Thanksgiving!

Guacy insisted on hosting Thanksgiving and having a super fancy tabel. It actually looked really nice.

This is me holding vivi before Guacy yelled at me for letting her suck on my neckolace.

This is Biza, Helen, and Sam.

This is a Turkey cookie Samuel and I made over at Tami Gemmell's home. Guacy came too. We had a nice visit.

Samuel was so cute holding on for dear life, to Helen, as they swung in the hamic at Guacy's.

Some new pictures

This is a picture of samuel. He was not being very photogenic!

This is Samuel sitting with santa. He was so cute. He gave him a big hug. We took this picture with a couple days before Thanksgiving when there was no line!

This is our family picture for this year. It's not as formal as we would have liked it, but it was our favorite out of a the bunch. It doesn't help that Samuel was eating.

This is a picture we took of Samuel earlier this year smiling in his Sunday clothes!

Thanksgiving with the Ely's

All of my sisters and their families came to our house for Thanksgiving. It was a hectic, but fun weekend. Cooking was an all day affair on Saturday, and my oven caught on fire at one point. I didn't see it. I was in the back with Rebekah doing her hair. It was so bad that they took all the kids out of the house and were running around looking for Bekah and me. Jacob had to use the fire extinguisher to get it out. I still have the task of cleaning up the last of the oven mess tomorrow. Joe, Nancy's husband, was nice enough to clean up a big part of it, and he washed all the dishes. Fabulous man!

Here is the best picture of the Holt kids. They were really uncooperative by this point!

Lizzie didn't want her picture taken anymore.

All the cousins. This is really the best picture of them all. I still have to use gimp to clean up the picture. We were going to take pictures outside, but the day just got to crazy, and we had to take them inside when it was completely dark.

Uncle Toufik and Simeon. He is my oldest sister Ali's husband.

Eating Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday.

Cousin Ayden

My sister is here with her boys. One of them was born November 5th. Elizabeth loves babies, so she is excited baby Ayden is here.

Thanks Gramma Nancy!!

First of all, happy Birthday JoJo. You're are the big 4 today! Congratulations.

Here's Travis' idea of fun constructive play w/Dad. I guess his father did this kind of stuff to him as a child.

The boys (all 3) are trapped under Tracker's crib. On all sides. He put the rail down, and then stuck their big toy box in the way of the other opening, and put the lid against the wall, against the toy box so there was no way for them to push it away.

They actually dealt w/it rather well. Trayton was positive the whole time, and Tracker didn't even know what was going on. Tustin was the only one who seemed to not like it. And they eventually got out by themselves! I don't know how, but they got out.

Tracker was doing this all by himself the other day as we were sitting at the table. I know he's seen Trayton do it before, but I think Tracker brought it up all on his own!

Silly boys!

Trayton wanted to say thank you to Gramma Nancy for the package we just picked up today. He loves the monkey and named it George. But we already have an acutal "Curious George", so now we have two George monkeys. Confusing.

He also got 2 books, 2 movies & a growing crab that is incubating in some water right now.

Thank you Gramma Nancy. We love you so much! XXOOXXOOXXOO

Jojo is 4

We had Joseph's birthday party last Saturday. There is a little boy down the street that shares Trayton's birthday and we decided to just do one party for the both of them. It was fun and I got to make two cakes. My kitchen was a complete disaster when I was done. So now Joseph is 4!

This is after the party when everyone was playing behind our house. I don't know what Simeon was doing, but it was so funny looking. He's our future body builder.


Blowing out the candles. This is one of my favorite cakes I've made so far. The dirt for the tractor was crushed teddy grahams, and it looked like real dirt. So fun!


Joseph is amazed with every present he gets. We got him a cap gun and wrapped the caps up separately. He had this expression on his face even though he had no clue what he had gotten. Too funny! We gave him a dragon last Saturday, and he has slept with it every night since then. He loves dragons and dinosaurs now.

The cake

Playing pin the tail on the donkey. This is Randi, the mother of Timmy, who shares Trayton's birthday.

Snow

Ok, so it's not snow, but this is as close to a snowman as we can get while we are living here.


Lizzie trying to put a sticker on his head. Simi didn't find it too funny.


On Sunday Joseph was yelling for Jacob and I to come into their room. He finally came running in to tell us that Simeon was on top of the bed. Jacob went in and found him on the top bunk. So now our one year old can climb ladders...aren't we so proud...grrrr. Now I have to take the ladder off during the day so he doesn't fall off the top bunk.

