Bunco!!

First of all I have to do a big shout out to Whitney for letting me use her pictures. You are so awesome and so smart to bring a camera. Also to Kaydee for setting this all up.

The Ladies. We had a blast.

So we ended up playing a couple games, but the best part was just talking after wards for hours. I think we got home around 1 am. These women are so much fun. It has been a blast getting to know all of them.

Christmas Pictures

I know that Christmas is over, but I just keep reliving the season! I love these pictures. Me and David took them in a neighborhood around where we live. Not too bad for amateurs. However, we did have the cutest models ever. I am bias. I felt so bad for Madi. I put some makeup on her eyelids and they started puffing up, burning, and itching. So she was having a hard time keeping her eyes open. (This will explain some of the pictures. I know dumb mom for putting makeup on her little girl. But you can't tell to much in the pictures I posted. They got much worse.) But she was a good sport and is always beautiful even with puffy eyes. But in the end, after much crying, dirt all over the white shirt, running away, puffy eyes, much bribery, an entire box of cocoa puffs, wheat thins, some candy and 150 pictures, we did get ONE good group picture and some good individuals. Always an adventure.

Madi turns 10!!

My baby girl is 10! She will always be my baby girl even though she is the oldest because she is my only girl. I have been so blessed to get such an amazing daughter. She is my princess. I love her so much.



We were in Utah for her birthday. Madi and Grandma Lois. They gave Madi a beautiful jewelry box and a 2 dollar bill which Madi thought was awesome.


Grandma LaDonna got out all of her Madame Alexander Dolls to do a show for the kids. I do not think that she has ever shown these to the kids before. (We did not get to see them all because she seriously has about 500.)


That night we had a party for her at Grandma LaDonna's house. Grandma Stetter with Madi. (Grandma is 90! Doesn't she look amazing.)


She had fun at the party. She got her MP3 player that she has been dying to get. We held off on her for Christmas because she had to get something good for her birthday. (Because she got a ton of other good stuff for Christmas.)

At the party she: smoked some pizza............


Pulled party poppers, wore a crown, sang happy Birthday a million times because Grandma Stetter likes to watch the candle burn, ate some cake..........


and ice cream! Plus opened her presents. Besides the MP3 player, she also got some darling clothes from Grandma and Grandpa Ogden, a darling shirt from Grandma Stettler, and her aunt Joan gave her a cupcake froster.

Madi set the timer and at the exact time that she was born we blew party horns and made a lot of noise. It was a fun day.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MADI!!

Crazy Boys

Can you guess what these boys are pretending to be? SUPERHERO's? Who would have guessed! They said that they are going to protect me from the bad guys. They crack me up. I think Clark Kent wore glassed like that.

My studdly superhero. Matthew made that mask at school.

I was surprised that these two were actually playing on the same team. Fighting for the greater good of mankind. Matthew always wants to be the bad guy. Then I found this.... (The picture posted below.)

I guess Matthew decided to be the bad guy. I heard him yelling for help and this is what I found. They had tied him up with a ace bandage. He is trying to get out and struggling. I think Braydin helped Maxx and Micah because it was a pretty good job. Part of me was tempted to leave him tied up. Too bad I did not have 2 more bandages I could have tied all my boys up. That might make the day a little easier. (I would never actually do that! However, it is tempting.)

The Quilt

This was one of my favorite parts of Christmas. My amazing sister wanted to make our mom and dad a quilt for Christmas. We put the kids hand-prints on it, pictures they had drawn, and then pictures of the kids with Grandma and Grandpa. It was a challenge for me because being crafty is not one of my specialties. But I have such a wonderful and patient sister who encourages me to do things that I would definitely not try on my own. Plus she put up with all my complaining and frustration. It took a long time to put together. I can't even count the hours we put into this blanket. But the final product was well worth it. It was beautiful and the reaction from our parents was Priceless!!

