Christmas Day 2007

I can't believe Christmas is over! This year has just flown by for us, so much has gone on it's hard to believe it's been a year......Anyway, we had a great Christmas. Braxton and Hailey slept in until about 8am, and then woke everyone up. They are pretty good about not going downstairs and seeing the presents....(as far as I know anyway) Their "big" gifts this year were bikes. They were both very excited about them. Hailey has been riding her's all over the house ever since she got it. Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Kerri left around 11am Christmas day, so it was just us the rest of the day. We just layed around, ate, watched movies and played rockband. It was a great day! Merry Christmas everyone!

Braxton and Hailey with Grandma and Grandpa Ellsworth.

Christmas Eve

This year Mike's Dad, Stepmom and sister, Kerri came down to spend Christmas with us. It was alot of fun to have Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Kerri here. Braxton and Hailey had a great time playing games, "sleeping over" in Aunt Kerri's room and reading books with Grandma Ellsworth. This year I had planned to do a short program with the kids for Christmas Eve, but since they had been up past midnight the previous 2 nights they were out of their minds tired when it came time to do the program. So instead we watched the movie Nativity. But before that we opened our new PJ's to sleep in.

Elf on the Shelf

I'm sure many of heard of the "phenomonon" called the Elf on the Shelf. It's a story about one of Santa's elves that comes to your home and watches you to make sure you are being nice and not naughty...he then goes to report to Santa about your behavior every night. The book comes with an actual elf that you put on your shelf, and every morning he's moved to a new spot. The catch is you can't touch him or he won't come back the next day. Braxton and Hailey have had so much fun trying to find the Elf. I have to admit that there are times the elf has "forgotten" to move and Braxton is very disappointed that he's in the same spot. Anyway, Mike has decided to get in on the fun and started to hide the elf. And this is what we found this morning...........

The fan is running and the elf is flying around. Mike is quite proud of himself.

Oh Christmas Tree.....

We did something tonight we haven't done for years! We bought a "real" tree. It's been 4 years, since the "incident", and we vowed to go fake ever since. (Mike trying to get the tree out of the house and making a huge, muddy, sappy mess on the carpet in the process....plus we were vaccuming up needles for months after that tree.) But since we have an extra family room in this house, it had to have a tree in it, so we thought we'd give a real one a try. We picked out the tree, bought ornaments and lights, then decorated the heck out of it. We went a little crazy on the lights, the color I mean. I opted for plain white, while Mike wanted color, so we compromised.

Hailey and I putting up decorations


Hailey loves to put up ornaments, you can really see it, but there were about 20 balls right in that spot.


Braxton was the official "hook putter oner" for the ornaments.

Hailey and the tree.....notice she is still in the same spot putting up ornaments.....

Three Little Indians......

When we go out to Utah, we are fortunate to have lots if family and friends to spend time with. (which at times makes our visit out there pretty hectic) But we enjoy every minute of it. Our good friends, Chris and Karen have a little girl, named McKenzie. Braxton and Hailey both love to go over to their house and play with her and all of her toys. Other than Hailey and Kenzie fighting over some of the toys, they usually have a pretty good time.

There's no place like "home" for the holidays!

This year we were able to go out to Utah for Thanksgiving. It's been 4 years, since I've been out there for any holiday. I've been avoiding it ever since the Thanksgiving I became deathly ill with the stomach flu, which put me in bed for our entire visit. But we decided to chance it and go. Which I am happy to report absolutely no sickness, with anyone. (Thank you "Airborne") I think that is probably my "Christmas miracle" this year. Braxton and Hailey had a great time with their cousins, and their buddy McKenzie. Braxton didn't want to come home, which is a first for him.

Grandma and Grandpa Hanson with some of the Grandkids.

Braxton, Zach and Spencer at Temple Square.

Temple Square

Mike, Hailey and Braxton. Hailey was in heaven, with all of the "princess" lights.

Braxton with cousins at Thanksgiving dinner.

Braxton, Grandma Hanson and Hailey putting up the Christmas tree.

Happy B-day to the "big boy"!

Mike just had his number 37, this past Sunday. It blows my mind to think he's almost 40... We had a nice quiet birthday, and had some friends come over for dinner, cake and a little guitar hero action.

Just look at the action in that picture...........you can see the flame on the middle candle going out.

Anway, it's alway a great comfort to know, that in this crazy messed up world, one thing will never change....................Mike will always be older than me!

Halloween '07

True to form, this Halloween proved to be just ask hectic as the ones in past years. We think it's going to be a "low-key" night of trick-or-treating and candy eating, but it's never that simple. We went over to a friends home for dinner and to get our kids in their costumes, before we headed out to another friends home to trick or treat. Well, that went smoothly until Braxton locked our keys in the trunk of the car. In the car was the camera. So, I was unable to get pictures of the kids before we went out trick or treating. Mike had to run all of the way home to get our extra set of keys.

Long story short, the only pictures I have are of Hailey at her Gymnastics Halloween party and Braxton and Hailey eating their candy after trick or treating. And all of their face make-up was pretty much melted off by then. Hailey was a cheerleader and Braxton was a football player and his face was all beaten up.

Hailey and Gabby

Haileys gymnastics classBraxton going through his candy.....as you can see his make-up is pretty much gone.

Hailey going through everyone elses candy. You can kind of see the the "GT" on her cheek.

Burt's, Pumpkin Farm

You know fall is here when the air is cool, the leaves start to change and Burt's pumpkin farm is open for business.....well one out of three ain't bad. It's been SOOOOO hot here, and muggy, the leaves are barely starting to change, that it hasn't felt like fall, at all.... At least we can count on good ole Burt! One of our fall traditions is to go up to Burt's farm, up in the "mountains" and pick out pumpkins. There are a bunch to choose from. Anywhere from baby size to a LARGE size pumpkin. We opted for some babies and a medium size this year. The first year we went up there, we were so excited about the huge ones that we actually bought one. $65 later we were kind of regreting it......and once Halloween was over, it was quite the perdicament to figure out what to do with the darn thing.

