Speaking of Barbie's. . .

This poor boy. I was trying to pay bills and so I gave Jaxton some of the Barbie's the girls left on the floor. He was playing quite contently with them and then he was getting really tired, and just couldn't take it anymore. I gave him his pacifier and Hayden's pink blankey, which was also left on the floor, and he just went right to sleep. I hope he won't be permanently scarred from playing with Barbie's and using a pink blankey, but he does look so peaceful!

Our Future Fashion Designer

Overheard at our house the other day:

Hallie: mom, can my Barbie wear a dress with her pants?

Me: (doing something else and not totally listening) no, probably not.

Hallie: I think she can.

Me: no, dresses don't really go with pants.

Hallie: well I think they do.

Me: okay, its your Barbie do whatever you want.

Hallie: (brings me her Barbie that she has dressed in the dress and pants) see I told you she could wear a dress and pants. You know, you should really listen to me because I know what I am talking about. I am really styley.

She was right, Barbie looks pretty good. Very styley.

Gee, Thanks Grandma

My mom felt so bad that the kids couldn't play with the rat dolls that I have that she decided to give the kids some of her extras.

When eBay was still new, my dad went a little crazy buying things. My mom used to have to travel to Las Vegas or California to get her Anna Lee dolls, so when he found so many rat dolls on eBay for such good prices, what else could he do but buy all that he could find. So these pieces aren't so special and she gave them to the kids. She tried to give the kids these little elves that you pose like they are climbing things, but they were just way too creepy and I said no. So the girls settled for this weird bear and a reindeer that is about 2 feet tall. Just what we need giant stuffed animals that are too precious to throw away.

I forgot to mention when my mom and I were out shopping last Friday, she found some Anna Lee at Tuesday Morning. She tried to buy this big, ugly, white mouse, but I talked her out of it, your welcome Natalie and Katie. She really wanted this Mrs. Santa that was pretty cute, but "she" (yes, mom refers to them as he and she, not it) was too expensive as mom had just spent all of her spending money on new toys for the grand kids. What a good grandma!

If you haven't read the first rat doll post, you must read that first or this probably won't make much sense, you can find it here.

Thanksgiving and Christmas Trees

Hope that you all had a great Thanksgiving! We had a good time celebrating for several days. Here are a few of the things we have been up to over the last week. Sorry for the super long post, there was just too much that happened over the week.

Isn't that the most beautiful turkey? You may call me Saint Nicole because I made the whole Thanksgiving feast on Wednesday just for our little family so that we would have our own leftovers. I was quite impressed with myself because, not to brag, but this was the best turkey I have ever had. I brined the turkey overnight, which I had never done before, and that made it really delicious and moist. Then I rubbed it with an herb butter that I made with fresh sage and rosemary and lots of garlic and it was so yummy. I also made homemade stuffing, rolls, jello salad (which the kids love because I only make jello for Thanksgiving) and pumpkin dessert.

Thursday we headed down to Nick's mom's house and had Thanksgiving with her. Jaxton was having a great time playing with everyone.

Nick's sister Emily was also there, here she is texting on her phone.

Me in the after dinner festivities.

Thursday night we headed on down to my mom and dad's house in Visalia. My mom and I went out shopping on Friday, fighting the crowds and getting bullied by the many non english speakers. Honestly I can't believe how aggressive and rude some people are. My mom had her hand on a toy and some lady came up to her and said "I'm going to be taking that." My mom was so shocked that she gave it to her. We did get some good deals and got most of the things that we went for. We had a good time spending the whole day together, which we never get to do. Nick and Hannah, my sister were so good to spend the whole day with the kids. Nick even did laundry, kept my mom's house clean, fed the kids dinner and got them to bed. He also took the kids to the mall to see Santa, what a trooper!

We always get our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving, so we thought we would try and get one down in Visalia. Nick looked up some Christmas tree farms online and the closest one was about 40 miles away, so we headed out Saturday afternoon to get one. We drove out to the middle of nowhere, literally, and drove around trying to find the farm. We finally found a farm and they had about 25 trees and it was about $50 for a 3 foot tall bush, they weren't even trees. So we decided to cut our losses and get one at home.

While Hannah and I were out Saturday night, I spotted some nice looking trees in the Save Mart parking lot so we checked them out. We found the most beautiful tree, it looked like it was a fake tree it was so perfect. We went home and told my mom and she wanted us to go get it. So Nick, Hannah and I headed out in the "paint van." For those of you not familiar with the paint van, my dad used to paint houses and this was his work vehicle (I call it the child molester van because it has no side windows.) It is a 1992 white, Chevy van with no seats in the back. Hannah sat on a motorcycle rack in the back as there is no seats. I haven't been in the paint van since I lived at home and I really forgot how embarrassing it is. So we loaded up the tree and brought it home to my mom.

I let my mom have it instead of taking it for myself because she has not had a tree in several years. She bought a fake tree about 15 years ago after being tired of the cheap trees my dad wanted to get. It all came to a head one year when my dad bought a $6.99 tree at Allen's Supersave (the trashiest local grocery store) and it really was the Charlie Brown Christmas tree with about 15 branches on the whole tree. After that she bought the fake tree and then they through it away when they moved and since then they haven't had a tree at all.

So on our way home Sunday night, we stopped to get gas and we decided to check out the Save Mart and they had a really nice tree there as well and so we through it up on top of the minivan and traveled home Grizwald style with a giant tree up on our roof.

Happy Thanksgiving!

From our cute little pilgrim to yours!

Bye, Bye Kitty

While Hallie was taking out the garbage the other night, she found a friendly kitty and it followed her in the house. Hayden was in heaven, she was picking the kitty up, petting it, following it around, hugging it, and giving it kisses. We let the kitty stay in the house for about 20 minutes but then it was time for bed and we had to let the kitty go back outside. This was the result of that decision:

Poor Hayden was so brokenhearted. We could barely get her to settle down to go to bed. Hallie also was very sad and kept begging us to get a new cat (we previously had two cats that we had to get rid of for reasons no one wants to hear about!) She kept asking us to please get rid of the dog so that we could get a cat. She came up with a very logical argument as to why cats are better than dogs, sadly for her, mom and dad were not sold. So then we had two crying children.

Meanwhile, as you can see Avery was not nearly as effected, she was busy posing for pictures:

What I Have Been Doing This Week

I taught a bracelet making class at Enrichment last night. It was a lot of work! I made 27 kits. Each kit consisted of 8 strands, so it was a lot of time sorting and counting beads. But everyone seemed to have a good time and it was fun to share with everyone. Plus as a total bonus I found these adorable little bags to put the beads in. I thought they were so cute.

Last week I taught the Young Women in our Ward how to make this necklace. That was really fun and all of the girls necklaces turned out totally different, it was fun to see all of the creativity.

I Guess They Look More Alike Than I Thought

When I took the pictures of Jaxton with the hat on, it reminded me of a picture of Hayden at about this age. So I pulled out pictures of each of the kids at about 4 months, and with their hair covered up, they do look a lot alike.

Hallie

Avery

Hayden

Jaxton