But we decided that it would be not fun just to give them the blanket without a little teasing. Here is the story:

We bought them a quilt holder to display the quilt. So we had this wrapped under the tree. They opened this and had no idea what it was. We told them that it was a quilt holder to hang their pretty quilt on that they have in their front room. She gave us a puzzled look and said, "We do not have a quilt in our front room." So we went on and on about how I thought they had a pretty quilt on the back of one of their chairs and how I'd told Amy that they would love that. So we sat there and apologized for such a dumb gift and that they could take it back. They tried so hard to act excited! It was hard to not laugh. (The story continues below.)

Mom and Dad trying to act like they like the the gift.

Dad putting together the quilt holder

So we sat there and took a ton of pictures of them with this quilt holder to make them think that it was all there was. They were so silly with it.

Once we had teased them for probably 15 min. we had the kids walk out wrapped in the quilt. They both broke down in tears, especially mom. (The quilt holder did not look so bad now.)

They loved the quilt and have it displayed in their entrance way. Which means they really like it. Only the best of the best things go in there. We love you mom and dad. You are so amazing and are so grateful to have such wonderful parents.


The front of the blanket. The back is the same colors just 4 big squares sewn together. (Just the blue, purple, pink, and yellow.) It looks really nice with the blanket.

A close up. For the pictures we actually made little pocket with vinyl which we stitched on to the quilt. This way they can update the pictures.

CHRISTMAS!!!

This post is super long. I know I am writing about Christmas, but have Valentines background on my blog. I figured that I would get a head start on my background because I am so far behind on everything else.

We had a wonderful Christmas. I know that I am a little late but that is how I roll! (This is my homey post!) My mom and dad came to spend Christmas with us this year. Along with my brother Alex. So it was just like when we were children except with spouses and our own kids. OK so it really wasn't the same, but it was so much fun. With 15 people in one house for Christmas it makes for a lot of excitement! It took over 3 hours to open all the gifts. It was awesome. I am only posting a select few pictures. I know you all wanted to see everyone I took but I must simplify.

My family loves when I post picture of them. Amy, my mom, and me making candy. It was one of those years where none of the candy really turned out how it was suppose to. Mostly because they let a blond into the kitchen who still can't follow directions. (Me, not my mom. And I wonder why my kids can't seem to follow directions either.) But we laughed A LOT and made a lot of memories.




My bro with the kids. He is KING of Lego's. So now that my boys and Amy's are loving Lego's they always want to build with uncle Alex. (Uncle Alex, Matthew, Maxx, and cousin Sam in front.)



Every year my mom spends the most on her favorite child and buys him a Lego set. This one is HUGE. It is the Millennium Falcon from Star wars or something. He was way excited. The instruction manuals were like books. They were even spiral bound and all fancy looking. What's up with that! Crazy. Forget college with 3 boys I need to start a Lego fund.



Madi with most of her gifts. We haven't quite gotten ready for the day. But who wants to on Christmas anyway. The red marks on all the kids faces are kisses from Santa. He always kisses them on the cheek or the forehead. Santa did that to us as well when we were growing up. He left a few on David this year as well. David is very kissable. I think Santa might have the hots for my husband.



Matthew's Christmas. He loved the Spider man outfit. Of course he wanted the BAD Spider man. Only evil and darkness can prevail at this house. They are silly. He would not take this off. He wore it for days straight. Which is pretty grouse, but he must seriously have super powers because he won that fight. (OK I am a total pushover sometimes. It Christmas!)



Micah's Christmas. You see those big giant hulk hands. Times that by 5 boys wearing those. It is WAR! Plus the dads have to get in on it and beat someone down. They are worse than the kids.



Maxx's Christmas. There is a Thomas the Train Set under there somewhere. We found it super cheap at Walmart. It was set up for a couple day, got torn apart several times, missing pieces everyday, lots of tears, then shoved in a Rubbermaid to be forgotten. Don't you just love toys like that. It seemed like a good gift at the time.



Sam and Micah (lightening McQueen) They are best buddies. Micah got a welding set for Christmas and he is holding the torch. It vibrates when a button is pushed and so he welded his brothers all day long. He must constantly be annoying them are he just is not happy.



