Okay it's time....

It's been so long since I've posted anything, I'm almost wondering if I can remember what all has happened in the past month or months...... So here it goes, to make things a little easier I am going to make a bunch of new posts to seperate all the exciting events, some of which can not even be chronicled?!?!

LINDSEY IS 17 !!!!!!

I think I am going through a bit of denial that Lindsey is turning 17, now it doesn't seem like yesterday when she was born, but I remember bringing our first baby girl home with us and it definitely doesn't seem like it's been 17 years and next year she'll be getting ready to venture out on her own. I hope that I can face that day when it comes, I might need to be heavily medicated......Look at our sweet girl! What would a b-day be like without a little brother playing his new Christmas guitar for everyone (Gotta love those December B-day's)

Thanks to Rachael Woods Lindsey also got B-day Cupcakes, We Love you Rachael!!!!

Happy B-day Lindsey, We love you and are so proud of you!!!

Christmas is fun...

I was sooo excited to get this picture of the kids with Santa for Christmas,because I thought that everyone was old enough for it to turn out good, however Braxton freaked out as soon as we got there and he WOULD NOT even go into the room where Santa was sitting....He was crying hysterically, and he kept saying, I don't want to sit on his lap...After much bribing and reasoning this is what we got.... The real smiles came out on Christmas Morning though......Check out the girls vs the boys, it was 6:30 a.m.

The Girls having fun in their new Scarves and Hats from Grandma & Grandpa Woolf!!!!
These Boys are sooooo excited, Braxton got an Ipod and Daylan got a very cool Lego Robot...


Check out these way cool boys, believe it or not they actually really wanted these coats for Christmas!!

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

Singing a song is fun to do....

Part of the fun and excitement comes with all of the fun Christmas programs, and the songs the kids learn. Daylan and Braxton were no exception as they learned not only their own songs but also those of the other Grades.....Check out Braxton, he is totally getting into it!!!For Daylan it looks a bit more painful.....

While Brandi liked to complain a lot about choir it actually looks as though she is enjoying herself during this concert!!!

Thanksgiving 2008

We had such a great time for Thanksgiving as we were able to get together with my Grandmother, my mom, and two of my sisters, Jennifer and Stephanie with their families... We truly had a great time, but wish we could have seen everyone...I even got to go shopping with my mom and my sisters which is somewhat of a rarity!!! Here are some of the highlights......

Check out the cousins in the pool, they had such a great time together no matter what they were doing, Daylan is totally getting into it!!!

What would Thanksgiving be without some extracurricular activities, thanks to the Goodman family for the famous, or infamous Rocket Launch!!!! Go Cody...

5,4,3,2,1 Blastoff finally!!!!

Of course we had plenty of time to play games with this competitive group.....

Jordan and Ethan

Lots of boy Cousins

Check us out, only the puzzled are allowed:)
Getting serious with the Nintendo DS guitar hero game (It is way fun!!)

The Hanson Family
My Beautiful Grandma!!!

The Goodman leaders!!!

Grandma teaching the Birds how to properly fold festive napkins for special occasions (thank you Martha Stewart!!)

Daylan is showing Grandma just how much he loves to eat...(certain things of course!)

And lastly here we all are, aren't we quite a group and yet there was only about half of our clan present, hopefully next time we can get the whole posse (That doesn't happen too often!)

El Cheapo

Here in Blackfoot the High School has a dance called el cheapo (only in Blackfoot) where whoever is the invited party whether it is the girl or the guy ends up paying, so Lindsey went with a group of girlfriends, and they had a blast... They had to dress up in vintage clothing, so that sorta explains the outfits they had a great time, I am totally convinced that the funnest way to date in high school is to go with friends!!:)

Brandis Dramatic Side

Brandi loves makeup and photography, to name a few things, check out what she does when she is bored

Oh, BTW we do NOT let Brandi leave the house looking like this!!!!:)

Basketball Anyone!!!

Braxton and his team full of friends check out the cute grin with the missing teeth!!! Gotta love it!!!!

