Happy New Year

We celebrated the New Year a couple hours early this year just for the kids. We look forward to 2009 and can't wait to see what happens next!

Christmas Celebrations

What a wonderful Christmas we had this year. It was so nice to stay at our house and have the party come to us! We had Thor's mom and step-dad, and two of his sisters, Lee Ann (with 3 kids, Baylee, Christian, & Adam) & Amanda (with her boyfriend Quintin). We woke up on Christmas morning around 7 to the sound of all the appliances shutting off. The power went out! Our neighborhood lost power for about an hour that morning. We tried to open stokings with flashlights and candles, but it didn't work that well. We managed to delay the kids until the sun came up a little while later. I'm not sure what we would have done for dinner that day if the power hadn't come back on! We had a yummy prime rib roast, with potatoes, green beans, and rolls. Not to mention a load of desserts, chocolate cake, pumpkin pie, apple pie, cheesecake, and cookies galore!

Yummy Gingerbread Houses

Christmas Eve Pjs
Gabe loved playing with his new crane and Car Legos

Lorili went nuts when she tore into her 7 Disney Princess Barbie Collection

We lots of family come and visit. Our house was perfect for the celebration. Lots of room for everyone to spread out!

Of course there was plenty of Rock Band and Guitar Hero World Tour (Thanks Jared!)

Our nephew Collin was able to swing by for a visit on his way back to Connecticut

Baylee and Lee Ann

Christian was quite the builder with his new set of legos

Amanda brought her boyfriend Quintin, he is a nice guy and joined right in with all the action

Family Pictures {minus Thor}

We did not do family pictures this year, so the kids and I surprised Thor for Christmas with some pictures of the kids and me. My friend Dianne came over and took pictures here at our house. It was a lot of fun and I LOVE the pictures. For the surprise to work, I had to refrain from posting them. Now that Christmas is past, I am ready to share them with you!

Goodbye Catten!

When we moved into this house, we acquired a stray cat. The owners had feed the poor thing for the last 13 years and asked us to do the same. We happily agreed, and the kids have loved poor old "Catten" (a combination of "Cat" and "Kitten"). He is a very mild cat, and never attacked the kids when they were not being very nice to him. But lately, he hasn't seemed to be doing too well. He got into a fight with a skunk a while back and now we are having unusually cold and snowy weather. Because of this, we decided he needed to be taken to the animal shelter where he could be properly taken care of. We boxed Catten up and turned him over to the animal shelter. We aren't sure how or when to break it to the kids (do you remember the video of Lorili when her fish, that lived only a few hours, died?). I'm not ready to go through that again. So we will wait until they notice and break it to them gently.

Are we still in Iowa?

So, I was under the impression that we wouldn't get snow here in Albany, or at least not the kind that sticks around. Well, it's a freak winter here this year. With early and sticky snow! It started Saturday night and keeps hitting us. It really hasn't been much snow, but with near freezing temperatures and no snow plows, the snow turns into sheets of ice. School was cancelled Monday, Tuesday and now today! Christmas break started early this year! It has been fun, other than I've not been able to get all my Christmas preparations done. Christmas packages went out late, and Christmas cards are a few days behind them:( Oh well, the kids have been loving the snow, so we will enjoy enjoy it while it lasts!

Dance! Dance!

Lorili has been taking a hip-hop dance class from the Rec Center. Last night they danced at an Assisted Living Home. It was pretty cute. I posted a video to give you a good laugh!

Happy Thanksgiving

(hint-if you click on the colage, it will enlarge)
Our camera has an attitude. It only works when it wants to. So we didn't bother taking it to Thanksgiving. We were dependant on others. Thanks Mom and Dad for sending these to me!

We drove to Logandale, Nevada (just outside of Vegas) for the festivities. My sister was so wonderful to open her house to her three sisters and parents. It is always so fun to get together. The cousins pick right up where they left off.

We had a fun 18hr drive. We split the trip in half and stayed over in Reno. The first day of driving was a bit dicey. I planned the route and did not even think about winter weather, high mountain passes, or traveling at night. After all, I am from Arizona, it was just raining in Oregon, and we were headed south! Needless to say, we made it safely over the mountains, slowly but surly!

Holiday activities included a HUGE feast with awesome food! Part of the group made it to the Hoover Dam to see the construction of a new bridge that goes right over the dam...amazing! We didn't want to fight the traffic, so we headed to town to grab some In-N-Out Burgers-THE BEST! Next we headed to the Vegas Strip with a stop at MM World and Coke World. We tasted 18 varieties of Coke products from around the world, waited too long in a line for a 3-D MM movie, and filled a bag of MMs with Lorili's own color combination. By the end the kids were wiped out and we were all tired. So we sent the Dads home with the kids and the Moms stayed for the Broadway show Mama Mia. We had a blast! A great story and the music was so much fun, and who better to see it with than your Mom and sisters? We will have to do this again!

To top off the whole trip, we made a trip to the Temple. This was the best part of the whole trip! The older cousins babysat (Thanks Halie & Jack!) and we were able to go and then enjoy some yummy BBQ afterwards.

It was a long trip home, but I am so glad we went! I would totally do it again! Bennie (that's our new cars nickname) made the drive so much more enjoyable. Plenty of room and lots of comfort! Not to mention satelite radio, so we had a signal even when driving across the barren Nevada desert, and OnStar navigation and directions at our fingertips, to keeps us on track!