Our elf Snowball is silly

This year after Thanksgiving we had a little visitor at our house. He came with a book called The Elf of the Shelf. When we read the book, it told us the story of how our elf watches us during the day and at night he goes back to the North Pole to tell Santa how good or bad we behaved that day and then would return home before we woke up and found a new spot to hide. If you touched him, he lost his magical powers.

Our first step was to give him a name. There were a few thrown out there but Lexi decided it should be "Shart" In case you don't know what that means, it is a fart that has a little sh*t that comes out with it. So you can clearly see that that name did not make the cut. But we are will able to agree that Snowball was a great name.

Now Snowball oftentimes just moved different places at night, but sometimes he was a little naughty.
Dying our milk purple

The other toys attacked him one night and tied him up, but don't worry because he got his revenge

One night while getting the girls ready for bed we were talking about how messy the playroom was. Lexi said that she believes that Snowball will use his magical powers to clean the playroom. We we awoke the next day we found a note from Snowball.

This was probably Mommy's favorite one because they actually cleaned up the playroom without too much resistant.

Snowball decided that he was tired of seeing how dirty Baby and Sunshine Bear were so he gave them a bath while the girl's slept.

It was sure fun to have Snowball around this year and the girls were sad to see that he was no longer there Christmas morning. I explained that he would jump in Santa's sleigh after he visits our house Christmas Eve. Now whenever Danielle sees a pictures of Santa's sleigh she yells "Snow" and point in Santa's sleigh. It will be fun to see him return next year!

Family Photos 2011

So I really wanted to take some pictures this last summer, but then life and soccer season got in the way. So we finally got some taken before Johnny had knee surgery in the beginning of December. My good friend Betsy knew how much I wanted to get them done, so she volunteered to take them for us. I was so grateful for her willingness to come out in the cold and take some pictures for us. It actually worked well because my girls know and love Betsy, so they were a little bit easier to deal with. I think she did a great job, so good that I am sharing tons with you. :)

What a ham!

I love Danielle's face on this one

The girl's were eating their bribes, thus the faces

We are losing them!

Racing to mommy

Lexi wanted no part of this, but I love that she is looking on still

Thanks Betsy! You are the Best!

I've been busy

I took on a few painting projects in September.

my bar stools before:

After:

My goodwill find before:

my new buffet table after:

The picture doesn't do it justice! I love it!

Grandkid pics

For John and Debbi's Christmas present this year we decided to take a group picture of all the grandkids. We just got our new camera so we tried our hand at photography. There is definately room for improvement but I think that are pretty cute.

Emery 5, Lexi 4 and Danielle 2
Best Buds

Emery 5 and Hiatt 5 months

Collin 11 months

Ta Da!!! Pretty good for 5 little ones 5 and under!

Halloween 2011

The girls and I celebrated Halloween 3 times this year. We attended our old ward's trunk or treat which was so fun! Lexi was done about 2/3 of the way through and had a big meltdown, so we when home and put her to bed about an hour early. While Danielle and I worked on eating the goods.

After that experience I was a little hesitant about taking her again but we had a fun time decorating pumpkins and playing carnival games at our ward's party.

On Halloween night, Johnny had soccer so I took the girls around our neighborhood with our cousin Angela and her son Derek. They were all three little troopers and made it around the whole block walking. It was so cute listening to Danielle say "tik or treat"

Lexi also had a Halloween party at her preschool, so she had a lot of fun doing that too. We still have about half the bowl of candy, and I am about ready to throw it all away just so I can say the treats are all gone. :)

Dad's funeral

Well it has been a whirlwind of the last 2 months. I finally am able to write about our trip to Reno for Dad's funeral. Grandma Horsley was so nice to put up with us for a whole week. I enjoyed looking for her scrapbooks and learning more about my dad, Grandma and her family. I found some awesome pictures of my Dad and here is proof that he played the accordion. The day of the funeral we arrived early to practice because all the kids and grand kids were singing "I am a Child of God." I didn't know how I was going to make it trough when we actually had to preform because I was in tears about the whole time we practiced. We took a quick family picture before we started.

We have almost the whole clan. We are missing Uncle Paul and his family. :(

Before we started we have a family prayer which Johnny was asked to give. It was so beautiful and heartfelt. The funeral was beautiful and well attended. We even made it through the song because sweet Joesph was singing his little heart out. He made me and everyone in the crowd smile. I was so touched by the family, friend and community support that we were given to us that day.

The following day we all traveled to Grandma's property where we have spent a lot of time over the years camping and cutting Christmas trees. It is a special place to all of us so this is where we decided to spread some of his ashes. Here is some of the crew:

Danielle made a new best friend with Aunt Mary. (Probably helps that she has some Swedish fish in her pocket.) Everyone of course loving Johnny and all his stories he likes to tell.

We had a few spots where we spread Dad's ashes. After our first spot, we decided to take the "back way" to the big pond. Well this "back way" was pretty overgrown so what should have been a 5 minute walk, ended up being about 30 minutes because we got a little lost. I just laughed because I bet Dad was laughing his head off watching us do things the hard way. We had to all cross the creek, which didn't have a bridge. I was snapping pictures like crazy trying to get a picture in case someone fell in. LOL I think Brad got his foot wet a few times trying to help everyone across.

Here is one of Dad's resting places.

Grandma Horsley, Mom, Mary, Wendy, Me, and Candice.

I really don't even think we have ever had a pictures of just us girls.

Lexi also made a new best friend with her cousin Marissa. She LOVED her, is an understatement. She followed her around like a little puppy dog, and Marissa was so great to watch and play with her.

It was a great way to celebrate Dad's life. I think about him often and miss him a great deal. I have already found myself wanting to call him with doctor questions or to just say hi. Whenever I see an orchid or anything to do with Hawaii, I remember him and his happiness he found growing orchids in Hawaii with Mom.