a few of our favorite things...

(click on the collages for a closer look)

here's a peak at a few of our Christmas goodies! :) we had a wonderful day and are so thankful for our family and friends!!! most of all, we are thankful for our Savior....He truly is the best gift of all. HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS!!!

Christmas morning

Make a Smilebox greeting i watched this video and cracked up! brooke and scott got drum sets for Christmas and

lainie really enjoyed playing the drums with scott. lanie is terrified of tyler for some reason. watch her reaction to him when he talks to her in this video. it's funny (at least to me!). :)

reading with grampi

it is a tradition for grampi to read Twas the Night Before Christmas. we all enjoy hearing the story and the kids really love it too! after reading, we put out the cookies for santa and then head for bed. this year brooke and scott heard santa's sleigh bells as he passed right over the house. we had been tracking him on NORAD and so we knew he was close! the kiddos sprinted for bed and were out in no time. Christmas is so magical!!! :)

Christmas Eve

we loaded up our "stuff" and headed to gramma and grampi's to meet the rest of the willams family on wed. we had a great night! the guys played poker and gramma made lots of good food. we enojoyed catching up and i loved getting some lainie and emmie lovin'! :)

run rudolph, run!

notice the whip in the above photo

faster, rudolph!

scott, er... i mean santa, is cracking the whip around here (literally). rudolph has been attached to a bean bag (sleigh) and is making the rounds in our home. scott tells her to "GO!" and says "rudolph, you stay with me!" if she leaves the sleigh. it's so funny to watch and we had to take some pics. :) kids make everything so fun!!!

ryan's reindeer run

yesterday we participated in ryan's reindeer 5k run. it was unseasonably warm and most people were in shorts! this weather is nuts!!! anyway, we had a great time....or, at least i did. brooke and scott were not sure about 3.2 miles. they were great at first, but by the midway point, they were done. tyler wound up carrying brooke on his shoulders and had scott on the front of him. i wish i had gotten a pic! i think 1 mi. fun runs are a better race for us. but i was so proud of the kids. they perservered and crossed that finish line!

Christmas presents!

our BIG box arrived from ralph and betty! we always love getting boxes from them. they have "adopted" us into their family and we are so blessed to have them in our lives. scott helped me open the box of gifts and then place them under the tree. betty's gifts are always wrapped beautifully....each one has an ornament on it that coordinates with the wrapping paper. i love the way she spends so much time making our gifts look so special. that extra touch of love she adds means so much! :) scott loved seeing the pretty gifts and then was enthralled with the box and the bubble wrap that was in it! here are some pics of him having fun!!!

scott's performance

Make a Smilebox greeting

scott had his Christmas performance at village this past week. it was precious and we thought we would share a video with you. scott is the last once to speak...and he says, "it all happened in bethlehem late one night, underneath the stars that shone so bright." i figured he would learn the words easier if i put them to a song and so he learned them that way....therefore, he sang his lines at the play. it was cute! :) enjoy....

Christmas love

more parade pics

just a few more for your viewing pleasure. and, as always, click on the collage for a better view. Merry Christmas!!!!!

brooke's debut in the Christmas parade

we were so excited about watching brookie in the parade!

there she is!

waving like the princess that she is! :)

brooke with the swampdogs mascot

brooke and greysie

we had such a great morning! brooke marched, or should i say danced in the christmas parade here today. she actually performed a dance while marching and it was absolutely great!!! :) it was quite cold here, but they said that there was a record attendance as far as spectators go. the parade acutally lasted around 2 hours....it's a big deal (bigger than i imagined). the weather is beautiful and Christmas spirit is high! brooke loved every minute of it and we were so proud of her. i bundled her all up, but she refused to wear her gloves because she had to be able to clap and snap. she was very serious about that and would absolutely NOT wear her gloves! she had to have her hair curled for the parade and she was not very happy about that either, but she got to wear stage makeup and so that made up for having to have curly hair. she loves, loves make-up!!! and i mean....LOVES make-up. i worry that we will have a tammy fae on our hands. ha ha! anyway, it was a definite "special day" and one that i will always remember! :)

scott loves drums

scott loved the drums at the parade

so when we got home, he decided he wanted to make a drum....

and now, we are listening to him bang out the rhythm of Christmas carols! :)

latest "brooke-ism"

this morning, i woke up to find brooke staring at me. it's kind of a wierd sensation to wake up and have someone inches from your face. but, you parents have all been there. :) anyway, brooke came down this morning and after staring me down for a little bit, cuddled with her daddy while i got a few more minutes of rest. when i turned over, brooke said, "mommy, i thought you were a who in whoville when you were sleeping." wow brooke, thanks for the compliment! i guess it has something to do with the fact that i had my hair in a "high" ponytail and maybe also because she thinks that i am the size of a "babysitter"...as opposed to gramma and aunt mere who are taller and therefore the size of a "mom." merry christmas! :)

church Christmas program

(click on above to enlarge)

here are a few more pics for you to enjoy! gramma and grampi came down for the program and we enjoyed having them here to see the kids. brooke and scott were able to spend the weekend with gramma and grampi and were spoiled, spoiled! and, so were we! :) Merry Christmas!!!!!!!

