Christmas 2011

We had a really nice Christmas this year. Will and Lilly got lots of great toys and I got a Kitchenaid mixer (YAY!).

Here are the pictures of the kids.

Lilly getting out of the bath in here hoodie towel.

William the red nosed reindeer.

Lilly in the rain forest bouncer.  She loves this one.  We bought it when William was a baby, and she loves it as much as he used to.

William smiling for the camera on Christmas morning.

Lilly in her snowman headband.

Sitting by daddy helping him open his packages.

Will and Lilly playing on the floor.

I think that Aunt Erin's gifts were the hit of the year.  She got Lilly a giant caterpillar toy.  It's about 4 to 5 feet long!

For William it was a drum set.  He loved it!  (This one gets to stay at Grandma Rhonda's house.)

After all of the presents were opened Paul gave Lilly a bottle and they took a nap.  Look how sweet!

We had so much fun playing at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  Later in the day Nina and the boys came over for dinner.  Mom cooked a great spread and we were all stuffed.  The only hard part of the day was trying to pack everything up to get it all back to our house!

Christmas Tree

So, I accidentally buried our little fake tree behind a lot of crap under the house.  I also buried all of the decorations.

So, William and I went to the store and bought a little table top size real tree, a string of lights, and a package of construction paper.  We've been using the paper to make decorations for the tree over the last couple of weeks.  Here's how it turned out.

We made a paper chain to use as garland, some snowflakes to act as ornaments, and a cone angel as a topper.

Not bad for less than $30.  :-)

New Family Member

So, we have a new addition to the family.

Erin went to the animal shelter today and brought home a new dog.

She doesn't have a name yet, but look at that face!

She's not growling... her lip just gets stuck on her tooth like that.

SO FUNNY!!!!!

Thanksgiving 2011

Thanksgiving 2011

I hope that everyone had a wonderful and relaxing holiday.  We had fun.  We went to Nina's house and ate an awesome dinner.  Nina always does such a wonderful spread for the holiday.  I think I might have gained 10 pounds just eating turkey!

William decided that he didn't want to have his picture taken and that he didn't want to eat anything for dinner.  You'd think that he was an opinionated 3 year old or something!

Lilly tolerated me snapping a few shots of her sitting in her chair as we had dinner.  She had some of her Mum Mum biscuits to chew on, so she was happy.

On Friday we went to visit the Noble side of the family.  They all caught the cold that we were struggling with the week before.  So, we hung out, feed them leftovers, and handed out medicine.  I managed to avoid most of the shopping chaos, but I did end up going to 2 stores later in the morning to get a few small items that I needed to go with William's present.  I much prefer shopping the sales online.  No crazy people with pepper spray!

Almost all of the fixes at the house are done now.  We have a finished wall in the master bedroom, no more swamp cooler opening in the hallway, and a new coat of paint on almost everything.  There are a few more items that need finished, but we are waiting on items to be delivered from the warehouses.  Aw, home ownership is so fun...

Halloween 2011

Happy Halloween 2011!

William decided that one day of Halloween was just not enough, so we had a Halloween "party" for him at Grandma and Grandpa's on Sunday.  Grandma Rhonda took him to the dollar store and bought balloons and he made everyone put on a costume.

Here are some of the highlights from our Halloween Party Weekend.

William as a cowboy riding his horse

William the Buchaneer

William and Grandma posing

Grandpa scaring us all with his mask

William and Paul on the couch

Long lost Marx brother

William's pile of friends

Will in Grandma's witch hat

I'm not sure what happened here, but the earrings make it perfect

Halloween party balloons

This years pumpkins

By the time Monday rolled around we were definitely ready to do some trick-or-treating.

I decided not to spend a ton on my costume this year, because I don't really do much except go to work.  I came up with the idea to make a spider web costume, so I used some of my white and black yarn to make this.

William decided to be Batman for his official costume.  He had no end of fun having Paul "fly" him around the house so that his cape fluttered.

We did manage to get Lilly into her Ladybug costume and take her around to show off at the offices, but by the time we got to Grandma and Grandpa's for trick-or-treating she was cranky and ready to be left alone.  So, I don't have any official pictures of her except the ones that I took when we bought the costume.

Paul, William, and Grandma Rhonda went trick-or-treating.  William got a bag of candy almost bigger than him!

Now the trick is to not eat all of it myself...

Witch-a-Palooza 2011

On Saturday we went to Witch-a-Palooza at Gardner Village.  Each year they have a big festival at Halloween time throughout the historic village.

William wanted to ride a pony so Grandma Rhonda bought him a ticket.

They had lots of witches throughout the village doing various activities.  This one was giving her frog a ride.  I had William go stand by her for a picture.  He liked them, but he really didn't want to get too close.

This is the view from the covered bridge back along the stream that runs through the village.

These witches were playing baseball.

This one was taking a ride on her flying bicycle.

These ones were practicing coming in for a landing.

William posed for me in front of the giant pumpkin painting.

This is Hilda's Hangout.  It was covered on all sides with pumpkins.

Witchy brew

William liked the witch playing the piano.

This one was in the middle of the stream catching fish.

We had a lot of fun looking at all of the cute little shops that they have at the village.  I was really tempted to buy a tutu shirt for Lilly at the baby shop, until I saw what they wanted for it.  I figure that for that price I could make 2 or 3 of them on my own!

More Catching Up

So, when you allow Grandma Rhonda to take pictures she accumulates them on her camera until the end of the summer.  I finally had to download them for her because we needed some for a project at work.

The following pictures are from various events over the past few months.

Lilly and me at the concert at the Canyons.

Lilly and Grandma at Oktoberfest.

Paul and William went to the Magna Arts Festival a while back and Will got his face painted with the Batman logo.  Afterward they went for a ride on the new Trax train with Grandma and Grandpa.

Here's William posing for pictures.

William at the splash pad by Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Lilly stretching out on her blankie at the park.

I took this picture of Lilly last month and uploaded it to the Tiny Tilla by Avon website.  They are having a contest looking for the next Tiny Tilla baby.  Cross your fingers for us.

This is Lilly's Halloween costume.  We had to try it on to make sure that it fit.  Lilly ladybug!!