Happy Birthday Jaron

Jaron turned Seven this year. And he really got into his birthday I had never seen him this excited for his birthday as he was this year. I was still in bed and he came into me and said "Mom is there something that you want to sing to me." I thought that was cute. And through out the rest of the day he kept asking me to sing to him. We planned to have cake and ice cream over at Grandma Kenner's but out of nowhere 3 inches of snow fell in the area making impossible to go anywhere, so we did a fly by the seat of pants party at Ma2's. This year for Jaron's birthday he wanted a Transformer party. I had high hopes for the cake but by the end they were not there anymore. So the cake doesn't look that good but it tasted good.

Jaron loves Brian Reegan (he is a comedian) and in one of his acts he talks about going to a birthday party when he was younger and playing pin the tail on the donkey and musical chairs and that is what games Jaron wanted to play at his party.

Karlee pinning the tail on the donkey

My brother John pinning the tail on the donkey (he was a little off)

Jaron, Kelsie, Karlee and Kallie playing musical chairs

(They were not to thrilled when they found out that there was not enough chairs for everybody)

We also played a game of BINGO

All the girls really wanted to help Jaron open his gifts

Ready to blow out his candles. He was told to make a wish and not tell anybody or it would not come true. But he told us his wish- that transformers would come alive and really be on the earth. Happy Birthday Jaron, love you buddy!

Christmas Day

Christmas morning at my parents. Kallie and Jaron woke up early to check out the tree and then were so excited and couldn't wait for everyone to get up. They had to run and wake up Kelsie to get her to the tree. Here they all are in their matching pajama pants Christmas morning.

Karlee opening her first gift with Kyle's help.

Jaron with his gift that was talking to him. "Hi I am Bumblebee!"

Karlee got the hang of it and was ready to open any gifts she could get her hands on. I had problems with her before Christmas in keeping my gifts wrap, every time I turned around she had them unwrapped.

Karlee with her new snuggie, I think Santa made it a bit big.

Kelsie in her new snuggie, is praying for world peace?

Kallie modeling her snuggie they were all big hits with the kids.

Jaron and Kelsie having a tea party with a transformer, good use of Christmas toys.

We then headed over to Kyle's mom house and had Christmas with them. Karlee is enjoying a sucker that was in the kids stocking, she went into all the kids stockings and started all their suckers for them. Such a helper.

Kelsie enjoying Karlee's new toy

Grandma Kenner

Kallie enjoying Kelsie new light bright book in her snuggie

Jaron made out on Transformers this Christmas- Santa heard his wish.

Hope that you had a Merry Christmas we sure did and are grateful we were able to spend it with family, but sad for those that were not able to be with us, thought of them often.

Christmas Eve at G3's

This year for Christmas Eve it was a lot of fun because all of my cousins (my dads brothers kids) and their kids were able to be at my grandma house (we call her G3-Great Grandma Guptill). We did our Christmas Eve traditions Nativity by the great grand kids, gingerbread houses, white elephant gift exchange and a special visitor....

Here Karlee is with Santa as you can see she is not to sure of him. But as you see in the next picture once he gives her candy she is fine to be on his lap.

Kelsie with Santa

Jaron thinking about what he wanted to tell Santa he wanted for Christmas

Kallie with Santa

"I do believe in Santa"

This is the Nativity with all the great grand kids, it went so well. The kids were all quiet and sat listen as John read the story from the scriptures. The only one that would not sit was the wandering cow. It went a lot better then last year when the Shepard and Mary fought over baby Jesus. Click here to see last years. Below is a list of the cast from the above picture.

Here are our gingerbread construction workers working on their houses.

Kelsie and Lauren

Kallie and Serena

Jaron and Randall

Jaron was never really finished with his house, he was still wanting to more candy on his house into the night. He really got into it this year.

The whole night was so much fun.

I love spending time with family.

Christmas Tree Hunt

We went up to Portland for Christmas to spend it with family. My parents waited until we all got into town to get their tree. We went out to our usual tree farm to find our tree. Except something weird had happen to the trees. They had their middles eaten out of them. (Actually the tree farmer had taken the top branches out to use for wreaths). The tree farmer had so many tall trees, that you took a stick to measure how tall you wanted your tree and then you cut at that point. You were almost standing up right to cut you tree. Something I have never done before.

Weird sad looking trees, on the farm

The tree hunters (Pa2 is taking the picture) with the tree that we have chosen, and yes we joined hands and circle the tree singing to it. If you want to hear the song you can go to my facebook page and find it in video section.

Kallie and Jaron taking a turn at chopping down the tree. I asked dad where the newspaper was for when cutting down the tree. He said we won't need it. And as you can see you don't have to get on the ground to cut the tree down.

We went home and decorated the tree. Kelsie and Kallie got the privilege of putting the star on this year, they were so excited.

The Ugly Christmas Sweater Party

Last night Kyle and I went on a date to an Ugly Christmas Party, it was so much fun. First I had to hunt down an ugly Christmas sweater - I took a trip to my local Goodwill and search them over. I think that there were a couple of ugly sweater parties going on because there was not much to choose from. But I found this nice teal green sweater with gold buttons and shoulder pads. I wanted make it into a real Christmas sweater not just a green sweater. I found this awesome plastic yarn Santa for 47 cents (if you can believe that), I hand sewed the Santa on to the back of the sweater and it looked like a gem, ugly enough for the party. Another bonus to the sweater was when I bought it, the label said that it was a medium so I thought it would fit me. I didn't try it on at the store I waited to I waited until I washed it. Yeah when I put it on it was a little small but it just added to the prize of a sweater that it turned out to be. And I won for Ugliest Christmas Sweater.

At the party we played four square volleyball and floor hockey, by the end of the night everyone had taken off their sweaters. We also did a white elephant gift exchange and there was some interesting gifts that turned up. It was such a fun night.

Here is a group shot of most of the people in their sweaters that came.

Check out my sweater, if you want see an up close view of my sweater click here.

It was such a fun night!

Winter Fest

Kelsie has been looking forward to this day for the longest time (about a week). It was the winter fest at her Preschool, and she was going to be able to have her picture taken with Frosty the Snowman and have lunch with her parents at her school. When it was finally her turn to sit with Frosty and have her picture taken she acted a little scared. I think because the boy before her did. And so I was not able to get a picture with my phone. And the one they took was kind of dark. But she was excited to meet Frosty.

Here she is enjoying her ham dinner.

Karlee also enjoyed her ham dinner, she thought she was hot stuff to get her own tray of food and milk. We kept pushing her sleeves up to keep them out of her food, by the end she was trying to push them up by herself they just wouldn't stay up.

We had a lot of fun with Kelsie at her Winter Fest!

Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas Concerts

Kallie and Jaron both had their Christmas Concerts for the year. But they were not at the time. Kallie had hers last Tuesday at night. She did a great job, she played her recorder for some of the songs (and she loves to play her recorder.) Here she is with her Teacher.

And with some of her class mates and their recorders

Jaron's Concert was Yesterday right before school got out. He also did a great job. Here he is walking in with his class. He was so excited to see us sitting right up to the front.
I know this picture is not a very good one, but I love how he is waving at us from the stage. He did a great job in singing all the songs. Sorry about the kids eyes they all look weird.

Merry Christmas!