Happy 8 years Chica!

Our sweet Sandra turned 8 this month!  It really is amazing how quickly they are growing up!  Sandra is a sweet girl and a blessing to have in our family!  We celebrated her birthday a day early with family.  Grandparents, Aunt, Uncle and cousins!  She was able to be baptized on her birthday so that was busy with it's own special event ;).  

Here are some pictures of the evening together. 

Mhari, Clark, and Lorna needed a photo taken of them :)

Sandra ready with all of the presents!

Opening :)

The present stash!  She was very happy with her gifts ;)

Daddy helping light the candles

Make a wish

All blown out!

It was a fun evening and it was nice to have family here to share the celebration with!
Sandra is smart, loving, sweet, and loves her cousins.  She has a good attitude (most of the time) and is a good helper around the house!  We love you chica girl!

Birthday Punkin

Our little Punkin had her 6th birthday :).  It really is amazing that it has been 6 years since she joined our family!  I remember being pregnant and very impatiently waiting for her to arrive.  She was a week late and 10 lbs so that is pretty memorable!  

She is a busy, smart, determined little girl!  She is so loving and a great big sister.  I don't think she likes being the 4th child, but she holds her own pretty well with her older siblings.  She has been waiting and counting down for her birthday for a few weeks.  It was so fun to wake her up that morning and tell her happy birthday to which she said thank you ;).  

Here she is enjoying our family celebration!

Opening presents:

Showing off her birthday stash!

Mhari picked birthday cinnamon rolls from the store.  That helped me out with one less thing to prepare for her birthday that night ;).  Daddy loves to help light the candles!

Eating her cinnamon roll and orange sherbet

Lorna and Clark enjoyed her birthday too!

Everyone enjoying dessert

Talmage

Mhari was such a good birthday girl and did pretty good at sharing her new things.  Today she had Sandra help her paint her new window hanging.  It was fun to see her enjoy the present with others.  Happy Birthday to our sweet Punkin!

A little quiet reading

We have been rearranging the house recently.  you would think that after 10 months or so it would be just wonderful, but instead we have switched almost every room around.  The girls got swiched to the bigger bedroom upstairs, the guest room went to the old school room, the toy room went to the girls room and the school room went to the old toy room.  I guess I could take pictures of all of that, but I hadn't thought to ;).  Seriously the only rooms that haven't gotten switched are the master and boys bedrooms (I guess the living room family room etc too).  The last rooms that were waiting to switch was our library and office.  We had a huge space upstairs for our library, but with Jeff working more from his home office we decided he needed more space than the library did.  The office is still missing some decent furniture, but the library looks pretty good.  It is a much smaller space, but a very nice reading room.  The kids really enjoy it!  They spent all of Sunday morning sitting in the library looking at Waldo books.  It was too cute!

Here are some pictures :)

Grant and Talmage are modeling the love seat for you.

Oh, and with some changes we got out our cow (pronounced cew) picture to hang in our nook.  I think it looks really nice there ;)

Lorna was playing in the box... just too cute not to share!

It's always fun to change things up.  Plus it keeps me cleaning things out!  

Iced In

Last Thursday night an arctic cold front moved through Texas... well a large part of the United States, but it made it down to us, here in Texas :).  We got lots and lots of sleet.  The kids all called it snow, but it was really a nice thick sheet of ice.  As it's started to melt Grant made up a word for it, Snice - a mix of snow and ice.  The temps stayed below freezing for several days so there was little change in the layer of ice.  Schools cancelled and even church was cancelled on Sunday.  Schools still haven't reopened, but probably will tomorrow.  It was nice to relax at home and not have somewhere we had to be.  I must say it was nice to get out of the house yesterday, even if it was to replenish our food and shop for the birthday girl :).  

Here are some pics of the event.

Looking through the front windows

Our home covered in ice

kids enjoying playing in the ice

beautiful bug

The frozen trees.  Luckily none of our trees snapped with all of the ice.  

the backyard

Sunday we took a walk to break up the cabin fever.  The sidewalks were mostly clear, but still plenty of ice everywhere else.
Mhari

Grant

Talmage and Grant

Hunny on the icy sidewalk.  This section is under some trees so it wasn't melting.  It was pretty solid

I like getting to experience winter more than we ever did in Phoenix, but I'm also sure glad when it melts and doesn't come back for a while ;).  

Sea World

Our last day in Orlando was Thanksgiving and we spent it at Sea World.  It was amazing how less crowded Sea World was than Disney World!  They had a couple of big roller coasters and there was really no line so Grant and I (because the others weren't big enough and Talmage didn't want to go) got to ride them and do all of the other great Sea World stuff too!  We ended up seeing 4 shows.  We were gone by dinner time.  Each kid got their own animal souvenir which made the trip a huge success ;).

Our day included the Manta - OK, so really that was an AWESOME roller coaster!  You are laying face down the whole ride and feel like you could fly off and die at any moment, but it's so great that you are smiling the whole time - or screaming ;).  

We saw the Clyde and Seamore pirate show, Blue Horizons, Allure, and One Ocean - Shamu show.  Grant and I also rode the Kraken.  That roller coaster Grant said was better than Manta so that is saying how awesome that was too.  Lots of loops and even going underground.  

It was a much more relaxed day and our feet weren't worn out by the end of it either.  Here are some fun pics of the day!

A picture of Manta... you may be able to see Grant down at the right edge of the photo ;).  

While you go into the shows everyone leaves their strollers outside... let's just say that evidently the squirrels are very used to this routine.  Jeff saw this little guy hop right up onto this stroller probably looking for food!

Clyde and Seamore show

Blue Horizons.  Lots of dolphins doing fun tricks and even some cool performers!

Parrot lady

birds flew over the whole audience

bungie bird boy

Riding the dolphins

Manatee and sea turtle area

Sandra watching the manatee

Mhari with sea turtles

This one was missing his front right flipper

poked his head up!

Playing the sea turtle game.  The controllers were turtle shaped!

Jeff helping Clark ;)

Awesome manatee statue

Underwater Dolphin observation room!

Petting manta rays!
Sandra

Talmage

Mhari

Jeff helping Clark

We found Franklin and the girls wanted to take a picture

We also found a penguin, Puck?, outside the Antarctica ride area.  Clark really wanted to join the picture and hug the penguin :)

Inside the Allure show.  Strong men ;) - really the only thing that held still long enough to take a good photo without a flash!

Lorna took a nap ;)

Jeff and the kids ready for the Shamu show.  I was not sitting that close up in the soak zone!

Huge Shamu!

Splashing

More water...

Soaking Jeff and the kids!

The kids all ran back to sit by me, but Jeff stuck it out... even if he did move back a few rows :)

We were also in the soak zone and here is the splash that got us.  I wanted a picture, but also didn't want the camera to get wet.  Needless to say we were all pretty wet after Shamu and wanted to get back to the hotel and dry off.  

Sea World was fun and I think most of the kids picked it as their favorite park of the week.  

For all of the long driving, cranky babies, and lost kids I am glad we went to Orlando.  I am also not planning on going back any time soon.  Each park had their pluses and minuses.  We planned to take it easy getting there and back by doing it in two days each time.  Well, Lorna had a really hard time sleeping in the hotel room.  The last day we decided to wake up early and book it the 17 hours back to Texas!  It was worth the long drive.  Seriously wonderful to be able to sleep after that marathon vacation.  It was also really nice to have Saturday at home to sleep, clean, do laundry, and get some shopping done!