Christmas Time!

To explain the Slide show posting.....this year Jason and I hosted his family Christmas party. It was a lot of fun. Almost everyone came. We had great food brought by all. A fun time stealing gifts from each other during the White Elephant exchange! The teens and Dad's playing Rock Band. Really could it get any better?!?! Well, it only got worse.....come Sunday almost EVERYONE and I mean everyone got the stomach flu. Oh well, at least we are a close family right!

The Party where Everyone Gets Sick!

Wisemen, Dancing and Teeth!

A lot has happened this month at our house. Let me fill you in on our activities. A couple weeks ago our ward had a Christmas dinner, A Night in Bethlehem. It was such a great time. Austin was asked to be one of the wisemen for the play they were doing. They also asked the ward to dress up as if we lived in those times. It was so fun!

Karlee also had her dance concert. Here she is with the best teacher ever! Karlee has loved dance this year and when you have Sara as a teacher it doesn't get much better than that!

Doing her bow.

Now we all know that Karlee is tall for her age and this picture doesn't help! She is the tallest in her class this year. Though keep in mind she is also the oldest in her class. Most of these girls are only 4 and she is almost 6!

Saturday this past weekend Karlee also lost her first tooth. She showed me how loose it was when we got home from the store and I couldn't believe how loose it was. She had never said anything before that. So we talked her into biting an apple since she wouldn't let me rip it out. After one bite I felt how loose it was and out it came. She was so excited! Too bad she has to wait 2 weeks to have her kindergarten teacher Mrs. Best sing to her about losing a tooth!

C-HOUSE!!

Austin received his trophy's and awards for football last night. He was so excited. The coaches took the kids to Boondocks for the day and then had a dinner with the awards. The coaches and wives did such a great job putting everything together. One mom put together a video of the season for the boys to watch and then gave them each their own copy. Another mom has a nice sewing machine and stitched the boys' names and uniform numbers on a beanie for them. Another mom put together t-shirts that said " We bust ours so we can kick yours! C-House!" They were so generous. Austin had a great first season of football and learned so much. We can't wait for next year to see him play again! We are so proud of you Austin! C-House is what the boy's would chant as they would warm up for practice. It was a lot of work to get Austin to practice 3 times a week and then a game on Saturday's. He had a blast and that's all that matters.

Here are some pictures of Austin receiving his trophy's and all the other stuff they gave to him

New Moon!

Thursday night I went to see the Midnight showing of New Moon with Sarah, Michelle and most of Sarah's sisters and family. It was a lot of fun! Nellie went to Burger King and got these crowns with Bella, Edward and Jacob on them so of course we had to wear them for the photo's!

I had a really good time. I am not planning on seeing another midnight showing ever again though. It was way too late for this old lady! I kept dosing off and I missed more of the movie than I thought! Good thing I went on Friday night at a 7:30 showing and I could stay awake to see what I missed. It was so much better than the first movie. Good action and some good abs! Ha ha ha! Thanks Sarah for the tickets! Can't wait to see Eclipse with ya!

Turkey Trot 5K

We ran the Turkey Trot at the fitness center on Saturday. It was cold and fun all at the same time! I ran with Michelle and Kerri. I didn't even bother to try and keep up with Shannon because she is too fast for me! Michelle took off ahead of me because I couldn't run any further. Thank heavens for Kerri to run/walk with me. We finished the race running and that's all that matters! Austin came back to find me and encourage me to run to the finish line. What a good boy!

Jason came in 3rd place in his age group running it in 23:41 and Austin finished first in his age group running in at 30:08. I'm so proud of my boy's! Way to go!! More pictures to follow when I can borrow Michelle's memory card. I want to show you the boy's getting their awards!

Zoo Day with Ethan

Last week we went to the zoo with Karlee's friend Ethan from her preschool class. We had a lot of fun even though I didn't feel the best. We got to see the new baby elephant. Too cute!

We got to see the baby giraffe as well.

One of the older giraffe's was really close and eating leaves out of Karlee's hand. It was really cool. I've never seen an animal so close up before here at the zoo!

Who couldn't love this face?!?

Gotta love the tigers. Too bad they are never awake when we go to see them. I have yet to see the baby tiger cubs.

A ride on the good ol' train! It was a perfect day to go. The weather was fantastic! We couldn't have timed it more perfectly to go there.

Halloween at the Lingwall's and Trick or Treat time!

Costumes!

Here are the finished costumes. Austin's of course was way easy due to him just wearing his football uniform. We found some sweet tattoos at Walmart that look like real scars and added some black undereye stuff and there he is, a Zombie football star! Karlee's was fun to do! I took a dress my mom had made for me when I was a kid and embellished it with some random fabric. Add a few fake stitches with an eyeliner pencil and some fake eyelashes. I'm pleased with the outcome and Karlee is so excited to be Sally this year.

Witches!

Yesterday Karlee and I went with Grandma and Emma to see the Witches and Gardner Village. It was such a perfect day to go! It was hard getting these 2 to look at the camera!

The girls were excited to watch the geese swim. The other kids there even shared some bread with them and they got to feed the birds, sweet!

Grandma loved this witch!

Emma couldn't figure out how this witch got stuck in a barrel. Too funny!

This is one of my favorite activities to do this time of year! I love it!

(and I don't mean using the potty! LOL)

Halloween Costumes

The posting prior to this one is a picture of the kids from the time Austin was 5 and Karlee was 18 months. It is crazy at how fast time flies and they grow up! Now 9 and 5 we are getting ready for another Halloween. Hopefully the kids' costumes turn out just right. It is so fun to see them excited for trick-or-treating! As you will see Karlee was Alice in Wonderland 2 years in a row. For those of you who may not know....we adopted the kids in 2006 and went to Disneyland to celebrate. Karlee's middle name is Alice and when I saw the costume while we were in Disneyland I had to have it! Needless to say $50 later.....I had to get my money's worth and dress her up that way for 2 years. She absolutely loves that costume and amazingly it still fits! It's too short to wear in public now but for dress up it's just fine here at home! The other kids in costume are cousins on my side of the family. They had so much fun at Gardner Village that year seeing the witches. One of my other favorites during this time of year. We will hopefully be going again this year. I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I do!

Halloween!

I love this picture of Austin gagging while we are carving pumpkins! Classic!Happy Halloween!