Tree Dreamin'

The kids are so excited for Christmas! Well who am I kidding... so am I! I was also excited when I heard hushed voices and saw little feet sticking out from under the tree. I remember doing this as a kid and I loved looking up into the tree with all the lights and ornaments. It felt like a little fort. The kids lay under there for quite a while, just checking everything out from that view. 

Look who showed up tonight! 

Just in time for Dec. 1st. This is Fizzle, our Christmas Elf.

He will be with us all day, watching the kids to make sure they're being good. Every night he returns to the North Pole to report to Santa and the following morning, the kids have to find him since he likes to hide. But if Fizzle gets touched, he looses his magic and cannot return to Santa. If he doesn't show up to report, Santa will know somebody was naughty...

Thanksgiving

We went to our friends house for Thanksgiving, it was a lot of fun! "Grandma Lisa" is so nice to Aliyah and lets her pick everything in her yard. Aliyah went out and found these flowers and neatly arranged them in a jar Lisa gave her. Then she came back in the house with bell peppers & I told her to put them on the counter for Lisa. But then I watched and Aliyah went to the table and arranged them around her flower arrangement she'd done. Pretty creative I thought!

Deep Sea Fishing

For work we had a goal in October and Nichole got to choose the incentive. She worked hard to reach the goal so we planned the fishing trip. Matt decided deep sea would be the way to go, having someone take us out, supply all the gear & filet the fish we caught. So here we go. We got to Avila as the sun was rising. This is definitely not something I see every day and it was beautiful. Nichole had dramamine for everyone which we all took... except for Matt & Ben (Nichole's husband).

Michael's cranky face is because he doesn't want me taking his picture.

It was a very cold morning.

Here comes our boat!

This guy looked up at us and saw the kids & asked if they were going. We said yes. He said the waters are pretty rough today. That should have been our first clue.

He's preparing our bait, gutting squid & using the skins.

The pelicans and seagulls were all over the place eating the squid guts he was tossing into the water.

And here we go!! 

And this is more like it. ;) Poor Aliyah and Michael couldn't quite hack it...

...and neither could Matt. This is the only way he could stop throwing up.
Oh and that banana... not such a good idea, it came up shortly after.

And here's Nichole & Ben fishing away, having a great old time and catching lots of fish.

WooHoo! Nichole caught the largest fish on the boat and won the jackpot.

To sum it up, Nichole & Ben caught 6 fish and had no sea sickness. I caught 1 fish, threw up once, kids each threw up & Matt held the record for most time spent leaning over the side of the boat.

So lessons learned IF we go deep sea fishing again:
1. Don't take kids
2. Do take dramamine
3. Make Matt take dramamine even if he refuses
4. But probably just don't go sea fishing again.

Michael on Ukulele

He's worked and saved money for the last 2 months to buy this. He now plays it almost every waking moment of the day. The good thing is he really loves it and is now making up his own songs. He said the only think he loves more than the Ukulele is his family, Heavenly Father & Jesus. Well I'm glad we made it in there although I think sometimes he'd rather play super loud, despite our kind requests not to.

Youtube Link: Michael On Ukulele

Halloween 2010

"Ballerina Witch Fairy"
How she came to be: We found the very cute Ballerina Witch costume but it wasn't quite right. Aliyah realized that her purple fairy wings would go perfectly with the ballerina witch, thus making her a Ballerina Witch Fairy. The more the better for Aliyah. I should have taken a picture of the back where you can see the wings better and she has a ballerina bun in her hair with a frilly hair band.

All week before Halloween Michael was sick and missed the whole week of school. This meant he missed all the school parties. He was very sad when he realized he wasn't going to be better in time. Well by Saturday he was feeling mostly better but we still didn't want him in a closed room with other kids so he couldn't go to the church party either. I went and took Aliyah, Matt took Michael to dinner (because who cares about contaminating a whole restaurant, haha). Aliyah loved the church carnival games and wanted to wait in the long lines for the fishing and bean bag games. I was feeling quite claustrophobic with so many people packed in the cultural hall. Matt brought Michael later and joined us for the trunk-or-treat where we handed out glow sticks to all the kids and our kids got too much candy.

On Halloween night we told the kids we wouldn't be going trick-or-treating since it was Sunday and we also wouldn't be handing candy out. They were totally ok with this! We were a little surprised at how well they handled it and very grateful. I made a pasta salad for dinner with the orange, green and red noodles and added apples, bacon, olives, cheese and peas. It turned out pretty good. We turned off all the lights so kids wouldn't come to our house and we ate dinner by the candle light of our pumpkins and candles. After dinner we decorated cupcakes, Matt had made oozing chocolate cupcakes earlier in the day, they were delicious! At the end of the night, the kids went to bed on time and without a major sugar high. Now that's my kind of Halloween! :)