Renaissance Festival 2011

We made it out to the Renaissance Festival again this year. I have been going with my sister every year for about 10 years now. I love the people watching and sunshine the most, but the food isn't bad and there is plenty to do and places to shop!

Cute Boys.

Laying down the hammer!

Aly and I rode with Ember and Jake on the swinging swan!

We also fed some animals in the petting zoo.

We pushed the kids into the later afternoon without any major meltdowns! And, I think they got in some good cousin bonding time. Yay!

Truths Jake Has Taught Me

Apparently these toys that I thought were out of reach are no longer out of reach. :)

A laundry basket is the new Lazy-Boy.

Ketchup and orange juice bottles can be stacked just as easily as rectangular shaped items.

A two year old can eat an entire apple right off the core.

Oh, and the couch is just too far away.

Squirrel!!

I hate to say it, but my manager is easily distracted. You know, like, the dog in Up, Dug.

SQUIRREL!!

Enter crafty like-minded geniuses here.

My work buddy, Logan, and I decided that in honor of the stress of inventory, we needed to make our entire staff some t-shirts to signify our individual roles as Squirrels to our Dug. (Enter Disclaimer: I am not comparing my manager to a dog. Or maybe I am. But not for any other reason than he is easily distracted.)

So, Logan I learned how to screen print!

Oh yes.

I can't remember right now, but I think we did about 30 shirts.

The shirts were a huge hit!

Here is our Sunday crew.

Zoo Lights

We made it to Zoo Lights this year even if it was after Christmas.

Jake was really into all the animals that were in lights.

Cam and I both went down this tube slide thingy. It was kind of fun!

We of course couldn't miss the carousel!

And, we took our, now traditional, picture out front with the Zoo Lights sign behind us.

Christmas 2010

On Christmas Eve after we got home from our evening with the Payne cousins, we opened our traditional Christmas Pajamas. Cam was in charge of PJs this year, so we all got ASU jammies! haha.

Then, while Jakey slept Santa left him a really big play kitchen.

Santa's special elf, Jessica, was especially kind to help Santa out with this special gift. It is a total hit!

After one or two gifts, Jake had the gift unwrapping down!

Look at him dump his stocking like a pro! :)

All of us in our house were really blessed this year. It was so fun to watch Jake really enjoy Christmas morning.

Later, we headed over to my parent's house and had our traditional breakfast.

I call it the Heart Attack Breakfast:

Hashbrowns

covered with ham and sausage

covered with cheddar or american cheese

covered with egg and bacon. And another kind of cheese in there too...

and I top mine with ketchup.

We only eat it once a year.

It is yummy. :)

(P.S.) That is turkey bacon.

After a full day of crazy kids running around, we snapped this picture.

And this one. :)

Merry Christmas everyone... a couple months late!

Christmas Eve

I love this tradition...

The Living Nativity.

I am pretty sure that these kids are going to hold this against us in the very near future, but it is SOOO cute!

Allie and Orrin appearing as Mary and Joseph.

And a tiger as the donkey, of course.

(It's a low budget production.)

The local Payne Cousins.

This year we did a cousin's gift exchange. Kaylee drew Jake and got him a light up ornament that he still plays with and a mini ASU stocking. :)

Ransom had Rylee. This is the "Thank You" hug but I liked how many kiddos you get in one shot. I have pictures of each child opening their gift if anyone needs any!

Then, we had Mom and Dad open their gift from all us kids.

We got them season tickets to The Hale Theatre.

We hope they enjoy the shows they are able to see this year!

The Polar Express

I am catching up on my blogging. :)

This year we had the opportunity to take the little boys in our family to the Polar Express. The original plan was to caravan, but then Karlie had this idea that we should borrow a friend's 15 passenger van. It was a complete hoot! We thought we could get a DVD rolling, but when the power didn't work, it was up to us to entertain four little boys the old fashioned way. Can you say 99 bottles of Sprite on the wall?

This was my view. There were two more rows behind me.

Jakey was next to me.

Cheese! (Can you see the cheese product in his mouth?)

On the train we had hot cocoa. Jake loved it.

We also read the book, "The Polar Express"

We took turns passing Jake around and over the seats. It was fun. ;)

Because of the magic tunnel that helps us to get to the North Pole, the whole ride was only about 20 minutes! You see the lights of the North Pole and then Santa comes on board.

You can see the picture of Jake meeting Santa at the end of my previous post. :)