Double digits!

Alexa wanted a Safari theme for her 10th birthday party this year. Here's Alexa playing "pin the nose on the lion."
Here's the party crew decorating their doorknob hangers.

Opening the party presents.

Here's the Birthday Girl with all her party friends.

"Hunting" for safari animals with the blow dart gun down at the church.

The kids played a game that was like a cake walk, but instead of winning a cake, they won bubble gum. Then at the end of the game, we had a a bubble gum blowing contest.

Here's Alexa's birthday cake that I worked really hard on. I had to get a picture of it before we cut it all up and ate it.

I can't believe Alexa is 10! Only a couple more years before she's in Young Women's. She's growing up too fast!Here's Alexa with her panda bear birthday cake.

Look at all those presents!

Here's Lexy sporting the new hat and scarf that Grandma Linda gave her.

Opening presents

Christmas morning

I'm a little behind on my posts, but I didn't just want to skip Christmas morning! So here it is, a couple of months late. This year for Christmas, Joe made the kids walking sticks. He put a lot of time into carving them and decorating them with leather, feathers, and beads. They were really cool looking and the kids loved them!
Here's Alexa with her new pajamas.

Andrea got a basket, bell, and handlebar tassles for her bike and in a few months, it will be warm enough for her to enjoy them!

Landon got a Leatherman multitool of his very own. Hopefully he won't cut his fingers off while learning how to use it!

Rylan loves dinosaurs and was thrilled with his dinosaur pop-up book.

Opening presents Christmas morning. What a joyous time!

Grandma Kathy made the kids new stockings this year for Christmas. Here they are filled to the brim with Santa's goodies.

Decorating Christmas Sugar Cookies

For some reason, I thought it would be fun to let the kids decorate sugar cookies this year. I remember this being a lot funner when I was a kid. Maybe my mom would disagree. It was pretty stressful, but I do think the kids enjoyed it.
Rylan was enjoying himself!

Go easy on the sprinkles there, Champ! Believe it or not, that isn't orange frosting on his cookie, just sprinkles!

Andrea's sprinkles literally came to a point. I had to help her spread her sprinkles on several cookies.

Believe it or not, we actually delivered these cookies to our neighbors and friends. (Including, of course, an explanation as to who decorated them.)

Decorating the Christmas Tree

Here's the finished product. "O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, how lovely are thy branches."
Here's Rylan decorating the tree. He had so much fun hanging all his ornaments on the same branch. I had to do a little rearranging after the kids went to bed.

Andrea's really concentrating on hanging that ornament!

Landon's hanging his Polar Express ticket from school on the tree.

Alexa wanted to smile for her picture instead of getting a candid shot. You look beautiful, Lexy!

Jack-o-lantern Smile

Alexa has lost two teeth recently and they are both on the same side of her mouth. I like to tease her and tell her that we are going to have to start feeding her baby food because pretty soon there won't be any teeth left to chew.

Thanksgiving dinner

This year we spent Thanksgiving at my sister, Kristi's house. Here are some pictures of the fun we had with cousins, Aunts and Uncles, and Grandma. We had a great time!
Here's Rylan enjoying his pre-dinner roll.

Here's Andrea at the "little girl" table.

Landon and his best bud, Micah got the whole bar to themselves for their dinner,.

Here's Alexa at the "big girl" table.

Fun Halloween Events

This picture is out of place because I accidentally deleted it and had to add it again, but here is Andrea with her completed Jack-o-lantern.

Here the kids are ready to go trick-or-treating. It was sure windy and cold on Halloween night. Poor Landon's Indian Chief Headdress just about got ripped to shreds from the wind.At the Ward trunk-or-treat


Alexa was a puppy.

Andrea was a girl pirate.

Rylan was a clown.

Landon was an Indian Chief.

Here's our Jack-o-lanterns on our front porch.

Enjoying our traditional Halloween dinner: Mummy dogs, slugs (peaches), witches fingers (cheetos), and boiling blood (red kool-aid with dry ice in it.)

Alexa carving her pumpkin.

Andrea cleaning out her pumpkin.

Here's all my boys carving their pumpkins.

Landon decided he'd try to eat the pumpkin guts this year.

Here's Rylan's SCARY face.

Alexa with her finished pumpkin.

All of our Jack-o-lanterns.

Here's Landon at the school Halloween parade.

Here's Andrea (on the left) with her good buddy (yes, a little boy) at the school Halloween party. They were both pirates and had the same costume. (Andie is just a bit of a tom-boy.)

Landon and Andrea at the Ward Halloween Party.

Rylan at the Ward Halloween Party (He refused to put his cute clown costume on that night so we had to put him in his batman pajamas.)

Here's Alexa at the Ward Halloween Party.

Here's Rylan playing musical chairs all by himself. The game ended and he just kept on playing, so the person running the game hurried and started the music because she thought he was so cute. And guess what . . . he won!

Here's Landon doing the limbo at the Ward party.

Here's Andie and Landon doing the cake walk at the school Halloween Carnival.