our joseph and little lamb

yeah....that was our joseph....doesn't he look thrilled?

after the play...all smiles!

scott and emma (his girlfriend)


brooke and greysie....big buds! :)




brooke and scott were able to be in the children's Christmas play at salem (our church). brooke was a sheep and scott was joseph. i was a little concerned about scott having such an important role, but no one else thought that it would be a problem. during the dress rehearsal he would pick up "baby Jesus" and swing him around, toss him into the manger (something like playing basketball), etc... so, we had a serious discussion about how it is not acceptable to do that. and, of course, scott wanted to know why as that was just a doll and not a real baby. i finally succombed to bribary. and that worked. except that he acted totally bored during the play (see above picture). and when he was not acting bored, he was hitting himself in the head, getting tangled in his robe, or just roaming around the manger. the play was about over when he decided to sit backwards on the bench and then he gracefully fell off. thankfully it was the end and they quietly escorted him off of the stage. acting is not in his future. and then, lo and behold, i find out that he has a speaking part in his Christmas play at village preschool. my nerves are shot! LOL!


now, onto brooke. that girl can memorize some moves!!! she gets that from her daddy. :) she loves, loves to be onstage and is so fun to watch. she did a great job and i was so proud of her. i think the best part for her was afterwards, when she was able to see santa. she is not sure of what she wants for Christmas, and i told her she'd better figure it out soon. she is still trying to ask for a drum set (i have tried to discourage that gift, which is why she does not know what she wants from santa). if she does get that drum set, i need an extra-big supply of imitrex!!!! NOW!!!!!!!


we hope that you are all having a great Christmas season! lots of love to you all!!!!!
p.s. scott was really a lot better than i made him out to be. he did a great job for a 4 year-old boy and several people (including the associate pastor) came up to me and told me that they were all laughing so hard at him, so maybe comedy would be more suitable for him??! anyway, we are so proud of our kiddos!!! :)

baking with gramma

(click on the above collage for a better view)

we hope that you all had a blessed and happy thanksgiving! as i mentioned in a previous post, we have so much for which to be thankful!!! we had a great time with gramma and grampi. they came over on thursday and we cooked, cooked and cooked some more. well, the girls did. the men went out and played golf. anyway, we had a fabulous turkey! we got the special deal turkey (55 cents/lb). it was good, but it sure wasn't pretty by the time we finished cooking it! we all got a good laugh looking at it. :) after dinner, we sat outside by our outdoor fireplace and then retired indoors to watch football. the kiddos crashed after their pumpkin pie and we adults followed pretty soon afterwards. today tyler and grampi played golf...tyler actually played from 9am to 6pm. grampi played for a while and then came home to catch up on some football action. anyway, while they were away, brooke, scott, gramma and i baked lots and lots of cookies!!!!! it was such fun and a tradition that i hope to keep with my kids. they really enjoyed helping. scott really loves to be in the kitchen! it surprised me because usually i can't keep him in the house. he's our outside boy. anyway, gramma and grampi left this evening and now we are headed out to a neighbor's for a little get-together.

tomorrow.....it's tree decorating. and with that, i'll leave you a sneak peek of our tree and also of how i found the kids last sunday morning as they decorated their small trees.....

moms

i found this on another blog and thought all you other moms out there might enjoy it. i makes me realize why i seem to stay so busy!!! :)

scott and kole rock out!

scott and kole have formed a 2 man band! :) they had a ball rocking out. kole got a drum set for his birthday and the boys love it! all they need is brooke on the mic and they will be good!!! stephanie sent these to me and i loved them, so i had to share them with you.

we have just been trying to keep up around here. it seems like we have something everyday, which is normal for everyone with kids. one thing that we have accomplished is that i have really limited the t.v. thankfully, my kids don't even seem to miss it. they went without t.v. for over a week. we go on walks every afternoon, which they love. on tuesday we got snow flurries when we were walking and they thought that was the greatest thing ever!!! it's cold here and sure feels like Christmas. i even got out my tree today to test it out....it's the first artificial tree we have ever had and i wanted to see what it looked like. it's nice....1 strand of lights don't work, but since we have 1000 lights on the tree, it's not too bad. i got it for a great deal after Christmas last year, so i'm not complaining.

we are gearing up for thanksgiving and can't wait to fill or bellies with some good food! the day-after-thanksgiving, mom, brooke and i are going to bake lots and lots of cookies. we are starting a new tradition and i am so excited! i always remember nema's cheese straws, spritz cookies and gingerbread men during the holidays, so it will be nice to start that with brooke. i'm sure i'll have pics to post. meanwhile, tyler and scott will go out and play golf. grampi will be in the middle of a shutdown with work, so he will probably have to leave after the feast.... :(

hope that you all have a wonderful thanksgiving week. we all have so much for which to be thankful!!!!!

baby, it's cold inside!

