2010 Year In Review

Would someone please take their foot of the accelerator?  I'd like to enjoy the scenery of life but everything keeps cruising by way too quickly!  Alas, 2010 was a great year for our family.  Here's a quick run down.

Eliza - our newest little addition.  She came to us in March and has been the happiest baby we have ever seen.  While she's not busy making people saw "awe!" she is keeping mommy busy crawling around the house and putting anything in her mouth that her siblings have so kindly left for her on the ground (Eliza, not April).

Alethia (Ali) - Daddy is considering locking her in a closet till she's 21 - she's too cute for her own good!  Very aware that she is a princess (note from dad: many a princess have been locked away in towers, right?) and tries to use her good looks to get what she wants (usually successfully).  She loves playing at whatever her big brother is doing and loves being a big sister.

Cadence (Cade) - Started school.  Has thence decided to withdraw from school (going to do homeschool).  Very busy boy.  He's curious about everything and loves helping dad work with the chickens and can't wait for the day that we get a farm (or, at least a lot of animals and a bigger garden).  He's an advanced yellow belt in karate in which his cousin Samantha gives him lessons two days a week.

April (love of my life, queen, her majesty, etc) - Has been very crafty this year making bags, dresses, a baby, Christmas presents, etc.  She's also gotten full swing in to her photography business (www.aprilmitchellphotography.com or aprilmitchell.blogspot.com).  VERY busy with three little ones running around the house.  VERY excellent at keeping said little ones in order (and their dad).  April spent most of the year as Secretary in the Primary and then when our Ward boundaries got changed around was called to be Primary Secretary, again!

Tyler (no official title needed) - Surviving 40 hours a week at school and 20 hours a week working.  Changed jobs from pushing people around at one hospital to taking X-rays in the final year of school at the hospital he attends. (Tyler also just realized he's talking in 3rd person... strange...)  The moments that he's not at the hospital or sleeping he is busy tending the garden, chickens, ducks, planning on bees and goats this next spring, working with the scouts, Young Men Secretary and playing with his children.

This has been a fantastic year.  We hope that it has been for you as well.

Ali you are 3.

Yesterday Cade told me he wanted to make something special for Ali for her birthday, so he drew this for her, rolled it up and tied it with a ribbon to give her today.  She loved it - but I think I probably love it more.

This was right after she opened her other gift from Cade - one of his toys he went and stuck in a bag for her.  Really, I couldn't ask for more loving kids.  I am so blessed they love each other so much.

This year Ali decided she wanted a Belle cake... even though she's never seen Beauty and the Beast.  We were looking for cakes and she saw a princess that was Belle, and that's what she wanted.  So, here's my first attempt at doing a princess cake.  I was pretty happy with it.  I could have used more icing, but all in all not bad for my first time.  

Seeing her smiling at it and admiring it and loving it made staying up until 2:00 in the morning to finish it well worth it.

On Saturday we had a party at Grandma and Grandpa's since everyone was together for the Christmas party.  That was a lot of fun!

Since today was her birthday, we did lots of fun things today, too.  Ali got to open presents this morning, then later we had some birthday cookies.  Due to all the treats we get this time of year, I wasn't going to make another sugary snack to have hanging around the house so we stuck a candle in a plate of cookies we got last night (thanks, Pilkingtons!) and the kids loved it.

The rest of the day was spent playing together and having all kinds of fun.  Oh - almost forgot.  Ali wanted to be Belle today.  What do you think?

Also, I was really excited about Ali's gift I made her.  What little kid doesn't need their own pair of oven mitts for their play kitchen?!  Maybe one day she'll like them more than she seemed to today.  :)

For her special birthday dinner she picked cereal.  

Life.  And freshly juiced oranges.

Christmas Cookies

Here's some fun pictures from our annual Cookie Decorating Party at Aunt Jana and Uncle Kirk's house.

Eliza is a little too little to actually enjoy the decorating... or the cookies, really.  So she just hung out chewing on whatever she could find on the floor.

I'm not really sure what kind of a smile this is, but there you go.  He's excited to get started.

"All right, everyone.  On your mark, get set, decorate!" 

Or, just go ahead and eat 'em.  Plain.  

Ali's finished cookies.  Notice that the sprinkles are the only things actually on the cookies.  

"I'll have two sprinkled cookies with an order of icing and raisins on the side, please."

Has anybody else ever seen this?  It's a spray icing.  The house smelled like spray paint.  Does anything about that seem right?

Here's Bryant's cookie.  Nasty.

And Cade's finished cookie men.  Only one was happy, I guess.

If you make a cookie that big and nasty, you HAVE to try it.

Yeah, that's what I thought.  

Jeremiah eating one of his well decorated cookies.

VERY well decorated.

Halloween

This year for Halloween, Cade couldn't decide what he wanted to be.  He's been thinking about it since last year.  In the end he still couldn't decide so he ended up being Spiderman for the school party and a vampire for trick-or-treating.

Ali was a princess, of course.  She had her costume decided the minute we asked.  And wondered why we would even need to ask.

Eliza was a ladybug.  Just because it was cute and we had it (thanks, Jana).  She didn't have a trick-or-treat bag, but people would throw an extra piece of candy in Ali's bag for that cute little ladybug.

This year was a lot of fun - and thanks, Papa for coming out to spend Halloween with us!

Pumpkin Patch

Tonight for Family Home Evening we went to the pumpkin patch!  It was great - Eliza's first time, Papa got to go with us, and the lighting was AMAZING.  As soon as we picked our pumpkin and we were paying for it, the clouds rolled in and a few raindrops started, so we had impeccably perfect timing.

Hooray for beautiful autumn time!

And, if you were wondering why Cade wasn't wearing his glasses, it's because they are broken.

By someone else.  Yep.  Our first encounter with a bully.  Thankfully Cade wasn't hurt.  The kid was bothering Cade's glasses so he took them off so the boy would leave him alone.  But the kid grabbed his glasses (we're not sure if Cade was still holding them or if he took them out of his hand) and snapped them.

I am so grateful he has a good bus driver who handled the situation, and for Cade's good nature.  When he told me about it he said, "Mom, I think he was a bully" (since we've talked about what a bully is, but never had a run-in with one yet).  He was scared, but he did great.  And that kid is lucky I don't know him.  Arg.

Thankfully Cade has an eye appt. tomorrow so he's getting new glasses.

What?!

Look at that crazy hair!  

Eliza is growing up.  Her first tooth popped today.  She's been chewing on anything she can, but she hasn't been cranky AT ALL, so it came as quite a shock for me to feel a sharp little tooth while she chewed on my thumb during Cade's karate class today.  

She's also crawling.  Hands and knees, moving across the floor crawling.  She just started that this weekend.  She's not too fast, but she's efficient.  Of my kids, she's the latest tooth popper, but the earliest crawler.

How has this much time passed already?  Didn't I just have her?  Weren't we just in the hospital?

And another thing.  Who doesn't love little leg warmers on baby legs?  I LOVE these things.  Made 'em out of $2 knee socks from Target. 

Yummy.