Santa Clause! And a New Camera

Here is Santa Clause! Naomi LOVED him! It was so sweet! She had the biggest smile on her face the whole time she was on his lap.
We went to the annual Santa Clause appearance at the Soldotna firestation. The boys loved it. They had cookies, hot cocoa, games, prizes, goodie bags, and a hay ride! It was a ball. I love that they put this on for the public. What a fun tradition.

These pictures are a little out of order, so bare with me. We cooked Gertrude, our big white 25+ lb turkey. You may remember her, Little Holts, from the summer. She served us well. So far we've had a beautiful turkey roast dinner, turkey noodle soup, turkey casserole, turkey fajitas, and I canned 7 pints of turkey broth. Mmmm! I've still got more turkey to use up in something. Tomorrow we'll see what I decide to make.

The boys and I made paper chains so we could count the days until Christmas. Tustin made the big snowman, Trayton the tree on the left, and Tracker, the little tree. I had to remodel Tracker's, he got a little scissor happy.

Here's the wishbone from Gertrude. Trayton and Tustin pulled it, Trayton got the bigger piece.

Aw, here's the other Santa picture. All happy faces. And Naomi smiling at Santa. :) Cute girl. I asked Santa for a bigger house. He said he'd send the elves over, but they tend to make their houses only 4 ft high. Bummer.

Okay so here's the start of the pictures with our new camera, the Rebel T3i. So nice! These are just random pictures. I knew Mom would appreciate them, so the rest of you and skim over these. ;)

Travis took this picture in a dark room while Naomi was SLEEPING! I'm so glad she didn't wake up. Silly boy.

Another pic in the dark by Travis. Handsome Trayton.

Sweet Naomi, on the table. This is quite a common occurrence in our house! Makes things a little stressful. This picture captures her "realness."

Making turkey noodle soup with Gertrude and Tracker. ;) Mary Jo gave me this awesome noodle maker last year. I love it. We can make spaghetti and fetuccini noodles with it, leave it a couple inches wide and make raviolis or something. Tracker was my big helper that night. He helped me cut some Alaskan grown carrots (from the neighbors) and flatten the noodles, then put them in the pot too.

Here's Tracker's dark photo shot. Cute boys!

I had to get Tracker actually rolling the noodle maker. He's doing a good job.

The beautiful noodles. Mmmm! Naomi likes to eat them raw.

Finished product. Doesn't that look good? The camera did great! ;)

Happy tummies. They loved it.

Hope you are enjoying this wonderful Christmas season!! Love you all.

Moose

We finally have seen a moose in our neighborhood! The kids have been pretty disappointed that we haven't seen them since moving to out house on post. This one here is a baby. It's at least as tall as I am.

Here is the pair of them. The poor mother had someone try to lasso her. Who is crazy enough to try to lasso a moose? She eventually made her way down to the school. They had a moose warning over the PA system before the kids left home that they needed to be careful. Only in Alaska!

Here is one more of the baby. They sure are cute, but I'd never want to be in the way of one that got mad!

Here is a little size perspective on the mother. She is taller than the truck, and a full sized trash can is almost able to fit under her belly. We grow things big here :)

Anchorage and some Halloween

These pictures are a little out of order. The first ones are from our trip home a few weeks ago, and the rest are from our stay in Anchorage while Jacob had a week of training.

Rebekah was waiting on the side of the road on the trip home while Jacob cleaned up...

One giant Simi puke mess. I let the kids all pick out a soda or gatorade for the drive home. Can I just tell you that was a HUGE mistake! We usually just have water or a little juice. No, this was full sized bottles for each kid. Did you know everyone but Rebekah gets car sick? Well, Simi puked blue, Sariah puked red, Lizzie puked pink, Bekah's was orange, and John puked when it was too dark to see it. At that point we were a half hour from home, and we were SOOO not stopping! I announced to the back seat at that point that every bag end every box was currently full of puke, so if anyone had the need to puke again they had better catch it with their blanket and then they would have to hold it until we got home. There would be NO MORE STOPPING! Poor Simeon made the ride home in just his underwear because he got so dirty. Memories right?!

