Once there was a SNOWMAN!

We have enjoyed a great Saturday!  It started with waking up to lots of snow.  We cleaned the church building and then enjoyed a yummy breakfast at Lone Star.  Then we came home and played in the snow.  Our snowman is over 7 feet tall!  It took the whole family to lift the head in place.  Hopefully Mr. Snowman can stay around for a few days.  We built a snow fort and went sledding.  We are so grateful for the beautiful snow.  

Learning to Ride

We are heading to San Diego next week and will take everyone's bike so we can bike the board walk and around mission bay. So tonight I decided it was time for the training wheels to come off. Also, Lindsay needs to learn to ride so we can get her a bigger bike. Her knees are touching the handlebars when she peddles. So off came the training wheels. I ran behind her for a few feet and she had it down! I guess we should have taken the training wheels off months ago!

Zoom, watch her go!

Yeah, she just finished a 2 mile ride! We can now get a bigger bike and maybe she can keep up with her 3 older brothers.

Locker's Yes, Wasted Space Gone!

For Christmas this year, I asked my dad to help us build lockers in our home. This is the final product! With the help & knowledge of my dad, we now have custom locker storage in our home. On the left side we created upper cabinets, four locker dividers, bench seating and shoe storage on the bottom.

On the right side we have bench seating, lots of hooks, decorative shelf, and more shoe storage. What was once wasted space, is now wonderful storage!

This is a picture of the space before we started, minus the backpacks and shoes lying on the ground.

The entire family helped build these lockers. The kids are so excited to have a spot for their backpacks, coats and shoes.

The boys loved using grandpa's power tools. The kids where great stainers, sanders and helpers!

We built the shoe shelves, cabinet faces and boxes at my dad's house. He has all the tools to do the job. We did make countless trips to Home Depot and Lowes.

A Big THANK YOU to my parents for all their help!

Thanksgiving Fun

We enjoyed Thanksgiving with Grandpa, Grandma, Dave, Julie and their 6 kids. Due to freezing temperatures our traditional Thanksgiving morning of shooting was cancelled. In leu, the boys all put on sunglasses and sported their airsoft guns around the yard. Airsoft Wars! I'm sure our neighbors were wondering what was going on at our house.

Everyone made cute turkeys to dress up the table. The kids kept asking, can we eat the turkey...the first time I thought they wanted real turkey not the candy ones :-) But after dinner the candy turkeys all disappeared. They were a big hit.

Cute Grandpa & Grandma

The next day the girls headed out shopping at 4:30AM. We live in a great place to shop on Black Friday. No crowds, no lines, friendly people. In the afternoon we all went to the movies. It was a great weekend with family!

Front Yard Finally Done

After having no yard and acres of weeds, we are so excited to finally have our front yard and driveway done. We had to pour over 7,000 SF of concrete for our driveway. I love the grass which has helped keep the dirt from coming in the house. The kids love the driveway for riding bikes, scooters, basketball, 4 square and side walk chalk. Our neighbor brought over a big 24 pack of sidewalk chalk right after the driveway was done and the kids went to down designing. Next summer I will plant flowers in the beds at the front and side of the house. Can't wait!

We have a parking area for 4 cars at the beginning of the driveway.

California Weekend

The day after Jared got baptized, his cousin who is 1 day older got baptized. We said good bye to all of our company and headed to California for Race's Baptism. Race's father Rusty baptized Race. It was a beautiful baptism.

The following day we spent the morning with Kyle's parents and then headed to Balboa for some fun.

The kids love the ferris wheel and playing in the sand. It was much warmer than we thought, and we should have worn swim suits because the kids all got soaking wet playing in the surf.

Jared & Race

The following day we headed to Disneyland. We turned in our "Give A Day - Get A Day" Tickets and had a beautiful day a Disneyland.

Jared's Baptism

Jared choose to follow in the steps of the Savior and be baptized. We are so proud of the great decisions he is making. He baptism was a great day. We had lots of family come for the day and we spent the morning playing together. And then in the afternoon we headed to the church for our family baptism service.

Kyle baptized Jared

Grandpa gave a talk about baptism

We had a fun reception after the baptism for Jared