Saturday's Mission

Saturday's mission after choir practice was to find some ice sculptures in town. The trumpet sculpture has been up since before Thanksgiving. I'm not sure if I posted a picture of it though, so here it is.

City hall's ice sculpture

It's warmed up here to above zero for a little while. It's still cold though!

This picture is really blurry, but I had to add it. We were out around 12:00. See how low the sun is? We are so happy it's up above all the buildings now. Hooray!

One side of the ice sculpture in front of City Hall

Lizzie and the totem pole.

In front of City Hall. We drove by when they were making this one. It was pretty neat to watch them chopping away at the ice.

I love this one. It's so pretty at night when it is lit up.

The face looks a little funny since the snow is on it, but it still is neat.

Luz Family Pic 2010

Mom this is for you!

January

So Samuel has learned how to buzz. So Cute!
The boys. Matthew's face is so hilarious!!

outside the other day. It was pretty hot. yep I love Cali.

Henry and I playing around with the camera. I told to take some pics of me.

Silly, Silly, Silly.

Purse Making

I told Mom Bekah and I made purses together on Saturday and she requested pictures, so here they are. I chose orange. The pattern is from made-by-rae.com. It's a free pattern. Very easy to make, and it is all done with two fat quarters. That would be $4 for the whole thing. It's an hour project. Rebeka's is the same bag, just without the pleats. Here they are:

Bekah's is pink, of course, and she can fit all kinds of toys in there.

We both chose fun prints for the inside.

Here she is proud of her creation. She is already thinking of ways she would like to improve the next one. Sariah is asking to sew things now to. Lizzie just wants a bag!

Christmas Morning & Date Night

I forgot to post pictures of Christmas morning. Here is Trayton opening his stocking which had a big bag of marshmallows. The marshmallows were for the bow & mallow bow that he opened later. Ya baby! He wore this spider man costume the whole time. Except when it was put in the laundry.

Tustin, happy as can be.
Me & Tracker.



And here's a picture of the Holts opening their stockings.

And here is the most delicious thing EVER! Yes, I made this meal, all by myself (with a little help from Travis who was more than willing!!) . Thanks to the inspiration of Jacob & Tiff. While we were at their house we did date night, as you know, and we ate chimichangas, homemade, with all the trimmings. So I called Tiff up and got the recipe and made them for Travis & I. We put the kids to bed early (they did pretty good) after feeding them some left over soup. We turned on our netflix movie "Date Night" and settled in. WAY more fun than going out to eat, actually, I think. Although you can't beat not having to cook or clean it up.

This is deffinitely gonna happen again! Except maybe I'll make some other "delicacy" that we really love like deep fried halibut, or steak. :) Happy date nights, everyone!!

some pictures from december!

Samuel on Christmas Morning! my handsome Man. in his new Jammies! I love them on him!

Gramma Nancy's on Christmas day.

Our christmas Celebration. Mrs. Claus was with us at our feast. We had a great time.

Samuel and Matt at the Christmas tree

Tammy and James Meiners

A year in pictures

Mom challenged me to take a picture a day this year. I started doing it, and the next to pictures are from Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. I'll have to send today's picture from my cell phone. We had a marshmallow fight for FHE. The kids got marshmallow blowguns in their stockings. They love to take them apart and make new configurations out of them. LOTS of fun! During FHE Sariah decided to pack her's as full as she could. She was going for the buckshot effect.
(Monday January10th)

Sariah is reading! This is a major accomplishment for us. MAJOR. She learns in a very different manner than I do, and it has been really hard for us to find a way for her to understand reading. There have been a lot of tears and frustration on both sides during this process. We took a break since just before we moved from our reading lessons and I changed some things when we got here. It has made all the difference for both of us. She realized Monday morning that she is able to read on her own! Hooray! She hasn't stopped reading since. I love to see the excitement in my children when the accomplish something new, especially things they really thought they couldn't manage.

