Miss Kaylee

I couldn't resist posting these pictures of my darling niece, Miss Kaylee. Since we were borrowing the "amazing camera," my sweet sister-in-law wanted to get some pictures of Kaylee for her own Christmas card. Like I said, I am NO photographer, but Kaylee was so happy to be outside after being sick for a week that she was more than cooperative, and the pictures turned out adorable! Love you guys!

I love her little face in this one!

Grammy told her that Aunt Jessica had green hair - apparently it was pretty funny!
We captured some priceless moments with that comment!

Kaylee and her beautiful Momma, Vanessa!

Girly pictures

I am SO not a photographer, but I needed some different pictures of my girls for our Christmas card this year. For the life of me, I could not get a decent shot of all three of them together, and I was not in the mood for cute matching outfits, fancy hair-do's and STRESS. So, Rod and I told them to dress themselves in whatever they wanted (yes, they put the hats on themselves . . . it was not a forced moment by the mom), borrowed our good friend's amazing camera, and started taking pictures. To our surprise, they didn't even turn out half bad! See for yourself . . .

Christmas Spirit

Okay neighbors, friends, blog stalkers, enemies, whoever you are . . . if you are reading this blog, I am in need of lots of comments and opinions today. For your benefit, and maybe even for mine, I have disabled all public comments - just for this one - so that you can spill your guts out on me and no one else will ever know.
My Christmas Spirit is in a funk this year - in a big way! I can hardly think straight, and have no ambition . . . so this is where I need brutal honesty. . .
It's neighbor gift time again. For the last two (three?) years, my family and several other families in our neighborhood have donated what would have been our neighbor gifts to the Road Home. It has served a greater purpose for our families, but I know that for others, it has been somewhat offensive. I am struggling to find the desire to do anything this year - neighbor gifts or big projects such as this drive, so I am needing some input to direct me one way or another.
On the one hand, neighbor gifts are a great way to reach out to someone we may not otherwise talk to much throughout the year. On the other hand, many of those gifts are given out of obligation - and Heaven only knows that I do not need to eat one more goodie!!! :)
However, the economy is so rotten that by donating to the Road Home, we serve others, and those who can't afford neighbor gifts are still able to contribute as the people there benefit from many no longer needed items that we already have. This year the Road Home is over-flowing with children, and it's tugging at my heart strings and leaving me with a desire to help.
Long story short . . . will you PLEASE leave me a comment/opinion on what your preference is this year. It will only take a second, and I'm even allowing it to be anonymous. If enough people love the idea of contributing to a charity (doesn't even have to be the Road Home - ideas welcome!), I will be happy to head it up again. However, if you are offended by this, I'd like to know that too. If most of you fall into that range, I may not waste my limited amount of Christmas Spirit in pulling something together. Bah Hum Bug! LOL!
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE take a minute to comment on this! THANK YOU!!!
Oh, and if any of you happened to have found my Christmas Spirit lurking around, would you please send it back my way? . . . Much appreciated! :)

Happy Halloween! (aka . . . blog catch up!)

Happy Halloween
From our house to yours!

The school parade

Carsyn's class party - "The Mummy Wrap"

Eating donuts off sticks . . . dumb swine flu! No bobbing for apples or eating donuts off a community string in this classroom!

Sucking up ingredients for a "witch's stew."
(Yes, I was in charge of the party - can you tell?)

Rod's awesome last minute costume . . . he's a leaf blower!
The worst part is that he actually won a prize at our ward party!

Tyleigh and just one of my favorite triplets at our ward party.

I love this picture of these two! My cute niece Kaylee "Little Tinkerbell"
and Tyleigh "Big Tinkerbell!"

My "all grown up" babies!

All the cute girls getting ready to Trick or Treat!

Trick or Treat! Hope you all had a fun Halloween!

PUMPKINS!

Pumpkin carving at our house is always an adventure to say the least! Thanks to mine and Rod's amazing genes, our children were blessed with severe OCD, perfectionism, and competition. We totally should have had 12 kids! Thankfully, no one's pumpkin ended up stabbed to death this year (Carsyn's), and only one of my daughters ended up in tears over the design (Camryn). They are always very creative - especially since they like to do it all themselves . . . except for Tyleigh.

This carving business takes serious concentration from all involved!

See what I mean? She's totally into it!

Carsyn hard at work!

Camryn working on getting it "just right!"

Tyleigh totally into her pumpkin again . . . oh, wait! That's Rod . . . carving Ty's pumpkin!

Carsyn's masterpiece. Yes, she meant for the candle to look like his cigar. Always testing my limits! :)

Camryn (pre-breakdown) with her creative design.

Tyleigh with her perfectly carved pumpkin - thanks to Dad!

Tinkerbell was the only one who cooperated with the camera while she was lit.

We had to get a picture of ourselves with the pumpkins. We were being really funny sticking our tongues out . . . until Rod licked mine! BLEH! It still makes me sick to look at this adorable picture! We should probably use it on our Christmas card.

Rod's Birthday . . . Cont.

The girls are always so worried about making our birthdays nice for us. They love to do lots of sweet things . . . except for get along, of course! For their daddy's special day, they came up with the idea to make him a poster of 33 reasons that they loved him.

They decorated several walls in our house, and then gave him the best gift of all . . . themselves! They climbed inside an old chest that we have in our family room and taped a sign to the lid. When Rod opened it, they jumped out and sang happy birthday to him! It was pretty clever!

Carsyn and Camryn came down with what we're almost positive was swine flu on Rod's birthday, so we spent his special night at Insta Care instead of going out. We had to improvise on the birthday cake . . . and this is about the extent of my cake making skills.

You're never too old to be funny, right babe???

We love you Daddy and hope you had a great day!