We love Christmas Eve!

Today was so fun. We spent the whole day together as a family. We got up and helped each other get bedrooms clean, and picked up around the house. We made yummy oatmeal cookies, and of course:

Christmas Eve p.j.'s!!! (we made them all wait with their eyes closed)

Then we had hot chocolate in the new cocoa mugs and played UNO. So fun!

Now it's time for scriptures, and a Christmas movie.

Merry Christmas Eve!

So sad.

A young dad in our stake was tragically killed in a car accident on Monday. Stephen Blaylock was 33 years old and leaves behind his wife Laura, a stay at home mom, and five young children. My good friend Kathryn has set up a place to make donations on her website, babycoverz.com. She is also donating 10% of all sales to help out this family. Please visit her website for more information.

Paige is a ZERO!

And I want to be a zero too!

All of her jeans were too short for her, and since she is as tall as me I thought we would try some of the small sizes of women's. And they fit her! I can't believe she is out of the little girls department!!! Still such a cutie though :)

Don't you want to be a zero too?!

He was so good!

I went to Grapevine Mills yesterday to do a little shopping. Miles was such a good boy! Well..... at least he was after he got this:

Hey..... a mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do.

Ward Christmas Dinner

We had a fun little Christmas dinner at church on Friday. The primary kids did a cute little Nativity program. It was very sweet. Paige was Mary. She was a very good, very tall Mary. Livee was a cute little shepherd. Zoe, Carys, and Miles were Bethlehem children (I know. I know. Zoe looks more like Karate Kid. She needed to put her head covering on) and.....

.....Grayson was a body-slammer. =) (Proof that Miles isn't the only bully in the family.)

A peaceful moment....

.....just sittin' on the couch watching movies on the kids ipods.

You know, just a classic All-American evening with the family. =)

Poor little (blonde) thing!

(It's okay, this really isn't as bad as it looks!)

This happened a while ago, but I haven't been a very good blogger lately, so ...

It was time for Livee and Zoe to get home from school. I was listening for them to just come running in the door like normal, but instead I hear the doorbell. This is what I saw.

I was very concerned, and was quickly trying to figure out what happened. I'm thinking "did she crash on her bike? No, she didn't ride her bike to school that day. Did she fall down and hit her head on a rock? Did somebody hit her?"

Me - Zoe, are you OK? What happened?

Zoe - I don't know. I hit my head on a mailbox.

Me - How did you do that? Did you fall?

Zoe - No, I was just walking.

Me - You walked into a mailbox?!

Zoe - "giggle"

Me - Does it hurt really bad?

Zoe - Not really bad. It didn't even hurt until I saw that I was bleeding.

Don't worry too much, this whole conversation was going on while me and Craig were checking her, and we saw that her head just had a pretty good scrape. There was no gash, and no need for stitches. It just looked awful. Oh, and also the picture was taken after we knew she was OK too. Craig wanted a picture so that we would always remember about the day Zoe walked into a mailbox. :) We love this girl, and all of her blonde-ness too!

good stuff about my girls

Paige recently auditioned for a solo part in an upcoming performance. She is now a solo artist. :)

She doesn't know which performance she will do her solo in yet, but we will definitely let our Texas family know when and where.

Also, Zoe joined the Justin Jaguar Hall of Fame today. Kind of like Student of the Month..... only better :)

Livee is bringing home a higher level reading book almost every day. She picked up reading so fast! That's my girl ;)

Wanna see some cute pictures?

Then go here.

While we were in California, the kids were lucky enough to have a photo session with a good friend, Michelle. She just started her own photography business and she is SOOOOO good! She has a preview of some of the pictures she took on her blog. I love them! She was so fun and super patient. Miles had to look at every picture on her camera after she took each one. :)

The kids had tons of fun! It was way more fun and relaxing for me too. Usually when we do pictures we are crammed into a tiny room, and I am stressed out, hoping the kids don't get into anything, or break anything. Not this time, Michelle just patiently followed them around, letting them play and catching their little personalities on camera. The results are so great!

Thank you Michelle!

Everyone meet Phoebe! The newest member of our little family.

Miles is a "coffee table potato"

Miles asked me if he could watch cartoons. I turned them on for him, and then I left the room. When I came back, this is where I found him.

Lovin' those cuffed jeans!

Paige's school had another fifty cent fundraiser: 80's day. A few days before this I was putting all the Halloween stuff away, and I was putting her hippie costume away. She said, "No don't put that away yet. Next week we're having 80's day." I told her that hippies were not from the 80's. She then wanted to know if the poodle skirt from last Halloween was from the 80"s. :)

Interview with Miles (it's working now)

"stuff"

This is a post just to catch up on all the stuff that has been going on at our house. This morning Paige went to school like this:

The middle school had a crazy hair day fundraiser. For fifty cents you got to go to school with the craziest hair you could think of. Cute fundraiser, huh?! I also typed up a report for Paige the other day. It was kind of fun. I remember my mom typing (on an actual typewriter) reports for us when we were in school too. I'm sure that by the time Miles needs a report typed I will be so over it. (ha ha, I'm gonna be over it next time Paige needs one, more likely. :)

Yesterday Zoe got her expander put in. So far there is no pain, but we haven't started turning the key yet. She is a trooper, so hopefully these next few months won't be too hard on her.

