Every Christmas Cole's Mom makes AWESOME sugar cookies for the kids to decorate. They love the tradition and look forward to it. Santa drives around the Grandparents neighborhood and so after cookies we wait outside for Santa. He never disappoints.
The boys with Ashley and Natalie.
My friend Kelly made these cute vintage aprons for boutiques this year then also taught a class on how to make them. Needless to say my OCD caught the apron bug and I felt the need to make 40 for friends and family. I had to call on best buddy Alene to help me sew them in time for Christmas. I got them done in time and hope all who got one will enjoy them. Now I need to still make one, Mine!
Aprons in different stages scattered in my living room.
Alene and I sewing
Two recipients. My s-i-l Afton and m-i-l MaryKaye.
Our baby is six today. We are so blessed to have him in our family and love him dearly. 
Dad and Erik 2 years ago.
Love his smile.
He got into pudding. I could laugh at it later.
Last year on his birthday. He's wearing all his presents.
I'm sitting on Cole's laptop because our computer is down for the 4th time in 2 months. I mean down and out till Cole pulls it apart and does his magic. The kids keep loading some stupid game that crashes it. No pictures till it's up and running. I really dislike blogging without pics.
Cole is out hiking with Nick and the Deacons. Heaven help him! I'm at home with our 4 boys and 3 extra 15 years olds playing Madden '09. Heaven help me! (man the noise level they can put out.)
To catch up, Nick did win the Spam Contest for the Jr. cooking contest. So proud of him and his recipe. He made Spam cup pies. Think of mini spam tarts. He won $60 and his recipe goes to nationals. If it wins there, he'll get $2,000. (All would go to his mission fund!) There where about 10 other kids competing and about 35 adults. As the wonderful mother that I am, I forgot my camera. Luckily Kelly and her parents where at the fair so I do have some picture and will post when I can.
Halloween was okay this year. Jason and Nick didn't want to dress up this year to hand out candy. I was going for a "Pushing Daisies" theme but they thought it was too much of a hassle. Trevor dressed up as Link from Zelda. Everyone thought he was Peter Pan or Robbin Hood, poor kid. Ryan was a bat and Erik was Davey Crockett. Nana made him this cool costume and he looked so cute. Again, pictures to follow.
I've been sewing like a mad woman or more accurately, like a woman with a OCD problem. Not to worry, most of you will benefit from my disease come Christmas.
This year we decided to enter items into the State Fair. Since we had potential ribbons we also decide to go to the State Fair. We have only gone twice since Cole and I have been married these last 16 years. Jason and Nick barley remember the last time. The Hendricksons got us some free passes and therefor Cole was more aped to go. Nana and PopPop decided to come meet us to see what we won and to hang out with the grand kids. We had such a good time and I think the kids are hooked.
Trevor, Ryan and Erik trying their hands out on milking a fake cow.
Erik and Ryan on the freaking expensive bumper boat ride.
Erik on a mom-canical bull ride.
Erik on the way home. He finally won this ugly orange shark. It only cost $10 to win. Not bad considering the $10 corn dogs.
My friend Kelly has had her children put items into the state fair for years. She has tried to get our family to do it as well. This year she and her mother finally convinced us. Kelly's mother, Mary Ellen, was in charge of the craft section this year. We had so much fun making and putting together our items to take. We won some ribbons and had a great experience. We are definitely hooked now and have come up with a game plan for next year.
I won 1st on my "101 things I love about you". Thanks to Donelle for the idea and push to make this. I even got a special ribbon for it. I also won 1st for my salsa!
I had Alene put her decoupage craft in and she won 2nd place!
This is Kelly's daughter Nicole. She made this fabulous quilt and won 1st.
We worked on a quilt to demo how to do it. The boys were not happy but they tried. I don't think we were really qualified to demo this.
The boys were especially proud of their winning projects and were Cole and I.
Jason won 1st place in print making and 3rd in collections. He put in our Disney pins.
Trevor won 3rd for his snickerdoodles. He got HM for his tote bag and for a decoupage craft.
Ryan won 1st for his molasses cookies and HM for his ceramic pig.
Nick won 2nd for his Australian magnetics and he suppose to be in the Spam contest Oct. 25th.
Our loving primary has asked all the kids to do a media fast this week as conference is this weekend. Nixing T.V., videos games, music, you get the idea.I was not too excited for this and decided to just half my kids T.V. watching and no video games. Cole is even listening to the Book of Mormon on CD in the car as he takes the kids to school.
(I know, I was surprised too!) I thought this was a nice compromise. Well it seems this fast was meant for me.
So this week my "real" computer is dead and is in Cole's capable hands to fix it, eventually. So now all ipod music, all my pictures, ect is on that. So I haven't been blog hopping or anything else but only able to check my e-mail. (I'm on Cole's work laptop) Also my phone died this week and so no cell phone when I'm out or texts and the likes. I had no idea how much I am tied to these two things. So, I'm doing this media fast however unwillingly.
Hope I'll be able to blog some pictures soon.
A couple of months ago my mother in law saw this picture in the Ensign of Elder Quentin L. Cook. We all think that Erik looks a lot like him. Maybe our 5th son is destined for something greater than I had hoped. I'll try to lay off the "Holy Craps" to give him a chance!
I love the fact that my bizarre sense of humor has pass on to my children. We now have a garden and we planted ONE watermelon plant. That plant took over like no other and we got 7 watermelons off of it, some larger and more edible than others. I had no clue what to do with all of them. Jason picked one up and started to cradle it and talk baby talk to it. We both formulated our plan. To dress them up as "babies" with faces, hats, diapers, blankets, and even belly buttons. We put them into "baskets" and delivered them to unsuspecting families. The boys had so much fun coming up with little notes pinned to their diapers and naming them.
Watch out for pumpkin Buddha babies or triplet zucchini's!
Jason with the first baby. They got better as we went along.
Nick being surprised with the baby. They named ours Charlie but shorten it to Chuck.
Nick cutting up Chuck. He scares me a little
Nice. Nick even drew a tear on it. How ghetto.
Last Thursday we finally celebrated Shelley's birthday. We had the theme 'Tool Belt Diva'. We played a name that tool game and had a bird house building contest. Jen and Alene won that one and scored some sweet tools. Shelley got a tool belt, girl style, and a pink tool kit. We had manly food - nachos, hot wings, and IBC root beer out of the bottle. Happy birthday Shelley. This is suppose to be one of our last big parties but who knows....
The gang of divas.
The gals building the birdhouses.
Jen and Alene with their winning birdhouse.
Well actually this is a picture of the 3rd day of school if I must be completely honest. We had just gotten home at 1 in the morning on the first day of school from Colorado and I forgot to take pictures. I was lucky to do their hair and get them there on time!
Alas, I don't even have a picture of Nick going off to Jr. High for the first time. And even worse, Jason as a Freshman. We left him here with friends and missed his first 2 days at High school. What a pathetic excuse for a mom!
This weekend Cole and I found ourselves at Camp ILA which is a camp for families that have kids with arthritis. ILA means , Imagine Life without Arthritis. Cole's friend at work, Matt, is in the Tempe Kiwanis Club and had asked us to volunteer. It was a great weekend and I wish we had spent more time getting to know the families. We were on kitchen duty and still had a blast. A big thank you to Matt for giving us this opportunity and for letting us stay the second night at his cabin so Cole wouldn't keep people up all night with his snoring!
Some of the campers teaching us songs around the campfire.
Camp Wamatochick near Prescott
Cole and I in the kitchen.
Matt, Cole and I with our award certificates!