Braxton and his Aunt Kerri looking for the perfect pumpkin.

Aunt Kerri, Braxton, Me, Mike and Hailey on the hay ride.

Mike with Hailey, Braxton, his Step-mom and Dad.

She finally found the perfect pumpkin, and was very excited about it.

It's tough to find just the right one.......

Another year down!

Mike and I just celebrated our 11th year anniversary! Oh it seems like yesterday, we were young and in love.......now we are old and angry. Just kidding, we are still young and in love.......most of the time. :) Anyway, we decided to go away again this year. Mike had some meetings up in Asheville, North Carolina, so we took the opportunity to have our trip paid for, and headed on up. We stayed at the Grove Park Inn, Spa resort. Apparently it's rated the #1 spa in the United states. It was such a nice place, peaceful and relaxing. Asheville is so pretty. It's up in the Appalachian mountains. We even splurged and had massages. It felt so good to relax. Until the pain set in, I mean real pain from the massage! My back is so stiff I can barely move. Mike was fine until lastnight, now he's feeling it too.

The camera died before I could get a picture of the hotel, so we bought a postcard. The top middle is the hotel, and the three bottom pictures are part of the spa. The pools were the best part. The Hotel is located by the famous, Biltmore home (the house the Vanderbilts, built)

This is a view from one of the many balconys at the hotel. I think it's part of the Blue ridge mountains.....not sure.

The young lovers, while we were waiting for our dinner reservation, we wandered around the hotel to check it out. You can't see it but there is a really pretty water fountain and pond behind us.

FunRun

The "funrun" was a fundraiser that Braxtons school did, to help raise funds for the school. The children were to get pledges, ex: 1$ for every lap they ran. It was a HOT day! But it was a lot of fun. Braxton ran 34 laps. When Mike found out we pledged a dollar a lap he was trying to convince Braxton to only run 1 lap......cheapskate!
Above is Braxton, and that cute girl smiling behind him, is Brooke, she is in our ward.

Braxton on the far right.

Braxton's last lap.

CRAZY Sunday

Do you ever feel like Sunday morning, before church, is the craziest part of the week? I do, especially when Mike isn't here to help. After baths, and getting our church clothes ready and doing hair and getting breakfast ready, I feel like I've been yelling nonstop, and I only have two kids! Heaven knows how my mom did it with six, five of them being girls. After a rushed morning, we actually were ready a little early, so to bring us "down" a little bit, Braxton thought it would be fun to take some pictures. So here ya go. The ones of Hailey and I, Braxton took himself.

In front of our house.

On the porch.

Me, Braxton and Hailey.

The two pills!

Hailey and Gymnastics

Finally, something girly! Well I guess I can't say girly, cause there is a boy in her class, but it's better than football. Hailey has finally reached the age where she can do some extra curricular activities. She and her friend Gabby are in a Gymnastics class together. They are both so cute in there. Hailey loves to get her "princess dance" on and go to class. They stretch, do songs with actions, jump on the trampoline, do the balance beam, do somersaults and rolling. The picture above is Hailey and Gabby doing the "butterfly".
The "destructive" duo

Hailey stretching.

Hailey doing the balance beam.

VICTORY!

Yes, this season of football has proven to be much better than last, and we've only played 3 games. Braxton's team has won two of the three. It's a much different experience to get praise instead of lectured. The team has really come together since the first game. Braxton has even been complimented by the coaches by how far he's come since the beginning of the season. Yesterday we played the team that Braxton was supposed to be on, which his best buddy Zach is on. I hate to say this, but we creamed them. 20 to 0! It was a great game......

Braxton and Zach (one of the boys who drove to Utah with us)

Braxton giving the cheerleaders "fives" after the game.

Gabby and Hailey

Football anyone?

Well, here we are again! After last years "fiasco" with football, and Braxton vowing to never play again, I thought we were home free. However, Mike talked him into giving it one more shot and if he didn't want to play anymore then he didn't have to. We are at a different park this year, so he doesn't know any of the kids. And to make things worse we bumped him up to the 8 year old team. (It's a long story) So he is going up against boys who have been playing two years longer than he has, although he is one of the bigger kids. The coaches seem to yell A LOT more at this age, and the boys seem to take it well. We just had our first game yesterday and we lost 6/0. It was actually a good game and we went into overtime. After the game the coach announced that he would be working the offensive line, AKA Braxton's position, extra hard on Monday.

Braxton and Hailey before the game.

BraxAttack
Braxton on the end. Notice he is the only one wearing long socks. He loves to be "warm", as he calls it.

Braxton is the one on the end with the dark socks pulled down.

Moving in

Well, we've been in the house for almost a month now and we are just about done unpacking. A week after we moved in I made the trek, across the country out to Utah to visit family and friends for a couple of weeks. It was nice to relax and not think about the mess I had left in Georgia, but all things come to an end and we had to return. So it was back to unpacking.

As you can see, some of our furniture, well doesn't really match, so we will slowly but surely be replacing it. As for the kids, they are adjusting. Braxton hasn't quite met anyone in the neighborhood, but has made some friends at school. Hailey tells me EVERYDAY, she wants to go "home". I have to remind her that she is home.

These two rooms are pretty much the only two that are fully unpacked. The kitchen and Keeping room.

I haven't quite decided on what to do with the kids rooms, so I bought some vinyl stickers to go on their walls so they aren't so bare. Hailey of course had to have all princess stickers. When I put up the castle she was so excited and said......"how beautiful!"