I know I know....

Yes, I've been catching flack from the 2 people that actually look at my blog (jk).... I really want to be better at getting pictures out there but can I just say that i've been really crappy at taking pictures lately. I got on my computer to see what I could post because I know it's been a while and I was really sad to see all my failed attempts at picture taking... maybe I should take a class...
well here are some of the things that have been keeping us busy..


The kids playing dress up... don't let the dress fool you, Kortlin is the best ball thrower I know... doesn't matter what the ball is, football, baseball you name it, he is destined to play sports.






Disney on ice.....


Decorating for Christmas... an all day event.


Helping with Maddie's Fall Party before Thanksgiving.. just another fine example of my lack in picture taking... I forgot to take my camera so I have nothing to show for it but this crazy cupcake that I had Maddie's classmates decorate and devour.


And another fine example of my picture taking skills.. notice how it's completely out of focus and yes, this is the only picture I got with Mad and Santa this year...



Christmas Eve... Dani and Richard stayed the night and Mad got to open a present from them (the cute wall plaque) then she opened another present to the family which turned out to be Guitar Hero world tour.... which I must add Ry has already mastered.


And the reason why Ry has mastered all the wii games... yes those are his crutches. Ry had surgery on his foot the week of thanksgiving. He was on crutches for 6 weeks and just barely got the "all clear" to drive so needless to say, he's been trapped in the house for the most part.





Another example of my lack in picture taking. So this time (Christmas day) I didn't get many pictures at home, less at my brothers and none at Grandma and Grandpa's. Why? Because I get sidetracked and then I leave my camera and video recorder at my brothers so I can't even take any pictures. Thankfully, Ash had her camera at grandma's so I drove her crazy by bugging her to take pics for me. One of these days we'll get together so I can get them from her :)

Well that takes us to the end of the year... and yes, again, I forgot to take any pictures on New Year's Eve but I can say we did have fun.

The Big Kid's Party

So here are some pictures from the Big Kid's Halloween Party. I hate my picture so please ignore me. If I was good enough with the photo shop I'd cut my face out but i'm inept with a computer.


An attempt to be Vampire and Vampiress... We colored Bob's hair, eyebrows and mustache black but he kind of looked like Groucho Marx so notice... the mustache is gone. By the way, in all our dating and married years I had never seen Bob without a mustache until that night. Kind of cute, isn't he :)




Curtis having fun toilet papering....


I want my mummy..

Maddie's first school carnival

So, yes, that's Maddie with the blond wig. She wanted to be Sharpay. Gotta love the hair! Ya, I thought I was being so smart. I wanted to fix the front of her wig with the curling iron so I plugged it in and got it good and hot. To my dismay (duh, what was I thinking), my curling iron melted the "hair". What do you expect for $10.00?


Note: Maddie has already lost the wig.





I think the kids had a blast. The parents were worn out by the end of the night but isn't that what Halloween is all about??

Bob's Birthday

This looks more like a Halloween Party but it was actually Bob's Birthday. We had dinner and I thought it would be fun to carve pumpkins. Maddie wanted to carve a skeleton (she likes scary stuff), Bob carved Scooby Doo, Ry created his version of a jack o lantern and I carved a witch. Unfortunately, I jumped the gun a little bit. I don't know why I can't remember that the pumpkins don't last long after you carve them. Anyway, Bob thought we might be able to save them if we put them in the freezer.



I forgot to get pictures after we defrosted the pumpkins on Halloween but needless to say they were piles of mushy goo..

Las Vegas baby....

A few weeks ago we took a short trip Vegas to attend a relative of Bob's wedding. It turned out to be a cold cold weekend but it was fun. We stayed at Bob's parents house the first night and then finished the drive to Vegas the next day. That was quite the adventure! Bob didn't print off the hotel reservations so... I had to call my dad to check our email. I was trying to use my phone's little GPS thingy and Bob kept barking out commands to search for this, then that, all while he kept driving aimlessly in Vegas. We finally made a decision to stay at the hotel close to the strip. I thought it would be kind of fun to go to the Tournament of Kings at the Excalibur. I couldn't think of a lot to do for kids in Vegas (too bad I didn't talk to one of my friends at work before... she has a whole list of museums, aquariums, etc.) but anyway Bob and Ryan weren't too thrilled. I told them, if they could think of something, we would do it, but there were no suggestions so we ended up at the Excalibur.





Bob and Ryan were good sports and Maddie was enthralled with the whole thing. She sat leaning forward in her seat for the whole show.

The next day we took Ryan to find some school clothes. He found a few shirts and a pair of shoes but he's very selective so we didn't find a lot. That evening we went to the wedding where the big kids had fun dancing. We tried to get Maddie on the dance floor but it was a very long day and she was tired and ready to head for the hotel. It was quite an amazing event, complete with cocktail hour, a yummy food selection and of course wedding cake. We headed for the hotel but took a quick detour down the strip and then headed for bed. The next day we returned to Bob's parents to relax for a few days before returning home.

Sad to say, these are the only pictures I took for the whole trip. I was slacking with the camera so after the trip, I realized I need to get my camera out more!

Catching up

Where do people find the time to maintain these blogs!! Honestly, when I get on the computer the time just melts away and before you know it, you've been sitting here for 3 hours and haven't accomplished a thing. Part of my problem is that I've been cursed with a slow gene. I've noticed that it takes others half the time that it takes me to finish a particular task. This doesn't happen every day otherwise I'd probably be fired from my jobs.... work, mother, housekeeper, maddie's slave... you know, but ya.... that's just how it is. At this point in my life, I've learned to just accept it. Unfortunately, I've passed this on to Maddie. Hopefully, this curse lessens with each generation??? Did I also mention that I'm a procrastinator? This doesn't help my cause.

So Anyway, September was fun and busy!! We started out with our local harvest celebration. Maddie got to ride on the Cheerleader's float thanks to mini cheer camp.

At the beginning of the parade (notice Maddie is smiling)

At the end of the parade (notice Maddie has had enough)

Later that evening we went to the carnival.

The next weekend Grandpa Dave and Grandma Barbara came for a visit to watch the girls at halftime, help Blake with his garage and hang out with Dani for her birthday barbecue.

Maddie waiting to perform at halftime.

Dani's Birthday.

Ash took a ton of pictures so I tried to get as many as I could... they were all cute :) This was Dani's big 2 - 1. Holy cow, I can't believe she's that old!! I can say that because I have about 20 years on her.