Christmas Day

As I looked through our not proliferate Christmas pictures (apparently we were too busy living it, and didn't do very good at taking pictures of it) I realized my favorite part of all of the pictures were the faces.  Here is a quick sum up of our Christmas...







Judging from that I'd say it was a pretty great Christmas! 

Christmas Eve!

Christmas Eve was a pretty laid back day.  We prepped the house for a visit from the jolly old elf, played, decorated gingerbread houses and enjoyed dinner with our friend the Ishihara's.  Here are a few pics...








Christmas Eve also brings two early gifts.  Ornaments and Jammies...

 
 
 
All ready for bed and visions of sugar plums...
 

Spencer Turns 14!

I do not feel old enough to have a 14 year old! Ahh!
Now that I got that off my chest, here is a look at Spencer's 14th birthday...

Spencer wanted a puzzle box for his birthday.  While it was somewhat tricky, it wasn't tricky enough to keep him out for long...



Pretty cool little box anyway!
This boy has graduated from birthday cake and has moved on to more sophisticated fare.  Birthday pie.  Apple this time.  He doesn't look too thrilled in this picture, however...




Happy Birthday Spence! 

Happy Thanksgiving!

We were super excited to spend Thanksgiving in Michigan with the Fords, who we have missed terribly!  It felt just like old times all over again, except for Steve's turkey fryer.  That was brand new...

Steve has been itching to fry a turkey for years, and this year he finally broke down and did it, despite the trepidation of his lovely wife.  But I figured, hey, we can try it out at Jenni and Jim's first and burn down their house instead of ours.  Seemed like a good idea.  Carter thought so too...

He just really liked that he could be outside without a coat on, in November!
In the end, the fried turkey turned out really yummy and moist, and incident free! Yay!

One happy turkey fryer!  And one happy Jenni, seeing as her house was still standing...

Rolls upon rolls waiting to bake...

Looking at these pictures makes me hungry...
 

Where were the kids while all of this food was being prepared?  In cousin heaven...

Until it was time to eat, and then they became the ravenous bunch of hooligans you see here...

Hooray for a table full of family! And hooray for Aunt Jenni and a table full of yummy pies!

This is what Thanksgiving is really about, right? Not that turkey I showed before!

Apparently Sydney did not feel like sharing the chocolate pie, thus her "Sneak and Grab" campaign...


And what did Carter think of Thanksgiving?

The next day we had to do something to burn off all those pies so we had a wild round of bowling (anything is wild with 9 kids along, right?  Especially when most of them are boys).
 
And just in case you didn't notice in the picture above, here is a close-up to show you just how excited I was about bowling.  Or maybe this picture was taken right after the time I didn't get a gutterball.  Or perhaps I was still thinking about those pies.  Can't say I wasn't enthusiatic though, can we...

And, for those of you wanting to hone your bowling form, here are some excellent examples to choose from.  Personally, I think I might adopt Carter's method from now on.





At one point, Jim became so excited about his excellent bowling prowess that he got down and did a full on victory dance...

And here we are...

We are still working on a name for  our prestigious bowling club, but when we get it figured out, you will be the first to know!  If you have any suggestions, they would be happily welcomed!