Favorite Christmas Pictures....

Here are some of my favorite Christmas pictures. They aren't in any great order ~ just posted as I found them! 'Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas....snow and all! :)


The picture above is of the Thomas crew (Josh, Lauren and Jonathan and my kids Jake and Mackenzie) my sister Amy and her kids were still flying up from Sacramento on Christmas day....

Here we are as Santa's helpers waiting for the Nash crowd at the airport ...thankfully I was put on standby at work so I could be with the gang and see my sister and her kids....gotta love those girls on L&D!

Mackenzie and her new bike Christmas morning....notice how DARK it is outside.....the kids woke us up at 0600 am....nice.

The tree before Christmas morning....anxiously awaiting excited kiddos!

There was sooo much snow on our back deck...it was absolutely beautiful with the lights shining...

Christmas eve at Grandma and Grandpa Barnards....we usually go to the Christmas eve service but it was cancelled this year.....due to the snow...it was missed, but we had fun anyway!

Winter Wonderland of 2008!

We made "gingerbread~ or ~ Graham cracker " houses on night we were all shut in from the snow....making the house was fun but eating the house was even BETTER!!

This was the first snow man we made....we hurried to make this guy because we were sure the snow was going to melt soon....little did we know that we would have WEEKS to make more!

It's begining to look a lot like Christmas

Christmas. For whatever reason I've had a hard time getting "into"the season this year. But after the snow yesterday the "Christmas feeling" is starting to invade my soul......and I like it. So here are a few of the seasons finest this far.........


The Tree. Do you like how Jake is teetering off the arm of the chair to hang an ornament? I was sure he was going to fall into the tree and knock the entire thing over. Lucky for him it didn't!

Mackenzie told "Santa's helper"... (which is who mall Santa's are to my kids because the "REAL" Santa can't be at all of these different locations taking pictures with kids when he has to get ready for the BIG DAY) that she would like "Biscuit" the moving horse you can sit on...you know the one that is like $150.00......the one that we DIDN'T get. AHHHHHH. I'm not sure how this is going to turn out...I'll keep you posted.

Aren't they cute?

SNOW! COLD!

I think this picture of the dog's first experience with snow is so funny! I love his snow beard....

Anyway...I hope the spirit catches you too....Merry Christmas.

The Goods.....

My kids ALWAYS come home and IMMEDIATELY dump out all of their candy.....you know..they got to check out the loot! Here's Jake in the ritual known as the GREAT CANDY WORSHIP - we do this often at our house!

Then he and Mackenize set out organizing their goods....I'm not sure of the purpose but maybe it means Jake is going to be an accountant some day...who knows?! Candy has been known to bring out the BEST in people!

What??!!!! What is this we find in our stash??? That evil DENTIST up the street snuck a TOOTHBRUSH & FLOSS in our bag of tooth decay?! What was he THINKING?????!!!!!

I'LL SHOW HIM WHO'S BOSS!! Ahhh Ahhh Ahhh Ahhhh! Says the green faced little girl who is embarking on the biggest sugar high she has ever had!

Scary!

This is what happened to my kids on Halloween! .....Their MONSTER side was revealed !!! OOOOHHHH SCARY!

Trick or Treat part One....

This year my church had it's very first TRUNK or TREAT...it's an idea I stole from Heather Rom's church ..thanks Heather! Anyway it turned out to be a great success! People were sooo creative with their cars..I loved it! My car is above...and I have to say it was the least decorated of almost all of them! Most people had theme music to match their decor and wore costumes to complete the idea...it was great! Jake decided to be a Mafia Gangster dude...I told him he had to leave the machine gun at home....Not so appropriate for church...call me crazy! :)

Here's my good little witch checking out the food table! Notice the Ohhh so casual stance like ... don't mind me .. I'm not doing anything! Yeah right! You may also notice her green face....well that's a great story... you see I forgot to get green face paint and Mackenzie was VERY disappointed...so in my haste of looking through my pantry I found GREEN FOOD COLORING....I thought...Hey this is green...I bet it will stay on Mackenzie! So away I went wiping it all over her face and neck! It's wasn't' until AFTER I tried to wash my hands did I remember that FOOD COLORING DOESN'T COME OFF YOUR SKIN!!! OOOHHHH my gosh...what had I done to my beautiful babies face?!? Was she going to be green for forever?? So I ran to the computer and googled "how to get food coloring off skin" and of course the great google gave me an answer....ohh thank you google...what would I do without you? It turns out shaving cream takes food coloring right off! So remember that girls ...the next time you want to dye your kids face a nice color of green, blue, yellow or whatever color you like..just keep the shaving cream handy!

One car had a fog machine...Jake had GREAT fun with it...No one could breath after he was done!

Tara - who goes to church with us- had a great Trunk....it was a beach theme complete with a surfboard and Beach Boys music! Very Cute!

The Carving......

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So we carved and carved and carved those little pumpkins! Todd's is the top,Mackenzie's is on the Left, I'm in the middle and Jake's is the far right! Pretty cute eh? ...I was trying to be a little "Martha Stewarty" and used a large drill bit to make my holes! It was super fun and every time I drilled the pumpkin - curly fry looking pumpkin guts came flying out! The kids thought that was pretty cool! ;)

The Gang.....I have to say that I love that spider! I think next year I'll get a few more!

I love taking the pictures without a flash on...the pumpkins look so good! Jake is especially proud that he remembered to give his pumpkin ears!

"Look mom... I'm punching this guys eye in" which was immediately followed by belly laughs...she cracks me up! After we finished carving we got all of the pumpkin seeds and baked them with olive oil, garlic and salt....they turned out pretty good if I do say so myself! ;)

Pumpkin Patch

Well we finally made it to the pumpkin patch this year....it just seemed so darn early! Where is all of the time going?? Like last year and the year before we went to "Bizi Farms" in Vancouver. The kids love it and they do a really nice job of getting you into the "season"! Anyway I thought I'd share a few photos since it's been a while since I have blogged!

Mackenzie was lovin' the gourds this year! Every time I look at this photo I think of "Veggie Tales"...if you know what that is....Mackenzie is holding "Gourdy"!

Ohhhhh my goodness....this was the corn maze of Hell! We tried desperately for at least an hour to find the "Exit" and we simply could NOT do it! It was CRAZY hard! I'm actually dieing to get back in there and try it again....I just know I can figure it out!

Todd and his wheelbarrow of pumpkins...I think we left with 8 pumpkins! Poor Todd and Jake had to pull them all the way back to the car...hee hee!