The little boys got to decorate their own little tree for Christmas this year. 

 It started off pretty good, but once they found a good spot to put the ornaments...they kept with it!  Just look at that tree leaning!

The boys called that a day and went right back to what they were doing before.  Pushing Emmett around on the rings.

Just a few things the Emmett is saying these days.


Emmett has been addicted with milk lately.  He refuses to eat anything else!   He asks for it the moment he wakes up to the moment he goes to bed.  I'm always spending my day trying to redirect him, but I think he's caught on.  Here is a pretty common conversation:

Emmett - I want milk!

Mama - How about toast?

Emmett - How bout MILK?

Mama - How about pears?

Emmett - How bout MILK?!

It just continues in this way until I either give in or he gets hungry enough to eat what I give him.


Emmett love to put the letter A in front of everyone's name.  We always here him say, "Where's a-dadda?  Where's a-mama?  Where's a-Etan?  Where's a-Atin?  Where's a-Jason?"  The funny one is always "Where's A-laina." You know...since that's actually her name...


The other was a huggy one.  I don't know what got into the little boys, but they both decided to spend the entire day giving me hugs.  Jason was the one who started it, but then it became a type of competition.  Jason would give me a giant hug and then Emmett would top it off.  I'm not gonna complain about that one.  In fact, I just might have encouraged the competition a little on this day.  (Look Jason, Emmett is giving me a really, really long hug!)

Happy 40th Birthday - ROB!

Oh man.  Old man rivers, rolling down those last few years of life.  Receding hair line, gray hairs coming in on what's left, body falling apart...oh wait, that's me too!  The 40s really aren't doing either one of us any favors, but here we both are.  40 and ....FABULOUS, baby!

We were having a kindof crazy ol' week, when Rob turned 40, so the birthday dinner was about all we were able to pull together.  However, if you notice, the salad has the number 40 written in olives.  Seriously.  Does life get better than that?!  I even made mango/coconut rice pudding.  Boom.  That, my friends, made dinner a winner.

Now, the birthday cake was a different matter.  Somehow I completely screwed up the one cake that I've made since I was 10.  Pudding cake is pretty darn simple and I've never had it not turn out awesome, until this day.  Instead of a nice chocolate cake over a layer of pudding, we had a volcano explosion of pudding bursting through the entire cake.  I was pretty bummed out since I didn't have much else going for the big day.  

Instead of moaning and groaning about it (too much) I grabbed a bunch of the boys' dinosaurs and reptiles and pretended like it was a theme cake.  Prehistoric/volcano/desert/dino cake.  Yea.  It was a hit.

Here is Vanna white, bring it out.

And all my sweet loves.

Old man needed some help blowin' out his candles.

In fact, the little boys couldn't stop helping.  They kept blowing them candles out and and cryin' for more.  Since Robert loves to spoil those two, he kept lighting the candles so they could keep blowing them out.  It's a vicious circle.  (Good thing they are so cute!)

Happy Birthday Robert!

While we managed to take zero pictures of Thanksgiving, we did happen to have a morning photo shoot of our little family the day we left to go home.  Bella was still in town for a couple of hours and it had just started to snow outside.  She came out and took a bunch of shots of the family and I finished up taking pictures of the kids.  I'm about to overpost...as usual, but, as I am my own boss, I gave myself permission to do so.

This also became our Christmas Card picture this year.

Right after the family shots, I tried to get the little boys photographed.  They weren't buying it.  It was too cold for those little loves, so I got a lot of these pictures:

And after a very sad little slip, we got these types of pictures:

But Ethan was ready and willing to be photographed.

After we got a couple of good shots, he ran inside.

Austin only lasted a few minutes before he ran in.  I guess Vegas has thinned out that boy's blood!

Alaina was my easiest subject.  She stayed out until her hands were blue and I was able to get some great shots of her.

Boy was she cold!

Alaina got a few pictures of us in there.

If you want to look like you are head-over-heels in love...just take pictures in the freezing cold.  :)

Although, truth be told...I'm still a little crazy about this guy.

While I took pictures, Robert took warmed up the kids until I was ready for them.

We didn't get very many good pictures of this little guy and all of his pictures have this weird blue-ish tint.  (He got so cold so fast!)   I don't know how to photograph little white skinned babies!

Rob saving the day, again.

While we were freezing our little tushes off, Bella was warming up hot chocolate for us.  Favorite niece!

Thanksgiving was awesome.  Loads of fun.  Craig & his family, Russ & his family, Scott & his family, Jim & his family, cousin Lara and her family plus Bella were all there for the big day.  I love being surrounded by my fantastic brothers and their families.  This visit, I have to admit, my mind was wondering, and I never got around to taking pictures of all the fun times we were having.  Dinner was delicious and we had to fit people on three different tables.  The kitchen table, a foldout in the living room and the downstairs table.  Between the cooking/the cleaning/the chasing after little toddlers...there wasn't a lot of time to take the pictures that should have been taken (I don't think anyone did it!)  I'll just have to be happy with the memory on this one.

After we ate, we got together and had a mini-home night-talent night moment.  A bunch of the grand kids got up and played various instruments.  Matthew on the piano, Yve on the clarinet etc.  Then my silly brothers got up and played the same songs they played every single home night we had growing up.  Craig played the pink panther.  Russ played hill street blues.  Scotty played one of the Chicago songs.  They made me get up and demonstrate the same one-handed, twenty-note versions of the entertainer that I know.  Still pretty sad.  Ha!  What a bunch of silly boys!  Mostly we just caught up and enjoyed each other's company.  I have to say that, that is a pretty successful Thanksgiving!

Mid-November, Robert and I had big plans to camp/hike Havasupai Falls.  It is one fabulous sight with a pristine waterfall dropping into a gorgeous swimming area before burbling off down stream.  You have to call a year before to get the reservations to make the hike down to the falls, since it is on a reservation.  We were all set to go when Rob's knee went out on him.  Plus a cold front came in.  Plus, I had just taken gotten a call that told me that I most likely had DCIS and I needed a biopsy to confirm.  So, even though I had the reservation set, the equipment bought, and my mom and sister coming to town to watch the kids...we decided not to go.

We aren't dummies, however.  When a babysitter comes into town to watch your kids for 4 days, you don't just waste that opportunity.  Instead, Robert and I decided to go on a stay-cation.  That means, Vegas - baby!  Even though the strip is 15 minutes away, it aways seems like a completely different world.  We got a hotel near the strip.  We saw shows, stayed up late and ate in restaurants.  We even took naps in the afternoon.  (Is that sad that, that is one of my highlights?)  It was a lot of fun and I was able to take care my medical stuff at the same time.  A two-fer one.  :)

We managed to take 0 real pictures (just a bunch of selfies stuck somewhere on my phone)  of our little excursion, so what happens in Vegas, really does stay in Vegas this time.  It must be said that one night we picked up Lora and she joined me in jumping off the Stratosphere.  That was pretty awesome.  And not as scary as you might imagine.

We did manage to get a couple of pics of the replacement moms.  Here are our silly pictures.

Lora said that the trick to a great fish-kiss is bright red lipstick...so we ALL tried it out.  We do look pretty amazing.

Thank you silly ladies for watching my babies!