Birthday Party!

For our kids' 10th birthday they get a friend party.  We let them chose an activity and invite 2 friends to share it with.  Grant chose to go to a trampoline park (groupon is fabulous by the way) and invited 2 friends from church.  We were there 2 hours and the boys had a blast!  There was basketball, normal jumping, a jump pit, and a dodge ball area.  I went and had fun playing dodge ball with the boys.  Boy was that exhausting!  The kids took several breaks when they got tired, but overall everyone loved it!

Basketball

Grant

The big bounce area.  This is what the dodge ball area looked like too, but there was balls :)

The foam pit area

Grant helping his friends out of the pit

Cannon ball!

Happy Birthday Grant!  We hope you had a great time making memories with your friends :)

Double Digits

Our 2nd child has hit the double digits!  I can't believe it's been 10 years since Grant joined us!  He may have been our second baby, but he didn't want to wait too long to get here (only 14 1/2 months after his older brother).  He was my first baby to come on his own - broken water at 1 am and baby at 7 am :).  He was our first jaundice baby and made a big deal about it by ending up in the NICU for a week to recover from the high bilirubin levels.  That all seems so long ago now, but it was an unexpected, emotional week for our family.  He happens to also be the first kid to loose a tooth!  Talmage wasn't too happy about missing out on that first!

Grant can be so silly, happy and crazy.  He definitely keeps our life entertaining!  

We had family over and ate dinner. We did brownie sundaes for dessert :)

Here is Grant helping Daddy light the candles.

Make a wish

Ready for presents!

Everyone took turns bringing Grant their present.  Lorna was too cute!

Grant got some pretty cool gifts :)

Swiss Army knife

His birthday stash!

Happy Birthday Grant!  Thanks for bringing extra fun and adventure to our family!
We love you!

Merry Christmas!

This Christmas seemed to sneak up for some reason.  I guess it might have had something to do with family coming to town and a baptism :).  We usually have the kids switch names and make presents for each other.  It was Christmas Eve and the kids realized we hadn't done our name switching.  Talmage had been thinking of things to make for each family member so he spent the day getting his gifts ready.  Later when I looked under the tree I saw that other kids had been wrapping things too... notice the slipper and pail ;).  The kids get good use of their blankets as wrapping too :).  Clark really went all out - even including some underwear just in case (blue item inside the slipper)!

All the stockings ready for the morning

It was a nice Christmas.  We got some nook's for the kids to use as well as new balls for outside.  Otherwise they got some small little gifts.  

Here are some of the opening from the day:

Talmage gave Grant a puzzle

Talmage made Sandra some earrings - which is pretty impressive considering she doesn't have her ears pierced and all!

Lorna got a bunny from Talmage

Talmage made Mhari a bracelet

and a necklace for me :)

Daddy got sticky notes.

Lorna got a horse from Clark

Grandma Whitmer gave the older boys dart type guns.  They were thrilled!

New clothes :)

Clark with his stash!

Talmage and his presents!

cute bug wanted her picture taken

Mhari with her presents

Sandra and her goodies

Grant :)

 Lorna

I got Daddy a new hat :)

We also got some fun boxes from the grandparents.  This one had games!

This one had books!  

Sandra showing off her earrings ;)

Clark enjoying his new train toy

That morning the kids got to use their new dart guns as they played outside in the col-de-sac.  They were hunting dinosaurs!

Clark enjoying the new balls

Bug too

This year we did a movie marathon for Christmas letting the kids watch Harry Potter.  We started the day before and took a few days to finish. They girls and little ones weren't included in the last few movies, but the boys really enjoyed it.  They did their own mini-marathon of Despicable Me instead.  It was a fun tradition.  It is funny to think of how many types of movies we have sets of and what else we will be watching (thinking of X-men in our near future).  It was a nice laid back kind of day.  We hung out with Nathan and Tiffany and kids that night and our kids were very happy to share Christmas with their cousins ;).  

We hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Beautiful 8

Sandra's birthday was on a Sunday this year and now that she's 8 she has the opportunity to be baptized and become a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  She was looking forward to her big day :).  The kids all got new Christmas church clothes that I gave them that morning and Sandra was so happy!  She had really been needing a new dress and was even happier to have it for her baptism day!

We held the baptism right after church (since our building has a font).  It was a small service and some of our friends from church stayed for it too!  She had picked "Oh, Come all Ye Faithful" and "When I am baptized" for the songs and Nathan and Talmage gave talks.  Jeff baptized and confirmed her.  I really enjoyed getting to help her get changed after the baptism.  It was great to hug her and see how happy she was!  It was really nice having family around to share this special day with us!  Happy Baptism Day Sandra!

Sandra

Sandra and me

Aunt Tiffany did Sandra's hair and made her look like a princess ;)

Grandma Williams and Sandra

3 generations of Williams:
Grandma and Grandpa, Daddy and Chica

Our family!

3 generations:
Grandma Whitmer, Me and Sandra

My three cute boys!

Daddy all ready for the baptism with his Chica!

Love!

A special Thank You to Tiffany for being ready with the camera and making sure I had lots of good pictures :)