Recent Happenings...

We celebrated Cameron's birthday in between various Christmas activities and friend's parties for both Landon and Austin. We kind of celebrated in stages: Friday night: presents, Saturday afternoon: Key Lime Pie and the Happy Birthday Song, and Saturday night: a trip to Boise with just Cam and I to celebrate.

This poster{s} was from the kids. The kid's are convinced that this is a "year supply" of candy! (maybe it should be a year supply :) )

After a marathon allergy appointment with Austin and {unfortunately} a severe allergic reaction at the office, we barely made it home in time to get to Landon's Christmas concert. Landon was "Country Bob". He did an AWESOME job! After the show, his teacher introduced all the speaking and solo parts. When Landon's name was called his class went crazy, cheering for him!

I love the smile he has on his face. He and his friend are laughing at each other. Landon, really did his best and we were proud of him. I even got a text from his friend's mom during one of the songs.... it looked like Landon was doing a "turtle" dance. She texted me that she was crying because she was laughing so hard at how cute Landon was!

Isaac also had a Christmas concert. He came home from preschool one day and practiced for it. He was excited to sing Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer while wearing a red nose! He made the nose himself (along with a blue one for when he wants to be a blue Power Ranger)

This was the best picture I could get of him at his party/concert. There were SO many parents there I couldn't even see him singing. It was crazy! He was sad that he only got to sing two songs and he couldn't see me while he was singing. But the PLATE-FULL of treats afterward cured him.

...and now we wait...sometimes not so patiently for Christmas Day...

Last night I took the kids to do a service project. We try to do one every year (actually, one of our family's goals is to do one once a month). We usually donate food to the homeless shelter or put allowance money together to by "toys for tots". This year, I planned an activity for the Young Women in our ward to sing at a nursing home. Since none of the Mia Maids could make it, I decided to take the kids. Unfortunately, Cameron was working during the time they wanted us there.

I couldn't take a picture because I was singing with the kids. Rest assured, though, that they were well received. Isaac wore his antlers from his preschool party the day before and sang with gusto. Austin played Jingle Bells on the piano and sang Away in a Manger, beautifully. Landon didn't want to go, but I made him. He was nervous he'd have to talk to the residents and try to think of things to say. Once he saw how happy the residents were with our songs, though, his heart melted and he was very happy. Ella did her part by clapping after every song. We had the chance to go into some of the residents' rooms and sing to them, as well. One woman was 99 and another was 103. They were SO happy to see us and hear our songs. I was proud of my kids. Their spirits were shining and their sweet voices were beautiful. They were SO SO happy after. They could tell that they made a tiny difference in the resident's lives. This definitely is a good time of year to give service. (I took this picture when we got home - after we ate dinner... :) )

ClaSsiC santa pics

We went to a Christmas Party for the Med Group on Base. Santa came in on an ambulance. I love the gotta-have Santa pictures, taken against a yellow wall, with bad light, by a point and shoot - they're not good pictures but I love them anyway.

And, just wondering has anyone ever seen a "good" santa picture?! The Coralridge Mall Santa comes to mind (all my Iowa peeps know what I'm talking about :) ha ha ha)

this picture is from last year... Ella's opinion of Santa hasn't changed much....

I promise she really did say she wanted to sit on his lap, but once she did she changed her mind fast... I can't help but laugh, especially comparing the two pictures :)

Isaac asked for a remote control car

Austin asked for a puppy, "even tough my mom and dad said no." After he told Santa about the puppy he noticed the dollar store trinkets in Santa's bag and said, "well actually I'll just have a whoopie cushion."

Landon refused to sit on Santa's lap. I guess it's about time, but still, I was wishing for one more year of Santa bliss for him

September 2011 POTD Catch Up

One of my all-time favorites

We had a bounty in our backyard. I couldn't believe that our "experiment" garden grew so well. I let the kids pick any seeds they wanted and we raked up our own backyard soil and threw in the seeds. Now that I know we can do it, next spring we will "really" plant. It's true what they say about fresh veggies - and just picked from the vine is even better!

We spent a day at the Air Show on base, complete with the famous Thunderbirds show. It was awesome (and very loud!)

I didn't quite get around to doing 18 month photos of Ella, so one day I took these impromptu pictures of Ella at 20 months. She was in the 49% for height and 51% for weight. This month she developed a love with shoes, especially mine. When I'm not sure where she is, I can be on her being in my closet or bathroom surrounded by my shoes, trying each pair on one at a time.

Over Memorial Day weekend Cameron's sister and her family came to visit. We had a great time. We spent a day on the water, a day on motorcycles, and a day of church, games, and good food.