(Tuesday January 11th)

I love how Simeon squints his eyes shut whenever I take his picture. It's his "cheese" face. This boy was in serious need of a haircut! Shaggy hair all the way down into his collar on Sunday. Ewww!!!
(Sunday January 9th)

Now that is one clean cut handsome boy!

Christmas Pajamas

Well, it's definitely been an eventful holiday season for us, even though we just stayed in the house, it was wonderful! I couldn't have asked for anything better to do while getting our car fixed. As soon as we got to Fairbanks, our vehicle wouldn't start. Travis worked, mechanict (what is the spelling for that???), and worked some more, but couldn't figure it out. So we tried to find a mechanic, none to be found during the Christmas holiday. Travis phoned a friend and Rob took our car to his shop. Wow, So glad he knew someone who was a mechanic, in Fairbanks!! So they found out what part we needed and ordered it. The company sent the wrong part! We waited for the new part. Still didn't start, we needed another part. A local junkyard had it, success!! All this fun stuff happened while we waited, and boy was it worth it!! :)

Cute Nay,nay and John john taking a bath in the sink again.
Sweet Lizzie & Simeon.

This would have been an adorable picture, but Jacob had to pull this face! :)

I got Naomi the cutest little bathing suit EVER! I had a really hard time deciding whether to get it or not because it's a tankini. But it's gonna be just fine!

This will be perfect for when we go to the indoor pool this winter.

Tracker & Simi were one of the sets of twins. We couldn't get enough of how different they're bodies are! Little Simi has thunder-thighs, which makes Tracker look like a bean pole.

There they are, the cuties! They were the hardest to deal with because they could out-whine 100 hungry dogs. They tag teamed us in the kitchen, every day. They were sent to their rooms A LOT.

The older kids enjoying the comic pages in the newspaper. These kids played nice most everyday! One day they played leggos at the table for at least 6 hours straight, with a lunch break in between.

Here's the huge pile of food I've been talking about. This has a dent in it though. The piles Trayton is standing on were as tall as the piles behind them. Plus there were boxes sitting in the kitchen of dried apples, carrots, & onions. We've just got the wheat and white beans left to seal in mylar bags. That's mostly wheat stacked there.

And finally, the kids in their pajamas. This is for you Mom! They look pretty cute, huh? I made Tracker & Naomi wear theirs stinky because they already got them dirty, but I wanted to get the pictures done.

Trayton inspired his brothers to take a silly picture. My boys. :)

Christmas with the Kellers

Having the Kellers here for Christmas was fun. They were supposed to stay for five days, but the van died and they ended up staying for two and a half weeks. The cousins had lots of fun, and the adults all stayed up late every night talking after the little people were in bed. We got to have date night with Nettie and Travis, which was fun. We make chimichungas on Friday nights and watch a movie usually. Jacob and I decided though that next time we all get together we are making most of the food ahead of time and freezing it. We spent a whole lot of time in the kitchen cooking and cleaning! We can't wait to see them again. Nettie left her Christmas present here (a BB gun from Travis), so now we have to go deliver it to her. :) Hope you guys all had a wonderful Holiday with your families. I have tons of pictures, so I'll be posting a lot this week.

Simeon helping to zip up the Kellers suitcase before they put it in the van. Jacob calls Simi the superman baby. He has that wavy blond hair and he's built like a truck.

The kids got to sit and have a picture taken with Santa at his house in North Pole. Very fun. There was a big nativity set there that Mom would have liked.

Aunt Nettie and Rebekah in Santa's sleigh. It was neat to see all the ice sculptures they had at Santa's house. They had a ton there, but we were to late that day to see them, and when we got around to taking all the kids it was closed for the year already. We will have to go next year. There were slides and different things for the kids to play on.

YFM's Rebekah Apron

I'm wearing my Apron that Rebekah made me. I love aprons and this one is an original created and hand embroidered by little seven year old Rebekah. WOW is she good!