Breakfast with Santa

This morning we (along with several other families from our ward) went to Breakfast with Santa that was put on by the parks department here. It all started out good. Aaron and Amber sat and happily sat listening to Mrs. Claus reading a Christmas story about snowmen. It was cute.

After the story, we headed over to the tables for our breakfast. Amber didn't want any and Aaron promptly announced (with a huff) that this was the wrong kind of donuts! He wanted the white (powdered) kind. Eventually about 5 minutes before the whole thing ended, he decided that they were actually quite yummy after all and ate all of his and Amber's donuts!!

Here we are, watching Frosty, Rudolph and the other characters come out. Aaron and Amber were scared to death of them. Aaron hid under my sweat shirt almost the entire time and Amber wanted to be held.

Personally, I thought that these guys were quite cute!! They had music going and you could have your picture take with the characters and also dance with them.

Finally, it was time to go and meet Santa and sit on his lap. Notice the fake smile from Aaron. It was the best he could muster. He only stopped hiding for about 3 seconds during this time of standing in line and it was only because I told him that I wanted a picture of him and Amber together!

Thanks to my friend, Tammy, she got the only non-screaming Santa picture that we have. Aaron was busy clinging with all his might to my leg and hiding under my sweat shirt again!!!! He wanted nothing to do with Santa or Mrs. Claus!!

Oh my! Aren't we a happy group?! Amber and Aaron were both crying, and really, I just couldn't help but laugh. No other child in the entire place of like 30+ kids screamed for Santa but mine!!!

After the kids talked to Santa, he or she would get a Christmas book. Here is Santa making a desperate attempt at asking Aaron what he wanted this year. As you can see, he is just crying and couldn't wait to get away. Amber was now fine, since she was now sitting on my lap. Oh well!! At least we tried. It was a great idea and at least it was only $5 a child. Maybe next year they will do better!!!

The "Formal" tree

Yesterday before nap time, Aaron and Amber "helped" me to decorate the tree here in the formal living room. The majority of the ornaments ended up at the bottom (as I know they will this week end when we get our real tree) but I didn't mind. During nap time, I rearranged the tree and added some bows to make it look pretty. It gets dark here just after 5 and so we plug in the lights and leave the blinds open for all to see our tree. The kids love it!!! They are so excited to go and pick out a tree this weekend!!!! (we'll have to bundle up though because it is cold here!)

Beginning to look like Christmas!

It is beginning to look like Christmas here at our house. I got up the majority of our decorations this past weekend. We have Christmas things for just about every room in the house. You will have to make the picture above bigger if you want to see the things in the kitchen because they are just too small to see otherwise.
This little tree and I go way back. It was the tree that my mom sent my first year at BYU when all of my roommates left for Thanksgiving and I stayed. It was fun to get it out and set it up this year and think on the years past. The boys really like this little tree and Aaron kept wanting to take the little flower ornaments off and smell them. I tried to explain that these flowers didn't smell, but he simply wouldn't believe me. Once he gets an idea in his head, it is hard to convince him of anything else. :)

We have our Nativity on the mantle and our stockings. I put out my Christmas blanket and other fun Christmas things. This weekend we will go and pick out our tree!!!!! Then our family room will be complete!!!! Merry almost Christmas!!

Pretty as a picture!

When Grandma and Grandpa Yorke were here, they brought a pre-Christmas present for each of the kids. The boys all got pj's but Amber got 2 really adorable Christmas outfits. One was a pants outfit that was more for an everyday kind of wear, and the other was this beautiful little dress with matching headband. She wore it to church today and looked so adorable in it that I had to snap a few pictures to send back to them. Then I decided that she looked too cute and so I would post them on here too!!! We out up our Christmas decorations yesterday. All but the tree I guess I should say. We put up our fake one here in the formal living room, but all of our ornaments are for the real tree that we will get at the end of the week, so the tree is looking bare here!! I will go and get a few tomorrow since they are half price at Hobby Lobby! Anyway....enjoy the pictures! I hope that everyone enjoys the Christmas devotional tonight! I know that I always do! I am really looking forward to it!!!!

The 1st real snow

We have had flurries off and on for most of the days this past week, but this morning was the first real day that it has stuck! And what a perfect day it is. We will be decorating up the house for Christmas today. Nothing like a little snow on the ground to get you in the mood for Christmas. (Even though when I grew up in Texas the leaves were just starting to fall and there was no snow, the snow just feels Chrstimasy!) There is no school to cancel for today, and so the boys are out happily playing in the falling snow as I type.
Here is Amber checking it out through the window. She would love to go out, but has a cold, so I think that I will refrain from taking her out in it this time. Don't you just love her morning hair?!
She just looked too cute looking out the windows.

