Happy 32nd Birthday David!

My blogger brain still can't work backwards, so here are the pictures....not in the order intended!

Party Guests

We had a wonderful birthday dinner for David and the ever anticipated ice cream cake. It might not be beautiful, but it tastes heavenly!

I got him a new wedding band....finally. He lost his original one about 3 1/2 years ago. A replacement was way overdue.

Audrey using her wipe containers as shoes!

Birthday Boy!

One last thing... Congratulations to Rex and Aleece on the birth of their triplets this morning! Alex, Riley, and Zachary are doing great. And they get to share their birthday with Davd!!!

We can't wait to see them!

Finally...A New Camera

I apologize for the long time between posts. Our camera has not been working and how interesting is a post without pictures? Well, I finally went and bought a new camera since Circuit City was having their going out of business sale. It is charging as we speak, so we should have pictures soon.

A lot has happened since I last posted. Charlie was baptized, Sydney turned 4, and Audrey turned 2. January and February are busy months in our house. David's birthday is Monday and then Katie's is the next week.

David said I had to write this funny story...

Last weekend we were coming home from Portland and David dropped me off at a baby shower in Salem. He took the kids to McDonalds for lunch and it made him very ill! When they got home he told the kids that he needed to lay down for awhile. Sydney asked him if he was going to go to sleep. He said, "No, I'm just going to lay down." Then she asked him, "Do you need some peace and quiet?" He answered, "Yeah, will you give me some peace and quiet?" Sydney responded, "We're kids, we don't do peace and quiet!" She's definitely the philosopher in the family.

Keep checking back...I promise to do better with the posts!

Katie's Piano Recital

Katie did such a great job at her piano recital on Sunday. She loves to play the piano and practiced her Christmas songs for weeks. We were so proud of her and she was so excited to play in her recital. Here's a short clip of her performance.

Christmas Activities

This year I decided that I wanted to do something fun with the kids every day for the month of December. I haven't done as much as I wanted to, but definitely more that I ever have before. Here is a quick sampling of what we've been up to. We started with Christmas trees made out of popsicle sticks and sequins. It definitely turned into a project that took more than 1 day and we're still finishing up, but we got a few done. The one below was done by Sydney.

We strung popcorn and cranberries (actually little wooden beads). The kids only did it for about 5 minutes and I had to finish.

The finished project!

This morning we made and decorated sugar cookies. Audrey preferred licking the frosting and at one point I caught her painted frosting on her legs and feet!

Charlie displaying his cookie that he titled "Audrey."

Here are the finished cookies. It was a huge mess but they turned out pretty cute!

Random Christmas Season Updates

After 3 hours of bathing, primping, curling hair and talking Charlie into getting dressed, here are a couple of examples of our sad attempt at trying to get a Christmas card picture.

They are going to make Audrey look at the camera rather she likes it or not!

Audrey is crying in about 90% of the pictures.

We kept trying to get Sydney to smile a little less intensely, and Charlie to look a little more involved. Ah, the joys of four children!

I had book club at my house last night and I made lemon water to drink with our dessert. Since Sydney discovered lemon water that's all she want to drink. Here's our sophisticated 3 year old enjoying her lemon water this morning.

I found this picture of the Elder's and our kids from 2003. What a difference a few years makes, it's fun to look back.

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We've been saying that we were going to visit our friend's the Elder's for four years and we finally got to go and spend the weekend with them. They live in the beautiful Gold Beach, Oregon, and had many wonderful sights to show us! It was a ton of fun. This was our family at Otter Point. The view was spectacular, although a little nerve racking with the kids and all the cliffsAnnaka did a gingerbread train with the kids. They loved it! I'm not so good with doing these kinds of things because I'm afraid of the mess, but after watching how much they enjoyed it, I vow to try and let go and do some more fun activities.

Here are six of our eight kids. Charlie, Anya, Katie, Isaac, Sydney, and Ellie.

We're off on our hike. Boy, we are a crowd!

David, enjoying the view with the little kids. Notice how tight he's holding on to Sydney, she was insisting on walking on her own. Sorry, Sydney...not gonna happen!

Here are all eight kids. From left to right. Audrey, Charlie, Anya, Sydney, Tyler, Katie, Ellie and Isaac.

Last we got to go to a farm that does a little petting zoo. This is Audrey petting the rabbit. She LOVED IT!!! This rabbit was 30lbs. and his feet are as big as a dog's paw. It was amazing!

We had a wonderful time... Thanks Annaka and Travis for letting us come and visit and for the wonderful Thanksgiving Dinner!!!