He LOVES this chair. Doesn't he look comfy?


And another Ezra face. I was going through the pictures the other day and about one out of every ten or fifteen pictures had a real smile in it.

The Sunday Shoes

I had to add this picture of their shoes, I just love that my boys look so handsome! We'll probably do our Christmas card pictures in Sunday clothes!

Trayton's 5th Birthday

I seem to put the pictures on in the wrong order, anyway we'll go w/Sunday first.

Here is Travis in is "prized" wool suit that he got at a garage sale for $5 while on his mission. He got a lot of comments at church.

Here are Trayton & Tustin in their "new" Sunday clothes (Thanks Parley). Trayton got a new belt & Sunday socks as presents, we're still shopping around for kid ties.
They were also given practically new Sunday shoes as "hand-me-downs" from a friend in the ward. They look so sharp!!
I had to take picutres, cause they haven't been so dressed up for church before. This is a first that they've had such niced clothes & shoes.

Tustin holding Tray's scriptures.

Trayton reading his scriptures.

This is me & my 17 week pregnant belly. When I picked it to download, it was the correct direction, so I don't know what happened. Everyone at church thinks I just popped right out.
I'm gonna get a lot bigger, that's for sure.

Okay, here's the birthday stuff. Trayton & Tustin were screaming when we brought out the train track. They've been playing with it non-stop for 3 days! Tustin was almost crying w/happiness!!! They were so happy & kept saying "I really like this Mom, thankyou!!" So fun to watch.

Trayton & his cake (this pic was also upright when downloaded, oh well)

I told him to stick out his tongue like he was going to lick it. He did a good job, funny!

Mornings at the Little Holts

Can I just start out with the fact that today is already a better day than yesterday was in it's entirety? Yesterday was long and getting to do the grocery shopping at 5 when Jacob got home was a welcome escape. Today is already great. Sariah's lessons were all done except one by 7:30 before Rebekah even woke up, and Jacob cleaned up most of the kitchen and living room for me while I was gone yesterday! Woohoo! So now I just need to do Sariah's math lesson and all of Rebekah's and then I am free to do what the kids and I want to do, and it is going to be a sunny beautiful day! Today we're looking for the happiness we have at home rather than looking for all the frustration kids can provide on a daily basis. Same situations, but a different perspective. It makes life so much better.

So here is Simeon. It's actually secondsies for him. He ate about a half hour before this, but he wanted to eat with Bekah when she got her cereal this morning. He gets to eat the Lucky Charms now when we give them to the other kids. Can you tell he really likes them? He will pick out all the marshmallows and then eat the rest. If you look close you can see that all the food in his mouth is the marshmallows! Love it! Thankfully we eat cereal twice a week and not every day for breakfast or he would be going around on a sugar high all morning.


This is something I find baffling, hilarious, and irritating all at the same time. I see this sight twenty times a day. Why can my children not take a normal amount of paper off the roll and leave the rest. No, they have to unravel a good 6+ feet of it and then take the little bit they need. Since Elizabeth and Joseph are currently in their water obsession the paper usually gets soaked and nasty several times a day. This is the sanitary version. I would have taken a picture of it yesterday, but it was just to gross for anyone but Gary! (just kidding!) I walked in to find my friends 3 year old daughter totally distraught that she didn't get her pants off in time. She's still in the stage of needing to be completely naked to go to the bathroom, so she still had a shoe and one pant leg to go when she ran out of time. Between Elizabeth's water mess that I had forgotten about, the excessive amounts of toilet paper that someone had ripped into little pieces and left everywhere , and the really, really bad poo accident everywhere, it was bad. Really really bad. For once I found the humor in the situation. Probably because it wasn't my kid that missed the toilet and tracked it all the way out the bathroom, down the hall and through the kitchen.

Joseph in the bath this morning. He is always so happy to play in the tub. Love that smile!

Rebekah loves to play with Simi, and he loves to play copycat.

These girls are so silly. Sariah loves to "make things." It's always fun to see just how much fun a few chairs and blankets can provide. Now they have all the dining room chairs and all their quilts out making a tent. If I hurry I can probably get the kitchen cleaning and mopping done before the fun runs out with this one. Even Simeon has fun with it.

