Christmas Eve

So Christmas Eve daddy went to work and we were left to ourselves to anticipate the coming night and next day. Luckily, Jana our neighbor has some nieces and nephews who came to play that we know, so they all came over and partied. It was a nice way to wittle away the hours. They played hide and seek and watched a christmas movie, and just generally played hard.

Ellie, Abby, Josh, Isabel, Lily, Eva, Riley, & Isaac.

Bella, olivia, and Eva, just before presents opening.
Just after being at tio Jorge's house for Christmas Eve (another time I forgot to take a pic). Tio Juan's fam, Tio Jorge's family, Esther's fam, and us celebrated, although we missed our poncho weetos, and the traditional food, we still had a nice time.

The girls in the traditional Christmas Jammies.

Kissen livey-lou!

In Bed, waiting for santa!

Thanksgiving... Arizona Style!

So with two brothers in Arizona, we thought it would be FABULOUS to invite ourselves, cheeky I know, to visit over the Holiday weekend. And bar the 12 hour drive, and me not getting any group pictures, we had a MARVOLOUS time.

We reserved a room at a local hotel through priceline, it was pretty gross I don't recommend the hotel or priceline, even for the good deal I got.

We first went to my brother Lane's house, after a long drive at about 10 in the morning (we drove all night), and then went to lunch with both lane and his fam, my parents (who were also visiting), and my bro Troy. Gecko grill, good times! Then later spent part of the evening with Troy's family. The tragic part I didn't get even ONE picture of his kids or fam.

Then, Grrr - with no pictures, we had a great Thanksgiving at Lanes house. Then over to Troy's for some pie and visiting!

Fri. I went shopping with Heather, Brit, Ruth, and Keith. Oh my Gosh Holy crazy shoppers, I have Never seen anything like it, we were there about 5:45, and the line was wrapped clear through the parking lot. Fun, but crazy! That night we took the kids to the madagasgar movie.

Sat. we went on a hike with lane's fam, and Ruth's fam. These are the only pics from the whole trip.

Sat night we drove home, and saw 30 deer. 4 of those right in the middle of the street! It probably took an additional hour, because we drove so slow. The deer were everywhere and they didn't see bothered by us at all. GRRRR!

Home, safe at last. ahhh

Arizona November weather lovely!
Landon and Eva!
B squared (niece brit and friend brit) being big goofs!

Bella with the big kids, she is so ready to grow up! Slow down!

Chivalry is still alive! Landon saw something move and put his arm out to protect Eva, against anything bad that it could be. Seriously what a cute cousin! Here he is checking it out!

Sabrina, Landon, and Bella!

Landon and Bella were bringing up the rear, and I asked them to get in front of me, so an adult was the rear. And just because, they grabbed each others hand up the trail.

Best cousins! Fer sure!

Seriously that is so sweet and innocent! Lovely!

Dad, Eva, and Livey Lou - with the Arizona landscape!

Five little monkeys, sitting in a tree

So we had cousins, Maddie, Mai-Mai, and Rigdon, over for a sleepover beginning of November, and it was still nice outside; so while dad was able to do some yard work the kids spent a good portion of the day outside. There is a lovely Mimosa tree out front, and is an ideal climbing tree. So they we up and down in the tree most of the day. Definitly monkeys! I taught them how to play a game I played when I was little called colored eggs. They loved it! Then we went on a 'spy walk' where we had to walk sneaky and hide if we saw anyone coming, and then grabbed the 'top secret' pine needles' to take home before the 'bad guys' got us. It was a good memory making day!

Riggy, Mai-Mai, Eva, Maddie, and Bella!
Bella monkey!

Eva Monkey!

Preschool - here Eva comes

So with a move and the school year already started, finding a preschool was NOT a wonderful experience, however, with the help of our awesome neighbor, Jana; Eva started Preschool the first week of November. It is a really good preschool, and they have some fabulous programs for the kids. She has really JUMPED forward with her school skills. I think it is a blessing, also, to have a friend for her since she was so hesitant last year. She loves it and never fights me about going. Yeah, school!

First Day!

With friend Abby!

Dancin Queen - young and free

So Eva has a little dance class with two of our cute little neighbor girls, Jane and Abby. Three more girlie girls you could not find. Pink, dancing, and giggling. It is especially lovely as we can carpool together! ahhh! Loading up their dance stuff!
Putting the shoes back on!

Eva really is such a girlie girl. I wanted her to wear her black tights and a different leotard so I could put the pink ones in the washer. It was tears, tears, and more tears. She wanted to wear the pink ones. Am I a sucker?

Hallo-freakin-ween

I know, I'm posting a lot about halloween, but it just such a fun Holiday! So we woke up earlier than usual, and made sure we had time to get them 'ready' for halloween, hair and makeup for three ladies takes awhile. Then we rushed bella to school, and got ready for the school's halloween parade. This school does a good job, the office gets into it and everything. My favorite costume was a teacher Mary Poppins, you could tell she had just put it together with a whole lot of ingenuity! Fabulous! Then I helped with the class party. I brought ghost punch (lemonade made with splenda - a. they didn't need the sugar, b. splenda isn't as sticky if spilled. - served in a ghost halloween bucket) Then pumkin bowling. ( water bottles with faces drawn on them, and two med. pumkins for rolling.) Then, the creme de la creme, was the 'what gross thing are you touching?' game. It was "THE" hit. You take everyday items, name them gross things, and have the kids feel them underneath a tablecloth so they can't see. This year I did:

Eyeballs - Peeled grapes

Monster fingers - asparagus

monkey's heart - peeled plum

skeleton ribs - celery

frog eggs - acini de pepi (pasta)

bat wings - cabbage leaves

troll toenails - ribbon coconut

Draculas teeth - candy corns

troll guts - spagetti

I had to talk a few of the kids into it, but most were pretty anxious!

