Thanksgiving 2009

This year we spent Thanksgiving with Jaysen's family out in Jerome. We had such a good time hanging out with everyone that was there.

This was the "Girls Only" table. Mackenzee was so excited that she was big enough to sit with the big girls. If you look closely in the back left hand corner of the table you will see a hooded figure....
That's just Jordan trying to hide herself from my flashing camera lense. :0)

Mackenzee and I taught Jeremy the fine art of eating olives off your fingertips. He thought it was wicked awesome and I'm pretty sure he ate an entire jar of olives all by himself.

The men folk got serious over a game of Sequence. I will tell you now that Jaysen and I are a bit addicted to that game. If you haven't played it before....you need to get cracking! :0)

Thanks so much Rita for a wonderful dinner. I'm still thinking about your yummy pomegranite sauce you used on the Turkey. So yummy!

Happy Thanksgiving!

New Moon!!!!

I read the first three books in the Stephenie Meyers Twilight series in one week. That was two years ago. Sadly, it took an entire year for the fourth and final book in the series to be released. I read that one in a matter of days. Needless to say...I enjoy them. :0)
When the first book was made into a movie I was super excited.....that is, until I watched it. It stunk. Badly....
Still, I held out hope that the next movie would be better.
For any of you that live in Twin Falls...you realize there is not much to do around these parts....especially when it gets cold outside. Knowing there would be a whole evening at the movie theater revolving around the release of the second movie, New Moon, I knew I had to go. Not necessarily for the movie, because I had no expectations for the movie, but because I knew it would be fun to go and see all of the little teenage girls screaming over Edward and Jacob. :0) It was the event I was dying to go to....
I convinced a few friends to go with me to the midnight showing of New Moon on Thursday night and invited them all over to my house to watch the first movie, Twilight, just before we headed over to the theater. And, because I love nothing more than having theme parties (is that sad?) I made matching t-shirts for all of us to wear too. Who says "old" ladies don't know how to have fun? :0)
I was on Team Edward....Montay (who just so happens to be pretending to bite my neck like a vampire) was on Team Jacob. For those of you who have been closed off to the world for the past several years....Edward is a vampire...and Jacob is a werewolf.

I was going crazy with blood-hunger apparently. :0) Ellen smelled TOO good!!!

Here's the gang patiently waiting for the movie to start....Tiffany, Ellen, Rachelle, Crystal, Fonda, Montay, and me.

Nathan and Crystal....

Me, Montay, and Fonda...(yes...those are glow sticks and I swear EVERYONE else at the theater was totally jealous!)

Rachelle, Ellen, and Tiffany

This was Montay frantically driving us to the theater. See how excited she is? She doesn't even LIKE the books. Yet...here she is....wearing her Jacob shirt...with the Jacob pin on the front....driving her car that was covered in window marker with phrases like "Team Jacob!" and "New Moon!" And, because we are older than the tweenies...we totally parked in the bowling alley parking lot so we could be closer to the door (it was stinking cold outside!!!) and jumped over the fence to get to the front doors. We've got MAD SKILLS!

Do I look tired? This picture was taken at 2:30 am AFTER we had seen the movie.

Here's the group in our wicked awesome shirts....

Can you see how excited I was for the movie? (photo taken courtesy of Mackenzee photography "Say cheese AND smile mom!")

While I was making the shirts for us girls my kids decided they didn't want to feel left out and wanted me to make them shirts too. They both chose to be Team Edward (through no persuasion whatsoever!). We are baring our teeth like vampires in this picture. Don't we look fierce?

I had so much fun last night girls!!! Thanks so much for your willingness to be crazy with me. I've never been so loud in a theater in my entire life (and still had others be louder than me!!!) Can't wait for Eclipse to come out....I hear it's going to be released in June...you guys ready to stay up all night again?

Kaden's baptism

My nephew, Kaden, got baptized this last weekend...on Halloween! The poor kid ended up having to get dunked twice but was a real trooper. He's showing off his CTR bracelet in this picture here.

Halloween 2009

Landon as Optimus Prime.....look at those muscles!!!

