Yee-haw for Skype!

My mom and dad bought us a web cam for Christmas and we all downloaded Skype. We talked to my parents almost face to face today! We could use a better internet connection which we'll think about getting in a few months, but it was so fun to actually see their faces and see the room they were in reminding me of home. The kids loved it! Treygan said, "Can we do this tomorrow, can we do it any day?" Who knew a web cam could be a blessing!

Brooklyn turns 4!

4 years ago on December 22, Brooklyn Dawn Price came fast and furious. After arriving at the hospital, one hour later our first little girl was here! Everyone including the hospital staff was in love with Brooklyn, especially because of the unreal amount of dark hair she had. The nurses who saw Justin for the first time did a double-take because they were sure he couldn't be the father, the "real" father had to be Hispanic due to her dark hair and olive complexion. She was brought to me in a Christmas stocking and the weather outside was certainly "frightful," but our baby girl made that Christmas absolutely "delightful." Brooklyn was a dream baby: calm, happy, slept through the night quickly, just didn't give us any trouble. Today, Brooklyn is still very sweet and for the most part calm, but she always makes her opinion known and loves getting attention. The older girls in the neighborhood adore her and always want to come over and do her hair and paint her nails and watch princess movies with her. Her favorite things to do are art projects, dance (everywhere, all the time), sing and play dolls. She has quite the imagination and can always play on her own no matter where we are or what play things are available. We can't imagine our family without her. We love you Brooklyn!


Brooklyn Dawn a few hours old

2 weeks old

5 months old

4 years old: modeling her new dance outfit from Grandma Hardie

My little Christmas miracle

I had all three kids to myself during Sacrament Meeting at church today while my talented hubby sang in the choir Christmas program. Normally, Taylee does not last very long and one of us ends up roaming the halls with her...usually me since Justin has to follow her around for the next two hours while I teach primary. Needless to say, I don't get much chance to listen to the meeting. Here's where my Christmas miracle comes in: Taylee sat fairly quietly on my lap eating her cereal snack and then played for a little bit with crayons with her brother and sister...I am not kidding you, this is a first! I got to listen to the beautiful music and even shed a few tears as I felt the Spirit testify of the wonderful gift of our Savior. As the program ended, she was back to her busy, demanding self and started screaming. How grateful I am for my little miracle, even if just for one Sunday.

Christmas cuties

I took the opportunity to snap some adorable photos of my adorable children in their Christmas best, after church on Sunday.


For some reason, Brooklyn insisted on posing like this

How sophisticated Trey-man

Taylee more than cooperated, she said, "tsee!"

My Christmas cutie pies in front of a kid-friendly tree

This one is my favorite.

Caroling Party

I have always wanted to do a Christmas caroling party because my parent's always did it and it is one of my fondest Christmas memories. This year, I finally followed through and tonight, several friends including their kiddos joined us in caroling around the neighborhood and then to our home for hot chocolate and treats. I loved being with everyone and making memories for my children, so overall it was a great time; if only I could learn to relax a bit. I found myself feeling so stressed at making sure everything was perfect that I could hardly enjoy myself ( I think Justin might tell you I was a bit grouchy at him). Everything turned out just fine and I'm so grateful to have such wonderful friends that help fill in the gap of our missing family...I think I may leave the party planning to them next time! :)

Parade

Over the weekend we all went to the Meridian Winter Wonderland Parade for the first time, along with a couple of neighbor friends. It was really a perfect day for it, chilly, but nothing like the Detroit Thanksgiving Parade weather...we could still feel our fingers AND toes when it was over! It was actually a pretty decent parade and we left with lots of treasures. Even Taylee sat and watched in awe from her stroller, when normally she is screaming to get out. Good times. I just love this kind of stuff!

laugh or cry?

It's about 10:30 PM, I've just come home from rehearsal after a very crazy, hectic day, when I come to the realization that I went to my friend's house with a loaf of coconut lemon bread with a candle in it and sang happy birthday to her....ONE WEEK EARLY! Her birthday was marked on my calendar for the 16th, but I guess calendars are just no good for me seeing as how today is the 9th. The funniest part is that she completely humored me, didn't say a word, except of course thank you. My first instinct is to cry at the fact that I just can't get things right anymore, but then I think, ya' know I'll bet I made her day in more ways than one, so I'm goin' with laugh. What would you do?