**update: our heater is now working....it was just a short or something! yippee!!! :)

well, we knew that moving into an "old" house (by our standards, that is anything that is not brand-new), we would be risking having to replace certain things. first to go was the roof. not too big of a deal since insurance covered it. now...however....our heater is not working. brrr! it's 61 degrees in here right now. this morning, when i woke up.....well, we won't even go there. i was about to start convulsing once my feet hit the floor. it was that cold! thankfully we have another unit for the upstairs, so the kids stayed toasty warm during the night. what a shock they had once they came down the stairs!!! :P anyway, someone is here right now trying to figure out the problem. my guess....our 14 year old heater has kicked the bucket. the verdict is still out......

we had a great weekend filled with b'day party fun. friday was kole's b'day. he turned 5 and his party was at jump zone. it's a great place filled with bouncehouses, slides, etc. scott has talked about it constantly! i'll put up some pics when i get some from stephanie. saturday, it was time for ashley's 5th b'day celebration at omega gymnastics. the kids ran and played.....they were spoiled with tons of fun!!! poor tyler was home sick....he completely lost his voice. it's starting to come back today and he's on the mend. hopefully the rest of us will escape the "funk."

i signed our family up for our first "fun run." it's a 5K run here in town and it's on dec 20th. it will be cold, but it will be super-festive. it's a reindeer run in memory of ryan who passed away at the age of 18 from cancer. so, it's for a good cause, plus it will be good to show the kids that exercise can be super-fun! although, by mile 3...i'm not sure that they will feel that way. oh well, we all will get t-shirts and reindeer ears to wear during the race. i'm so excited! :)

that's about all that is happening here. just wanted to fill you all in on the happenings. i'll post new pics when i take some! hope that you all have a great week!!!!!!!!!!!

jen and ava's visit

my dear friend jen and her daughter ava came to visit us! we were thrilled to have them and truly enjoyed their time with us! :) jen and i were able to go to the holly day fair and even had a girl's day out at target where we got a little Christmas shopping done. tyler was so sweet to keep the kiddos for us. thanks, tyler! anyway, i posted some pics of the kiddos loving some krispy kreme and also loving some leaf piles! we had amazing weather here and brooke, scott and ava took full advantage of it. thanks for coming to visit us, jen and ava!!! we love you guys so much!!!!!!!

brooke's awards ceremony

brooke's school had their first awards ceremony for the year. the first graders performed skits to teach the kindergarteners and pre-k students their ABC's and also some nursery rhymes. brooke was the zebra and taught about the letter "z." she did a fabulous job of ennunciating and speaking clearly. i was so proud of her! most of you know that brooke is in speech therapy and so i was thrilled when i was able to clearly understand her during the skit. she even galloped like a zebra! it was too cute!!! :) she got her perfect attendance award and also her advanced reader award. we were so happy and are so blessed by our sweet girl!

kimie's surprise party

tyler was so sweet to give me a big surprise party on saturday (a day early). he invited our baywood neighborhood friends over and had cake and they sang to me! how fun! :) he gave me a nice shadow box with my half-marathon pics, bib number and medal framed in it. i'm not one to do things like that, so he did it for me. it's really neat! :) gloria and jean gave me that cute snowman decoration that you see in the collage. (click on the collage to better view the pics.) after the b'day party, there was a big neighborhood halloween party. it's quite something to see and we all had lots of fun. thanks to my mom and dad for keeping the kids for us so that tyler could play in the golf tournament and so i could attend the party and have the next day to myself. what bliss!!!!!!!! thank you tyler for being so sweet and for all you did to make my birthday extra-special... love you!

halloween 2008

the kiddos had a great halloween! brooke was an angel and scott was a t-rex. thanks to kole for letting scott borrow his costume!!! we had so many trick-or-treaters that i was out of candy by 7:30....and i bought enough for 5oo kids. it's nuts!!! our kids got some great candy and had a wonderful time, as always. :) now, we're gearing up for thanksgiving. happy fall, ya'll!!!

scott's fall festival

scott had a great time at his fall festival! i had a great time watching him. i know that this is his last year of pre-school and want to be a part of everything!!! if you click on the collage above, you will be able to see the pics a little bit better. his class was divided up into 2 groups, so the pic you see of his class is really just half of it. anyway, enjoy! i'll post halloween pics soon!!!