Christmas!

Well, we had a very nice Christmas this year. The kids got Legos from Santa and Nerf dart guns and a chess set from Mom and Dad. My Grandma and my mom and dad gave us money for Christmas (like they do every year) and we put it together and got the family an Xbox for Christmas! Kurtis was so excited! It made his Christmas. Santa got him a game to go with it. He got me some new cds that I've been wanting forever! He got me the new Fall Out Boy cd and my obsession with them has been renewed. It feels so good. I love them. The cd came with a free membership to their fan club for a year, so now I am an official member of the Overcast Kids (for a year)! Ha ha ha! Christmas Eve was spent with my family. I got to meet the girl of Rodney's dreams. She seems rather nice, but she looks like she's 16! I have no idea how old she really is, but she looks so young. Maybe I am just old. (What-ever! 29 is not old!) We watched Hot Rod. It's hilarious! Watch it! After that, I had my dad open his gift from our family (we draw names). He got a chocolate fountain! He's been wanting that for ever, and I've been wanting to get it for him since I found out he wanted it. Finally, we drew his name for Christmas (after emailing my mom and telling her that if we didn't get Dad for Christmas this year, we would cry rivers of tears)! Then every one watched Big Fish (another excellent film that if you have not watched, you should), I put the finishing touches on my Christmas sweater for the Ugly Christmas Sweater Contest we had with Kurtis' family Christmas day. We went over to Kristie's house on Christmas afternoon and had a delicious turkey lunch. Then we went to the neighbors dressed in our sweaters and had them vote. Ryan D.'s outfit got the most votes. It was quite tight (and not the good tight). But then we came home and Ryan D. said that I won! Because I put the most effort into mine. Yep! I'm the best. After sewing 36 bells on the bottom of my sweater by hand, I'd better have won! Enjoy the picture of me with no make up on Christmas morning! I'm shiny! :) Also, the pictures of us in our ugly sweaters! What fun! I need to get a picture of everyone, so when I get that, I will post it. Hmmm. Maybe they won't give me one because I said I will put it on my blog. Ha ha ha! We all looked awesome!


Chocolate Fountain!!!! Seriously, who doesn't want one of those?


The boys opening their pajamas on Christmas Eve!







Kurtis and Me in our Christmas sweaters! His is pretty ugly, too!


The back is just as awesome as the front!!!


The trophey! I win! I win! I'm the winner!


Ryan D. in his tight red pants, he looked so hot! And Kristie in her green velvet overalls and excellent bows in her hair!

Worst Photo Shoot Ever...

So, I had my brother take some new head shots of me on the 21st of December. Yes, he is a photographer, no didn't just call him because he'll do it for free - even though he does. Any way, I've been looking at all of the pictures and they all suck. We didn't really have a lot of time to do them, so we didn't take many, but still. I'm a better actress than that. So here they are in all they're splendor. I heard a photographer who shoots the head shots of the stars say that actors and actresses who light up the screen go in to get head shots and they don't know what to do for the camera. It's so true!









Just for fun and because I know you are dying to know, we picked the seventh picture. But my personal favorite, is the tenth picture. Kurtis really likes that one, to! Oo la la! :)

He's Just Your Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman!

Well, Sunday, December 14th was Kaleb's fourth birthday! We went to church and taught him in our sunbeams class (the three and four-year-olds are just called that). Then we had Aunt Emily and her boyfriend Ben K. (We call him Benk because our brother's name is also Ben) over for decorating the Christmas tree (yes, it's real!) and dinner. Then it was party time!
Kaleb is in love with Spiderman. Saturday, we went to Build-a-Bear (in a blizzard, I may add. The roads were scary.), and he got to pick out his choice of a bear or a puppy. He picked the puppy. We stuffed him, made four wishes on his four hearts, washed him and combed him, and dressed him in a Spiderman outfit. He turned out so cute, and Kaleb was so excited. His older brothers want to build their own bears now. Any way, Kaleb had a Spiderman party. We got a balloon that talked with Spiderman on it and Spiderman party favors and napkins. The balloon said something like, "I'm your friendly neighboorhood spiderman! My spidey senses are tingling, but it doesn't take spidey senses to know that an awesome kid is having a birthday! Have a happy, blah, blah, blah, webslinging day!" Kaleb thought it was so cool. But I'm kind of tired of him asking me to hit the button to make it talk.
He had an awesome ice cream cake decorated with who else? Spiderman! Obsession. But we had fun. Here are some pictures of the big day!