Mackenzee as Princess "Auwowa" {Aurora} aka Sleeping Beauty :0)

Landon and Mackenzee anxiously waiting to go Trunk or Treating....

Checking out their loot....actually, Landon was trying to convince Mackenzee to trade her gum for his chocolate. I told her to take the trade...she totally got the better end of the deal. :0)

The kids had a great time trick or treating this year, and Jaysen and I were thrilled it didn't rain on us this year. I think I have eaten just as much of the candy as my kids have :0(

Now...Kenzee wants to know when Christmas will be here. Sigh....sooner than I'd like!!!!

Costume Parade

This year I knew that I couldn't be as involved in the class parties at Landon's school. As the years have progressed it seems like there is less time to put towards these kinds of things. This year I didn't sign up at all to help out with the Halloween party at Landon's school. I figured I could lend a hand during Christmas and Valentine's instead. Well....when Landon found out I wasn't going to be in charge of the party this year he was more than a little disappointed. {Which secretly made me feel REALLY good. I mean...come on...my FOURTH grader wanted me to come and hang out in his classroom STILL!!!!} He asked me if I would still at least come and watch him do his costume parade. How could I turn him down? The parade was at the same time as the class party, so I was able to sit in on a little bit and poke fun at all of his friends. Mackenzee came too {in her Dorothy costume}.

All of Landon's friends from his classroom {excluding girls....OF COURSE!}

What a handsome kid!!!!

Like last year, Landon was super excited to take Mackenzee with him as he paraded around the school. Mackenzee ate up the attention, and I think Landon enjoyed showing off his sister too. :0)

Our neighbor Whitley was in the parade too....isn't she a scary witch?

Genea dressed up as a witch this year too...

I don't know what's more scary....Landon's "gun" {he was pretending his hand was a gun}, or Mackenzee's finger up her nose....

It was a fun afternoon for all of us. I am still beaming over Landon wanting me to be a part of his school activities. I figured by now he'd be embarrased to have me hang out with him. Instead, he made sure all of his friends knew that I was his mom. I've still got the title "Landon's mom".....FOR NOW anyway. :0) I'll take it as long as I can get it!

Halloween dance party!!!

Mackenzee's dance class has a new policy this year where parents are only allowed to watch their kids practice on the last class of each month. This is so that hopefully the kids will actually pay attention to their teacher instead of show off for their mommies. :0) For the month of October the girls learned a Halloween dance to show the parents on the last class of the month. Kenzee was so excited to show off her wicked dance moves. The first half of class was for dancing...the last half was for a short Halloween party. This was the first time I let Kenzee put on her Halloween costume...

This is her dancing to their Halloween song "Witches Brew"....it was really cute and the girls had so much fun doing it in their costumes. {A lot of princesses in that room....let me tell ya!}

Here are all the girls in their Halloween costumes, including Miss Amanda {the teacher}.

Amazingly Mackenzee and Maggie showed up wearing similar costumes. :0) Pink and gold!!! Although Mackenzee was Sleeping Beauty and Magge was Barbie. Gotta love it!

The Gun Show...

I have been wanting a punching bag for a while now...
I know...random...
Anyway, after months of poking at Jaysen he finally consented to the expense. :0) He even bought me some boxing gloves to go with it. Nice huh?

Don't I look so fierce? I'm hoping to not only let off some steam with this baby...but to maybe get some actual muscles in my arms. It could happen.....

The kids were so excited about it too. :0) They had so much fun punching and kicking at it. They even went so far as to get their winter gloves on to pretend they were boxing gloves. {BTW...Landon does not usually wear his pants inside out....it was for Red Ribbon Week}

I don't know if you can tell from this picture...but Landon is flying through the air. :0) He had some good kicks going on....of course, when he asked me if I would do a double kick for him I didn't back down from the challenge. Unfortunately....I'm not as quick as I thought I could be and I totally biffed it. Did you know there was concrete underneath this carpet???? Yeah....my tailbone was bruised for a few days afterwards. So much for trying to be cool for my kid...

Mackenzee needs to grow a few more inches in order to kick the actual punching bag...but she sure did try her hardest anyway. She's got some mean punches in her though. :0) Do you see her pink boxing gloves???

(October 2009)