The making of minions

Happy Birthday Carson!!! You are a whole hand now! Where on earth did the time go? I know I say that with every new birthday the kids have, but seriously, it seems like yesterday I held this little guy in my arms at the hospital. Now he is 5.

Carson celebrated his birthday in his preschool class the day before his birthday. Here is the cool hat his teacher made him.

Here are the minion cupcakes I made for his class. They were a big hit :)

The next morning was Carson's big day! His official birthday. Feb 7th. We like to say that 7 is Carson's lucky number. He was born at 7:30 pm on 2-7-07 weighing in at 7 lbs.

Carson had to wear his hat while opening his presents from mom and dad.

This year for Carsons birthday party he decided he wanted a Despicable Me party. I loved the idea of using minions through out the party. I decided to make his party a "drive in movie" and had the kids come and sit in cars that I made out of cardboard boxes to watch the movie.

I gave each kid 7 tickets that they were able to cash in and buy treats to eat while they watched the movie.

I made 10 cars. Each had a set of headlights, a steering wheel, and a personalized license plate that I forgot to take a picture of.

Birthday boy eating licorice

Growing up I had a pinata with every birthday party I had. So I decided to make Carson a minion pinata. Morgan drew the overalls for me.

I had a hard time watching all my hard work get beaten to pieces. he he

After the pinata it was time to open presents.
I love the look and Carson and Logan's face when Carson opened up a gift that had a dollar in it. lol

Aunt Kristy and Uncle Ty Ty got Carson some awesome Lego shoes! He had to try them on as soon as he opened them up to let us see how fast they make him run.

Making the minion cake was one of the easiest cakes I have made. I realized the trick to fondant is to buy it pre-made from Hobby Lobby and coloring it my self. I actually enjoyed making this cake.

Time to sing!

Happy 5th Birthday Carson! We love you so much!

It's about time

I have been wanting to organize my pantry for a while. I finally got around to it and boy do I love the outcome!

Before

After

My kids are still getting used to figuring out where everything is. Which I have noticed keeps them from snacking all day!

Once there was a Snowman

So what do you do on a Saturday with freshly fallen snow???
You get all bundled up, get the sleds out....

and you build a snowman of course!

Here he is. Frosty. With a corncob pipe and a carrot nose.

He came!

I'm pretty lucky to even have pictures to post with this blog entry. I accidentally erased all of my pics off of my camera. I was so sad! Luckily, our good friend was able to get them off of my sim card. Whew!

Our Christmas started bright and early this year. Not that we are not up pretty early every year, it's just this year Morgan had to work all day Christmas. Booo! Morgan goes in to work at 4:15 am until 4:30 pm. So he was gone all day! We decided to get the kids up at 4 to open gifts. 4 sounds early, but before a guy at Morgans work let him know he could come in at 6, we were actually going to get up at 3!

The kids didn't mind getting up early at all. I mean Santa had come!

Bailey got a guitar from Santa. And boy did she run to see it.

Logan always has such dramatic facial expressions in all of his pictures. This one captured exactly how excited he was to get...........

Nope, not this bike, but he saw his new bedding. (We got everyone in the family new bedding) The boys got Utah bedding! Logan ran past his new bike just to get to his Ute bedding. True Ute fan. Wonder where he gets that from?

Santa brought Carson a remote control Lightening McQueen.

Avery got a princess scooter.

This box of princess barbies was seriously taller then she was.

Avery took her time opening her gifts so her pile got pretty backed up. The other kids were finished opening all of their gifts, so they went over and helped Avery with hers.

I wanted to get Morgan a Kindle Fire for Christmas but I didn't want him to know about it before Christmas. So I called my sister in law and had her order it under her Amazon account. When Morgan opened his gift I'm not sure if his facial expression was the, I'm going to kill you look, or THANKS!! He was so surprised!

I'm going to say it was the THANKS look.

He he. Another Logan face. He opened his Utah hoodie.

One of the things Bay wanted for Christmas was

Just Dance 3! I have to say that Bay was the hardest to shop for this year. She isn't really

into anything like in years past. Like littlest pet shop or High School Musical, so I had to get creative. She got a lava lamp, a digital diary and a curling iron, crimper and straightener. Man we are moving into the teenage years quickly!

After opening gifts dad was off to work. It was really sad for everyone. It was so weird not having Morgan home to put together toys or eat Christmas breakfast with us. I did make him and his guy friends at work homemade biscuits and gravy. And boy was it delish! I think we may have found a new Christmas breakfast.
After breakfast the kids and I got ready for church. Let's just say it was a long day! Thankfully, church was only an hour, so we were able to squeeze in a nap before grandma came over for Christmas dinner. I made a ham, mashed potatoes, and the fixens. And best of all Morgan was able to be home for dinner. Thank goodness he doesn't have to work any major holidays in 2112!

Christmas Eve

It has been a tradition in our family to spend Christmas Eve with Morgan's mom and siblings. This Christmas eve was a bit different. Since Morgan had to work all day on Christmas (boooooo) Jill decided to have the kids open all their gifts from her and Kristy on Christmas Eve. That way Morgan wouldn't miss out on watching the kids open their gifts. Especially because Bailey got the gift she has been dreaming of from grandma this year. An American girl doll!!
Bailey has wanted one of these dolls for three Christmases. Now she finally got one, and there was no way Morgan could miss out on watching Bay open her dream gift. And here she is. Kanani.

Every time I asked Bay what she wanted from Santa it was an American girl doll. I knew grandma had already purchased Kanani back in October, and so I had to convince Bay that she needed to have a back up just in case Santa didn't bring her one. So her back up was a guitar.

Aunt Kristy and uncle Ty Ty got the kids some fun things too. Avery got some fun princess dress up stuff and a Cinderella jewelry box from Disneyland . Bay got an American girl doll bag and some doll earrings. Carson got a remote control Mater and a Cars water bottle that he just loves. And Logan got a finger trick bike and ramp.

Hurry Kristy I just love it!

When we got home we made our sugar cookies for Santa and poured him a glass of Coke. Santas favorite.

Every Christmas Eve the kids all sleep together upstairs. Here they are all zonked out, each wearing a pair of grandmas tratitional handmade pj's

Christmas music

Carson had his preschool Christmas program. Although he didn't sing very much, he sure knew when to use his props. Here he singing a song about Santa. First one on the left.

When we got inside Carson wanted to "hold" Avery. I love these far in between moments of love :)

After the program the kids got to hit a Christmas pinata. Carson hit that thing as hard as he could.

Logan also had a Christmas program this year. Here he is holding the black hole he got to hold up during one of the musical numbers.

All the first graders.

Here is my studly first grader. I still can't believe how fast everything is going by.

Aunt Sue's

Every year around Christmas we get together with Morgan's side of the family. Aunt Sue throws a Christmas party. We eat, play Christmas bingo, get a laugh out of playing pass the Christmas gift game, and even get a visit from a special guest who brings gifts with him.

The girls. They even match :)

Pa and Aspen

Logan had two wiggly front teeth for weeks. As soon as Santa left, out came a tooth!

I always love to get together with family. Especially around Christmas.