FHE Caroling with the Bishopric

Monday night we went caroling with the Bishopric to several families in our ward. After, we went back to the Hopkins' house for hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls.

After goodies, Dave read the Cajun "Night Before Christmas" with accent and all.

Couldn't resist taking a picture of Calissa and Dave! So cute!!

Thanks Hopkins family for inviting us to come along and hosting everyone at your house!

Christmas Photo Shoot

Last Sunday after church I thought I'd attempt to get a nice picture for our Christmas card. I decided to try out some different settings on my camera, but most of them turned out blurry. Here were the efforts ...Missing a kid.

Funny kids!

This one is not bad.

I don't think I ended up using any of them ... but I have some fun pictures of the craziness!

Ward Christmas Party

Our Ward Christmas Party was on Saturday night. All three of the kids ended up participating in it. Parker played Silent Night on the piano while two girls played the violin. He did great and made no mistakes! Then, Conner participated in a class reading and discussion of the Christmas story from Luke. Then, after dinner Calissa and some friends sang "Here Comes Santa Claus."(She's in the black dress.)

Brother Dickman was doing a great job on the guitar!

Santa made it!

Calissa kept trying to figure out who Santa was.

She figured it out on Sunday morning ...

Gingerbread Madness

Friday I was able to go to Calissa's class to help them decorate Gingerbread Houses. OK ... they were really graham cracker houses, but you get the idea. There were 30 3rd graders and they did a great job and had a lot of fun! After passing out all of the candy and frosting all I had to do was open candy canes. Pretty easy!Here is Calissa just getting started.

She was so proud of her Christmas tree (on the right-hand side).

Calissa you are supposed to be creating ... not eating!

She eventually finished it! I kept having to remind her that she had more sides to decorate, but she had a great time and I was happy that I was able to be in there to help out! She ate it as soon as she got home!

14!

I love this kid and can't believe he is 14!Here he is with the traditional home-made cinnamon rolls on Wednesday morning.

He's saying, "Hurry and take the picture so I can eat!"

Celebrating at Elephant Bar for dinner. Dad almost got to stay the whole time.
I love this picture of him ... he looks so happy and grown-up!


He got a set of golf clubs for his birthday (way back in August). We gave him a gift card for the local golf course on his birthday which was a surprise because we told him he wasn't getting anything else. He's having a friend party on this coming Wednesday and they are going to see Harry Potter 7 and having some frozen yogurt.


Parker is such a mature and wonderful kid. He is a great student, brother, friend and son and a great example to all those around him! Happy Birthday Parker! We love you!

Our Trip

Last Thursday (11/18) right after the kids got home from school we packed up the car and took off for Disneyland! We made it to our hotel in a little under 6 hours and had no traffic at all. We also got to see a beautiful sunset! We stayed at the Paradise Pier Hotel at Disneyland and Calissa decided right away that she wanted her picture taken. We hadn't even checked in yet!
Smile Calissa!

We were on the 10th floor of the hotel and had a fun view of California Adventure. We even had enough beds for all 5 of us. Usually one kid is on the floor, but they had another twin bed that the kids took turns sleeping in. We were there 6 nights, so they each got two turns.

The kids and Travis enjoyed the hot tub one night. It was too cold to be outside in a swimsuit, so I sat on the side and put my feet in. Unfortunately the towel that I was sitting on got wet and I had a nice wet spot on my behind as we walked back to our room! Conner and Calissa are showing off their beards!

Here is the water slide at the pool. Parker said it was boring because it didn't go very fast and the water was cold.

Conner getting off. I think they only went down twice and then headed over to the pool.

Parker

Calissa looks freezing!

Relaxing in the pool. Travis and I sat and read our books and kept warm. The weather was on the cool side, but not too bad for our trip.

I decided that since I had sooooo many pictures that I would break our trip up into a bunch of smaller posts. Happy Reading!

The Matterhorn

Our kids have never really liked scary rides or roller coasters which is weird because Travis and I really love them (well, Travis likes them after he has had a Dramamine)! We've tried several methods in the past of getting the kids on them and they have never really worked. This year, I came up with bright idea of paying the kids ESPN Zone arcade money for the scary rides that they went on. (Smart me ... figured we would go there anyway so thought it would be a way for them to "earn" their arcade money). So it worked ...except for Calissa!

We had gotten her on Space Mountain and she liked that, but this is what she looked like before going on the Matterhorn. She was crying and not happy (people in line probably thought we were mean parents).

Parker getting ready to go!

This plan of mine worked perfect for the boys. Conner and Parker did not complain once about a ride. Conner was nervous to go on several, but not a peep.

Here we are getting ready to go on it for the 2nd time in a row. See Calissa, we promised that you would like it!