Merry Christmas 2010!

We are a happy family! Love to all of you!

Andy * Chris * Haley * Cash * Gavin & baby #4 in May!

Mrs. Miles

Haley is so lucky that she got such a great teacher this year for Kindergarten! Mrs. Miles uses songs to teach so many things and Haley comes home singing and teaches them to Cash and Gavin. It's so fun!

Santa USA

Haley's school was on the route for Santa USA and we joined in the fun! The cutest bunch of elderly people donate their time through the month of December to make 200 stops, arriving in helicopters, at schools and different locations to bring smiles to the faces of lots of little people. Santa and Mrs. Claus come in one helicopter and Frosty and Rudolph come in the next one. A van arrives with 5 or 6 elves that can barely walk but are sooo adorable! My little people loved this super fun event and Gavin couldn't stop talking about "Anta!"

Gingerbread Houses!

We had a great time decorating our graham cracker houses. Before decorating began we had dinner and the kids finished quickly and left the table to play. Crazy Cash had taken his pads off the armrests to his carseat and was using them as elf shoes. They were awfully slick on the wood floor so he fell and split his chin. So we thought it needed stitches but luckily Dr. Rousseau, our friend, just super glued it together and we are good to go! Grandma kept Cash busy decorating his house so he only cried for a minute. Fun night!

Everyone's growing

Only a few more times of riding 3 long and we're going to have to go for individual rides with daddy. The kids are getting too big!

Books, books, books!

Gavin has always been a book lover. He will pick out a book and look at it and get another and another. Lately he wants someone to read to him. Andy was cute to take time and read to him!

Bruising!

Gavin always has a bruise or scratch somewhere on his head. He did a great Tom and Jerry move where he fell back into an upside down chair which launched him forward into the table. This bruise came immediately. He has since fallen on it twice more to make it a lasting bruise. Poor little toddler!

Haley is so big!

Haley lost two teeth this summer! She pulled the first tooth out all by herself! Good thing the tooth fairy is still around.

She also learned how to hula hoop and is really good. She was the kindergartener who could hula hoop the longest in her P.E. class at school and was soooo happy to come home and share that fun fact with everyone.

Boys

Since Haley started school these two boys have become good friend. Gavin follows Cash everywhere and wants to do everything he's doing. Cash doesn't mind at all and always waits for the little legs to catch up. Problems arise when they want the same toy and there have been quite a few biting and hitting incidents where I step in to break it up. I'm sure this will always be the case but it's nice when they are happy with each other.

Elf on the Shelf

My kids love Elf on the Shelf and look for him every morning! Sometimes he's easily spotted and sometimes they have to search and search. Haley has really tried to be a better helper so I'm thinking I want the elf around all year, ha, ha!!

ps this is not my tree or what our elf looks like.

Special Visitors!

Grandma, Grandpa Clinger and mom drove to San Antonio for wedding and then traveled up to our house for a stay! Grandpa brought two Adirondack chairs that he had assembled and disassembled in Idaho and packed in the back of his car. When he got here he put them together and I feel so happy to have them to sit in! All of his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren are the recipients of these awesome chairs!

November!

This was a fun month as Haley had a Thanksgiving feast at school and dressed as an indian named Dancing Ladybug! We took a trip to San Antonio to visit Shamu at Sea World. It was so fun for all of us! Grandma Connie cooked a very yummy Thanksgiving feast and we had a party at her house! I have no pics of the yummy food but it was YUMPTIOUS (Cash made up that word yumptious and we love it!)

October!

Love this month of harvest! It brought a trip to the pumpkin patch with Grandma and Tanner and trunk or treating at the ward party. Since Halloween was on Sunday we decided to stay at home and pass out candy instead of go house to house in our neighborhood trick or treating. Haley and Cash kept tally marks of how many treaters we had...95! It was more fun to watch them get excited about passing out candy than going from house to house!

September!

Haley is our schoolgirl now! Mrs. Miles is a great teacher for her at Liberty Elementary and sings songs all the time which Haley loves!

August!

August brought the last hooray of play on the water! We got home from our waterskiing vacation the night before Haley had to go to school. Both Andy and I were in denial and just didn't think it would ever start! But we sucked the joy and fun out of summer!

July!

July was a fun trip to Idaho to visit family, ride horsy, play in the mud and relax!!