Kayla's Birthday

Kayla had breakfast in bed the morning of her birthday, Krispy Kreme donuts with her class at school, and then she got to go choose out a pet dwarf hamster that she named Ellie.  She still got more presents and had a Little Debbie's tower birthday cake with ice cream.

 

For Kayla's party with friends, she had a Littlest Pet Shop birthday party.  All of the girls got a new LPS pet, named  it, and created a house and habitat for it.  They also made fluffy flip flops, played with Kayla's hamster, and made bunny, cat, dog and penguin cupcakes.  Fun Stuff!

 

Kids Having Fun!

I think every mother is her happiest when her kids and family are having fun together.  They can come up with some pretty creative stuff like Spencer in a laudry basket, sleeping on Kayla's back, playing high up in a whatchamacallit, or wearing a silling wig.

 

Christmas in Utah

It was a long 2 day drive out to Utah, but the kids did great, and we only hit a little bit of a snow storm on the way.

 

We didn't bring any swimsuits because we were headed into cold, snowy Utah, so Allen walked in on me trying on Sally's swimsuit on over my running clothes.  He thought it was pretty funny and took a couple of pictures.

 

We met up with my Grandma Gardner, Aunt Debbie and my sister and her family for dinner.  We got a couple of pictures of Kayla and Anja and Anja, Jenn and I.

 

On Christmas Eve, the kids reenacted the nativity story.  Sally was Mary, Ellie was Joseph, and baby Jesus was Brayden's stuffed dinosaur.  Kayla was an angel, Brayden a shepherd, Caden, Landy and Parker were the 3 wise men.  We had the kids all drink eggnog and crowned Caden the king of Christmas.  The kids all got to open one gift on Christmas Eve.

 

Kayla, Brayden and Spencer are waiting on the stairs Christmas morning.  It was a fun, big, family Christmas.  It was also a Sunday, so we got dressed up, went to church and enjoyed lots of Christmas music

 

The kids loved being around cousins, even though most of their cousins are a lot older.  Spencer even got a Landy hairdo.

 

We found a little bit of snow for some sledding and also took the kids skiing.  The kids don't ski enough to really like it, which is too bad since we love it.  Maybe someday.

 

 

Graham Cracker Houses

Allen and I have been making graham cracker houses with friends every Christmas since we've got married.  Now we generally help our kids with the houses, but it's still one of our favorite traditions.  The kids also really love to eat the candy and the houses.  It was fun to have the Furquerons over.  The kids with their friends - Liza and Spencer, Max and Brayden, Abby and Kayla  It was yummy fun!

 

 

Bones and Teeth

Brayden and Kayla did the annual turkey wishbone pull.  Can you tell who won?

 

Brayden finally lost his first tooth!  He had 2 rows of teeth for a while with the new ones coming in behind (we called them shark teeth) until he lost his baby teeth.

 

Spicewood Vineyards 1/2 Marathon

Me, Niki and Jane are pictured below, although Jessica ran this with us too.  Jane convinced us all to run the Spicewood Vineyards 1/2 Marathon despite the mention of challenging hills because the race was on a Saturday.  It was a drizzly day, and the hills were definitely challenging, but we all finished.  It had been 10 years since I had run a big race, and my 1/2 marathon time back then was 1:59, so I was really glad that I was able to run this race in 2:02.  I ran the beginning of the race with Niki and Jessica, but about 1/2 way through I started running with a white haired man named Don from Corpus Christi.  He provided a lot of free miles with his stories about running across entire countries and the more than 300 races in which he had participated.