Christmas

Too many to put on one post. Enjoy!

It's a miracle!

Than graduated!!! It's been a LONG road since he graduated with his undergrad in May 2003! But we made it! It was a crazy rush at the end, when all the sudden it was a possibility that he could pull it off this semester, but he made it!



I had great ideas to make shirts for the kids and I, and Than's parents.... but with work and everything it didn't happen. But I did make a shirt for me, and order some necklaces online from Oriental Trading and other decorations! Sorry it's sideways!


More decorations

Decorations amongst the Christmas decorations!

This sucked to make, but turned out cool!

Do you know how hard it is to find grey balloons? VERY! But I finally did, and even bought a helium tank, which the kids LOVED once I showed them what happens when you inhale it!

Cheesy pic before grad with Than's mom and step dad

A nice picture now

The graduates filing in

Beasley Coliseum

Can you see him in the middleish....

As part of a house warming gift the previous home owners left us this cute outfit. It was a bit big (12 mo size and she's only 7 mo) but it was PERFECT! Then with an added touch of a hair bow by me, it was complete!

We had quite a full house: Than's mom and step dad, Than's dad and brother and sister, my parents and sister! The kids eating at the table. Papa Murphy's Pizza!

With our nice new table, we only needed one extra chair to fit all the adults around it!

It was a great weekend, and luckily no one went into labor, because I was supposed to work, but was just on call! Prayers are answered!

Annual Family Picture

We had our annual family picture in our jammies last weekend. This year I decided to have us all in white shirts with our initial on our tummies from our jammie fabric. I think the turned out pretty cute! Unfortunately Trestin and I where in the middle of an pink eye outbreak (luckily with good hand washing it was localized to just the two of us), so don't look too close at our eyes! I'm happy with the portrait people at JC Pennys, and again wasn't let down. Cute poses and then their "doctoring up" of the photos was cute!

Too bad this is like $30, it was cute!

I really liked this one with our legs and Cassiah! CUTE idea! I got one of them!


That's one good lookin' present from Santa! Notice how Cassiah has a death grip on Garrick's shirt, right before that she about fell off, so she wasn't gonna let go now!

Cute on of our four kids!

Cassiah is chillin'

We lined up almost just right, by accident in the two pictures!

This is the main pose I bought, that will go on the wall! In years past they only got head shots and you couldn't see our pants very much if at all. This year they did awesome!

Still busy, but here's what we're doin'....

Playing catch up again, but oh well. With all our trees in our new house, it makes for alot of raking. Luckily the kids LOVED IT! "I want to do this every year Mom!" Well guess what son, that's exactly what you get to do, until you move out! The appeal is probably the jumping in the big pile, but I'll settle for what I can get!

Garrick jumping in

Aleksia's turn
Trestin is in there somewhere.....

All three, enjoying the leaves in our new house! After we raked and bagged the leaves, we found out that Pullman has a leaf pick up! I thought people where just lazy and raking them to the edge of the road off the side walk! Oh well, we'll know for next year!

25 (little) cinnamon rolls for Garrick's Birthday Treat at school! That's what he wanted last year too, but I convinced him to take cupcakes, but seeing as Mom wasn't nauseated from pregnancy this year I didn't have a good excuse!

The birthday boy! Well Saturday it was, but no school on the weekends!

One happy class to be getting cinnamon rolls. I heard one girl say, "These are better then my Mom's!" So I think they where a success! Garrick's cute teacher, Mrs. Thompson in the back ground who is due in February.

She finally decided that baby food and real food are okay! She liked Garrick's chocolate cake. She is her father's daughter!

Due to craziness at our house, we didn't get around to birthday cake till 3 days after his birthday! He was a good sport!

Garrick at his first b-ball game! He's not just running from one side to the other to stand under the hoop now. He's actually trying to block people and make 3 baskets last game!

So this past week was Disney on Ice, Worlds of Fantasy, up in Spokane. It consisted of Cars, Little Mermaid, Lion King, and Tinkerbell. It's always fun, but the best part is seeing our children's eyes light up, and the pure excitement in their faces gives me goose bumps! Trestin sat beside me, and he was so fun! He would get SOOO excited every time someone new would come out, and YELL, "MOM, LOOK! IT'S ______!" So much fun! So here is Minnie and Mickey.

Goofey trying to help fix Mickey and Minnie's broken car.

Well they couldn't fix the car, so who came to help... Mater! Cars was my favorite part of it. They where REAL cars being driven on the ice by people hidden inside. It was very cool!

The entire Cars crew that showed up. Minus McQueen of course.

Lightening McQueen! Their mouths moved, eyes blinked, and voiced by the actors from the movie!

Next was Ariel. Here they are dancing to Under the Sea!

Timon and Pumba where my favorite on Lion King, and they where cute on ice too! Simba and the lions where kinda whimpy though, not real big, but easier to skate in probably.

Then Tinkerbell. That one was the longest, and probably from one of the Tinkerbell movies (which we haven't seen) when she becomes a Tinker Fairy. It was cute, but wish it was shorter and Cars was longer. Oh well!