First Snow!!

Here's the first snow of the season. We had a ball making snow angels, playing follow the leader, and sledding down our hill. The thin layer of snow exposed some of the grass and made it extra slippery! Let me tell you, it was super fast!!
Snow on the trampoleen. Most people put up their trampoleens for the winter so the heavy snow load doesn't hurt the bounce, but we don't. We play on it all winter.

Happy snow boy.

Another day another craft

This picture is so typically Sariah. Food on her face with her hair all over the place. I love this girl! She put her pajamas on and it was too cute to pass up. I love how kids button their shirts!


Here is today's craft. I've been having people over making quiet books, and this is the newest addition today. They are so easy to make! And they are really inexpensive. Pellon, a printer and scissors is all it takes! I'm working on a book of Sunday puzzles for Rebekah. She really likes them right now, and they are perfect for keeping her quiet at church.

Birthday boy

Happy Birthday Trayton!
We love you

Happy birthday Trayton. I love you. Have a happy birthday. -Rebekah

I love you. -Sariah

Happy birthday. I'd like you to eat cake. -Joseph

Happy birthday. Cake. -Elizabeth

Great coupon

For those of you that like Gymboree, right now they have a great deal going. For every $50 you spend you get a $25 coupon. That includes any online shopping you do.

Some instructions

I guess I have never let anyone know how to change the background. What you do is copy the code that you like, and then go to Layout on the blog (it's under customize at the top when viewing the blog or at the dashboard). Once at Layout there is a column on the left of small boxes. The last box on the bottom says HTML/Java Script. Click on that and delete all the information that is currently in that section. Then you paste the new code in the box and save all changes. If you then want to change the text colors to match the background you click on "Fonts and Colors" that is directly below the Layout tab at the top. Make sure you save all the changes before you exit. Hope that's clear enough. Have fun!

Halloween, Camping & Canning

Somehow we made through Halloween without carving this humongous pumpkin, it just sat on our table for a month. So, now, after the holiday, we are attacking this pumpkin and making a ton of stuff. I didn't know you could make so much food with one pumpkin. First we made 3 pies, then 2 pumpkin delights (thanks to the Jacob & Tiff). We also made a yummy pumpkin shake last night, 1 batch of pumpkin muffins (thanks Mary) and then Travis insisted that we can pumpkin bread!! Well, I'd never done it before, but it was pretty easy. We just made the batter, filled up pint jars about 1/2 way and cooked them in the oven. They took about an hour to fully cook, but cook they did. Then we took them out, put the lids on and they sealed right up. We did 2 batches canned and have enough pumpkin to probably do 4 more!! Isn't that crazy? One pumpkin can make a TON of food.

Here you can see the slices of canned bread. It just slid right out and Travis sliced it.

Okay, the Monday after Halloween we went camping out of Homer (south of here) w/some friends and their 2 little boys. Here's the beautiful mountains as we were leaving.

Travis and the boys were pulling in the boat with the rope. They are so strong!

We caught some delicious crabs while we were out. These are called tanner crabs. They taste sooo good dipped in butter & garlic.

Our friend Brian, trying to fight the crab as it came out of the pot, alive and snapping.

Silly Me trying to take pictures of Tracker & I, while we were riding on the boat.

Trayton helping Dad drive.

Okay, here's our Halloween pictures. So sorry I didn't picuters of the boys for you guys to see. All we did was paint & cut out cardboard and tape the pieces to their coats. This is Tustin's. There was a tail coming off the bottom, but it fell off. I tied claws and feet to their boots & hands. They also had half a plastic cup w/jagged teeth tied over their nose.

Trayton's

After trick or treating. They wasted no time in taking off their costumes. It was a pretty hectic Halloween for me. Travis didn't make it home from the scout camping trip, so I was on my own. I did bring a stroller for Tracker, but the wheels wouldn't exactly move when I wanted them too. It was a trunk or treat in the church parking lot w/chili & hot cocoa. So while Tustin was raring to trick or treat, Trayton wanted to eat the chili. But Tustin had to throw a fit while I we were eating (he refused), but Trayton didn't even eat his chili! So I was stuck holding his food, and trying to move this stroller that wouldn't move! When we started trick or treating it got better. Plus, the costumes were constantly falling apart. Ugh, next time if the kids start acting that way, we are going home!!!!!!! I'm glad everyone else had fun. :)