Matthew with one of his Lego sets put together. They all built Legos most of the day with Dad. It was cute- they would each get a turn with dad building one of their many Lego sets. (Thanks Grandma!) They had a great time. Matthew is by far my most into Lego's. He can spend hours just making creations. I get bored just looking at them. But I do enjoy vacuuming them up, picking them up, finding them in my socks, in the freezer (seriously!), in my pockets, in the fish tank, watching Sam and Micah flush them down the toilet, in the washer and dryer, and about everywhere else. You name it!



Our boys in their Under Roo's. David had to get these. He had them as a boy and it brought back memories. So we now allow them to run around in their underwear. But I am so thankful that they at least are wearing underwear. They love commando or just plain birthday suit. They are very confident boys. Lets hope they grow out of this one day. That might be wishful thinking.



We had such a fun Christmas. Madi got shafted on the pictures in this blog. I think she might on a lot of blogs. I need to work in that. I love each year and the memories it brings. To be reminded so much of our Savior and all that he does for us. It was so nice because this year, before we could go see what Santa brought, we had a moment where we remember our Savior, said what we were grateful for and we said our morning prayers. It was really nice. Plus all month long everyone in the house did "secret santa" for someone else. We would change names every week and it was nice to see everyone serve and how thoughtful they all were to each other. We did a bunch of other stuff as well, like I took 8 kids caroling by myself, (Not my brightest moment. I lost several thousands of pieces of hair on that adventure.) But we really took every opportunity to remember others and our Savior and that really made Christmas meaningful. I need to be better about doing more of this stuff throughout the year. Good Times!

SNOW IN VEGAS!

So this happened a while ago, but it made History so I have to brag that we were part of it. Vegas got the worst snow storm in 30 years. North Las Vegas did not get hit as hard as other parts, but it was so funny to watch how excited everyone was because it was snowing. Having just moved from Utah I thought it was a little silly. But we had fun letting it fall on us and attempting to have snow ball fights. (I think we made about 4 snowballs before we had no more snow to play with.)
I was sad that we were not able to make snow ice cream this year. This is one of our families favorites!

Micah trying to catch snow on his tongue or lick his face. Either one works.

Madi and her friend

Matthew- Maxx is trying to throw some snow at him.

The Three Musketeers- Yummy Snow!

I love the fact that we can play in the snow with only our jackets on. That is awesome!
Wow! Look at all that snow. I know, most of you have never seen so much in your life!! Because of all this snow they had to cancel school the next day. Which was hilarious to me! Because the next day it was sunny no snow anywhere! But still no school. The kids loved it.

Christmas Lights

It is amazing, I am blogging again! I have received many emails from people asking if I was dead. It was close, I just wasn't sure if I was going to make it through December, but all is good now! First of all blogging is not my favorite thing to do. In fact I strongly dislike it. (Such a positive comment!) So I have to force myself to do it. But I love reading everyone's blogs so I feel it is only fair that I attempt to do one myself. I am going to try to do better, but no guarantees. We had a wonderful Christmas season. There was so much fun going on that I just did not stop to blog. Now that it is all over I do what to take a couple blogs and share some of the things that we did. (There is no time to share everything!)

Ethyl M. Chocolate Factory:
I know most of those reading my blog are from Utah and get to experience the magnificent Temple Square. But here in Vegas we do things a little bit different. We decorate CACTUS!! It is awesome! This cactus garden at Ethyl M is amazing. It was so much fun. We went with the Whitlocks and the Shakespeares. They had so many lights. They were beautiful even on cactus. (However, I did miss the whole nativity scenes that you get on Temple Square. I love those!) However, we even were able to meet the red M & M and Santa. NO one cried on Santa's lap this year and it seriously just was not as much fun. I love the crying blackmail pictures. We ended the night with a tour of the chocolate factory and a piece of chocolate. It was a lot of fun. I found it a little hilarious that we were walking around looking at cactus. Plus we had to constantly remind our children stay on the path and not touch the cactus. I love Vegas!