I love Justin!

I"ve been tagged to share about my hubby:

5 things he loves

1. ME
2.The kiddos

3.watching ANY sport...seriously

4.playing ANY sport...seriously

5.eating good food...the key to his heart really is through his stomach!

5 things on his to-do list

1. finish extending the patio

2. finish transferring files from the computer...(hint, hint babe)

3. get the oil changed

4. work

5. play basketball

5 foods he enjoys

1. chinese food; I'm talkin' the super fried stuff at the buffet type places

2. cheesecake

3. pumpkin pie

4. lasagna

5. brownies and ice cream

5 things you may not know about him

1. He has a really good singing voice

2. He pretty much taught himself to play the piano

3. He doesn't like eating soup

4. He really would like to teach, but he chose to go with a career with more financial stability

5. He's a good dancer. He'll tell you only swing, but when I taught ballroom and he was my "monkey," he could do anything.

5 quirky things about him

1. He loves to watch Mcgyver even though he realizes how completely corny it is.

2. He is allergic to raspberries and won't even go near artificial raspberry flavor

3. He will watch ANYTHING that's on tv...intently, he just can't pull himself away: cartoons, corny shows like Mcgyver, you get the idea
4. He has a weird ability to get what he wants without seeming overbearing or like a jerk and is a master at finding great deals.

5. He loathes giving the kids baths and rarely does (he helps enough elsewhere, though)

Thanksgiving 2008

For Thanksgiving this year, we went to St. George, Utah to be with Justin's mom's side of the family. The trip was pretty long and Taylee crying for 3 hours straight didn't help, but we made it and had a great time with the Andreason side of the family. We had Thanksgiving dinner at the church with about 50 people, half of whom I didn't know, but it was fun to meet them. That night we had a talent show and if I can figure out how to post video I will. I was not in a picture taking mood all weekend, so I only snapped a few out of sheer guilt that I need to be recording family history.





I tried to get a shot of Grandma "A" with just Taylee, but she wouldn't cooperate.

Madison, McKayla, Brooklyn and Treygan

Mason and Cade

Ambree doing her cheerleader stunt at the talent show

Taylee chased Max around for a good long time trying to hug and kiss him. Here he finally conceded.

Taylee back for more Max hugs

Max pushing Taylee away

Apple Picking

We've been absent from the blogging world for almost a month, but...WE'RE BACK! We had a really fun, really busy October. Keep scrolling...you've got a lot of catching up to do.

We started off the month by apple picking at a local orchard. My hubby was really excited to can applesauce this year and at 10 cents a pound how could I say no? But, holy cow....250 pounds....that's not a typo. Remember, we are planning to can all of these!




What a sweet girl

Taylee kept picking apples out of our boxes, taking a bite and throwing it back

Is this a good one?

The boys working hard

mom and girls trying to pick (key word, "trying")

Self Reliance...check!

Canning applesauce was a family affair! It was an ALL DAY job, exhausting and messy, but we'll probably do it again next year.

Dad worked the strainer

mom sliced and cored and Trey transferred to the pot

Brooklyn and our neighbor buddy washed apples

She still washed even after her friend got bored

Halloween

How cute are they?!

My little ladybug didn't last long trick-or-treating

Trey had to be Saluk this year. Saluk is the bad guy from Aladdin 3. He wanted to be him last year but I talked him out of it. He didn't forget this year so we went for it and tried to come up with something resembling Saluk.

All the neighbor kids went together. They're all good friends and it's so much fun!

Sweet fairy princess was thrilled to have curls and make-up.

Halloween

All Tay can do while carving pumpkins...smile and be cute

Cleaning out the guts

Pumpkins!

Preschool Halloween party

Dark Shadows

My dance company had its first performance over Halloween. We were invited to perform at a halloween concert in the area, so I quickly put together a creepy witch dance, we called it Dark Shadows. I wouldn't say it was my best choreography, but we had fun being creepy and just dancing. It was very different from any other dance there as it was a studio performance with mostly kids, but we actually got a lot of compliments. Brooklyn told me I looked pretty when I was doing my scary make-up. What do you think?

