A New Year.....A New Chance

As I contemplate what I want to see happen for me and my family this year, I of course want things like peace, love, prosperity and happiness. But how will I help that to happen? What can I do to become better? How can I help my children become better?

We are always challenging our children (and ourselves) to "do just a little more" or "go the extra mile" so the thought occured to me that maybe by doing for others, by being more giving, being more understanding and by being more charitable we will be able to have peace, love, prosperity and happiness and it will come to us naturally and easily.

I think my hopes and desires for 2009 can come to pass by adhering to council given by President Hinckley a few years ago when he stated..... "let's make a decision within ourselves to be a little better than we’ve been, a little kinder, a little more merciful, a little more outreaching, with a little greater desire to bless those in distress and need. …........ Think of some small way in which we might improve ourselves and draw nearer to our Lord.”

It is my hope that we all find peace in service this year and love for others as well as ourselves.

Family Pictures December 2008

Disney Mania

Another fun trip to Disneyland. We were there for 4 days. We met up with several friends and some family. We had dinner at my cousin's house in Lake Forrest one night, dinner at ESPN Zone with my brother for his 40th birthday another night and played and played and played the rest of the time. Unfortunately, now it is back to reality:(


Gillian wanted to see Mickey Mouse's House so bad! But of course she got a little shy when she got to meet him.

Caleb and Ben spinning me in the teacups. Wild ride! Gillian and gary in the background teacup and the Townsend boys

Happy New Year!

We hope everyone had a safe and totally fun New Year's Eve! We had a group of about 40 here for food and fun until about 8:30 when we delivered half of them to the Stake New Year's Eve Party. Then back here with little one's to ring in the new year with a pinata, noise makers and martinellis. It was a fun night. Thanks Watson Family. We can't wait for Disneyland only 3 more days!
Celebrate Good Times!


Friends to the end! And trouble!!!!! :)


Party Girl!

Good Friends, Good Times!

This is actually a little scary! After leaving the guys with 8 little, very loud and very excited kids for an hour and a half (mary and I drove the big kids and their friends to the Stake Center and lingered:) the dads said that this is what they resorted to in order to drown out the chaos and calm their nerves. Not sure how far martinellis and paper towels get you but they are both nuts!

CHEERS!

2008 Family Pics!

We finally got our family pictures done. Just in time for New Years! Now if I can just find time to send them off to the printer for our annual New Year's Cards I will be happy. Not sure if it will happen anytime soon but here are a few of my favorites.

Christmas With The Yentes'

Just a few early morning Christmas Pics. Somehow, I didn't get all the kids in front of the tree this year but we did snap these. It has been a crazy morning with lots of fun and happy kids. The big boys were thrilled with all their new clothes and have been playing Rock Band all day. The little ones have been riding plasma cars, trikes and pushing baby buggys all over the house. The favorite gift for Gillian is her kitchen. She has been glued to that most of the morning. It has been raining but now that there is a break in the weather, everyone is off to ride bikes, trikes, ripstiks and throw footballs until it starts raining again. I guess I had better get working on dinner. Merry Christmas to all of you!Waiting happily to see what Santa brought!Tired of waiting......We all draw names and make semi-homemade gifts for each other every year. This was my gift to Cam. A poster of him wake-boarding. He thought it was cool.We all love this kitchen. :) Gillian and Caleb have had a blast with it.Tinkerbell is gilly's favorite so I wrapped most of her presents in this $Tree paper I found. super cute! The new ripstiks.

Gillain's new pink Morgan Bike. It is all metal and the cutest bike ever. It even has a headlight in front. Check out the Fashionista's outfit. What a crack up!

Caleb loves his cowboys!

Gillian the Fashionista!