Aleksia's Kindergarten Fall Feast was the 19th. They made stone soup, muffins, and pumpkin pie. They made cute little turkey hats and sang the Turkey song:

Gobble gobble went the turkey,wobble wobble went his tail.

Shall we eat him, shall we great him, shall we let him share this meal.

"Please don't eat me," begged the turkey. "I am quite a friend you'll see.

And soon you will discover stone soup tastes better then me!"

The hat

Albuquerque the Turkey outside of her class room.

So Than defended his Masters thesis on the 20th, and PASSED! He was so nervous and stressing out, but he did awesome! Now to just finish his thesis and hand it in by Dec 1st! Here he is working out the kinks before his Power Point presentation. His title of the thesis is:

Catacholamine Innervation of the Ventrolateral Bed Nucleus of the Stria Terminalis: Role in Corticosterone and Feeding Responses to Glucose Deficit

Try saying that 10 times! I can bearly say it once!

Than's sister Sarah, got Cassiah these ADORABLE Robez boots! Even thought they are HUGE on her, they are too cute to NOT have them on her now! So here she is very stylin' ready for church today! And how appropriate since it snowed all day today! Although they aren't very good snow boots!
Cassiah's stylin' boots from Aunt Sarah! Thanks, we (and everyone at church too) LOVES them!

Catch up

I've been so busy it seems all I post is catch ups! Well here they are:



Cassiah is now 6 months, so we started solids. Well we've tried, she won't eat them! Her tongue is used to breastfeeding, and it just kicks out the food. All of it! Then after about 2 bites she purses her lips together and will NOT open her mouth! Stuborn little girl. I hope she realizes she can't have Mommy Milk for the rest of her life!
Cassiah enjoys the walker on our laminate flooring. She cruises around so easy but it's not so soft when it comes to play time on the floor. She's now rolling all over and doesn't stay on the blanket very well. Anyways, she likes to "help" with dishes! Although luckily she pushes it closed with her tray as she gets closer, so luckily she can't reach, but she sure tries!

This is as far and she can get and as much as she can reach!

Every Friday till the end of the year (2009) is "Crazy ______ Day", well today was Crazy Hair Day. Garrick's is blue with pink spots and then a blue dot in the middle. He thought he was pretty cool!

Aleksia was pink with the tips of her 3 ponies purple!

So Trestin goes potty in the toilet now (diapers only at night) so we bought him a fish too and 3 little snails, for a grand total of $0.76!!! Sometimes my kids are cheap to bribe! Well Bolt is adjusting to the water, and is 1/4-1/3 the size of Ariel and Buzz Lightyear! Luckily they didn't think he was food and eat him....yet!

Than plotting out his pumpkin design as we carved pumpkins for FHE.

Yeah, he scooped his own goo and didn't "puke" this year!

Aleksia grabbing out the goo

Wasn't too happy that Dad smeared goo on his tummy!

I was hoping to have her sit in the pumpkin for a cute Anne Gettes type picture, but no luck. So she just stood since she didn't fit!

The finished products. Daddy's "puking," Trestin's, Mommy's, Cassiah's, Garrick's, and Aleksia's

The pumpkins out on the front porch with our couple other Halloween decorations!

Cassiah in a so cute outfit that Aleksia wore too. It's almost too small, so we had to get a pic quick!

Garrick putting jello on his cupcakes for school. The idea was that the jello would soak through and create orange blobs, but it didn't work so good! Oh well, he had fun using a syringe and squirting jello onto the cupcakes!

So I was lazy and recycled a costume for Cassiah too! She was Tinkerbell, that I made for Aleksia's first halloween when they where Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. Her favorite part was eating the dress!

Robin and Tink before our little halloween party. Due to conferences Aleksia didn't get a Halloween party and get to wear her costume to school, so she had some of her K friends over and their at home siblings over for a little party!

The "quickly thrown together" pinata. Alissa remember when we made a pinata with Hillary and Elis? Fun times! Everytime we make one I think back...... ah memories!

Our eye ball cupcakes! Garrick made some of these for his party at school too.

Soup cans covered in halloween paper held the candy corn and chocolate covered pretzels (idea from Tennille's reception. Kudos to your Mom for making that many, all I can say is WOW!!!)

Kids at the party; Buzzlight Year-Zane, Mario-Lance, Wonder Woman-Aleksia, Batman-Roman, Robin-Trestin, Dorothy-Olivia, Gandolf-Trevor, Little Red Riding Hood-Lucy, and hiding is Flower-Gwen, Bumble Bee-Jeannie, and Snow White-Tatum. Here they are coloring their pumpkins and BINGO boards.
Picking up all the candy after the pinata was thrown on the ground by Trevor since it broke off the hanger that was holding it attached to the rope. Oh well, they got candy and that's all they care about!

Kathleen brought her parachute and had some fun with the kids!

One pooped out little Tink! Too much partying for her!

Cassiah in her pumpking shirt chillin' on the couch!

Trestin tried on Garrick's old Peter Pan costume. It was alittle short, but otherwise fit. Yeah, more dress up clothes! He wore it all yesterday; while my Activity Day Girls where here, to Garrick's B-Ball practice....