Livee is reading so good now. She takes a book everywhere. My car looks like a library since she never remembers to bring the books back in. :)

Miles can say his name clearly now. It is so cute. He says it really slow and clear "Mi-les" I'll try and get a little video of it later today. He is also learning too much too soon from his sisters. Last night in the car he asked me "Mom, where we going" Livee answered him and he said "No, I'm asking my mommy!" Uh-oh...... He also asks every time we are in the car, "We almost there?" I have a feeling our return from CA is going to be very long and very patience-testing. =}

Happy Halloween!

This is the whole trick-0r-treatin' gang. My kids, Sierra, and our good friends/neighbors, the Cancienne's. We also had Grandma Charlotte with us, who was so fun and such a great help! Happy Halloween everybody!

My new family picture :)

(above)

My friend Tricia came over tonight for an Activity Day's meeting. Afterwards we were all checking out each others family blog. She found these cute family stickers that you can make at pyzam.com. It is so fun! Thanks Tricia!

Christmas in October!

Christmas came early at our house! Last night the kids got to open up an early present. Can you tell that they were a little excited?!

Man, these kids grow too fast! All three of the girls had been wearing high waters :)

And....... they also got special gift certificates......
Yep!!! The Carmack kids and the Carmack mom will be in California for Thanksgiving. We are ALL so excited. The girls were jumping up and down and screaming. Miles wanted to get on the airplane and go to Nan's house right now! He threw a fit when it was bedtime. He kept yelling "No, I go Nan's house. I go Nan's house." He doesn't understand all this "just a few more week's" stuff. We can't wait to see all our California peeps!

***sorry about the bad pictures! The camera battery died right when it was time for "Christmas" so, I had to use my cell phone camera. :(

a good pic of my little husky

Last night I was looking at Joy's Myspace and I found this picture she had of Miles. I love how it shows his eye color so good. Actually, I think that Kaidee took this picture when we were in CA this summer. I remember her running around with Joy's camera taking pictures of everybody. =)Good job Kaidee! And thanks Joy!

Online Family Game Night

Me and my mom and Letti had a fun games night last night! Mom killed us the first two games and then I barely won on the last game. It was so much fun! We were chatting the whole time too. One of the things I miss the most is our big fat family game night. If anyone else would like to play just let us know. :)

Crack-up

I know that I sent a lot of you this video but, oh well, here it is again. :) Miles was cracking up when we were watching America's Funniest Home Videos. I love a good hearty baby laugh!

Our Neighborhood FHE.

Last night I hosted FHE for our neighborhood ward families. I thought we all needed to get to know each other better, so we are going to start doing this every couple of months or so. Our activity last night was making "BOO" bags for our neighbors. Each family brought a bag of candy and I provided the bags and the "boo" supplies. The kids had so much fun with this.

Miles and Camryn weren't too interested in the bags when they figured out they didn't get to eat the candy. They would rather read a book.
This is the new recipe I found when I had some sweet potatoes I didn't know what to do with. Yum! Much better than that marshmallow topped Thanksgiving dish! :)
Sweet Potato Bread

1 1/2 c. sugar

1/2 c. veg. oil

2 eggs

1 3/4 c. flour

1 t. baking soda

1/4 t. salt

1/2 t. cinnamon

1/2 t. pumpkin pie spice

1/3 c. water

1 c. cooked and mashed sweet potatoes

Combine sugar and oil; beat well. Add eggs and beat. In separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice. Beat flour mixture into egg mixture alternately with the water. Add sweet potatoes and mix well.

Bake at 350 - in a loaf pan for about 1 hour

- I used a cake pan and baked it for about 30 min.

You can eat it plain or dusted with powdered sugar. I topped mine with homemade cream cheese frosting. (There are veggies in there... that makes it healthy, right?!)

...and a little closet hideaway too.

This is in Livee and Zoe's closet. It is kind of deep. So it made the perfect little area for their dolls. I added a basket of books and a pillow, and they love to go in there and hide out sometimes.

Zoe & Liv's Room

This room is not quite finished yet. Zoe and Livee wanted a beach room, we are working with stuff we already have, so it is going to be more of a beachy cottagey room. It is pretty boring right now. I am planning on making an awning type thing to go over the closet door, kind of like an old-timey changing room that you always see in old beach movies. (that was a really long confusing sentence. sorry. i know what i'm picturing but it's kind of hard to explain :) If anyone has any ideas for the walls, let me know.

