My Favorite Time of YEAR!

I love Christmas! We were so VERY lucky to have some fun visitors for the holidays. My sister Marylyn and her husband, Andy and their two children Annika and Gavin came from Washington and stayed for two weeks. GG (my Grandma) and Autie Dale also came. They live in Maryland and they have been able to be here for the past couple Christmas'. My Aunt Sharlene and Uncle John also came from Upland and stayed a couple days. We had last minute visitors, which we were soooo excited for. My sister Ruth and her husband, Ben and their two children Ashley and Kate came all the way from Connecticut. They will be moving to Holland in February and so this was a trip to also say their goodbyes. You might say it was a full house with 17 people lodging here, but it was an absolute blast! I took way too many photos to post here so click on here to see more.

Oh yes! The "stair" picture! Our kids have had the opportunity to have their picture taken on the "stairs" for the past three years.
It was a family tradition for my family growing up and so it continues...
The Clingers
The Clingers, Bjorn and Harrell childrenMelanie giving Dan and I our gift from her. I just loved her face here...oh, and Dan's!

The kids getting ready to open the family gift from Santa (the Wii)!

NP 2 Christmas Party

Our church family(ward) always has amazing parties. This year for the Christmas party, we all dressed up like we lived in Jesus' day. There were "olden day" games and fun for the children. There were roman soldiers, a woman weaving, candle stick making and lots of yummy food that had to be bought with the coins we earned. There was beautiful singing by the many talented people in our ward. The kids had an absolute blast as they were reminded of the true meaning of Christmas.
"Woman At The Well"- Chelsea
My friend Kjersten weaving a sweater for her husband
(yes, she is making her own tread...she took classes in college)
Melanie and Danielle Pace all dressed up!Eddie Warne...one of the favorite Roman SoldiersNote: Spencer is at the age where it is way too uncool to dress up, so we don't have any pictures of him at the party. Although, he had a fantastic time participating in all of the activities.

I know...it has been forever! I am updating, so keep scrolling

Pictures of the Kids

During Thanksgiving weekend Dan's cousin Jessica took some very cute photos of the kids. I have to post them because I think they turned out cute! It wasn't a planned photo shoot or anything. See, the girls have play make-up on. The kids were just playing outside in Grandpa and Grandma's backyard. Goofing off on the golf course. It was so pretty out there so we started shooting pictures. Jessica is an amazing photographer. She is local (Simi) so we will be calling her again soon when the girls don't have make-up on and Spencer is happier!

We couldn't get Spencer to smile. This is Spencer being a booger!Spencer would smile as long as he was attached to me. So yeah, I got my picture too! Actually this is one of my favorite shots. This is my sweet boy. I don't know who that boy is up there.I took this picture with my cheap point and shoot. The quality stinks, but the kids look OK.

An Answer To Prayer!

Wendy hill right in front of our house was on fire today! You wouldn't even have known it unless you were out driving in the area. BUT, we were pretty scared it was going to get bad! I remember the fire back in the 90's and began to panic a bit. That fire burned all the hills surrounding our home. That one was really bad! The winds today were SO strong and blowing the fire in our direction (so we heard). Sister Apperson (next door) even called me and also Sandra Haglund called to make sure we were aware of it and OK. We could see huge flames from our house! and helicopters were shaking the house. We (the kids and I) quickly got on our knees and said a prayer. As we were staring at the flames, the kids began asking questions about how Heavenly Father answers prayers. Melanie asked if Heavenly Father would really save us? Let me tell you, it was amazing...the wind slowed almost immediately and shifted! The fire was contained! The kids noticed this and said, "Heavenly Father answered our prayers didn't he mom?" Yeah!!!... again for Ventura County Firemen! They are truly our heros lately! So, you probably won't hear about it on the news because it was out so fast and we are just tiny NP, but if you do, know that we helped put it out too.
This picture was taken from our front porch!

Getting ready for Christmas!

So, today Melanie kept bugging me to get the Christmas decorations out, so I gave in.

The kids decorating their tree

The family tree! We also set up Grandpa's train set.
Spencer loves it!

We also took the time today to visit Santa! Wow, I guess we did a lot today didn't we? I took the kids to see Santa at the Janss mall. The kids have had their picture taken with "this Santa" every year since they were babies! Every year the kids compare the pictures to make sure it was the "real santa".

Thanksgiving With The Clingers

For Thanksgiving we took the kids to St. George, UT for a long weekend. The Clinger family had their traditional Thanksgiving party. What a blast we all had! Grandma rented out the church building for a few days so we could do lots of things as a group. Dan's family is so fun and we had a blast reconnecting with everyone.

Grandpa and the kids

The kids at the St George temple!Melanie (5) and her cousin Kaitlyn (7)Chelsea (3) and her cousin Emma (3)

Spencer (8) and Owen (5)Cousin Laura giving Chelsea a ride!Uncle Bob teased Melanie the whole trip about eating this candy necklace. Finally on one of the last days, she gave in and let him have it. It was the BIG joke of the trip!

These two had a blast together. This is Chelsea "walking" her cousin LULU!
You should hear Chelsea say her name...so cute!

This was one of the crafts set up for the kids. They made much needed scarves. They were made of fleece. Cousin April is helping the kids tie beads on.

Our Thanksgiving Feast!Chelsea with her head in a bag. She threw up all the way home.
We believe it was food poisoning from KFC! YUMMY!