Seth is 5

Seth had a Jake and the Neverland Pirates birthday party.  He invited all his friends from preschool.  They had pizza and cupcakes and a treasure hunt and a pinata.  His favorite presents were his jungle gym for the backyard and his Pirate Hideout to play with his boat and all the "Jake guys".

What makes you happy:  playing on my jungle gym
Favorite food: meatballs and noodles with white sauce
Favorite thing to do:  doing "boss" stuff
Favorite TV show: Jake and the Neverland Pirates
What are you really good at: bowling

Favorite Movie: Mega Mind

Favorite color:  red and orange
Favorite song:  Rudolf the red nosed reindeer

Best friend: Maeli Dean and Van from preschool

What do you and your mom do together: play with toys

What do you and your dad do together: Puzzles

Favorite sport: soccer

Favorite place to go:  Grandma's house

Favorite animal: zebra

Favorite Book: Rainbow Fish

What do you want me to be when you grow up: worker who builds houses

Visalia for New Years

The day after Christmas we packed up and drove to Visalia to join everyone.  We went to the beach and rode ATVs again.  The weather was so nice. The bigs loved riding in the dune buggy and  all the little ones had fun in the sand.  Seth and Ruby got to go to Build a Bear and make their stuffed animals they got from Christmas.  Seth made a dog called Cougar and Ruby made a white bear named Molly.  We rode bikes and went to the park a lot.  And we celebrated my birthday.  Bob made me a custom layered cake, with the help of Grandma and Venessa.

Christmas

This year I found the cutest Christmas pajamas and they had sizes for all the kids! So I bought them and to encourage the older kids I told them what I wanted for Christmas was for them to wear their matching jammies. I loved my seeing my little Santas and Elves!

We had Christmas at our house.  Christmas Eve we went to a party at the Pettingills' and then the Deans came over to our house to act out the Nativity.  This year the boys had mustaches I found at the dollar store. We couldn't get Seth to participate so he was in the audience with the adults. After the Deans went home the kids opened their presents to each other.

Christmas morning started at 6:30.  This year each of the kids contributed to everyone's stockings so that was fun to see what everyone got.  Then we moved on to the presents.  So fun.  Then we had a big breakfast and played with toys and did puzzles all day.

Favorite presents:
Danny-Xbox
Rachel-Ipod
Aaron-go kart
Seth-Jake and the neverland pirates boat
Ruby-Toy Story dolls

Thanksgiving

We went to Ryan and Venessa's for Thanksgiving. We had a great dinner and went to see Frozen on Thanksgiving.  Friday we went the the beach.  Danny had a great time fishing with Ryan. Seth loved playing Jake and the Neverland pirates on the pirate ship at the playground.  It was great weather and we all had a good time.  Saturday Ryan and Grandpa took Danny fishing again and then we went to the park and came home.  We also had fun meeting "new baby" Ella who was born on Monday.

Ruby is 3

For Ruby's birthday we went to Grandma's house. She was so excited.  We were thinking about going to Disneyland. Ever since going to Disneyland in May, Ruby regularly told us we need to go again.  But after her trip to stay with Grandma in September, she stopped talking about Disneyland and instead always wanted to go to Grandma's house.  We had a great time.  We went to the arcade and miniature golf.  And we went up to Three Rivers and played on the big rocks and went to Reimer's ice cream shop.   

Ruby is such a fun girl.  She loves to play with Seth, go to gymnastics and jump on the trampoline.  Her nursery leaders have told us many times that she is "feisty".  That is a very good word to describe her.  We sure love our tiny Ruby!

What makes you happy: looking at pictures
Favorite food: chicken nuggets
Favorite thing to do: go to gymnastics
Favorite TV show: Animal mechanicals
What are you really good at: painting

Favorite Movie: Cars

Favorite color: pink
Favorite song: Raindrops on roses

Best friend: Seth

What do you and your mom do together: play toys

What do you and your dad do together: tickle

Favorite place to go:  Disneyland

Favorite animal: Penguins and horseys

Favorite Book:  Dinosuars

What do you want me to be when you grow up:  mommy

Halloween

We had a fun Halloween week. The kids had a halloween piano recital on Monday night.  They did great.  Wednesday night was our Trunk r Treat.  Bob was in charge, as the ward mission leader, so I went around with the little kids and then we handed out candy.  Thursday was Halloween and we went over to Shauna Reed's house and had pizza and then went trick or treating.  It was a huge group.  The kids had lots of fun.  Danny and Aaron were sumo wrestlers, Rachel was a crayon box, Seth was a power ranger one night and spiderman from last year one night, and Ruby was Sophia the first.

Ruby was really cooperative while we took these pictures. 

New Family Pictures

Grandma and Grandpa took our family pictures this year on the wall around the corner from our house.  They did a great job.  And then I did quite a bit of photoshop because 4 out of our 5 kids needed some kind of injury photoshopped off their face.  Rachel was the flawless face.