Our presents arrived!!

A Christmas Miracle

Aaron Oliveira Luz

I sure love that boy.  Isn't he so big!?!

Christmas in the Valley-Bates Nut Farm

We had lots of fun at Bates Nut Farm. We hit a lot of traffic on the way so we missed Santa Arrive in the helicopter. We did take the "Polar Express" hay ride to the North pole to see Santa. All three boys fell asleep on the drive to the farm. We couldn't get Matthew to wake up, so he slept through everything. Too bad for him.  Its crazy what kids can sleep through!!

Thank goodness we have a double stroller.. lol..

It was pretty cold out there for us Californians. and yes Teresa is wearing her Mrs. Clause outfit. She insisted on making us wait in line again(we had already taken the picture of Sam and Lincoln with Santa) so she could get a picture with Santa! I know she's a little obsessed.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! 

I think this video speaks for itself, but I know it is soooo cute!!  I love these boys so much!

Holt Christmas Party

 Alright here are the pictures I had Dad take at the Holt Christmas party.  I know, there are only two of them but these are the pictures I wanted taken. Henry insisted on taking a picture with Biza(great grandma) Maybeth, and Mardin. He wants to make sure the kids will have it to remember her by when they are older.  Family is very important to Henry, and it makes me so happy to know that he is my husband.  He is such a great guy! We have big plans, and goals for next year(NO MOM, I am not pregnant!!!) so wish us luck! Merry Christmas to all.  I will post more pictures after Christmas.

Cousins & baptism

Here's a lot of pix.  Trayton and his baby bro.  All the kids wrestled with Travis and let me tell you, it was CRAZY.  I'm glad I wasn't in the middle of it! 
Travis, Naomi, and Tracker all took a nap together.  Cute.  And Mary Rose and Tell Walter together.
Trayton's baptism was wonderful.  I was so happy and couldn't keep back the tears.  Trayton will have the Spirit with him always to guide him.  I love this gospel.  I'm so grateful I have wonderful parents who have lead me and taught me to follow the right.  :)

Halloween!!

I am so excited to report that I actually "tried" with the kid's costumes this year.  I never really cared what my kids Halloween costumes looked like, or how convincing they were because I knew it would just be covered up by a snow suit or be bulgy over a snow coat.  But this year I took nice pictures beforehand and even got a compliment on the face painting!!  Woot woot!  Trayton was a skeleton, Tustin was spiderman, Tracker was a dragon, and Naomi was a kitty and Tell was a football. 
Also Trayton and Tustin carved their own Jack o Lantern today.  They did a great job!  We did it today so it wouldn't go bad and we could still make it into pie...  :)
Hope you all had a fun Halloween!!

For Elaine

Elaine, I know you read our blog, so these are especially for you.  I changed out the boys clothes recently and out of the pile came this sweater.  I was reminded of you once again. You made this sweater for Joseph years ago, and its one of my favorite ones out of all the ones you ever made for my children.  So thank you once again!

Lots of love
Tiffany

Life in the Fall

So a couple things.  Trayton is not yet 8, but has begun participating in cub scouts! (I am the wolf den leader) so here we learned about the flag ceremony.
School is in full swing. We do an etiquette class activity with our friends the Hendersons, once a week. And Tustin made an F out of playdough.
Tell fell asleep while jumping in the bouncer.  Soo precious. 
And finally, Tracker jumped on his sister wrong so it bent his leg back to his butt, apparently a little too far.  We took an x-ray and it's very minor.  But he will not put any weight on the foot and crawls around the house, or I carry him.  :)  He should be healed up in 3 wks.
Love you all!  Can't wait for PLASR and Halloween! 

Convention and More

Well, lots of exciting things have happened.  I attended dōTERRA's 2012 Engage Convention and went to Fairbanks to visit the Holts. 
Convention was inspiring, motivational, educational, and FUN!  Too many things to mention, but I'll explain the pictures.  First off, a couple days after I left, Travis picked up the mail and found my certificate for becoming silver and a charm bracelet with silver on there.  :)
Next I am sitting in front of a big ENGAGE display at convention.  That was the theme.
I got to walk across the big stage as a silver rank and received an award. 
I went to the Gala which was a fancy dinner and dance while also recognizing those who reached the rank  of diamond and above.  That was AMAZING!  Reminded me of church dances as a youth. 
Kyle Maynard was a guest speaker.  He was born without limbs yet does incredible things.  He bear crawled Mt. Kilimanjaro was State wrestling champion in high school, etc.  I waited 2 hours in line to get this pic with him, and his book No Excuses.
Then MaryJo got a pic with Tell before we took off back to Alaska.
The rest are with the cousins.  One of Tiff during her piano lessons, woot woot!  John eating pancakes with chocolate syrup made by Travis.  Mmmm.
Now the last one of Tell is what he started doing just yesterday.   Sucking his thumb!  It is so cute.  But I'm afraid it won't stay this cute...
Love ya!!

 We can see the northern lights again!  Woohoo!  Something to make up for the long dark winters we have. It's beautiful to watch.  And that big dipper you see...there is a reason it's on the state flag.  It's huge and bright all winter long.

Really long post coming up by the way.

 The Kellers have been up in Fairbanks for a couple weeks now.  Nettie went to convention in Utah and Travis went hunting, so all the boys and Naomi have been with us.  Nettie and Travis both got back last week, and the kids are having a ball being together. 

Fall has come and gone while they are here.  Travis brought home moose for us to process, and Joseph really liked helping grind the meat.  So did John and Naomi actually.

Fridays we do a cooking class at my house and the Keller kids got to join us while they are here.  This week was decorating cupcakes with gumdrops.  They really had a ball with it.  Helps that they get to eat their work when it is all done :)

 Sariah was baptized tonight after church.  It was so fun.  I made her dress, and I just have to say I am proud of the fact that I had it done BEFORE it was time to go to church at 1!  It would have been finished the night before, but we had to go to the ER the night before because Sariah broke her two front teeth with a PVC pipe.  Fun times.

Grinding moose burger

 

Labeling packages for the freezer.  And I bought colored Sharpies so all the packages can be pretty :)

 

Travis at the end of the pile

Travis and Naomi starting the day off with some raw meat

 

Sariah after her baptism

 

Nettie and Rebekah sang "Baptism" from the Children's Songbook 

Afterwards

 

 All my girls except Mary Rose who was asleep by then.

We took pictures when we got home and Mary Rose decided to suck on Tell's head.  I don't think he liked it very much! Hahaha!