Gingerbread Houses Throught the Years

Making a gingerbread house at Christmas time has become a tradition in our house. Ryan and I both love to make these. So I think a competition might be in order one of these years. Boys vs. Girls old school style :)

2011

2010

2009
We took a little break...

2008

2007
(That is not Lincoln next to me. I am 7 months pregnant with him in this picture. Can you tell they are brothers?)

2006

My wonderful mother at my childhood home

2005

We were still living in married student housing

Nutcracker

On Friday the girls and I went to see the Nutcracker. We went with a couple of Evie's friends and their Moms. Kaitlyn brought her best friend, Lauren. It was such a fun night, just us girls.

Grace and Eve
(Grace and her Mom gave all the girls a locket. They were a huge hit!)

We are so lucky to live near such beautiful theaters. We were in the last row of the top balcony but it wasn't too shabby for are awesome deal we got on the tickets :)

Kaitlyn and Lauren
(it was hard to take normal pictures in the theater because it was dark in the room and the flash was blinding us)

All of the little girls

Brutus

Evie's kindergarten teacher is so creative and lets each child in their class have a turn being "lucky buckeye" for a week. They have a special activity that they get to do every day such as; making a poster, bringing in pictures, show and tell, estimation station (where they can put whatever they want into a plastic bag and the class guesses how many items are in the bag), and bringing Brutus home for the weekend. In case you don't live in Ohio, Brutus is Ohio State's mascot, he is a buckeye. On Monday the "lucky buckeye" gets to share what they did with Brutus over the weekend. Here are some pictures of Eve with Brutus.

We love to go to our church's historical sites every year at Christmas time. They put on a phenomenal display of nativities. This year there were over 600! There is no charge to go and you don't have to be a member of our church. Eve took Brutus with us and Evie dressed up like an angel.


Riding in the car with our Brutus and Brutus from school.

Christmas party

We had our annual church Christmas party last weekend. We had a dinner, Nativity, coloring for the kids, a cookie decorating station, blanket tying for charity, and the big guest was Santa. This year is so much fun because Lincoln really gets it. He was supper excited when Santa appeared. Lincoln sat on his lap and then had his eyes glued on him while the other children had their turns. On another note this year was Kaitlyn's first year not sitting on Santa's lap, they really do grow up too fast!

Temple Trip

Where we live it takes us two and a half hours to drive to the closest temple. Since it is so far it is always an event! We went down with our friends the Wilde Family. We switch off watching the kids so that all the adults can go inside. This time we hung out in the chapel across the parking lot and let the kids play. We had to get some pictures of all the kiddos! It was a wonderful trip, hopefully we can go again soon!

Going to the Zoo

I had a Friday free from babysitting recently. Lincoln and I thought that it would be fun to go to the zoo with our friends. We packed a lunch and headed to the zoo's rain forest. Lincoln and Jayne are so adorable together!

Halloween Fun

We love Halloween over here! It was a party all day long.

Lincoln's preschool started off the day with a party. I only got this one picture, but they played games and had some treats. Lincoln asked to take his costume off while he ate, but he wore his costume for the games.


In the afternoon, the elementary had their annual Halloween Parade. It was so fun to see all the kids dressed up in their costumes. Following the parade Lincoln and I were lucky enough to get to help out with Eve's classroom party. I forgot to bring my camera for the festivities :(

After dinner we geared up to go trick or treating in our neighborhood. We were joined by 7 other families! It was our biggest group by far. We are missing one family in the photo, but you can see how large our group was. Our poor neighbors didn't know what they had coming. Can you tell Link isn't too happy in the photo? He was standing by Reuben and Ryan couldn't see him in the picture so he had him move to the front of the group. Lincoln wasn't a fan of that idea. He sure loves his brother! It melts my heart! I ended up staying at home to pass out candy and be a home base for those who wanted to come back because they were cold.


And they are off!

Happy Halloween

On Saturday night we carved our pumpkins together. I love how they turned out this year!

Lincoln - ghost, Eve - Hello Kitty


Kaitlyn - panda, Reuben - four ghosts

Girl Scout Camp

Last weekend I was able to go camping with Kaitlyn's girl scout troop. It is hard to believe that I have been their leader for almost 6 years now! We went camping with all the girl scout troops from our town this weekend. It was such a fun and beautiful time of year to go camping. The trees are all changing colors which made for beautiful surroundings and there was a Halloween theme to the camp out since it's October. We started off the first night having a scavenger hunt. The following morning a naturalist came and brought a couple of owls and a possum. That night we had a monster bash (which I can't believe I didn't take any pictures of). There were carnival games, dancing, and of course everyone was in costume. The last morning we celebrated Juliet Low's (the founder of girl scouts) birthday. Our girls had fun with the troop we shared a cabin with, it was a just a great camp out over all :)

We made a craft during our free time inspired by this.


The other troop included us in on their doughnut eating contest

and their bobbing for apples game


Here is a photo of all the girls from our city that were at camp.

Apple Farm

This fall I was able to go with Eve and her class to an apple farm for their field trip. It ended up being a beautiful day! The kids learned about apple trees and how the farmers harvest their apples. Then they were given a taste of apple cider, Yum!

Eve

Eve turned the big 6 this year! She was super excited about her birthday this year. She did get confused about her "real" birthday and friends party, since they were not on the same day it end caused some tears but in the end everything worked out.

Her party was a Hello Kitty party this year. We played Hello Kitty, Hello Kitty; where one person would hide Eve's stuffed animal hello kitty while everyone else was out of the room and then they would enter the room again and try to find it.
I have to mention my score at the dollar spot. Yes, those lunch boxes were at the Dollar spot in Target! Perfect timing!

We played meow; where everyone sits in a circle and one person sits in the middle with their eyes closed. Once the center child has their eyes closed everyone switches places and then the child with their eyes closed points in one direction. Whichever child they point at in the circle says "meow, meow" and the center child has to guess who it is.
We played a couple more games and then had cake. I was a little bummed that it didn't turn out as well as the one I made on her real birthday, but she still liked it :)

Kates

I really can't believe my daughter turned 11 this year! It is really crazy and hard to wrap my head around! Next year she will be able to start participating in our youth program at church which is CRAZY!


School started the day before her birthday this year. Kates was super excited to start another year and be able to see her friends on a daily basis.

Kaitlyn's cake was not my best looking cake this year, but it sure was tasty! She requested chocolate cake with ganache frosting, she is definitely my girl!

Instead of a party this year she opted for a sleepover with her two best friends. We had to do them on separate weekends because of scheduling conflicts. Lauren was able to come spend the night on Kaitlyn's real birthday. We did a bunch of crafts and had cake!

Mount Rushmore

On our way home from Utah Ryan asked if I wanted to take a detour and see Mount Rushmore. I said sure but was a little hesitant because I didn't know how much time it would tack onto our already long trip. It ended up just adding a few hours and was a fun little break in the long drive. We arrived around dinner time and let the kids run around a little and took some pictures and then we were back on our way. I've always wanted to see this landmark! I am glad we were able to make the stop!