Julia's 5th Birthday

Julia chose Grandpa Call's special for her birthday breakfast (and so does every other child in the house): Belgian Waffles with Strawberries and Ice Cream with Whipped Cream on top. Count those five candles.

She had school on her birthday, so she was able to bring in the treat to accompany their Thanksgiving Feast that day. She brought in one of her favorites: pumpkin pie! See how she refuses to look into the camera? Here you can see a little glimpse into life at our house. If I mention it, my kids can't/won't do it.  

With her cake and presents and helpful little brother

blowing out the 5 candles with her helpful little brother

Tim's new hygienist made the cake for Julia just to be nice. The pictures don't show it well, but it's covered in pink roses. It was so beautiful and delicious. We had her make the Strawberry Shortcake Birthday Cake for her party the next day. More pictures to come. Helen, I'll get to Christmas soon. I promise...

Halloween 2012

at the Pumpkin Patch choosing our pumpkins; where's Grandpa Joe when we need him (Tim's Dad is a barber)' those boys need some serious haircuts

outside the Corn Maze

carving pumpkins

bobbing for apples with our neighbors

Julia's Rapunzel Pumpkin

all of our masterpieces

Calvin was a lion.

Wesley was a pirate.

Julia & Calvin

Julia was a fairy

Miles with all his candy; he organized them by color and from sweet to sour

Julia with her Pinkalicious

I am heartsick. I just realized that I don't even have pictures of the older three. Sigh. Tim had a class in Dallas that weekend and had to leave the afternoon of Halloween. I guess I'm lucky we all made it Trick-or-Treating at all! Part II of that class is over Valentine's Day and my birthday. Nice.

Back to School 2012

Another year of school. How can I possibly have a child in high school? Everyone seems to be doing well so far. They are enjoying their teachers, classes, and friends.

Lindsay - 9th grade

Miles - 7th grade

Samuel & Wesley - 4th & 2nd grade

bus stop

the olders won't let me take their picture by the sign of their new schools, sigh

Julia - pre-K

And now on MWF mornings, it's just me and this little guy! Yes, we have gotten his haircut since this picture

Julia's Fourth Birthday

I can't believe it's been four years since that little girl changed our lives forever. She's such a little cutie. Just this morning she said the cutest thing. She was kissing her "babies" and "aminals" good-bye when we were on our way out the door. I commented on how she will be such a good Mommy some day, and she said, "Yep. And when I'm a Mommy, my kids will have plenty of aminals to play with." How does she know the word "plenty"? Such a little character.

I had surgery (I had my deviated septum on my nose corrected and a tonsillectomy. Not fun.), so while I was still recuperating, Lindsay threw Julia her birthday party. It was so fun. It was a Princess Party, of course. They read a story. They played games. They had face-painting and fishing for prizes.

Lindsay reading "The Frog Prince" to the crowd. Such a cute book about how beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

They were out of the Rapunzel and Princess Cake Kits at the grocery store, so Dad took her over to Dairy Queen. The gal made this one right Julia's specs.

Rileigh, Emma Sky, Emma G., Julia, Kirsten, Khloe, Sofia, Andie, Ellen

The Princess with all of her Princes and the Dragon:
Luke, Noah, Samuel, James, Max, Miles, Dane, and Wesley

Halloween 2011

I'm finally catching up. Here we all are on Halloween.

Here we have the 3 werewolves, a monkey, a princess, and an octopus.

Here's the car-ful of Trick or Treaters on our way to the "good" part of our neighborhood. Lindsay had a few friends join us. It was a party!

I chuckled when I saw Tim taking a picture of this skeleton made entirely from milk jugs. It reminded us both of my Dad. One year he made the most awesome Darth Vader mask for my brother, Matt, out of a Clorox Bleach bottle.

We had a fun Halloween. The three olders weighed their candy bags when we got home. They each had about 7 pounds of candy. I'm glad we have a great dental plan. As usual, I was the worst behaved. I just want everyone to stay together, be perfectly well-behaved, etc. Sigh. It was hard to sort of let Lindsay go off with her friends. I even tried to sort of "guilt" her into staying with us: "Don't you want to see Calvin trick or treat?" Sad. Another highlight was watching Calvin. He got seriously into it. He insisted on knocking on the door himself. And he had to put the candy in his bag after each door. So cute.

My Trip with Tim

We had the chance to take the trip of a lifetime. We figure it was an early celebration of our 15th wedding anniversary. We got to spend about a week in...Can you guess from these pictures?

Yes, it was Florence, Italy!! There is actually something dental in Florence: a laser manufacturer. They make a seriously cool CO2 laser that dentists use for gum surgeries. All of the pictures of the two of us are on his small computer at work, so I'll add them later. We had a great time.

Fall 2011

I thought I'd keep with the season theme. "FALL". So much has happened since our trip to CA this summer.

Our Owens Cousins came to visit us on their way to drop off Lynette at BYU-Provo.

The kids started school. I'm one of those horrible moms who actually looks forward to school starting: the routine, less sitting around fighting, less frequent utterances of "I'm bored", etc. But every year I get blind-sided by how hard it is to get us all on that schedule. I was so pro-active this year. I took each school aged kid out by themselves to get their supplies (is anyone else perplexed at how every year that list gets longer and more expensive?) and have some lunch together. But even with the head-start, I still felt like it took us a good two weeks to get on the routine. Here they are on their first days. I've now got 2 in Middle School, 2 in Elementary School, and 1 in Preschool:

And 1 at home.

I love the four seasons. It somehow adds a rhythm to the year. So, after we've settled into school, we start looking forward. We notice the days get cooler. Then, we have to go get our pumpkins at the pumpkin farm.

Lindsay got her braces off.

You can see she has like 3 pairs of bands in just to try to make sure that the teeth really would be ready. 

And, we carved the pumpkins.

Sorry for the long lapse in blogging. We're all still here.