Christmas Highlights

The month of December is always a busy month thanks to parties, decorating and fulfilling traditions. The day after Thanksgiving, I went black  Friday shopping with my mom, which made for a really fun day.  The next day we stayed home and decorated the tree and house for the Christmas holiday.

Every year we attend the Living Nativity and always try to invite different people to join us.  This year we had Wayne's brother, cousin and families come over for dinner before heading over.  We also had a wonderful surprise from "Santa Claus"!

Now that the kids are getting older, they of course want to wear whatever they get for Christmas on Christmas day, so this year they wore their Christmas outfits a few days early to church.

We blew the air mattress up in the living room on Christmas Eve for a night of movies, popcorn and family fun.  We watched Aurthur Christmas and before the movie was over, all the kids were on the couch thanks to a hole in the mattress.

Christmas morning posing with their stockings before opening gifts.  Later we went down to Long Beach to celebrate with family at my Aunts house.  The kids LOVE being able to play with all their cousins.

A few days later, we celebrated again at my parents house with my brothers family.  Lots of food, lots of presents and lots of fun playing outside.

Thanksgiving 2013

Strike a pose girls.  I love  how their outfits coordinate, even though it wasn't planned.  Floral skirts and solid long sleeve shirts.

My sweet, loving and handsome boy.

Selfies!  The sky was turning pretty behind us.

Playing a game of football after dinner, followed by a hike down in the canyon behind Ken's house.  We are thinking the hike is going to become a yearly tradition now that the kids are getting bigger.

Snowline 2013

We did our 2nd annual Oak Glen trip again and just like the year before, Southland played at Ken's church and then Ken, Eileen, Erica, a couple of friends and our family drove over.  Last year we bought BBQ Tri Tip sandwiches, but this year I decided to make pulled pork in my crock pot overnight and then serve them on my homemade hoagie rolls.  I am so glad we decided to go this route, not only because it saved everyone a ton of money, but because the BBQ guys wasn't even there this year!  So I supplied the sandwiches and everyone else bought the apple cider & donuts.  Yum!

Erica works at Snowline each year and we were lucky that she was able to come out and enjoy her break with us.  The kids love their cousin!

Cousin body pile!!!

We attempted to get some pictures for our Christmas card and then didn't even bother with actually sending any out.  Don't ya just love how Wayne cannot stay dressed in his church clothes any longer than necessary? 

Funny thing, Eileen didn't send her Christmas cards out this year either!  This would have been perfect.

I had to take a picture of my future farmhouse.  Isn't it just dreamy?

Let me introduce you to

Princess Belle

Black Ninja

Princess Mulan

Elsie's 6th Birthday

We celebrated Elsie's 6th Birthday on a Sunday this year. Wayne has been working weekends for a while and was able to get this Sunday off to preach at Cowboy Church and I thought lets kill two birds with one stone.  It was a small family gathering and she felt very special.

I'm Six

She wanted a cheerleading them and was able to wear her costume from last year.

.

Since we have cut out all refined sugar from our diet, there was no candy filled pinata and the cupcakes were muffins instead.  We had chocolate zucchini, peanut butter chocolate chip and pumpkin flavors and they were all made with whole wheat flour and honey.  Best part, the kids loved them!

Thanks to my sister-n-law's sharp eye, we were able to get all the paper goods for only .75 cents each.  This of course set the theme for the colors of pink & purple.  The party favors were pom pom's and a megaphone for the girls and a football and football towel for the boys, all found at the Dollar Tree.

Lunch was made super easy by ordering turkey subs on wheat from Subway, veggie chips, cut up veggies and hummus.  Another healthy meal and the only one who complained was my brother, because he was looking forward to my onion dip. 

So yes, it is possible to have healthy, but good food for a kids birthday party and not have to suffer kids bouncing off the walls and then the sugar low's later on!

The birthday girls favorite part....Presents!

Make a Wish!

