Merry Christmas to all...

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. We flew to Sacramento, where Russ's sister Lisa lives. We spent time with her and her famiy, his mom, and his grandma and grandpa. We had a fun time and the kids had a blast..

The girls with Joyann checking out the light snow outside...

Chad with John and Lisa (eating some clam stew --yuck! He loved it!

Was lucky enough to catch Chad with his elf hat on!!

Joyann baked cookies with the girls. Madison was so excited to wear the cool apron.

Taylor, the mini Martha Stewart

From our family to yours ---- We wish you all a very Merry Christmas! We are thankful for the love of family and friends, and are so lucky to have so many wonderful people in our lives..

Early Christmas...

Since we were scheduled to fly to Sacramento for Christmas this year, we had our Christmas at home a few days early. I was really sad Rocky couldn't fly home this year. This was the first year I've not spent Christmas with him. :( We missed him so much. The kids were excited that Santa came a bit early to our house this year, and that they would be having two Christmas celebrations! I was able to snap just a few 'sleepy eyed' shots of them with their favorite gifts.



Chad with his wireless headset for his computer games and ipod. He was a happy camper as long as he got those and I-Pod and Best Buy gift cards.

















Taylor with her new I-pod and the camera she's been wanting























Maddie with her Biscuit (a lifesized mechanical puppy that obeys commands) and a DS game












Madison already had this keyboard, but I had to snap this shot of her because I thought it was adorable. I walked in the room to see that she had changed into an old Halloween costume, a leopard tight fitted leotard, with her leopard print mittens, and some earphones on, playing the keyboard. She made us laugh so hard when we saw this sight.

Interesting huh?

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph

Rocky...

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Free genealogy - Family reunion

Wilkes Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph

Wilkes Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Family photos - Free family tree charts

Visiting Santa...

Last Wednesday, I took the girls to my RE/MAX charity event that we've held the past few years at our office. They were so excited to see Santa because they know that we get the 'real' Santa each year at this event. The girls know we're extremely lucky to be able to book him for our party, because he's so busy, and usually Santa's helpers are the ones in the malls, due to Santa's hectic schedule. So they love it...

I wasn't successful pursuading Chad to come with us this year. NO chance of him sitting on Santa's lap. But I do have a picture of something almost as good as getting my son to sit on Santa's lap -----------

Butch & Gary (my bosses --- the owners of RE/MAX Associates) sitting on Santa's lap. It's a good blackmail picture, don't ya think?

Gingerbread house...

Today, the girls were still not feeling well, so we stayed inside again all day, and the girls stayed in their PJ's all day. They were a little bored of being inside for two days, so we decided to make a gingerbread house. This is kinda how it went....

The cute girls before they started their project...

Have to eat a bit of the candy before starting the project..

Working hard...

Have to eat a bit more of the candy...

Working hard again...

Taking a break to eat some more...

All 3 with candy in their mouths...

The finished project...

Let it snow...

This is what we woke up to today. Finally, it's winter. Now, I'm not saying I love the winters here... But the kids definitely want a White Christmas, so I guess it's ok. Me, being from sunny Arizona, would much rather see the sun and feel the warmth on my skin. Madison and Taylor were sick today, so it was a 'PJ day, staying indoors watching movies all day' anyways, so in that case we loved it. It snowed all day long.

Ugly Christmas sweaters....

Wednesday all of us at the office wore UGLY Christmas sweaters to work. We had alot of snowflakes, penguins, snowmen, eagles, Christmas trees, and stockings on our sweaters. Beautiful huh? I know you want one.. haha!

Flashback Friday...

My Angel Baby!!!

I am flashing back to July of 2002. This is my beautiful daughter, Taylor, and she was just 3 years old. I have to brag a bit about Taylor today. For no reason other than I love her so much... She is one of the sweetest, most caring, giving, sensitive, loving, cutest, snuggliest, funniest, smartest, most beautiful, witty, bossy, responsible 9 year olds I know.

I love her to pieces, and I am so priviledged to be her mom.

Tay Tay, I love you more than you'll ever know!

PMI Christmas Party...

Last night was the annual PMI Christmas Party at the Grand America. It was also the Alta dance. Since we normally use Chad to babysit when we have functions like this, and he was going to the dance and activities all day, we had to use a babysitter. We've only had to use babysitters a few times in the girls' lives, since we've always had Rocky or Chad to babysit, but this was a very long week trying to find one. I literally called about 15 girls, before Nikki happened to find one for me at the last minute. Thank you Nikki! You were a lifesaver...



Gina Mitchell, Stephanie Dalby, Jenn Games, me and Nikki













Jenn Games, me & Nikki

The answer...

A few nights ago Chad asked a girl to the Alta dance that's this Saturday night. Our doorbell rang this evening, and this is what we found out front all over Chad's car...

Thanksgiving....

I have many things I am thankful for in my life, but most importantly I am thankful for family and friends and any opportunity I have to spend time with them. This Thanksgiving we had the opportunity to spend time with my sister and her family. This is the first year in a while that they haven't had to travel for my nephew's football games out of town, so they invited us to their vacation home in Victor, Idaho. It was Lori, Len, and their 3 kids... Len's brother, Rich, and Nikkie and their 3 kids... Us, and 3 of our kids... and Len & Rich's mom, Judy. So we had 16 of us in this house. We had a blast and all the kids did really well together. It was nice & relaxing just to get away and enjoy the country life and good company.
Besides the fact that a few kids got sick (it never fails in our family, someone is always sick over the Thanksgiving weekend), we all had a blast. Us adults went out on the last night to a restaurant we found in town called "Cafe Luna". If anyone happens to ever be in Victor, Idaho, I highly recommend that place, it is some of the best food you'll ever eat.
Here are a few pictures I took. We were actually having so much fun, we forgot to pull our cameras out alot. And you'll notice there aren't any pictures of any of the 5 boys that were there. Yea, well that's because they were either on the 4 wheelers and no where to be found, or in the basement playing Guitar Hero, or WII, or X-Box for hours on end.




The house...

The range...

Len, the turkey chef....

The fantastic company....

Madison the cowgirl rockstar

The Drama Queens

The fun slumber parties..