Jaden is getting baptized!!!

We are so excited (especially Jaden) because Jaden will be getting baptized next Saturday! He can't wait! The primary counselor brought over his jumpsuit the other day - it is HUGE on him. They only have two jumpsuits and they gave the smaller one to a girl in the ward (who is actually bigger than Jaden), but that's alright - we'll just roll up the legs and sleeves. Jaden had called all the family that lives close to invite them to his baptism and asked some to stand in the confirmation circle. He is feeling pretty big right now. I can't believe that he is turning eight in just a couple of days - it makes me feel like I'm starting to get old... Anyway, this is the picture that will be included in the program, I think he looks pretty grown up! We are sure proud of him!!!

A Christmas Party

Lexi and Tyra had invited us over to their house for a little Christmas party. The kids had a great time making these chocolates. I think they turned out pretty cute! It's kinda fun to look at the chocolates and guess which kid made each chocolate!

Guy even dressed up for the party!!! I thought it was pretty neat - funny, huh!?! HO, HO, HO!

The kids played Santa Bingo with Lexi and each came home with a bag full of prizes!

This is a much better picture of Lexi, but not of my kids, so I may have to do some creative Photoshopping!!!

We all had a great time. Tyra and I made some caramel and chocolate covered pretzels while the kids played - they turned out great! We used them for fun little neighborhood gifts. I didn't get a picture of those though, oh well!

Santa Claus

Santa was at Tyra's office the other night, so we decided to take the kids up there to get their pictures taken with him and to give him their Christmas letters. It was a lot of fun and Santa was so wonderful with the kids! They also have such a great backdrop and place for pictures. Afterwards we went to Tyra's house and the kids played the Wii with Lexi - they had a great time.

The Kids Christmas letters

These were the kids' Christmas letters - I thought the were pretty cute! We had gone to Tyra's dental office to see Santa and have their pictures taken with him! It was a lot of fun.

This is a picture of Santa Claus that Kaylee drew on the back of her letter to him! Pretty cute!

I love the way Jaden ended this letter!!!! Hilarious!!!

Guy's office Christmas Party

I know, I'm real original with my post titles!!! Anyway, Guy and I went to his work Christmas party tonight. It turned out to be quite fun. I usually dread these formal things, where I don't know the people very well. The party was at a nice restaurant, called The Sandpiper. Great food! I was a little uncomfortable because in order to eat, I have to take out my retainer (with my fake tooth on it) so I had a big hole in the front of my mouth - man, I can't wait to get an implant done!!! But the people sitting with us were so fun and didn't care, I was still a little self-conscious though.

It turned out that the people we were sitting with had two of their kids go to the same school that I will be doing my student teaching at. In fact, they both had my cooperating teacher! It was nice to hear about her and what she is like. They both loved her and said that their kids loved her. They also raved about the school principal and what a fun time I should have there - and how nice and accomodating everyone there is. It sure helped to hear these things - I've been pretty nervous about it!

Anyway, I wish I had a funny story about the kids to tell or something, but I don't. I did want to share a page that I made for a friend. She liked the one I did of Kaylee so I thought that I would steal a photo off her blog and make one of her daughter. I thought it turned out cute!!!

Just playing around...

I was going through some of my older pictures the other day and just couldn't resist scrapping these ones. There are a lot of others as well, but these were the ones that I had time to do. School is finally slowing down for the semester.... Thank goodness! I only have one final that I have to really worry about, the others are done or aren't going to be much work. Anyway, it feels good to relax and do some stuff that I enjoy. I'm hoping to be able to make some pumpkin cookies with the kids within the next couple of days - they've been asking for a couple of weeks....

Fairy pages

Here are some layouts that I made of Kaylee from a fun fairy kit. These were so much fun and I think Kaylee makes a beautiful little fairy!!! I'm thinking of printing one of these (or maybe all three!) to frame for Kaylee. Just thought I would share these...

Photo edits

I have to thank Kristy for showing me that you can edit pictures using Picasa. So fun and so easy! I had a lot of fun doing these pictures. Kristy, do you know how to save them as a copy so you still have the original and how to make them show up in your My Pictures?

Anyway, this was just a lot of fun!

Thanksgiving

We had a great time in Seattle for Thanksgiving. We were able to go to the Woodland Park Zoo and see all of the 'big' animals that we don't have here. The kids loved watching the gorillas - especially the baby one. We all also enjoyed watching the hippos. Usually they just sit there and do nothing, but this time one was up moving around and swimming in the water. It was fun when he went to take a drink - they can open their mouths WIDE.

We were also able to go to the beach in Edmonds (my dad's favorite place) and hunt for sea shells and look at all the stuff that is washed up from the Sound. We lucked out with the weather. We had a couple of beautiful days that were fairly warm and lots of sunshine. Those were the days that we went to the zoo and then to the beach. We did have a couple of rainy days as well.

Anyway, we had a great time Thanksgiving day with my family and we were also able to see my old neighbors. It was a lot of fun.

On the way home from Seattle we stopped in Fruitland (near Ontario) for our nephew's homecoming. That was great, most of the family was there. Daryl and Kerry came over and we hadn't seen them since last year (and that was just for a short time). Kaylee loved being able to play with their daughters (her only girl cousins close in age to her), Soma and Fela. They were adorable.

So, all in all, it was a great trip! I wasn't ready to come home back to school and reality... Finals have begun - only three more weeks left. I can't wait for it to be over - however, I could use a little bit more time to get everything done!

Here are some layouts from our trip to the beach.