Swingin' Fun

We finally got a swing set (hooray for Craigslist) and it hardly puts a dent in our gigantor backyard. The kids have been loving it (and so has mom)!




Our gigantor backyard (part of it)

She loves swinging

She doesn't really, but I snapped this before she was done

Big brother helping out

"The best is yet to be"

I'd like to take a moment to share some words that have inspired me lately. I've been reading through the talks that were given at my church's general conference last month and have been impressed by many inspiring, hopeful messages. Elder L. Tom Perry, an Apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints gave a talk about dealing with the stresses of life. He said, "Perhaps when difficulties and challenges strike, we should have these hopeful words of Robert Browning etched in our minds: The best is yet to be. We can't predict all the struggles and storms in life, not even the ones just around the next corner, but as persons of faith and hope, we know beyond the shadow of any doubt that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true and the best is yet to come." How great to hear such optimistic words. The scriptures teach us that fear does not come from God. During such troubling times, Satan wants us to be scared because fear dwindles our faith and takes away our joy. Another leader of my church, Elder Neil L. Andersen taught that "Faith is not only a feeling; it is a decision." Sometimes we may be feeling fearful, but we need to choose faith, for that is the road that will bring salvation. Heavenly Father wants us to be happy and in His plan, through the Atonement of Christ, His promises will be fulfilled. I know that truly the best is yet to be.

Just call me Kate

I still can't get pics onto my computer, so in the meantime all I have to blog about is quizzes and tags. This one was pretty silly, the questions didn't really make sense, but it's still kinda fun. Anyway, I'm Kate Hudson:

A lovely, loopy free-spirit, you're enjoying life as a fun and fabulous mom bent on working the hard-won reclamation of your bikini bod. Having married young and quickly become a mother, it may be that you're only now growing up, right alongside your kids. Most days, anyway, that feels like a pretty cool place to be.

Take the quiz at: http://family.go.com/community/quizzes/which-celebrity-mom-are-you-qz/

HELP!

I attended my first PTA meeting tonight and signed on for a pretty big responsibility...the Hunter PTA blog! Yikes! I thought it was something I could easily do at home, have fun with and feel like I'm helping out. One problem: I don't really know what I'm doing. I really need everyone's feedback. I"m trying to figure out if there's a way I can just put highlights on the front page and then be able to click on a key word to link you to a page with more info on that subject: For example: Tuesday Nov. 18th: Red Robin Night, click here to find out more. I'm just trying to link to another spot on the blog, not a website or anything. something like that. Could I also put somewhere on the side something like "Volunteer" and then they can find out info. on volunteering? Basically, I need to get a lot of info on this page without it looking overwhelming at first sight. HELP!

a couple hours later: I've spent a while now trying to figure this out on my own. so far, I've figured out that I wanted to create expandable post summaries. This involved copying codes and inserting in my template between tags or widgets or something, but I couldn't find those exact tags, so I kind of guessed and I thought it worked, because it saved them, but it doesn't work. KENN... I know you can tell me what to do!

4th Picture

I thought this was a fun tag and since I still can't put up new pics it's perfect. You find the 4th picture in your 4th folder and post. This is Trey at his 5th birthday party doing a trick on the Magic Tumble Bus.

I tag: Arin, Terressa, Karen, Lynita

Any ideas?

Since my computer is having issues and I can't download my pictures right now, I thought I'd take this time to blog about something that's been on my mind. I MISS MY FAMILY! We've never been so long without getting back to Michigan, but now that we have to pay for four tickets, we haven't been able to take another trip. The last time my family saw Treygan, Brooklyn and Justin was almost a year ago. They saw me and Taylee in March...still been too long. It doesn't help that every other day my kids are saying, "I want to go to Grandma Hardie's," or "I want to go bowling with Grandpa Hardie," and " I want to play with Sofia and Amandine." Try explaining to a five and three year old why the money in their piggy bank is not enough to go see them. So, I've been thinking that there has to be some way we can fly home for a really awesome deal...I just haven't found it yet. Any ideas?