As you can see, there isn't that much snow out there right now, but the boys are making snowballs as fast as they can so that they can throw them at each other!! They just came in to tell me that the driveway was the most snowy part outside and that they needed their sleds to go down it!!

As Brian was headed outside, he said, "The best part about playing in the snow is that we get to come in and have hot chocolate and warm up by the fire afterwards!!" Isn't that the truth?! Hope everyone's Saturday is as fun as ours!

It's Magic!!

Lately we have been singing Christmas songs whenever we are in the car. I have been really trying to sing the "Santa Claus is coming to town" song so that my kids will be better behaved. (Not that they are bad, but any push in the "good" direction is always helpful!) So, this morning on the way to school, Brian wants to know exactly how Santa sees you when you are sleeping and awake and all of that jazz. I tell him that I am not really sure, but that it is just magic. He then makes his own speculation on how he thinks Santa does it from elves, to videos, to whatever he can think up, asking me each time if that was the right answer. Again I repeat that I was not really sure how it all worked, but just that I knew it was magic. Aaron then pipes up and says, "It's magic!!!!! Just like the doors at Target!!!!" I couldn't help but chuckle!!!!

Tis the Season to be busy.....

I know that I have been neglecting my blogging lately. The Yorke's left on Tuesday. It was a good visit. On Monday night, I found out that an older lady in our ward who I talk to everyday when I pick up Weston from school lost her mother. She goes to the school every day to pick up her grandkids. She lost her husband just 6 months ago. On Sundays she sits with our family and my kids think that she is sooooo wonderful. Anyway, so my Tuesday was spent making some things to take over to her house so that she knew we were thinking of her. Then yesterday I decided that Amber really needed more than just a light jacket since the highs have been mostly in the 20's and 30's. Tonight is our RS Christmas thing. The babysitting will be done at our house, so today I will clean up and make rolls for the dinner tonight that goes with it. I know that really the things that I have been doing aren't all that major, but I have just been busy and besides that, there are not really any cute things to report on here. I really need to get out my Christmas boxes and things, but I don't want to get all that mess out today since Barth and another priesthood brother will be babysitting like 20 kids here tonight. It just isn't the day for it. Perhaps this weekend when Barth is home. So, I am just busy here! :) Oh, and I am speaking in church on the 14th!!! Barth will get to sit with the kids and see how it is to go solo!!!! I know he will do great. And for once, Amber won't be disrupting the meeting by yelling "Daddy!" over and over and over again. She will have him right there with her. :) Things are just the way that I like them right now. Just the right amount of busy. As I like to say, "Better busy than bored!!!"

Thanksgiving fun

We have had a wonderful week here. There hasn't been much posting because we have Barth's parents in town as well as his grandma. We have had so much fun visiting and playing. I thought that I would post some pictures of the last week that they have been here. Above is from Thanksgiving dinner. It was all very yummy and we had a nice time eating and visiting. The weather was even nice enough to play outside. (Although Grandma and Grandpa still thought that it was cold, we thought that 50 was quite warm!)
It is tradition in Barth's family to make Swedish cookies at this time of year. It was something that his Grandma used to do with him when he was a boy, so it was a neat opportunity for Great Grandma to do it with our kids this year. Above is Grandma teaching Weston and Aaron how to make the "love knot" that the cookie goes in.
Here is the whole gang of cookie makers. There are 4 generations of them to be exact!!!

Here is Weston giving Great Grandma some dough to make her cookie. It was such a sweet picture that I had to include it!

When it came time for scriptures each night, the kids wanted Grandma and Grandpa to read with them. Once Amber warmed up to Grandma, she chose her every time over anyone else in the house!!!

Today after church We decided to get a picture of the kids in their festive clothes. Although I didn't get a great one of all the kids looking right at me, they still looked cute.

Tonight we had the Yorke Christmas eve tradition early. The kids got Christmas pajamas from Grandma and Grandpa and then we sat back and watched Scrooge and ate Chex party mix!! It was a lot of fun. It was nice to be able to do it with Grandma, Grandpa and Great Grandma this year. We do miss the fun traditions since we live so far away.

Here they all are dressed and ready to watch the show.

And finally, eating and enjoying the show! It has been a great week here. We will be sad to see them go on Tuesday, but we have made some great memories while they were here!!!!!

