After decorating the Christmas tree.


Raptor with her 'ba-rin' from dance.




Merry Christmas!

O Christmas Tree

I love cut your own Christmas tree farms! When we lived in Oklahoma, we would go every year and cut our own. After we moved to NY we cut our own a few times but last year we couldn't find a place. This year I was so excited when some parents at dance class told us of a tree farm. We went out there (it's a small farm but still has all the charm of the bigger ones) and had fun. It was at dusk and was getting chilly but the kids loved running through the field choosing every tree they saw. Raptor's snow boots are slightly big and kept falling off! After we cut our tree, we got to warm up with free hot cocoa and cookies. It was a lot of fun!

On Raptor's birthday, we let her pick dinner and where to go for dessert. She chose 'Dons' (Mc Donalds) and 'pink' (strawberry) ice cream for dessert.

We had a fun time with G & G earlier this month. The museum we went to had tons of slides, climbing stuff, and big ball pits (don't hyperventilate over the uncleanliness--is that a word?--of the pits. No one got sick!). Ramble loved the outside climbing area. He went with Daddy for a little bit and climbed up over 4 stories through tunnels and suspension bridges. Then he was off on his own while I held my breath! Raptor loved the balls and the 3 story slide. We also saw some great lights! Even though this one was characters and elves and Santa with loud, rocking Christmas music, it reminded me of being a child and going to Temple Square in Utah to see it all lit up with lights--I remember the peace I felt there and watching the Nativity story and listening to the quiet Christmas music as it played. I hope my kids have Christmas memories that include the Christ child.

Happy Birthday Raptor!


She had so much fun at her party! We had Nanny & Pop Pop come and some of her friends over and they played and had chocolate covered strawberries, marshmallows, cream puffs and bananas. She loved it!


Any time Ramble leaves for school, Raptor zooms around trying to find his things. When she finds his special stuffed animal, she runs around holding it and murmuring 'Bubby' (it's name) until I catch her and make her put it back.


Camping fun with Daddy.


She loves her 'bum-be' so much she asks to wear it.

At the Rainforest play. Ramble was an anteater.


Standing with the Rafflesia flower. According to his class, this is the smelliest flower in all the rainforest.


The Kapok tree cake I made for the kids cast party. All the flowers are edible (I made them out of tootsie rolls and fruit rollups) and the animals are gummy.


Raptor loves to play with little people. She lines them up and says "Mommy, Daddy, Ramble, Raptor, Nanny, Pop Pop."

Fun at Nanny & Pop Pop's

We had fun at Nanny & Pop Pop's house in November. The kids love them and miss them.
This was out near the river (a dry riverbed) where we went for a picnic.

Halloween (at least it's up before Christmas!)

We had a 3 Musketeer and a big 'Bum-Be' at our house for Halloween. At first, Ramble was Porthos because of the cool sword cutter he uses in the movie but when no one knew who that was, he changed to D'Artagnan because that is who everyone knew.


Happy with the load of candy.


With classmates from school. Ramble and his friend were the '2 Musketeers' who saved the 'Queen'.

This was our sky the night before Halloween. It was spooky!

We made caramel apples for Family Home Evening. I was tickled that I found large apples brought in from New York! We miss picking apples there!



Just a random picture I took. I loved how bright the tree was.

I love this boy! He is such a sweetie. We had had a really hectic day a few Sundays ago. Hubby was on call and I hadn't been feeling good. In Church that day, Ramble's lesson was about service and being Christ like. Each child was given paper hearts and told to do a good deed and leave the heart where they had served. Their teacher had also brought cookies for the kids to eat. Ramble saved his cookie and snuck upstairs to make my bed. He made it exactly like I always make it. He was so excited to have me go in my room--I didn't know what he had done and it took until bedtime for me to go in there and see it. He is such a good kid!

When we were watching General Conference, Ramble got excited because he knew the intermediate hymn. He jumped up and started to sing it with the actions that he had learned in Primary. (He is wearing a smock because he had been building a model airplane while we watched Conference).

On the first Friday in October, we had a Pirate movie night and watched 'Seahawk'. ARGH!

Raptor loved her music class! This was her last one and she loved playing the drums and making the balls jump on the parachute.