I love Christmas Time!

This is going to be a long post because I have not posted in a while and I have a lot to say.

First I want to say that this is my favorite time of the year. I love it! Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. We spent it with Roger's family this year. The kids had a lot of fun. They love playing with their cousins.

We spent the day after Thanksgiving cleaning the house really well. I don't think it is fun to set up all the Christmas stuff unless the house is clean. We needed to clean the kids' room and organize their playroom to make room for the new toys that Santa will be bringing. We also had to get caught up on the laundry. We got it all done!

I went shopping on Black Friday and it was crazy! I have never done this before, because I have heard stories and I was a little afraid. I really wanted to get a power wheels jeep for the kids. They had one on sale at Walmart for $88.00. That is why I decided to go shopping on Black Friday. I planned to wake up at 3:15am, get dressed, drive to the Brigham City Walmart, and be there by 4:00am so I could do my price match shopping before the sale starts. I ended up waking up at 1:30am. I think I was just over thinking everything and feeling a little nervous because of all the stories I had heard. I decided to turn the tv on to help me get back to sleep. I ended up watching a show called 'World's Dumbest Shoppers' It did not calm my nerves at all. They showed videos of people getting trampled and just being really dumb, trying to get a good deal. I managed to fall back asleep at 2:45am. Then I woke up to my alarm at 3:15am. I made it over to Walmart at 4:00am like I had planned. There were a lot of people and everybody was lined up by the item they wanted to get. I went to find the power wheels jeeps. When I found them they only had 15 jeeps! And a lot more than 15 people waiting to take one. There were 2 or 3 people holding on to each box, so that when it turned 5:00am they could grab it. I knew there was no way that I was going to get one. Most people there had 2 or 3 people with them. I asked a few people which one they were planning on taking. A lot of people were trying for the same box. I knew there was going to be a fight, so I decided to just stand back and watch. I called Roger and asked him if he would try to buy one online for me. It was rediculous to watch everyone fighting over those jeeps. A Walmart employee had to come over and break it up. I don't think I will be doing that again. Roger got online at 5:01am and they were all sold out online. Crazy huh!?!

November 29th is our anniversary! Roger and I have been married for seven years! Time goes by so fast. I can hardly believe that it has been seven years. Here are some of our wedding pictures. I would write more about our wedding, but I have to go to work soon. Maybe I will write more later.

On Saturday morning we woke up and decorated the house for Christmas. The kids decorated the tree all by themselves. I just pulled out all the ornaments and handed them to them. Last year when we decorated the tree, I was sad that we didn't have very many ornaments, so I looked online and got a ton of ideas of how to make different ornaments. We made a lot of ornaments last year. During the summer somebody gave me a bunch of ornaments that they were getting rid of. So we have a lot of ornaments this year. The tree is full of them! Here is Alissa getting another ornament to put on the tree. She loves decorating the tree. toward the end of decorating the tree, Alissa kept saying, "Aren't we done yet? There is no more room to put more ornaments." Then Alissa had an idea. she thought that it would look great if she hung some ornaments in the tree instead of on the outside where they can be seen easily. In order to do this, she felt that she needed to climb under the tree and hang the ornaments. So here is a picture of Alissa under the tree.

Parker thought that hanging the ornaments in the tree was a great idea also.

We are finished!!

I gave Brinley a hair cut on Sunday. she likes to twist her hair around her finger and it ends up pulling her hair out. So her hair was very uneven. I let her play the computer while I cut her hair. that was the best way to get her to hold still and look forward.

Chicken Soup for the Soul Day

I took more pictures this week. I love taking pictures of my children. They are so cute! Last monday I remembered that I was going to take more pictures about a half an hour before i put the kids to bed. They were all just doing their own thing. Brinley was in the kitchen playing with a pretend camera. She let me take her picture then I had to pose while she took my picture.Parker was driving a toy car around on the kitchen counter.

And Alissa was in the living room coloring.

On Tuesday I decided that I would hurry out when Parker's bus dropped him off and I would take his picure while he was coming off the bus. Brinley is sitting on the couch and helping me watch for Parker's bus to come.

Here he is! He loves his preschool and he really loves riding the bus. I used to walk with him out to the bus in the morning (they come to our house and pull in the driveway), but Parker informed me last week that he doesn't need me to walk to the bus with him anymore because he is big and can do it himself.

I learned about a website that tells you of all the holidays (http://www.holidayinsights.com/). There is a holiday on almost everyday of the year. I thought that it would be fun for my scrapbooking if we celebrated some of these holidays. November 12th was Chicken Soup for the Soul Day. I didn't have time to make homemade chicken soup, so we ate ramen noodle soup. I took a lot of pictures of the kids eating their soup so I could make some fun scrapbooking pages of us celebrating the holiday.

Brinley looks silly in this picture. I love it!