Halloween trick or treating. It's cold here already, so snowsuits are a must to go out. Costumes go on over the snowsuits and under the jackets. Half way through the first round Jacob called to let me know Simi went out without his boots on and his feet were completely soaked. I took him home because he was crying, and when we got there he started sobbing that he wanted to go back out and finish with Papa. Oh, it was pathetic, so out he went!

And he ended up like this when it was all over.

Now back to the Anchorage pictures.

love these kids!

All of the kids last month at the Anchorage temple. It was wet while we were there. We had waited for weeks for the snow to come, and just after we left home the snow started. We got stuck with rain instead during our week down there. It was beautiful when we got home though!

The Anchorage Temple

Simeon had his 3rd birthday while we were there. He got these stuffed Mario toys, and I don't think they left his hands for very long the next few weeks. He is still sleeping with them.

Almost Halloween!

We have a tupperware theif.

These are all lids that do not have containers! arg!

Henry's first pumkin of the Season!

Made it for Helen's work.

Apparently they really liked it!


Henry trying out his old monster costume,
to make sure its ready for Nathan to borrow!
I was trying to upload a video but it was taking forever,
I'll try again tomorrow!

The Blackhawks

Jacob had to leave us for a week while Nettie was here with the boys and Travis was out hunting. I am so grateful that she was here! I ended up in the ER twice that week, and in the hospital again for testing another day. When I was home, I felt awful. Nettie took care of all ten kids that week for the most part. She even did school with my kids too! She's pretty fabulous. At the end of the week we all went down to the airfield to see the helicopters fly in with Papa on board. They are SO LOUD when you are up close. After they were all in and everyone went home Jacob was able to let us get in one of the helicopters in the hangar.

Here we are waiting in the rain. Thankfully it had mostly stopped while we were waiting

Jacob is in the second helicopter back. He wasn't the one flying on the way home though. He was working on his "cockpit management" skills evidently.

Lizzie is rather attached to Ezra. She likes to show him everything and tries to get him to play all the time. In fact, she just told me, "I love Uncle Ezra the most!"

Waiting for Papa (and Uncle Jacob) to land.

There's Jacob after all three helicopters landed. They are putting the aircraft to "sleep"

Here's Simi hanging onto the ropes used to tie the rotor blades down. All the kids kept trying to do it even though we told them not to. I guess ropes hanging at eye level are just too tempting.

Tracker sitting in the cockpit. All the kids got a turn, and Jacob got to tell them how stuff works. How many of you know what a cyclic and a collective are? Well, now the Holt and Keller kids do. Well, the did for about 2 minutes until something else caught their attention. :)

Here is one of our pilots in training. He looks ready to take it up already!

These boys are good friends. They are always coming up with something crazy to do. Joseph dreams it up and Tustin carries it out. They are quite the pair!

In the back of the blackhawk where all the seats are. There is another section in front of this, and then the cockpit is in front of that.

All the cousins together. They are lots of fun!

We went to Creamers Field to take pictures of all the kids. We wanted to do it while we were down at Nettie's last month, but I'm happy we waited because now I have an awesome camera! I like the Black and White of all the kids and Nettie likes the color. Which one do you guys like best?

We did all the kids and then individual shots on Monday. When we got home we realized we forgot to take pictures of just my kids and just the Kellers we had to go back again. The leaves were already almost off the trees. Fall is nearly over here! The second day Nettie and I were ready to pull our hair out. It was soooo HARD! The kids didn't want to cooperate AT ALL. Out of 260 some pictures we took the second day there were maybe 5 that were good, and 15-20 that were ok, or just plain funny.

The Holt Kids

The Keller Kids

And then we have everyone's individual shots. According to Nettie this is everyone's favorite girl...Of Course! She says I can quote her on that.

I realized after we got home and looked at all the pictures that I didn't take any portraits of John. But I got this one in between other kids!