MMMmmmmmm......

My family has a new obsession!! Now, you might think that it is some fun new game to play, or perhaps a great movie, but it's not. Could it be that we joined the rank and file of the world and got ourselves a video game system? Although that I am sure that my children would enjoy that, they still have a fuddy duddy old mom that has a aversion to those kind of things. :) No, my family's new obsession is this......

home made rolls! This batch is all set and ready to go to work with Barth tomorrow for his work's Thanksgiving lunch, but we have had these delectable things many, many times over the last few weeks. You see, about a month ago, while reading my friend Emily's blog, I saw that she had bought a bread machine and was using it to make rolls. Hmmmm......my little brain thought. I love home made bread, but my kids don't like it as well when it is cooked in my bread machine because of the hard crust. Perhaps rolls would a good way to have that yummy home made bread without all the mess. So, I gave it a whirl. It was like magic!!!! I just dumped in the ingredients that my good old Betty Crocker cook book had listed, and then sat back. An hour and a half later, the dough was all ready. I rolled it, cut it, rolled up the rolls and let them rise. Then I popped them in the oven and that's when the magic really began to happen!! :) Those wonderful dinners that I fix for my family no longer became points of whining. All you moms out there know what I mean. Those meals that you slave over for hours. And then your children come in and start saying wonderful things like, "How much do I have to eat?" or "Don't give me any of that. It looks gross." (Not that my children are ever allowed to get away with that, but come on....all kids do that, right?) Yes, those horrible meals of meatloaf or chicken suddenly were not so bad anymore. My kids would gobble them up, just to get more rolls placed upon their plates!!! :) Seriously, you would have thought that I had sprinkled them with magic "eat your dinner" dust or something. Whatever it is, I like it. I'll take it! I don't make them every day, but my kids ask for them just about every day and ask when they will be getting them next. So Emily, if you are reading this, thanks for the great idea about the dough in the bread maker!!! And one more shocking thing, since my kids have actually eaten some of their meals lately, (okay so it is really just Brian and Aaron; Weston is a great eater) they have discovered that they actually like some of the things that I fix!!! Gasp!! Shock!!! Imagine that!!!! :O

Way to go Aaron!!

This morning I was busy in the kitchen and Aaron wanted to do this United States puzzle. I told him that I didn't have time right then, so it would have to wait. A short while later I heard Aaron talking about his puzzle, so I walked over to see what he was up to. This is what I found. The puzzle was almost finished!!!! I was amazed. There are a few pieces that have more than one state on it, but mostly, each state is it's own piece. I was so proud of the great job that he had done, that I had to snap a picture of him. All he wanted to do all afternoon was to do this puzzle. The funny thing.....he likes to do it upside-down!!! :)

In the mood for Christmas.....

Usually I am not one to be ready to start up the Christmas music until after Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving and feel that it is an important holiday that often gets overlooked. However.....today I am somehow in the mood for Christmas. Could it be the snow gently falling from the sky and the crisp, cold air that blows in my face when I go out the door? Probably. There is no doubt that it is Winter here. The leaves are almost all gone from the trees and we have been lingering in the high 30's for the majority of the week. Somehow, all this cold is getting me excited for Winter and Christmas. So I think that I may just go and turn on the fireplace and break out the Christmas music just a little bit early this year. :)

The Last Game

Last night was the last game of the basketball season for this year. The games are usually on Saturdays, but this was a "special weeknight game." They darkened the gym, and then had a spotlight on the teams as they announced them and they ran out. They announced each player and where they were from. It was kind of cute and the boys liked it. Here is Weston's team, the Gators, during their announcement.
Here they are at the start of the game.

My camera batteries started to die here, so the picture is a little dark. This is an action shot of Weston guarding his man. You can see the arm and armband of the boy he is guarding right behind him.

This was almost at the end of the game, and there was a foul shot for our team. Weston had a great time playing these last few months.

Lastly, here is Weston and Jaren together. Jaren is in our ward and was the one that asked us to play too so that the boys could have fun together. His birthday is May 3rd and Weston's is the 5th, so they are the exact same age. What a fun thing to do together! We are glad that they suggested it.

A flurry blizzard

The last 2 mornings we have had flurries. This morning, right before we left for schoool, the snow began to fall. Weston went outside and delcared that we were having a flurry blizzard. They were sad when I said that they still had to go to school. It is 34 outside, so nothing is sticking except on the roofs. As we continued to drive in the car, Aaron said, "Wow! Look at all those frosted flakes on our window!" :) I just love kids. We have the fireplace going and hope to enjoy this frosty day!