I have been meaning to post this for the last 2 weeks. Gillian is very much into "I do it mom!" You know the 2 year old girl wanting to dress herself in what she thinks looks good and matches and not what mommy wants her to wear. The boys did this to some extent but gillian takes the cake! No matter what I want her to wear, she wants to wear something else of her own creation and she wants to put it on "all by myself!!!!!" so I let her......it is either that or a big power struggle so here is my favorite style of hers. She chose the dress for the pockets, the sweat pants because she was cold and she liked the mittens and hat because they matched the pink in the "dolka dots" on her dress. At least that is how she explained it to me. :) Love that girl!

Ouch!

Gillian has a new boo boo. She burned her finger on the glass of our gas fireplace. It is pretty bad. It was a second degree burn and covers the middle section of the front of her middle finger. We had to take her to the doctor to clean and debrie the wound for a few days and now we have to do it ourselves everyday. Scrubbing it keeps it from getting infected and helps with the scaring. She doesn't like it very much but she really is a good sport. Here she is showing us her wrapped finger. Cute huh?

A Christmas Thing!

So we were running behind getting ready for church this morning but I have a tradition of taking the kids pictures before church on special days like Easter, Mother's Day or the Sunday before Christmas, etc. They all kept saying, "Is this a Christmas Thing mom?" Can you tell that they really didn't want to do it???? I threatened with presents and Santa but only my babies came over to make their mommy happy. As you can see from the first picture, Caleb wasn't thrilled but after the mention of Santa, he not only changed his attitude but began to do the "Hot Chocolate Dance" from his favorite The Nutcracker. Since you won't see the big kids in these pictures, I will have to make good on my promise of no Santa for some of my kids I guess. :) Won't my big boys be sad when they only get a lump of coal on Christmas morning? (Gary is looking for some coal. It may have to be briquetes from the BBQ but he is determined to leave some sort of coal under the tree for a few cetain boys)hahahahaCaleb is not really happy about picture time.......then I mention......Santa. So......Caleb decides to ask his sister to dance.

The twirl that Caleb is so famous for......The Thank you kiss that Gillian loved

And Ta Da! He did it. "Now can Santa bring me presents mom?"

I am finally posting pictures from Gillian's two year old photo shoot that we took a few months ago. We had so much fun with this! Gillian happily put on the dress that Mommy had made for her, she willingly let me clip a "pretty" in her hair and she posed and posed and posed. I'm including just a few of my favs. We have all noticed that Gillian looks very different in every picture. We have named this photo shoot....."The Many Faces of Little Miss Gillian."

A Thankfully Quiet and Relaxing Week!

Just a few pics from Thanksgiving. It was really quiet around here but very productive. We rested, played games, ate, rested some more, ate, decorated for Christmas and I even re-read the whole Twilight series.

Normally we have a large group either here or with other family but this year it was calm and actually very peaceful. Besides our crew of 7, only my mom and brother came to visit and eat and eat and eat with us! Gillian of course couldn't wait for Nana's doggie to get here and didn't leave her alone for a second. It is so funny to watch her with either our golden or Nana's dog.....gillian talks to them and plays with them like they are her best friends. Super cute! oh....yes, that is a diaper on the doggie. I have never laughed so hard in my life! Gillian thought the dog was one of her baby dolls and wanted to keep changing her diaper. I give up! :)

Garrett, Cam and I went to the Outlet Mall's Midnight Madness sale Thanksgiving Night. Them, to see who was there and me to supervise. It was crazy! Lines to get into the stores starting at midnight then lines to buy up all the great deals. The kids were just there to socialize while all the moms fought the crowds. We left around 3:30 a.m. and needless to say, I skipped the 5:00 a.m. Black Friday sales.

We got the Christmas tree up and most decorations. Garrett got all the outside lights up and now the real fun begins. As we always say at the end of Thanksgiving week, "Let the Festivities Begin!" Good luck to all of you!

Look! A "pretty" in Gill's hair

Gillian and Uncle "D"

Caleb....sick of pictures and begging to eat the turkey. "Is it ready now? Or do we have to take more pictures of it?"

Twilight Party Night!