Trying to Catch Up (October POTD Highlights)

Just before the hard drive went out on our computer I was trying to get caught up on my Picture A Day Project for 2011... Thankfully, Oh SO Thankfully, our pictures were saved. So now that we got them back I'm hoping to do a few posts from earlier this year to catch up. SO, since I left off with October in my catch up that's where I'll start... Here's some of my favorite Pictures of the Day for the month of October:

Cameron and I celebrated 11 years together... crazy ehe?!

(picture by http://www.amandaandrewsphotography.com )

One day we were at Target and I let Isaac pick something from the dollar section for being good at an Allergy appt. for Austin earlier that day. He chose this mask and has worn it almost daily ever since. In fact he wore it to preschool just this morning! Best dollar I ever spent...

Ella is keeping up with her brothers, no doubt about it. I keep begging her to stop growing up but she just won't! On this day she was able to climb the steps to the slide without the help of an older brother and she was ECSTATIC...

One night we randomly decided to go to an Enduro motocross race. It started at 7 and we decided to go at 5:30. Since it was an hour away we scarfed down our dinner (no concession stand $10 nachos and hot dogs for us :) ) and booked it to the stadium. The boys are still talking about that night. It also inspired Isaac's dream to someday race motorcycles as a career and own at least 21 motorcycles so all of his "children and wives and husbands" can ride motorcycles too...

Landon spent an entire weekend constructing this entirely edible map of Idaho. He was pretty disappointed when he came downstairs and found Isaac munching on the corner of the state, Luckily he stopped Isaac before too much damage was done... He told his teacher ," my dog ate my homework... the curly blond dog that's really my brother."

Austin got a retainer - it's actually a combo appliance but retainer is just a cooler word to use! He loves it. Apparently it's pretty cool to be the only kid in 1st grade with a retainer. An awesome thing about Austin is he can make anything cool!

Landon's last football game was the last weekend of October. He still practices throwing the football almost everyday to stay in shape for next season

Ella is developing that common habit of most 2 year old's - cry and throw a temper tantrum until you get what you want. Every temper tantrum she's thrown up until now have revolved around some kind of treat - the girl loves her snacks! She carries around the step stool and stands up to counter to beg for what she wants, usually fruit snacks. Anything I've made that resembles a cookie in any way, will elicit whining and crying and eventual mini-temper-tantruming until she gets one!

I found a donut maker at Target one day. The look on Landon's face says it all ...the kids loved them and devoured 15 donuts in about 5 minutes! The donut maker is the only way I could figure out how to make gluten-free donuts since the batter doesn't hold together well enough to fry in oil. It's kinda like a waffle iron. The boys LOVE watching me open the lid and ta-da! Donuts!

This month we got a surprise visit from Grandma Perigo! It was a fun couple of days. The kids just happened to have two days off school for Parent Teacher Conferences so they kept her plenty busy - with puzzles and movies and games ALL DAY LONG. It was fun to have her here with us. Come back!!

Gingerbread Family Night

I've never made Gingerbread Cookies before ... ever. SO, I thought I'd give it a try this year and we had a FUN, FUN Family Night last night

When I pulled out the cookie cutters Isaac saw the Christmas tree and decided he wanted to make a family of trees instead of "men". Then, as he decorated them, he dubbed them aliens! He put them all in the gingerbread house, instead of keeping them to eat.

Ella loved her cookies! I gave her a decorated one and she just stared at it for a while saying, "head! eyes! mouth!" such a little cutie. She especially loved putting on the gumdrops and marshmallows

Austin also decided not to make men, instead he used the snow man cookie cutter and made a snow man family. He decorated his cookies like his "future" family. With the dad as a police man, married to a beautiful woman (his words!) with three daughters. The baby was suspiciously dressed like a Star Wars Clone Trooper (I didn't get a picture but it was pretty funny!) He is quite certain that this is the way his family will turn out...I'm okay with it as long as the "beautiful woman" loves me like a second mom and I get to babysit those granddaughters all the time!! Ha!

Cameron's a pretty good cookie decorator too! I was cracking up at the "bite here" cookie. It was nice doing something like this together because so often either I or Cameron are gone in the evenings, thanks to work and church. It's amazing how relaxing decorating a few cookies can be!

As for, Land-o Commando, you can see why he has that nick-name! His little "Gingy" had body armour and a bazooka. Landon was especially excited to take it to school today and show his friends. He is hilarious! He worked so hard on it that he didn't have time to decorate anything else. He just ate the rest of his cookies without frosting (which I think is actually the best way to eat them too!) And I tried out my skills - which are not so great! Landon and Austin were a little dissapointed when they noticed I couldn't fit their whole names on a cookie. I tried, at least! And I'm blaming it on the frosting getting hard by the time I did my cookies - that's my story and I'm sticking to it!!