded that. I can't remember who officially said who loved who first.

His favorite kind of music? He likes a lot of things... but mostly he listens to sports radio or talk radio.

What do you admire most about him? I admire what a good person he is. He has the most integrity of any police officer I know, more than I would have. Like I said, he is always busy doing something... cleaning and fixing our house, doing things for me. I admire that he always speaks his mind even when it may not be PC to do so. And I especially admire how good he is with the kids. I work a lot of Sundays and he takes all three kids by himself, gets there early, and sits with them through the entire Sacrament. I don't know too many men that would do that with two 2-year olds! He never complains either! The kids are so much more well behaved for him then they are for me. Everyone always tells me what a good job he does with them on Sundays.

I love you Tad!!!

Updates....

It hasn't been a very exciting few weeks, just busy, busy, busy. We're finally getting busy at work and I've been able to get a few extra shifts and I'm hoping to get a few more before the baby comes. Here are a few pictures of my growing belly..... only about 6 more weeks to go!


We're trying to do a lot of Christmas activities this year. Last week we went to the Tempe Festival of Lights parade (it was kind of lame) but the kids got to see Santa and fireworks. Yesterday, the boys went to the Gilbert tree lighting and had a good time. We've already decorated our Christmas tree and put up our Christmas lights inside and out. Derek's beginning to wonder about this whole Santa thing.... he asked why sometimes Santa has a gray beard and sometimes he has a white beard? Don't have any pics of the parade or Christmas stuff yet, but here's the kids at the park the other day.





Paige is pretty much 100% potty trained!!!!! Yeah!!!!! Kevin is doing good, but still hasn't mastered the number 2 in the potty thing. She's talking so good now - a few weeks ago, I was resting on her chair, and she said, "don't sit on my chair Joy, you're too big". Kevin's hanging in there with the talking and hopefully he'll pick it up more in the next few months. Derek is still learning so much at school and loving it!


Our latest project is our hall bathroom. It's the last big thing we wanted to do with our house, so that's what he spent our day doing today. I must not really know how to measure things, because we had enough tile left over from the other bathroom to complete the hall bathroom! We've got everything cut and now just have to lay it down and grout it.

Martin Elves

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Bathroom Complete

After 9 months, our bathroom is finally complete! We had a lot of help, finally broke down and paid someone to tile some of the shower and had my brother in law finish it up for us. It looks really good and its nice to have 2 bathrooms again. Thanks to everyone that helped... now we'll be tiling our other bathroom in a few weeks...