Here's the cake and the balloons! Pretty cool.


Blowing out the candles! He got them all all by himself!

Here's the puppy! He named him Spiderman (of course!) Thanks Grandma Nancy and Grandpa Roger!

A Diego colorwonder set from Aunt Kristie! Sweet!

And a blow-up Spiderman punching bag! Yay! But it makes Neji bark like someone is killing someone when we play with it! Ha ha ha! You're the best, Kristie!

Oh, sweet! My own basketball hoop! Thanks, Grandma Bonnie!

An awesome Lego Darth Vader pen from my brothers!

My first bucket of legos! Thanks Mom and Dad!

Oh, here's a funny story. Uncle Ryan D. (pictured) kept giving Kaleb these crackers. He'd give them to him and Kaleb would get all excited. Then when Kaleb wasn't looking, Ryan would take them away and give them back to him. He did this three times and every time, Kaleb was way excited to get them! It was hillarious!

Left to Right: Benk, Ben, Emily, and Jeremy (my siblings and Emily's boyfriend)

Grandma Nancy, Grandma Bonnie, and Rodney (my brother), oh, and the guy with his head poking out behind my mom (Grandma Nancy) is my brother Ryan.

Grandpa Roger (my dad) hates getting his picture taken, so he hams them up!
The gorgeous Aunt Kristie! She's Kurtis's sister

The cousins and brothers of Kaleb's Except, Where's Taylor - his favorite! I didn't get a single picture of her! How odd.

I have five brothers and two sisters. The only ones who couldn't make it that night were Michele and Michael. Bummer. But Michele has a good excuse. She lives in another state! That's my fun family! Hope you liked it!

Book Tag

Rules:

* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence along with these instructions.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, use the CLOSEST

Here's mine!
"She stared."

From Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wyne Jones

Tag! You're it!

The Things We Do

Okay, so I was bored with my hair, so I decided to dye it dark brown. But no, why stop there when you can do so many exciting things these days. So yesterday, my sister-in-law (who is a licensed hair-stylist) did this:



Yep. Red. "So Red" to be exact! I love it! It's so totally me.

Later that night, our town had a little Christmas shindig. We went to the town's Christmas tree lighting ceremony and electric parade. It was so tiny. But the kids had fun. Here's some pictures I took. They aren't very good because it was night and in order to see the lights, you had to turn the flash off, so sorry they suck.


Yep, that's the tree! The pine tree in the background behind the jr. high choir.


Businesses decorated trucks and trailers with lights and drove down main street. They were pretty cool. The whole parade lasted about fifteen or twenty minutes.


The Volkswagens were my favorite. They were just so fun.


Happy Christmas, Santa! Santa's on the back, but this is the only "good" shot of him I got. The other one was just way too blurry. The girls in front of him are the town's royalty. Gotta love those beauty queens!

So, I've decided I live in a cheesy, small town. But it's all in the name of fun and keeping the kids off drugs. (See, I'm very funny.) The kids had fun, though. They got the last of the free hot chocolate. It wasn't very cold, though. Our weather has been quite mild. We'll see how long that lasts. After the parade, we went to dinner at a chain burger joint (cough, burger king, cough). I didn't say it out loud. I ordered the breaded chicken burger which probably has like 10,000 calories in it. But since I don't normally eat things like that any more (I usually get the salad or the jr. burger), I got sick. I wanted to puke, but Kurtis told me I shouldn't make myself throw up. Oh, well. I felt better this morning, so I guess it wasn't really necessary after all. I guess I will just have to keep up my work out routine (which was kind of shot down last week). Darn vacation. The kids go back to school tomorrow! Yay!