Today's creation

Brian loves to make and create things. He LOVES paper!!! This afternoon, after his doctor appointment, he set to work making this man. He had specific ideas of what he wanted and what went where. Even though his man has 3 fingers on one hand and 7 on the other, I was impressed with his cute creation. It will more than likely hang on our fridge for a while!! :) I just love kid creations. This guy takes up the full width of our table!

Like to read?

Weston is, and probably always will be, my bookworm. He LOVES to read. Here are this week's selections from the school library. He will have them a week and will probably have both read before his library day comes back again!! He doesn't mind his 8 o'clock bed time because we allow him to read for a little bit before going to sleep. He also loves to wake up early and crack open his blinds and read. Must take after his Auntie M. And Melissa, I must say, that some of his favorite books to read are the dictionary and Barth's Portuguese-English dictionary!!! :)

Just because

We are fairly boring over here and Amber is cute, so I thought that I would post a picture of her. She loves all things girly lately. How fun is that?!!!!! It is pretty fun! She loves her babies and hugs them and carries them around. I am loving it! Happy Sunday to all!

Safety and Protection

This morning Brian had a dr's appointment. After taking him to school after the appointment, I decided that I would go do some running around. (I like to do that!) I went to Kohls first and browsed. Got the big boys some new church pants. After that I headed across the street to Wal-Mart. We were in need of milk and bread. We did our shopping, and headed out the door. On the way out we ran into someone we knew and stopped to chat for a minute. After that we went to our car. So far the morning had been fairly typical for us. It was getting close to the time that I needed to be headed out to pick Brian up from school, but I still had plenty of time. I loaded my groceries in the car and sat there for a minute chatting with Barth on the phone and telling him that Brian had an ear infection. After that, I headed out towards the main road so that I could go to Brian's school. I knew I would be early, but Aaron likes to sit in the parking lot with me and chat until it is time to go inside to get Brian.

The way out of Wal-Mart that I usually take is just a street that intersects with the main road. There is just a stop sign at the main street, no light. There is an exit with a stop light, but since I always go right on the main road, I don't really need the light. I sat there at the front on the line. There are 2 lanes. One goes right and the other turns left from this road. As I sat there, the car next to me was anxious to be turning left. She had tried 3 different times to turn, and her car kept lurching forward, but there was quite a bit of traffic. As the cars began to back up slightly from the light to our right, a man in a pick-up stopped (because she was already about halfway in his lane) to let her go. However, there were 2 lanes of traffic to cross. The truck obscured her view and she was hit by a passenger van that could hold like 10 people going probably 50 miles an hour. Right in front of my eyes!!! The front of the car was ripped off. The van spun around about 2 or 3 times before stopping not too far away from my car, headed in the opposite direction of traffic. The child sitting in the front seat was in a belt, but I could see him fly up out of the seat and then land back in it. The van went up on 2 wheels and then came back down. For a minute there I thought that it was going to roll over. I called 911. It seemed like it took FOREVER for them to pick up although I am sure that it was only all of about 3 seconds. In both the car and the van the people were conscious and no one was bleeding. The lady in the car, however, had no clue who she was or where she was. Finally the police came. They took the report and all of my information and I was free to go.

Once I got over the initial feeling of thinking that my arms and legs were going to fall off because I was shaking so bad, I started to think. Ordinarily I think that when I would have seen the car next to me turning left, I would have turned right at the same time. But today I didn't. I was watched over and protected. The van that spun would surely have hit me if I had turned. I am positive of it. There is no way that I could have avoided it if I had turned. Who knows, the other van would have smacked into mine and flipped me or something. I am so thankful to be safe and well. I know that those family prayers that we are saying every morning before we head out the door are keeping us safe. On the way to get Brian I drove slower than usual. If I was late, so be it! (I wasn't!) After seeing such a bad accident, I am determined to be a safer, more defensive driver. And you can bet that we will not be skipping family prayer!!! I offered a prayer of gratitude to my Father in Heaven for keeping us safe this day. I know that it was though his protection that I was just a witness of this accident and not in it!!

Just like Daddy!

Amber's favorite person lately is Daddy!!! She doesn't want any one else when he is around!! It is so cute to see. Her favorite thing? SHOES!!! No shoes are safe around here. Amber found Daddy's shoes the other day and was clomping all over the house in them. She was so cute that we just had to get some pictures!!

