Christmas House

Just wanted to get a picture of our house all decorated so that next year when Darin and I are debating about doing lights around the windows or not we will remember what it looks like without the white lights trimming the windows.  We usually do that but this year decided against it for some reason.  When the white lights are trimmed around the windows our house looks more like a gingerbread house, which I love. :)

Who knew it would be so difficult to get a picture of our house.  I went out 3 different times each time a different set of lights were off.  I know you probably can't tell.

Also one of the times I was taking the pictures I noticed Darin sneaking into the front window downstairs....  What are you doing Darin?  Photo bombing or lifting up your shirt???

Christmas Pics 2012

Every year Darin's aunts ask for a family picture for their family Christmas news letter.  We generally send a picture where we were all together, not really posed or anything.  But this year I wanted a family picture so I thought we would try to take our own.  I found that Spencer and Micah both had sweater vests that kind of matched (well, they both had red and black in them!).  Savannah needed a new dress and while shopping for her dress I found a red shirt for Darin and Tanner so we could all be some what matching without being matchy-matchy!

One Sunday after church we started taking the pictures.  It was mostly fun but we did have a few melt downs but that expected.  Once I felt we got enough good ones I edited them.  A few days later I got an email from Auntie Bella saying that they decided to not do the normal Mui Christmas news letter so they didn't need the family photos after all.  They wanted to dedicate the news letter to their mother who passed away earlier this year.  What a great idea.  I was still glad that we got the pictures done.  I still hope to one day get someone to do them for us because the last professional  family photos we had done was when Tanner was around 7 months old!

First big snow fall of the season

Friday night it snowed a ton.  When we woke up Saturday morning, Darin and I knew we would have to shovel but wanted to have Tanner help.  I asked Savannah if she wanted to stay inside and take care of Micah or if she wanted to go outside and help shovel the snow and watch Spencer.  Surprisingly, she chose to go outside!  So while Darin, Tanner, Savannah and Spencer were all outside in the cold working hard, Micah and I were nice and warm watching them work hard and putting away Halloween decorations the rest of the way.  I was tempted to pull out Christmas decorations.

Spencer loves to help out with everything so he was really loving to shovel all the snow.  Once all the snow was off the sidewalks/driveway he thought he had to go onto the grass and shovel the snow back onto the sidewalks!

Savannah was doing a great job of watching Spencer and shoveling.  She would brush his bum off when he fell and she helped keep his gloves on and clear of snow.

Darin and Tanner did a great job also.  I do have to admit that I am glad I didn't have to shovel because my back would have hated me afterwards but I really do like being out in the snow.

When they came back in I had hot cocoa ready for them to warm them up!  Spencer is excited to shovel again.  I wonder what Savannah will choose next time.

Halloween 2012

We had a lot of fun this year for Halloween.  Tanner and Savannah had fun getting Spencer excited to go by telling him all the things he has to do to get candy.  All day long he just kept asking if it was time to get candy yet.  For the costumes we were trying to come up with a theme that we all could go as but Tanner and Savannah couldn't agree on anything plus Tanner really wanted to be a Pokemon trainer,which was a nice cheap and easy costume!

We went to Tanner and Savannahs school Halloween parade. Since Tanner wanted to be a Pokemon trainer there really wasn't a costume to buy, so he had to wear normal clothes. But he did make some badges for his jacket and hat.  At the last minute, he wanted to be a "dark" pokemon trainer so we put some makeup under his eyes to make him look meaner. 

Tanner is trying to show off his hat in the above picture..... didn't quite work because the photographer (me) sucks  at taking pictures :)

Savannah wanted to be a cheerleader since she went to cheer for some summer classes.  But the only one we could find was a "dark" cheerleader.  She really liked the idea of wearing dark make-up!

Spencer got to be Batman.  It was a fight at first to get him into his costume, but once he remembered that would get candy he was all for it.

Micah got to be a cute little tiger.  But earlier for the parade he was dressed in his skeleton shirt.

Darin had to dress up for work so we had a Scream mask and a long black robe.....the one with my dad's initials on it (so I called it the Really Freakin' Mean costume!).  The worried picture of Micah in his car seat above is in reaction to Darin looking down out him with his mask on.  He wasn't too sure about this holiday...

Tanner went trick or treating with his friends.  Savannah had one of her friends come with us, which meant it soon turned into Darin pushing Micah walking with the girls and me walking ever so slowly with Spencer because he had to keep looking in his bag and naming off all the candy he got.  Spencer got to about 15 houses before he was done.

My favorite part of the night was when we went to Darin's parents' house.  Since Darin was all dressed up he took one of the kids bags had us all hide and he went and rang their doorbell.  He shouted "Trick or treat!" and held out his bag.  There was a moment of silence until his mom realized it was him! 

Pumpkin Carving

Along with most everyone, a few nights before Halloween we carve our pumpkins.  This year we grew all our pumpkins  In years past we have grown some but always ended up buying a couple because ours didn't grow big enough or enough of them.  We also usually do these cool designs on our pumpkins but this year we kept it simple.  Keeping it simple, I think, is the key to keeping my sanity!  Usually there are a few fights or tears each year of who is doing what pumpkin or picture etc.  So this year I warned them that if they fought or cried at all there will be NO pumpkins next year to carve.  It seemed to of worked well with Tanner and Savannah but we also just did your typical carvings, nothing fancy smancy :)

On the night of the 30th Savannah wanted me to paint her nails and curl her hair for her costume.  Micah was cute (like always) so I took a few pictures of him :)