I rearranged the furniture in the living room on saturday. The

kids found their bounce house while I was moving things around and they couldn't wait for me to set it up. The kids love this bounce house. Money was really tight for Christmas last year so we weren't able to have a very big christmas. I was feeling sad because I hadn't been able to afford anything that I felt was a big gift. They had a lot of small gifts and that was good, but I really wanted to get them something big. About a week or so before Christmas, I got a letter in the mail with $50.00 in it. I do not know who sent it. I was so happy to have a little more money to spend on the kids' Christmas. I thanked Heavenly Father and asked him to help me find some good deals (I know it was a silly thing to pray for). I went to the store the day that I got the money. I do most of my Christmas shopping in Brigham City, Logan, or Ogden. To save money, I decided to shop in town. I went to a store that I had heard about from a friend (It is a small store and I never really noticed it before). I went to the toy department and that is where I found this bounce house. It was on sale for 50% off the original price of $100.00! It was $50.00! I was so excited! I had day dreamed about getting a bounce house for the kids, but I knew I could never afford it. This is a small bounce house, but it is just right for my children. They love it!

Mopping The Kitchen Floor

The kitchen floor really needed to be mopped. We do not have a very good mop. It cost to much money to replace the top and it gets dirty way too fast. I don't like to mop. It is my least favorite job. Because of the bad mop and how badly I dislike mopping, I did not mop for a long time. So the floor was disgusting! So on Saturday the kids and I mopped the floor together. We used buckets and rags and got down on our hands and knees and mopped the floor. The kids had a lot of fun. Brinley and Parker got the floor and themselves really wet. Alissa was really good at squeezing the water off of the rag so she did not get water everywhere. I took these pictures of the kids when we finished. Their socks where really wet so I told them to skate across the floor with the socks to finish the mopping job. They really loved that!
Brinley's shirt was to wet so she took it off.

Alissa was jumping up to scare Parker when I took this picture.
I love this picture of the kids. I just wish Brinley was wearing a shirt and Parker was wearing pants.
I love Parker's smile.

I took this picture of the kids today. They were playing with some of the playdough they got while they were trick or treating. Alissa shaped the playdough into letters. She wanted to spell Parker's name but she did not have enough playdough.

I realized today that I don't take as many pictures of the kids as I used to. I'm going to work on that. The kids are really enjoying my new job. They love it when they get to come to work with me. I don't take them with all of the time. On the days that I have to go to work before Alissa gets home from school, I don't take the kids. If Alissa can't come , I feel bad taking the other two and leaving her at home with out them.

Halloween

Last year I decided that it would be a lot more fun to make their Halloween costumes, because the ones at the store are pretty flimsy and I thought it would be special if they were homemade. Last year I did not have a job. I think making the costumes was a good idea for last year, but this year it was hard. The reason that it was hard is that I had a hard time making time to get their costumes done. I wasn't able to get the done in time for the Halloween party at Kari's house, but, thankfully, I got them finished in time for Halloween. I really liked the way they turned out and it was a lot of fun to make them. I just stressed myself out because I had a lot of other things that I needed to do besides making their costumes.

Parker was an Army Guy for Halloween. He wanted to be a cowboy, but boots were too expensive, so I told him that if he were an army guy, he could have a gun.Brinley was a fairy princess. She didn't like the wings at first, but she decided that they weren't so bad later on.Alissa wanted to be a witch. I think she looks so cute in her costume.

Here they are all together before we went out trick or treating.
We went to the trunk or treat over at the church. Then we came home and I took their pictures and we went out trick or treating around the neighborhood. We went with Alissa's new friend Erin, her brother, and her dad. The kids had a lot of fun.

We're home! The kids loved trick ot treating. I took a few picture of the kids by their pumpkins.

Alissa and I went to one more house. We left Brinley and Parker with daddy while we went to the scary house. Alissa's friend, Skylee, lives at the scary house. They love Halloween and they go all out with the Halloween decorations. This year they had an inflatable haunted house that you had to walk through to get to the front door. When we walked through it, it made scary sounds. Alissa was really nervous. I told her about it before we went and she said that she wouldn't be scared because she knows it is just pretend. I also warned her about the doorbell. When you ring it, air blows at you and it makes a scary sound. So Alissa was nervous when we got to the door. She was clinging to my arm. They had a lot of decorations (spiderwebs and stuff like that) around the door and I couldn't find the doorbell. I grabbed Alissa's flashlight to help me find the doorbell. While I was looking, the thing blew air on our faces and made the scary sound. We screamed and then they opened the door and gave us our treat. Alissa did not like that. She thought it was way too scary. I thought it was fun.

Here's Alissa getting all of the candy out of her bag.

Brinley enjoying her treats.

Parker playing with his daddy.

Parker's treats
And now it is time to go to bed. The kids had so much fun. They did not want the day to be over. Brinley and Alissa took the news of bed time really hard. They did not want to put the candy away and go to bed.