At the Truck-or-Treat at church, not many trick-or-treating pics since I had to work all weekend!

One tuckered out little girl from the Trunk-or-Treat

Yesterday for ADG we made pumpkin pies! I love these girls!!! I have so much fun working with them! We had 11 come yesterday, that include 3 friends!

What we've been up too...

ALOT! Here are some of the highlights

Getting ready for Halloween! The kids are recycling last years costumes since I made them HUGE! Yeah, one less thing to do. Although I did sew some costumes for a coworker, which you will see lower down. Since Garrick is now full day school, he gets a party at school. Aleksia won't because the week of conferences is during Halloween. Well conferences mean half day, aka no school for K which is half day anyways. So the crazy feel bad for my K daughter that I am, decided to have a small Halloween party for her and her K friends, plus a couple more. So pics of that up coming event at a later date. But we've also been decorating. I have the most decorations for Halloween, except Christmas, out of all the holidays. Plus the kids made some more this year! In years past I bought blank wooden pumpkins, with the intent to create them into decorations, well we finally did. Here is a (fuzzy) blank one

Than even got into the whole thing! Here he is painting with Aleksia.

A closer look

Havin' fun painting the pumpkins orange

Then was the designing of the pumpkins! (no pics) They would draw the face on paper, then I'd trace it on, outlined it in sharpe, painted the inside yellow, then I applied glow in the dark paint to the back sharpe outline. And now they are hanging on our windows with a string and suction cup. Very cute and the kids had a blast! I'll get a final pic of them on here later.

One of the last pics of our thumb sucking little girl. She didn't suck it much, just usually as she was almost alseep to get herself fully asleep. But no more! Kinda sad.
Garrick's bottom teeth where too big for his mouth, so after loosing the first two the normal way, he had to go into the dentist to get 2 other teeth pulled to make room for those 2 big teeth to come forward. The dentist said that he may still have to have braces later, but atleast these two teeth will be where they are supposed to be (not 3 mm behind!) leaving the rest alittle sideways. He did awesome! Yes cried for the novicaine, and SCREAMED for the 2 extractions, but was a trooper! Here are the holes!

The holes again, but fuzzy. It wouldn't focus very well.

Look at those monsters! There was more root below the gums then above! Instead of getting $1 per tooth, the nice tooth fairy left $3 for compensation for all the trauma!

All three kids are still in love with Cassiah. They still fight over her. Who got to hold her last, you got to play with her last time, quite hogging her... Garrick is entertaining her here while I did some laundry.

Cheese!

You can't see very well, but Cassiah was facinated by the quail out at the bird feeder! Oh, there are some of our pumpkins!

Little Miss Smiley! What a happy baby we have! Some days all you have to do is look at her and this is what you get! Love it!!!!

Open mouthed smiles

She's trying to sit up by herself, but won't do it by herself!

Silly girl! At 5 1/2 months old she is still only rolling from her back to her tummy, then gets grumpy 'cause she's stuck and can't move. Her length on her tummy before she gets grumpy is getting longer, but hasn't figured out how to roll back over. And won't sit up on her own yet. Compared to little Ava who's only 3 weeks older (family friend) who is CRAWLING from what I've heard, we are a bit slow! Oh well, I'm not ready for another mobile child!!!!

The squirrels are back, and still not shy!

I know we shouldn't feed them, but one time won't hurt? Plus is was old bread anyways....

Yesterday Garrick's class at school earned a trip to Ferdinands for filling up the "Marble Jar." From what I can gather a marble goes in the jar when they do "good stuff." They rode the transit bus, since it stops right across from the school. Well since we live right by the school we tagged along on the bus, instead of paying for metered parking at $0.25/1o minutes! Here they are at the bus stop across from school ready to go!

So if you've been to Pullman, you know Ferdinands! YUMMY! They use the milk from local WSU cows to make ice cream and (expensive) famous Cougar Gold Cheese! We watched videos on how they make both, then got to eat some ice cream while watching them actually making it from the observation deck!

The kids where awesome and good troopers! Maybe because they got a banana split with strawberry & mint chocolate chip ice cream with sprinkles and gummy bears. Not my choice, obviously, but not a too bad of a combo.

Killing time before the bus showed up, they played duck duck goose.

Waiting for the bus across from Martin Stadium, for those former cougs!

Daddy getting a quick little snuggle with Cassiah (notice the costume on the couch on the top right, explanation is below)

Then the camera flashed and she was up, ready to play!

So here are the costumes that have caused me much anxiety! There is no pattern for a Violet Incredible costume, so I had to make one. Well two actually. So I had a pattern for the red shell, then "created" the rest. WOW, not much to it, but trying to create it, was a challenge! But they turned out super cute, and now don't want to part with them. But I got some pics, and will give them to her tonight at work. They are out of fleece, and SUPER warm. So a light pair of clothing under them will all that will be needed on a chilly Halloween night. I hate that the costumes are so stinkin' thin and then the kids have to be bundled up, then no one can tell what they are. Problem solved!

Trestin trying it on.

Sweet siblings! Most of the time

Closer view