Paige's Room

Finally I took a picture of Paigee's finished "headboard"

BNSF Day At The Zoo

On Saturday we spent the day together at the zoo. It was so fun. And Free! We had a catered lunch and a close-up animal show. While they were showing the animals they asked for volunteers. Zoe got picked and she was so excited. (She didn't know that it was going to be a huge frog!) The host told Zoe he was curious about what would happen if she kissed it. Would it turn into a prince? He told Zoe on the count of three he wanted her to kiss it. He counted and then she was totally going to do it! The host stopped her just in the nick of time. :) He was laughing and said that out of all the many shows he has done she was only one of a few who was actually going to do it. Silly girl!

Some more pics:


One of the kids favorite places is the reptile room. They love looking at the picture of the critter and then trying to find it in it's enclosure. Kind of like a scary, creepy Where's Waldo. It was a really good day. The weather was perfect, we were with good family and saw lots of old friends. The kids were entertained and we didn't break the bank. :) Thanks BNSF!!!

Ever seen a puking pumpkin?

This was my centerpiece for my table at pictionary. It didn't quite have the effect I was going for, but it was still pretty funny!

This was a major project!

Before (I forgot to take a picture before I took all the drawers out):

After one coat of paint:
After:
It was all worth it, I really like it now! It actually wasn't that big a deal once I got started. It would've only taken 2 days, but of course I ran out of paint in the middle of it.

***

Here is another one of my recent crafts. This was a Super Saturday craft that I brought home and did. On the back it is painted red and says "Believe" with a few accent stars.

I love these boxes! They are made of a really sturdy plastic and I found them at Home Depot for $6.00. :)

mini pumpkin tarts

I needed to try out a recipe I'm thinking of using for pictionary, so last night the girls and I made these:

They were really, really easy! Next time I make them they will be even easier too. Last night I used refrigerated pie crusts. We just cut out circles using cups, and then baked them in a muffin pan. For pictionary I am going to use the mini fillo dough shells. All I will have to do then is let them defrost on my counter. Here is the recipe:

1 15 oz. can of pumpkin

2 cups cool whip

1 t. pumpkin pie spice

1 box cheesecake pudding mix

3 15 count packs of fillo dough mini shells

Mix together pumpkin, cool whip and spice with a whisk until smooth, add in pudding mix and continue whisking until slightly thickened. Put your mixture into a Ziploc bag, snip off a corner and pipe into shells. Top with a dollop of cool whip and a sprinkling of the pumpkin pie spice, and you're done.

My Halloween Mantle

I love decorating for fall and Halloween! I usually have a big flower picture up in the easel, but I realized it didn't go to good with my "scary stuff", so I painted this jack-o-lantern on an old canvas that I had. I think he turned out pretty cute. Miles calls him Happy. :) I got the spider at Michael's and I love him. He's pose-able and he just sticks onto my big metal scrolly thing. Thanks Tiffany for your skills with the spider web placement!

Miles 2 year check-up + good news

STATS:

weight 28 lbs. (50%)

height 36" (90%)

His Dr. checked him and talked to him for a while and everything is good. He was impressed with his speech and his tighty-whiteys. This was also the first check-up we've been to where Miles did not throw a fit when the nurses or his Dr. touched him. He was so calm the whole time. He did yell when he got his shot, but there were no tears. He's a big kid now!

*****
Good news: Craig was diagnosed with Hepatitis C a few months ago. He has been on medication and weekly shots since then. After 12 weeks they do a blood test to check if the viral levels have gone down. He got his results yesterday: the viral levels are ZERO. It's gone!!!!! He still has to continue the meds for a total of 48 weeks but..... he's cured!!! :)

Thank you family, for all the prayers!

Blogger Slacker!

Yep, that's me! First of all, you know I am having camera issues (still isn't here yet, but Craig did get them to drop the price twice, and free shipping) and I don't like posting without pictures so thank you to Amelia for giving me her old camera to use again. I'll stop calling you an indian-giver now. :) Second of all, our computer died. I guess it was about time though, since we have had it for almost 11 years. We got our money's worth out of that thing! Now we have a new computer so I don't really have an excuse for not blogging except for..... Third of all, I just haven't been in a very blogging kind of mood lately. :( I don't know why, I have so many new things to blog about: Paige's bedroom is mostly finished now, Livee and Zoe's room has some cute new changes, lots of new projects that I've done, Halloween and fall decorations, new garage sale finds etc.... Hopefully I get back in the blogger mood soon, because I really want to show you all of these things. Keep your bloggin' fingers crossed that you will hear from me again soon. :)

BNSF Family Day

My kids love going to Family Day every year. There are so many fun things for kids to do. There are these amazingly detailed miniature train displays. Craig talked to a guy that helped set up the displays and it takes 2 weeks to get it all done! These guys love their trains! We got their right when it opened this year, so the girls wouldn't have to wait in monster lines for all the cool activities. This bungee-trampoline thingy was their favorite. They also had rock climbing walls, train rides, a petting zoo, all you can eat food, sodas, and ice cream. (Wait, I think the bungee thingy might have been their second favorite, after the ice cream!)


Livee and Zoe even got to be crane operators for a day. Don't they look too cute?!