Birthday's and More Birthday's

Aside from the craziness the holidays bring, two out of three of my kids have Birthday's in December. December is turning into quite the pricey month.

On the third of December my Raycey boy turned three years old. I can honestly say I was not to excited when I found out I was having a baby boy, but it was love at first sight. He has been the easiest baby I have had and truly a joy to be around. I love him so much! He is so obstinate and disobedient and he probably gets away with wayyyy more than he should but he is my little buddy! We were going to do a birthday party for Rayce, but I just couldn't seem to get it together. So I got him a giant car balloon and a "Cars" cake and called it good.

Danielle turned eight years old on the twelfth of December and this milestone has come far too soon for me. I feel like she should still be five years old just going to Kindergarten. It's like she skipped six and seven and just went straight for eight. Danielle and I have become great friends over the last couple of years. She is an amazing help with her brother and sister and she's far more responsible at eight than I'll ever be. She's exactly what I imagined having a daughter would be like. I love you Danielle! Danielle wanted to go see "The Princess and the Frog" for her birthday, so I took her and three of her friends to the movie. They were so darling and they loved the movie.

Now on to the really sad news. somewhere between the temple lights and home I managed to lose my camera. That's most of the reason I hadn't blogged yet, I was hoping to find it. So the only pictures I have to post are a few of Raycey's Birthday. Hopefully I can find my camera soon, or maybe Santa will bring me a new one!?

Rayce got a toy motorcycle in case you couldn't tell.

Yummy, delicious, store bought cake!
Maybe one of these Birthdays I'll actually make the cake....probably not!

Just a Bunch of Stuff

Wow, I can't believe it's almost December already. Was I the only one that thought that November just went by so fast? We had a crazy busy month, and an incredibly relaxing break, so sad to see it end!

Danielle had her 2nd grade music program, which was a blast. The kids were so cute, and funny! She made us very proud as always, here she is with friends Maddie and Logan (She makes friends so fast).

The whole Fam, I still can't believe there's five of us!

Avie Jo turned nine months on Thanksgiving. She's doing awesome. Crawling everywhere, can't keep her pants clean. She pulls herself up to stand for a short moment before she demands to be held again. Her personality is a bit more serious than the other two. She wants to be anywhere the kids are hanging out. She LOVES Raycey boy. He can always make her laugh.

This is Avie and her cousin Gavin, my brother and his wife came down for Thanksgiving. Avie liked trying to poke him in the eye. Did I mention he is 5 months younger than Avie Jo? What a tank!

Speaking of Thanksgiving, what a great time we had this year. We decided last Thanksgiving that we wanted to stay home this year. My Mom and Dad wanted to come down to the perfect weather and so did my sister in law Michele and her family. So, we had a full house, but it was such a blast, and how cool is it to have Thanksgiving Dinner outside?!

The kids contributed to our meal...by staying out of the way, here's a baby train. Yeah, we're still playing in boxes. Avie just loved hanging out in that box with the big kids.

My Raycey Boy!

I feel like I have so much to be thankful for. My amazing husband, and kids. Family is where it's at. They're the most important thing, all the other stuff is just stuff!
I love you family!

Awww... The Cabin

This last weekend we headed up to Pine, AZ, with the Harmon Clan and some other friends from Dental School for a little R and R at the cabin. Everyone else went up Thursday, but Dan had a follow up Dr.'s appointment Friday morning (he had MERSA, and yes he's fine), so we left shortly after. We had an excellent time and are grateful to the Harmon's for an invite, it was a much needed break after finals. I got a few shots while we were up there, but my camera was doing funky things, and I have to admit I spent most of the time staring out the window at the leaves falling! (Oh, the things I took for granted in Utah.) When we left Saturday It was even beginning to snow up there, it did my heart good to see snow. I can't believe I miss it! When we got back home it was thirty degrees warmer than up at pine, hooray for the high country!

My Love and I.

If Avie could talk she would have said
"Hand over the smore!!!"

Is there any resemblance?

101 Things to do With 101 Boxes

It's been a crazy week or so, we finally got moved in after a few last minute problems with our loan. I guess it wasn't so smooth sailing after all, but we made it and now that Dan is on break we are actually getting things done. The kids are loving all the boxes, it's funny that we spend all this money on toys and they end up playing with boxes! Well, as long as they're entertained I'm not complaining. They have pretty crazy cool imaginations. For instance...