Daylan and Braxton have kept us busy with all the basketball practices during the week and games on Saturdays, it has been fun to see how hard they play and how excited they get when they play well. Braxtons season ended in December, while Daylan continues until about mid March. Check out these cute faces and while there was plenty of action we didn't get many action shots that actually turned out, I think mostly because of the inept nature of the photographers on hand mostly Brandon and I..... First there is Braxton Check out the Excitement

Now here is Daylan in Action he is #42 and while he is a great ball player he had some hesitation around mid season about whether or not he wanted to keep playing or not. Of course his parents didn't give him an option, in our house once you commit to something, you follow through end of story....Well for several weeks we had a very unhappy boy, but I think he's finally decided to "get his head in the game" for which we are soooo grateful!!!! This seems to be one lesson that needs to be repeated over and over for this kid!!! There will more pictures of Daylan to come...

Sadie's

Lindsey was really excited for Sadie's as a lot of her friends were getting together in a group and they were going to have a fabulous time. Since the boy she was asking was in her Dual Credit Calculus class and they spend sooo much time studying, she felt it appropriate to use a little Calculus to ask him, got him a bag of gummy brains and said he'd have to use his brains to figure out the derivative to find out who wanted to go to Sadie's with him and he responded likewise with another derivative problem to answer her.

It was fun to see the fun and frustration as the group grew and grew at on point I think they had 13 couples (which for the math challenged is 26) but they finally got it all together and they went to the mall for a scavenger hunt on their day date. (I don't think they would recommend this cause they got kicked out by mall security, but hey, just one more obstacle to overcome right?!?!?) Overall I think everyone had a great time. Here are some photos to commemorate the evening...

No need for flowers but, matching shirts are a MUST...... They are too cool!!!

One Spooktacular Night

Braxton, Ethan and Daylan are TOTALLY READY!!!

What a wonderful Halloween we had this year, it is a holiday I normally dread for one simple fact, IT IS USUALLY FREEZING!!!! So we have these adorably cute and excited kids who can't wait to get out and go trick or treating, but every other year it usually involves bundling them up in their winter coats and ofttimes hats and gloves thus covering up much of the cuteness!!!! This year is the first since I've lived in Idaho (Gulp....Seventeen and a half years....sigh, it looks like we aren't moving out of Idaho after all) that is was really nice weather. Some kids wore light jackets, that fit remarkably well underneath their costumes and we were able to trick or treat until our feet got tired rather than when our hands, feet, ears and noses were frozen solid and it literally took an hour to unthaw...We had a lot of fun...we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house for a potato bar before we went out trick or treating and then someone (okay maybe it was me!!!) misplaced the camera...The kids did go trick or treating with friends in the "hood" and got a stash of candy :) Brandi was awesome and helped out in containing the holigans as we went out trick or treating...

Pumpkin Carving

Brandon was gone until the night before Halloween, so that left me to get the costumes going, get the pumpkins carved and make sure kids get to basketball practice, pack meeting, get Lindsey off to a debate competition in Walla Walla Washington .... I was grateful to Adrienne who called me Monday and reminded me that there was only a few days left to carve the pumpkins that she so generously donated to our debilitated cause...

We ended up carving them on Thursday the 30th of October (which you might note is technically still before Halloween) and the kids did an awesome job...Daylan did a great job and really got into it as did Brandi who was a great help to us in our endeavor to find the perfect carving patterns.... I particularly love the faces of everyone as we scooped out the insides. I'm sure glad that we got a few photos of the pumpkins before we put them out.....The night after we put them out a bunch of kids stole them off our front porch and I'm quite sure they are somewhere on the Bingham county roadways... ( Brandon did get a description of the vehicle if any of you are CSI experts although I'm not certain that he got any fingerprints or DNA samples!!)

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth!!!

It all started a few weeks ago when Braxton had a very, very, loose front tooth

Then his dad assisted the process and the after effect was......

A couple weeks later the companion tooth was ready to make his escape, however Braxton was not quite as willing to have assistance, bribery did not work for this one....While sitting in Stake Conference Christa offered $5 for him to get it pulled out, to no avail, Brandon even offered him money but he was displaying his fabulous stubborn side....

The moment of truth..... I ask if I can wiggle the tooth ( it literally is hanging on by a thread) and I casually pull it out he yelps a little, but when he sees the actual tooth is gone he starts sobbing and carries on for the next 10 minutes. ( I wonder where he gets that dramatic side from....)

I asked him not even 30 minutes later if it really hurt to get it pulled and he was like no (why would I ever ask such a dumb question ?!?!?!) Plus he was sooooo excited to call his Grandma and let her know...