Christmas in Ridgecrest

Jedi's and Thanksgiving

So much for being great at blogging again. We had a great vacation with my parents in Ridgecrest. Complete with a trip to Disneyland and Red Rock. The boys were just as excited
about Red Rock (because you can't climb on anything at Disneyland.) We made some Jedi capes and lightsabers so that Eli could try out all of the new animation skills that he as been learning.

Be looking for a new "Eli" movie where our boys take on a creature of some sort. Note the green paint on the sabers...great for tracking and turning into "real" sabers.

Mom and I worked on our scrapbooks and some calendars that she was doing for the Grandparents. We got to spend a lot of time with Kara. I miss her being here and coming to hang out on the weekends. We helped my mom pick out a Christmas tree and then when my Dad was home we all helped her decorate it. Canaan and Kaya loved all of the ornaments, they were all new and exciting. I kept telling them to leave the tree alone, but my mom said " It's ok I will glue any broken ornaments, this is the most love my tree has seen in years." I posted the Disneyland pictures on Facebook. So, to try and not be repetitive, I will show you other highlights of our trip.


We hadn't celebrated Thanksgiving yet, so better late than never...we hauled the trailer with us to Red Rock. Thanksgiving was real cozy side by side in there. It was really fun. We had to shuffle past each other one by one in order to get into the small kitchen area. When the wind kicked up in the evening, we were so glad that we had the trailer though. We would have been having the meal in the car or packed up and headed home.

What we learned from Coloma in the 1850's...

Once there was an elf and a fairy...

Cori and Brandon's baby Alyssa turned one year old. Elves and fairies were invited to come and celebrate. The kids were pretty excited to dress up...before Halloween. Kaya's I was ready for but the night before, I was cutting up one of Eli's old shirts up for the elf. It turned out really cute. But do you think that there was a chance that they'd want to use these costumes again. Nope! They were pretty sure that they had other ideas in mind. Here are the pictures before the party because I forgot to bring my camera to the party. (It had already been a pretty long day for Kaya since she had attended a fancy tea party birthday that morning) The elf was pretty excited that he got to have a sword. You just never know when that might come in handy.

Nothin' better than cousins!

Hair Begone!

The other day when I picked the kids up from school, they all jumped in the car and Ethan's first words were... "Mom, can you cut my hair?" He was just way too hot. Sweat was dripping down and it was really gross! I wanted to make sure that he had thought it out. He has been growing it out for such a long time and it is almost winter. Kira and I tried to convince him otherwise. I asked him if he was sure several times... In the car, inside the house as I was getting the clippers out of the drawer, as I was plugging them in, as I was wrapping a towel around his neck, and finally as I had my clippers on and ready to cut. He was definately sure. "It is just hair, it can grow back!" he said. I know that...but not for awhile. We took some before and after shots. It is amazing he looked like a different kid! What makes me really sad is now Canaan is talking about wanting a haircut. So far he hasn't asked me at a time when we were able to do it, but I'm afraid that sometime soon I'll be making a similar post about Canaan, because after all...it is just hair!

Big Birthday Bash!

So I thought I would go through the pictures in chronological order. This is the problem I have with scrapbooking too...I can't get my mind to work any other way and then I get behind, so I just do nothing. We'll see what we can do about this.
In September, my Grandad turned 90. My aunt and uncle hosted a birthday party for him at their home. Most everyone who is reading this is probably thinking...uh huh...old news, Kara already talked about this so I won't bore you with the details, but as I already explained this is how my brain works. As we were getting ready to go, I realized that I had not taken any pictures so we took turns having our picture made with Grandad.