It's a boat (don't touch the grass, there's sharks!)

It's a snazzy garage.

It's an infant tunnel!

Trunk or Treat

Here are a couple of pics from our ward's Trunk or Treat. The kids had a ball and it was actually a little chilly this year. Last year was still so hot at Halloween! I have to admit that I hate Trunk or Treating. I understand the idea behind it with safety and all, but I still think it's a little lame. I also understand Halloween is not about what parents want to do, unless the parents want to dress their 8 month olds up like adorable kitty cats and take pictures of them all night. Oh right, this is exactly what we did with Avie. Isn't she too adorable?

The girls. Avie finally discovered she had a hood on and decided it needed to come off.

This is the only picture I managed to get of Rayce the whole night, but when there's candy involved who has time for pictures?

Again, does it get any cuter than this?!

Friends Danielle and Hailey

New House

Okay, so the rumors are true, we have bought a home in Surprise. Surprise! I think most everyone already knew, and we weren't really trying to keep it a secret. We were just trying to be a little discreet until we closed. Well, we signed the papers today and we're expecting to get the keys sometime on Friday.

I've always heard how stressful it is to buy a home, and there were stress filled moments, but overall it went pretty smoothly. I didn't expect to be able to buy a home while Dan was still in school, but I'm so grateful we had the opportunity to do it. Here are a couple of pictures of our new place:

8 Months

Another month has gone by faster than I can keep up with. Avie is eight months today, and poor thing is having a heck of a time with her two top teeth. It doesn't help that she also has a little cold. Oh, the plights of the teething infant. Some cruise right along and don't miss a beat like Rayce, and then there was Danielle who I thought was dying while she was teething. Avie, is somewhere right in the middle. She's pretty miserable, but it could be a lot worse.

Here she is building a pillow fort with Rayce and Danielle. Can you believe an 8 month old is already building forts? Okay, she's not exactly there yet, but she wishes she was. What a goer.
The older Avie gets the feistier she gets, which I thought I wouldn't mind, but she's quite the demanding little thing. She definitely likes to be held...all day long. Still doesn't want a thing to do with the swing, bumbo most of the time, and now refuses to sit in her bouncer. What is a mom to do other than give up on laundry and all other household chores. Notice I haven't volunteered my house for playgroup at all. In spite of some very frustrating nights, I can't imagine our family without Avie Jo!

I thought I'd throw in some pictures of Danielle decorating her store bought cookie Halloween house. Note to self and all others, if you buy a cookie house from the store, don't expect it to be in tact by the time you get home. Danielle didn't seem to mind at all, and she did a fantastic job! For Christmas I may get a little ambitious and actually try a homemade gingerbread house.

A Pirate's Prayer

Raycey boy insisted on putting on his pirate costume this morning. This was before I got up, so Dan put it on him and I woke up to YARRR! He was in character for most of the morning. He even decided to give the breakfast prayer in his pirate dialect.

It was one of the funniest things I have ever heard. I wish I could have recorded it. I was trying not to be irreverent during his prayer, but when he's saying things like "YARRR! Bless our family!" I couldn't keep it in. Good thing it was a short prayer. I wonder if God gets as good a laugh out of our kids as we do?

It's a plate. It's a chalkboard.

So my Relief Society does a craft night every month, and this month we did chalkboard plates to display in the kitchen to write menu's or notes on. They turned out pretty cute, and cheap!

It was pretty easy to do, even for me. I don't proclaim to have a crafty bone in my body.

Movie Night (Under the Stars)

This last Friday Danielle's PTSA hosted a movie night under the stars, so Dan reluctantly skipped soccer and we packed up our blankets and pillows and were off to the basketball courts at Copper Creek Elementary. It was actually a lot of fun and we hadn't seen Monsters Vs. Aliens yet so Rayce was completely transfixed for the whole movie.

An active Avie and a very tired Daddy!

Danielle is already too cool to sit with her family, here she is with her cute girlfriends Natalie, Nicole and Mia.

No, I don't know why Rayce is shirtless, he's usually missing at least one article of clothing.

