Spectacular

I have never been a fan of New York City. I have only gone twice before in my life. The first time I had a stroller and two little kids to corral. We saw the statute and rode the bus and saw all the other sights. It was a nice trip, but stressful herding the children in the right direction and not really knowing the city. The second time I went was about 8 years after the first. I went with my sister....and our two babies. We had a good time, saw the statue and rode the bus and saw the other sights. The kids were really good. This time we were able to get off and walk through Times Square. It was fun to be on the streets and see the people and the lights from that level. It was a nice trip, but a little stressful with the babies and not really knowing what to do. This last week I went to NYC for the third time. We went without babies. This time, I loved New York.

I felt the vibe and was excited to be there. We got to stop by at little boutiques. We went to a great hole in the wall Chinese food place, went in Sax 5th Avenue and touched the expensive clothes, we visited the American Doll shop, had the best cookie ever, saw Rockefeller square and all the lights and to top it all off went to the Radio City Rockettes Christmas Spectacular.

We had a GREAT time. The Spectacular was exactly that - fireworks, flying people, confetti, 3-D, dancing, singing, video affects. We were really impressed. And walking the streets without children, having the freedom to go into any store we wanted, that was bliss. Now I can say I LOVE New York and can't wait to go back - but grown ups only please.

Getting the Christmas Tree

Every year we can, we like to go and cut our Christmas tree down. It is a favorite family tradition coupled with the purchase of doughnuts and chocolate milk for the trip to the farm. Last year we found a tree place about an hour away. We enjoyed it so much we decided to go back to the same place. This year we discovered that Cabella's is just 15 minutes away. Jim was very excited. Because we spent so much time looking at all the animal displays in the store, we didn't make it to the tree farm until the sun was going down, so some of our pictures had to be taken around the sun's shinning rays so as to avoid too many shadows.

We found the perfect tree. She was tall just like everyone wanted.
The kids were very excited.

Jim and I were very excited.

Lilly was not very excited.

Luckily I have the magic touch.

Nic used his manly muscles to cut the tree down.

Dad finished it off while all the girls caught it as it fell. A favorite part of the whole experience.

Here the tree is all wrapped up and standing in our house. It even touched the ceiling to every one's delight.

The Bear angel was placed at the top by Jim and Lilly.

She cared very little about the experience.

Thanksgiving

I don't have any pictures of Thanksgiving. You think I would with how many pictures I end up taking of food. I guess I was too busy having fun. Which is good because all my family was together in Idaho and if I thought about it too much I would become jealous. Luckily Jim had some days off and we (the family) spent a lot of our time shopping and house fixing and watching all the movies we meant to watch but haven't. We also had some dear friends over for Thanksgiving dinner. Jim boiled our turkey in peanut oil and our friends introduced us to a new food....Frog Eyed Salad. Good times and good food!

I Could Enjoy Being a Football Mom

This is the first year Nic decided to play football. He didn't play a lot in the games, but he still LOVED being on the team. He is number 15. As I watched some of these games on the non-freezing days I found it was pretty fun. The freezing days I felt a little different. But maybe next year when I have lost those 20 extra pounds I can sip a hot cup of Milky Way Hot Chocolate while I watch.

I thought he looked pretty cool in his uniform. Look at that boy

strutting back to the locker room.

One of my favorite parts of this particular game was one of the fans

in the bleachers..... That is one cute girl!

Halloween Cuisine - My Dream Come True

Ever since Halloween was and I have liked to cook, I have wanted to create a Halloween themed meal. This year my teenagers and their friends arranged to have a few people over to trick or treat. I was so excited, I told them they could all come for dinner too. My main course consisted of Bloody Eyeballs and Worms. In the corner there you can see there were also some Bat Wings.

We also had White Maggots, Green Monster Brain Dip and Brown Swamp Dip.

There is Valerie, she was eating the Bat Wings. JUST KIDDING.

Bella the Princess stuck with the simpler looking Green Eyeballs and Orange Knobby Fingers.

There is the bowl of Dried Out Scabs we used for the dips.

Kiley and Rebekah we trying out the Yellow Witches Brew.

These were the Graveyard Cookies and Super Sweet Monster Eyeballs.

Here is everybody having dinner. They were all such GREAT kids. It made the evening so enjoyable. Everyone went trick or treating later and really brought home the loot. The younger crowd took umbrellas. The older crowd got soaking wet. But everyone had a lot of fun!

Lilly liked scattering Maggots everywhere. But what she REALLY liked was finding out about.......

LOLLIPOPS!

She learned how to dig through everyone's candy and pick out those on a stick.

Pumpkin Carving!

We meant to go to the pumpkin patch and have "The Experience." Every weekend in October, however, seemed to rain - downpour rain. And during the week our lives were full of football, volleyball, soccer, piano, violin, church activities and late night Philly's baseball. Thursday night I sent Jim on a pumpkin run to find some pumpkins. They got these at the third grocery store they went to. Nic and Kiley were excited about having white pumpkins. Bella wanted to decorate her pumpkin with freckles and took the knife and stabbed it about 50 times on the face. Arielle loved the guts. Valerie was in bed an hour before this.....she has had too much early morning seminary and late night baseball watching with her dad.

Halloween School Parade

Here is the cute Butterfly that came to watch the parade. Here is the Zombie Fairy with her living friends.

This is the wild and crazy Ninja Warrior!

And here is Anne of Green Gables in her puffed sleeves.