OH Christmas Tree!

Hanging lights..... Josiah and Adalie climb the ladder with Daddy while Mommy assists from below. It is the very first thing we do in preparation for all the Christmas fun!!

Josiah, at 6yrs old, already a seasoned roof crawler and light hanger. It was fun to be on the ground looking up and listening to her sweet and cautious instructions to her sister... "now scoot along like this", "come into the valley where it is safe and flat", "come closer and I will warm your hands", "wait here for Daddy" ..... I pray they will always look so carefully after one another!!


Next comes the TREE!!!

2 little elves got to go the the secret tree lot this year to choose that very special tree. An neither would have anything other than a tree that touches the ceiling!!

Even Adie-Bear needed a little extra help from her ladder to reach the high branches. I loved the excitement and newness of each ornament as seen through her eyes.

Josiah has an incredible memory and remembered almost every ornament and their story!

Admittedly, it might be a little on the tall side, ........ but WE LOVE IT!!

Cheer

This is Cougar Country!!

1st Pep Rally!!
NFS' squad of 48 Cheerleaders.

Mrs. Lemmon's 1st grade Cheer Leaders
( Marissa, Josiah, Kaia, Piper, Caitie and McKenna)

Thanksgiving

Following all the festivities at school....

Pilgrims Piper and Josiah enjoying their school Thanksgiving Feast. (Caitie, Josiah, Kaia, Adalie and Piper - 1st grade)

........ vacation time......

began!!

Thanksgiving has traditionally been spent up at the Shaver Lake cabin with the Campbell-Taylor, Stewart, Hurt clan.... and this year would be no different. We love it. We rode motorcycles, gamed, dressed turkeys, ate, threw snowballs, cooked, walked, talked, watched movies and football, ran, crafted, quilted, hot tubbed, read books, built block towers, played charades, took pictures, and so much more!

We love our family!

The Traditional Pose: Every year we take an all family snap shot. When you see how we have changed and grown through the years, it is pretty fun.

The more Artistic Pose.

Super cute Girlies!

We have a great many things to be thankful for......

But we could sum it all up with one sweet note created by none other than our Josiah Ruth!!


Happy Thanksgiving!!

Thank you to all our families for all the fun, good food, crafting and games!!

Last Game

Last game of the season and we all have mixed feelings. It will be really nice to take one commitment off our plates, to free up our Saturdays and look forward to winter, but it really was so much fun!!

My favorite moments were watching Adalie do her throw-in trick.... since most the other kids didn't quite get where to stand on a throw-in or which way it was going to be thrown, you could always count on Adalie it throw it in as hard as she could in the direction of the goal and then rush to the ball taking it down the field herself. Boiled down, the Adalie trick was a throw-in to herself.... and quite effective I might add! And watching Adalie stay with the play, always trying to get her foot on the ball despite being the smallest one out there!

And on the big girls field, I loved watching Josiah full back. One game, there was nothing between a breakaway girl with the ball and the goal except Josiah. And Josiah charged the ball, kicked it away and saved what looked like an inevitable goal. And Josiah is a thinker on the field... and that was fun to watch!

The only time I was really nervous was when our girls were the goalie.... that's a tough job! And as Adalie put it one day, not her favorite because "she would rather run with the ball than get kicked in the head!"

Josiah #9 of the all girls under 8yrs the Swarm on a throw in.

Josiah as goalie stops a shot.

Adalie drives the ball down the field for the under 5yrs Wild Horses.

Run Adie Run!

Adalie and Kaiya celebrate another good game.


I guess we will just have to look forward to next season!!

Last One Standing

Having fish has been in some cases less work than I thought, but definitely more drama!! Amma got Josiah the fish for her 6th birthday. A gift both Josiah and her Grandma were very excited about. The tank started out with 4 fish and give or take a few fish in between, Rainbow (pictured here) is the only fish to outlive them all. Yes, he is one of the originals. He has never been the favorite, perhaps the all black one (Midnight) or the one with orange lips (Lady) or Adalie's all orange ones (Tiny and shortly after Tiny 2) held the favorite title. But Rainbow has been the most faithful and so has endeared himself to us all.

The 1st fish found floating had to be the most dramatic. I wasn't prepared... what do you do when the favorite most beautiful fish ever that Amma had just gotten as a birthday present DIES?? The best solution I could think of was the obvious flush and the promise of a new fish just as pretty! Seemed to work. But then a fish flops out of the tank over night and is found crispy in the sink the next morning. Why oh why would she jump out?? Then another isn't looking so good and so he has to go before contaminating the whole tank. And we seem to be getting better at this.

And then of course there is the all time zinger..... company is due to arrive in hours and I have what you might call a "slight" fetish about smells. And so it is no surprise that the fish tank would need a quick freshening up. (In all honesty it probably wasn't even stinky... I'm just neurotic!) But there was no time for the whole enchilada of a cleaning.... so I did what my Mom did to our fish tank.... stuck it under the bathtub faucet and let it filter. Josiah hears the water and runs in. She informs me that this is not a good idea, it doesn't seem safe! No sooner did I answer that Mommy would never wash her new fish out of the tank when SHRIEK!!! the new fish slipped out of the tank and down the drain!!

And so we are back to faithful Rainbow. I am grateful for Rainbow's hardiness. And everyone now seems to be satisfied with just him!! ahhh...

A Holiday

It's a Holiday so we loaded the bicycles and the picnic baskets and headed to Yosemite with some friends and family too!

Josiah 6yrs, bicycle rider extraordinaire.

Adalie 4yrs, following closely in Sister's tracks!

We took a little exploring detour by the river. Daddy found his "inner balance" with some very impressive rock stacking.

Grandpa working on his masterpiece.

Isn't it just amazingly wonderful how your own Babes just fit so perfectly in your arms!!

We rode all over the valley floor. It is amazing to me how the massive beauty of Yosemite never ceases to awe me. What a great way to spend the day off!! (Grandpa, Daddy and the girls).

Trick or Treat

Pippi Longstocking and a Beautiful Pink & Purple Butterfly!

It was no trick... we had the treat of having Grammy and Papa stay 3 whole days with us!! And boy oh boy was it a busy weekend! We went from school parties to carving pumpkins to soccer games to trick or treating!! That'll keep you on your toes!!

So first the dress up and parties at school.....

Mrs. Lemmon's 1st grade class.

Then the carving begins.....

The carvers.

Papa helped Adalie.

Grandpa helped Josiah.

Yes it is true folks, Adalie's hand is very very very near to the goo of her pumpkin!!

It is the closest she has come yet to getting her hands messy!

Josiah working hard to carver her pumpkin all by herself!!

I love that those precious "firsts" are not quite over!

Then off to soccer games.....

Adalie getting some Daddy encouragement.

Josiah with a great kick.

And finally some Trick Or Treating!

Trick-OR-Treat!!