Antics

Usually when Danielle and Rayce are quiet it means they are doing something they're not supposed to do. So when it got quiet the other day I crept in to see what they were doing. The picture won't do it justice.

Danielle and Raycey were rocking out to "Celebrate good times, come on". Avie was their captive audience. They are quickly becoming the three amigos. Well, mostly Danielle and Rayce play and Avie just wants to be wherever they are. Funny kiddos!

Soccer, Fall & Other Stuff

We were able to have some nice family time this weekend. I re-signed Rayce up for soccer because he loved it so much this last spring. Well, he wasn't loving it that much this time. We were late first of all, and he was tired, and grouchy, so he wasn't really feeling up for playing soccer. He warmed up a tiny bit, but we ended up leaving early, I guess we'll give it another try next Saturday.

After soccer we decided to go up to Flagstaff to hopefully see some beautiful fall colors that we have so been missing this time of year. I love taking road/day trips, mostly I think because the kids fall asleep and Dan and I get the chance to talk. The kids started out a little rocky, but did end up falling asleep, so it was an awesome drive, with good company.

We went to a place called the Flagstaff Nordic Center, about 15 miles north of Flagstaff. They do an event called Autumn in the Aspens with hay rides and games and stuff for the kids. The kids had a blast, Danielle was in heaven with all the games and crafts. Rayce loved kicking the pumpkins from the pumpkin patch. I'm not sure if he was trying to kick them open, but luckily, I stopped him before he could do any real damage.

Yay for wearing jackets again!

A little potato sack racing.

"What? I wasn't doing anything?"

There wasn't the fall color I'm used to in Utah, but the pinion pines and aspens were still beautiful. We had a great time.

We made and decorated some Halloween cookies today, and I had to put away my OCD in regards to the kids making a mess and just let them go at it with the frosting. They turned out really cute.

7 Months

It's amazing the things that can happen in the course of a month's time. Avie is seven months today and is blowing me away every day. From a month ago she is crawling all over the place, sitting on her own, loving solid food (especially bananas and pears), and sleeping through the night.
Her eczema is still raging, I'm afraid she'll have it for a while, but her skin looks much better than it used to. What an amazing little person she is, I know her skin makes her itchy a lot of the time, but she smiles through it all. She got the big bruise on her fore head trying to retrieve her binky from underneath the armoir.



She is becoming more and more interactive with Danielle and Rayce, and they absolutely love her to pieces. Danielle seems to have this special connection with Avie that is all their own. I hope this bond continues throughout their lives.

I am so grateful for my kids! They frustrate me and challenge me and complicate things and make things worthwhile and beautiful and meaningful at the same time. So many emotions, but mostly just love. I love them!!!

Very Important Question

Rayce just got his first haircut (first real haircut other than Dan shaving it all off).

And something struck us shortly after.

Does my son look like...Lloyd Christmas?

Oh No!

Let me preface this entry by saying this, I knew from the moment I found out that I was pregnant with Danielle that my kids would ride motorcycles, or that they would at least try it. Dan's dirt bike is a big part of his life, not as big as he would like it at the moment with school and all but anyway, I knew he would get his kids on a dirt bike in time...I didn't realize that time would be now.

My husband came across a great deal on a little fifty. He couldn't pass it up. He bought the bike thinking he would hide it until Christmastime. He also had one of his teachers at school give him an older bike that they weren't using anyone. So all of a sudden we go from zero motorcycles to two in two days. Dan decides to hide both bikes in the garage draped in shop towels and behind boxes. Well to make a long story short both bikes were found by Rayce within the span of a couple of days. I'm pretty sure Rayce now thinks about motorcycles 24/7. That first day he wouldn't get off of it, and since he wears diapers and hardly eats, he really had no reason to. He tells everyone he knows or will listen about "his" motorcycles. Apparently Danielle has no ownership here whatsoever. So here we are, I'm sure with more blogs to come of mishaps and injuries although I know how seriously Dan takes the safety of his kids, so that makes me feel a tiny bit at ease, but I'm sure any mother understands.

Not the best of hiding places.

Dan "test" riding the bike.

Danielle smiling while Rayce is throwing a fit that she is on "his" motorcycle.