Well as all of you know, the Twilight movie finally came out. A bunch of us went to see it Friday night and last night I threw a little Twilight Pre-Party for Garrett and his friends on a group date before they went to see it. After the teenagers saw my Tribute to Twilight Table, they all decided that I was more obsessed with Twilight than they were. Those of you who know me well, know that I'm really not obsessed with Twilight that much. I just like an excuse........ any excuse to have a party. It was a lot of fun getting everything together from my party closet and the kids really appreciated it!

After the movie, they had a scavenger hunt at Walmart and walked home (we don't live far) to a big bon fire that Gary and Cam had made for them in the backyard. They hung out, ate Red Velvet Cake and had hot cocoa. They are a great group of kids!

As far as the movie goes, I liked it............ but for me......... it wasn't as good as the book. What movie ever is??????? I really loved the scenery and location. It reminded me so much of places in Alaska that I spent so much of my childhood in. That part was exactly how I envisioned it. Edward was......well.....delicious! Can I say that? tee hee. And Bella, was very much how I imagined her too. The rest of the characters were not what I pictured in my mind but they all worked well. Some of the scenes were a little cheesy, but all in all it was a good movie. Can't wait to go see it again and finish re-reading it! I know, I should have many other things to do but.....I am a Tween Twilighter at heart! I'm not obsessed.......really!

A Formal Affair!

Garrett went to his first formal dance at his high school saturday night. He got a new suit, shoes, shirt, tie, etc. He was really excited! The group he went with came here first at 4:00 to take pictures. We took lots of pics in front of our house and in the park (that I somehow erased) ):):( Then they went to dinner, took pictures at the dance, came back here to play Guitar Hero, Air Hockey, drums and electric guitars in the Bonus Room. (This picture is of all of them then). They finally made it to the dance around 9:00. Everyone had a great time! It was a fun evening to be a part of. We love having Teenagers!

C.A.M.S. Cherry Ave. Middle School Band

Cam had a Band Competition in Fowler today. He plays the trumpet in marching band and plays the quads for Winter line. They took 1st Place in both. It was so much fun to see Cam drumming. It is his passion. Go Bulldogs!

This isn't the best video but I was using my little flip camera and taking still pics at the same time. The funniest part is how you notice that I am not holding the camera very still. I started bouncing to the beat and forgot about the video. It really gets bad at the end when the drum line starts bouncing. Great job Cam!

"A Frightfully Busy Week!

We have had an exhausting week of Trick or Treat Fun. It all started last weekend with a party and Haunted House hosted by one of Gary's teachers then we had our Ward's annual Trunk or Treat party at the church, the next night was the annual Monster Mash at Cherry Ave. Middle School (where Cam attends and Garrett used to), the Harvest Festival at the Montessori School and it all finally ended with our annual family Halloween Party on our front porch last night. I have gotten dressed up 5 times this week and I think I am done with Halloween for a while. It has been an eventful week to say the least.

My Husband the Vampire and our friends well being as silly as they could. Too Funny!

"It's all about the Love!" We always have matching or thematic family costumes each year so here is our best Hippie look. I know it is really silly. While the big boys are happy to use the same costume for each event, the little kids want a change so Caleb of course wanted to be Anikon (Star Wars) and gillian loved her "Go Go" dress but we never could get the hat quite right. She wouldn't let us fix it so we just went with it of course. Fun times!

Caleb and Gillian

Here are my sweet babies all ready for church. As you can see, still no hair on gillian but.......I gathered together just enough to clip a bow on top of her head. Trust me, this is nothing less than an amazing feat! Not only doe's gillian lack a lot of hair, she doesn't want to have "prettys" in her hair. In gillian's own words......"No, no Mommy! Me no want a pretty in my hair!"

Cross Country

Garrett started running Cross Country this year. He runs 3-5 miles everyday and is doing pretty well at his "Meets". He seems to enjoy this new sport of his and has a great team and coach. Garrett has been a good influence on Gary and me. We have been trying to run at 5:00 each morning but can only seem to complete about 2 miles. The other kids are showing some interest too. We are hoping to run together as a family in one of the beach runs in Cayucos early next summer. Garrett is our hero!