Oh me!!! Oh MY!!!!!

Even though I knew that it was coming, it still makes me sick. Not that I loved McCain, but I felt that he was the better of the 2. Watching the votes come in made my stomach churn. (I must interject here that Kentucky was the first state to be given to McCain........but what in the world was up with St John's County, FL going to Obama?!!!!!!!!!!!!) Does this whole thing make any one else sick and wonder what is in store for us, or is it just me?

My civic duty

Today I did my civic duty and voted. I have to say that I was a little worried about the whole thing. Kentucky has no early voting and with all the lines for even early voting that have been in the media, I was worried that I would be standing in line for hours. School is off for today here since the schools are used for polling places and they can't guarantee the safety of the children while other people are in the schools (or at least that is what they say). Barth, who had the day off today because he was supposed to have yesterday off and then ended up working for 6 hours at work, went and voted first this morning. The line for him was just under an hour. Not bad, I thought. He came home and I left. I got there at 10:25 this morning. By 10:40, I was all done!!!!!!! Hooray!!! Even though I am skeptical that my candidate will win, at least I was able to voice my opinion. What a privilege!!! Come to find out, there are actually 4 polling places within a mile of my house. I guess that is why it didn't take so long at all. Don't forget to vote today!!!!!! Happy Election day!!!!!!!

From our house to yours.....

Amanda, these first few pictures are mostly for you! Since I know that you love fall so much, I thought that we would share the fall here at our house with you!!!! This is in our back yard. I love looking out the windows. And luckily for us, we are all set to have nice weather for the majority of this week....you know, upper 60's to low 70's!

This is what we see out our family room window.

These are actually our neighbor's trees, but aren't they beautiful?! They are right by our driveway, so when we sit outside and ride bikes, I get to look at these. They just turned red in the last few days!

There is no school today or tomorrow due to the election, so we decided to go outside this morning and do our favorite thing.....play!!! Here are the boys racing away as usual!!!!

Amber decided to walk down the walkway in front of our house and check out the roses. This is one of Amber's favorite spots outside. She just loves this little "house" that is under the slide.

Peek-a-boo Mommy!!! Peek-a-boo has got to be her all time favorite game to play these days. She and Aaron will play it for hours!! Hope everyone is having an enjoyable day!!

The carving of the pumpkins

Yesterday afternoon, after coming home from school and before heading off for basketball practice, we carved our pumpkins. We wanted Daddy to be there for it, but his schedule has been so full lately, that it didn't work out that way for us this year. I was pleasantly surprised at how well the pumpkin carving went this year. In years past it has mostly been Barth and I cleaning and carving the pumpkins while the boys sat far, far away trying their hardest not to throw up from the smell of the pumpkins. :) I was most amazed that Brian got all but just a handful of seeds out of his pumpkin as he is the queasiest of them all.
Here is Weston taking a break from that hard work of scraping out the pumpkin. They had done this in scouts the week before so Weston had all planned up what he was going to do for his pumpkin.
This is as much of the action as Aaron was willing to get into. After this one scoop, he handed me the spoon and pronounced that it was a "Mommy job!" He did, however, decide on what he wanted for the eyes, nose and mouth of the pumpkin.

Brian had the hardest pumpkin ever to carve. I don't know what was up with the outer skin of his pumpkin, but it took me quite the arm muscle to saw through it. I was a little worried that I might cut off some other finger, but in the end it turned out just fine. Brian really wanted to carve his pumpkin himself, so I let him have a good go of it before I stepped in to help. After working for a good 15 minutes at least and getting absolutely no where with his pumpkin cutter, he was more than happy to let me help and even stood next to me the whole time, cheering me on!

Here is his finished pumpkin. I couldn't get a good picture of Brian. He kept giving me his cheesy fake smile, so this was the best we could get!

Once again, these pictures are out of order. (if anyone knows how to get them to work right, I would love to know!) Here are the finished pumpkins!

What did Amber do while we were carving pumpkins? She sat in her high chair while I fed her cookies to keep her happy. If she had been down she would have been hanging on my leg and crying. She ran off all the sugar at basketball practice just an hour later!!!! :)

Aaron and his finished pumpkin. He is saying, "Ooooo, Spooky!" in this picture. He thought that his pumpkin was the scariest.

Weston and his finished pumpkin. He wanted one just like the one that they made in cub scouts. He informed us that this was a snake pumpkin. Very spooky if you ask me! :) Happy Halloween!