Then, Isabel wanted me to check her out, so I did (awesome mom?). We went and changed and then I took them to Artic circle for a 'square pumpkin' meal (happy meal) with a halloween flashlight treat! We went home and played with neighbors, and I made minestrone. Mmmm. Our friends, the sohms, came over and shared dinner with us, the adults ate minestone, and the kids pizza. Then it was trick or treatin time!

Just before they went trick or treatin.
This was a hand me down. It was beautiful! Thanks Hannah!

Can you tell I had fun with the liquid eyeliner?

This was a costume her tio Juan gave her for her birthday. Lucky girl!

More liquid eyeliner! Lovin it!

I snagged some random trick or treater mom to take this, so we would remember what we all were. I got josh and my costume last year after, on clearance. If anyone wants to borrow them for next year? Mine is the Queen of Hearts (it looks better with the red thing up) and josh's is... I think a roman citizen. Hey it was cheap!

Carving with the primos!

My sweet sister in law Esther, invited us to come down and have a spooky dinner and carve pumpkins. She does a spooky dinner every year for her family, we felt lucky to be included. She served walrus lungs (enchilades), bloody lice (mexican rice), and had eyeballs in blood cups (jello with gummy eyeballs). She also decorated with all purple stuff, and had cute, I mean, scary lollipop spiders. Then we started carving. Kregg, her hubby, also raked all the leaves in their backyard in a HUGE pile, and let the kids go nuts. Josh had a big leaf war with the kids. Then their dog, got thrown into the pile a few times (now that was funny). I think next to the fourth of July, Halloween is my favorite holiday. I mean, geez, costumes, candy, and lots of reasons to party, good times!

My regret about this night is, I didn't even get any pictures of the pumpkin finished product. Aye carumba! Jacob, made a frankenstein, with real screws in the flesh, Isabel wanted a skeleton cross-bones, Eva a cat, and Peach a word one, with treat or treat!

Scary dinner!
By the pile of leaves! Trust me it was huge!

Just looking at them, you know they are thinking.. eeewww!

Cute nephew, Peach.

The jello eye!

Emmm bloodly eye dessert!

Eva tried it but didn't finish, I think it was just to gross!

I don't think bella finished either!

Pumpkin Patch

So for the past four years we have headed to the same pumpkin patch, this year we broke tradition and went to a little old man's house with a small pumpkin patch in his backyard. Not as many photo ops, but closer, and it was good supporting this little local man!

Truley, I was lucky to get any pics, my camera was low on batteries. I opened up my battery pack, licked it and eeked out a few more pics! whew!

They fought over who could hold Olivia, as I grumped at them to hurry because of the battery!

First pumpkin hunt!

Flips flops in October?

I swear she was happy to be there!

Corn maze with cousins

So with my brothers family, minus their 17 year old hottie, we headed to the local corn maze slash carnaval thingy. Brayden my almost 16 year old nephew, thought we were going to have some other older cousins show up, unfortunatly for him it was just us with our little ones, but he made the best of it and was freakin' awesome for a teenager to hang out with. Serisouly sweet with his cousins, his sister, didn't belly ache (at least that I heard) to his parents. Dude!

They had this race course set up with these peddle carts, and I totally was talking trash that I was going to waste him, we totally raced and, and just so you all know I am one smokin' fast lady! Sorry Brayder, aunt cheryl has to boast when she can!

This fair way awesome, it had cool slides up on top of hay stacks, a train to ride, pig racing, a little town to explore, a playground, they had a balloon guy, big jumping pillow, and haunted house thingy. Seriously good thing for a nice fall day! And it was extra nice to be with family. My girls LOVE their big cousin hannah!

This is overlooking the maze with all the kids. I wish I would of got a picture of the whole group, moms and dads. It isn't like opportunities like that are always happening!
Eva's the farmer?

Bella with the, he he, pumpkin princess!

This is all of us walking through the maze, we actually made it through both ways pretty fast... I didn't say we did it the right way.

Neighborhood Halloween Party

So we were graciously invited to a neighbor party, I'm always up for a party, and with our cute neice Kyla in tow, we headed to the party! They are all definitly belles of the Ball! Kyla originally had another costume on, but didn't feel beautiful enough... when we put this costume on you could tell she felt beautiful, and she told us so. Little girls are soooo funny.. they had a great time getting dressed up, and make up on their faces!

Little Lamb

Cinderella

Tinkerbell

Snow white

Darth Maul ??? Star Wars?? Who are you??

Ok, so I did ANOTHER 'what star wars character are you' kind of thing on Josh's facebook account, and it said I was darth maul, so how does that fit in with snow white, and 1952?? I couldn't post it, but I thought it was funny. By the way Josh was chewbacca.

You Are Snow White!

Pure and trusting. You are a gentle soul who can get along with just about anyone. Everyone you meet instantly falls in love with you. How can they resist? You have a pure, lovable nature that's irresistable. Just don't trust everyone who comes across your path.

Which Disney Princess Are You?