My mother celebrated sixty years the day before, so she got to open her present (with all her grand kids help) just after Elsie opened hers.  She is always borrowing my drink dispenser for parties, so I thought it was about time she had her own.

Little Bit Country

Our family loves all things country, especially rodeo's and dancing. One of Seth's goals is to be the best all around rodeo star there is.  He wants to do everything from roping to cattle wrestling to bull riding, even though this poor mama is trying to convince him to go become a sports doctor and work on all the broken up cowboys instead.  He's not buying it just yet....

At the past few rodeo's he has asked to ride the mechanical bull and we would tell him to save up his money, which he did.  He paid $5 for the ride and another $5 for a picture.

Posing for his picture

The bull started off slow, but once the operator realized this kid meant business, he turned it up!

Great form and pure concentration on this boy!

He last more than 8 seconds before the bull got the best of him.

Seth was such a good rider that he drew a large crowd.  He had a bunch of people whooping and hollering for him and then the operator even did a short interview with him afterwards.  I am afraid Seth has found his calling.  Our friend Joe video taped his ride and if I can get a copy, I will be sure to post it on here.

Elsie on the other hand loves to dance.  Don't get me wrong, she is saving her money to ride the bull next time, but country dancing is a real love of hers. 

She will dance the two step with her Daddy, but dancing by herself is her favorite.

And you should see how fast she can get her feet to move! 

Left up to her, she would dance until the band went home.  I am just waiting for the day a cute young boy asks her to dance.  Oh my!

Cheerleader for a Day

Our local high school cheer squad held a fun fundraiser recently allowing the young girls (3-13) in our community to spend a week with the squad learning cheers & a dance routine and then performing at the first game of the season during 2nd quarter and half-time.  There were 41 girls total and most of them were either related to a cheerleader or a child of a district employee, which is the case with Elsie.

Kya didn't want to participate, but since it was such a fun experience, I am hoping they do it again  next year and then I will sign her up whether she wants to or not, because I think she would really enjoy it too.

There was no way anyone could wipe that huge smile off of Elsie's face.  She had the time of her life!

The grandparents came out to have dinner with us and cheer on Elsie.  I am so thankful to them, because I hadn't even considered how I would be with Elsie and take care of the other two.  They were so excited for their sister.

Each child was sponsored by a cheerleader.  This is Natalie who was super sweet to Elsie.

Elsie's naturally outgoing and super sweet personality won her over with a majority of the cheerleaders.  Here she is with the team captain.  We try to go back to most of the games and Elsie wears her outfit, stands at the railing and does all the cheers with them.  Too bad she can't go down on the field each game too.

Just after their performance. She is going to miss being carried around when she gets bigger!

LA County Fair

For the 1st time in 6 years, we went to the LA Fair with our friends Joe & Jena. We chose to go on Labor Day because it was only $1 per person to get in and we had high hopes of it being less crowded. It was was less crowded and the weather cooled down to a nice 91 degrees, which was a nice change from the 100 + degrees it was a day earlier. 

We are the animals from Charlotte's Web!

This new born baby was a total cutie.  Not sure why he wasn't with his mommy and litter mates, but this lady held and fed him all day.

The Royal Court

Add caption

Our future bull rider!

I am sure the vendors loved (or hated) us!  While we took potty breaks, the kids had fun knocking this batting sticks around.

Jena had at least one of our kids the entire time.  Bless her heart.

The farmer and his wife! 

The main reason for our going to the fair, was to see the Wild West Show.

Uncle Joe & Seth intently watching the horses race around the arena while pulling the stage coach.

This 20 year old kid was amazing.  Not only did he ride on top of these two horses while they ran around the arena, he did it again later on while also controlling 4 other horses at the same time!

We couldn't resist getting a picture with him

It was a fun time had by all....well, maybe the kids were a bit disappointed that we wouldn't let them ride any of the rides,  but we all did enjoy the day.  Unfortunately, with school being the next day we couldn't stay for very long and we weren't able to see everything.  Maybe next time!