Cabo San Lucas, Mexico 2010

Mike's mom just celebrated her 60th birthday, and for her gift she wanted the family to join her down in Cabo. I have to admit that I was hesitant to go, with the swine flu going around, all that we had going on here at home, having a new puppy, and taking Braxton out of school, I just seemed like the wrong time to go, but I am so glad we went. Have you ever gone on vacation and not realized how much you needed it until you were a couple of days into it? That was me.

The weather was beautiful, not too hot, but warm enough to play in the ocean. The kids had a blast spending time with Aunts, Uncle, Grandparents and cousins they don't get to see very often. Our week was filled with swimming at the pool, playing on the beach, whale watching, jetskiing, snorkeling and good old fashioned relaxation.

I've never been to Mexico (other than on a cruise) so I didn't quite know what to expect. When we drove from the airport to our resort I was a bit concerned because of how run down everything was, it is definately a poor country. But as soon as we hit Cabo San Lucas it was like an oasis in the desert. Beautiful resorts with fancy landscaping, lined the beaches. There was even a Walmart and Costco near by. It doesn't get more at home than that.

I am really grateful that we had the opportunity to go. Thank you Dave and Cheryl!We stayed at the Hacienda Del Mar. The resort was amazing! The backside was lined with several swimming pools, hot tubs and infinity pools. Hailey enjoying the pool, getting ready to swim to Mike.Taylor, Ryan, Braxton, Dayton, Mike and Hailey relaxing in the infinity pool, looking for whales. The Whales were so close you could see them come up out of the water. Braxton, Taylor, Mike and Hailey

Taylor and Hailey were best buds on the trip. Taylor slept at our condo just about everynight. Taylor was kind enough to give Hailey swimming and "manner" lessons. One afternoon, Hailey and I were at the pool and she wanted to swim off without her arm floaties on. When I told her no, she reminded me that Taylor (who is 6) taught her how to swim, so she could do it just fine.

Mike and I at Chaleno Beach

There was some awesome snorkeling at Chaleno Beach. Braxton has only snorkeled in Florida, where there isn't much to see, so he was pretty excited to so many different types of fish.

Mike and Braxton snorkeling.

We also found a lot of sea glass on the beach.

Cheryl requested that one night we go and take family pictures on the beach, so after about an hour and a half of driving around to find the perfect place we ended right back at a beach close to our resort.

Cheryl bought Hailey and Taylor matching dresses for the pictures. As soon as we got there Hailey and Taylor ran straight for the water, and of course, Haileys dress got wet. She was very upset!

Braxton, Taylor and Hailey

Another infinity pool.

One of our excursions we took a boat out to the Arch at the tip of the Baja peninsula. There were a cluster of rocks covered with sea lions basking in the sun.

One morning Braxton and I made a trek out to the beach to meet Kerrie to take some sunrise photos.

Another excursion was whale watching. What an amazing experience! We were lucky to find a mother and baby whale hanging out. The baby even jumped out of the water a couple of times, which I of course missed with my camera.

This is the snorkeling area at Chaleno beach. The rocks you see were just filled with fish.

Mike and Braxton heading in to do some exploring.

Mike, Braxton, Hailey and Taylor enjoying the beach one last time before we headed home.

The famous arch at the tip of the baja.

So long Mexico, back to the real world.....

The Real Storm

Little did I know that the little snow storm I blogged about earlier, was just a preview to what was to come. We actually got a couple of inches and school was closed. It doesn't sound like much, but that's a big deal here. The kids had a blast playing in it.

This was just the begining of the storm

Hailey enjoying the new snow

The street was covered with a sheet of ice, so the neighborhood boys took their body surfing boards and sled down until it melted.

Hailey and Gabby were content sledding down this little hill. The body boards didn't work so well, so I ended up pulling them down the hill.

Since we don't get weather like this very often, we aren't really equiped to clothe the kids, other than a coat. I found some of Braxton's old snow pants, and Hailey was not pleased that they were baggy.

A snowball!

Braxton having a snowball fight.

Grandma and Grandpa Ellsworth Visit

New Years day, we were privilaged to have Grandma and Grandpa Ellsworth come down and visit. We spent the weekend pretty much playing games. I'm sure Grandma and Grandpa were "gamed" out by the time they went home. With the exception of Ellie chewing Grandma's shoe (after I'd bragged at how she never chews anything) we had a great time. Grandma and Grandpa playing Tippo Uno with the kids

Not quite a Christmas Miracle, but I'll take it anyway...

As I've stated in previous blogs, being a Utah girl, Christmas just isn't Christmas, without snow. However, living in the south, I have yet to see it. Every year I hope for the "christmas miracle" as I call it, for it to snow on Christmas Eve or Christmas, and every year I am disappointed. The weather man even forcasted it the week before, so I had hope, but NOTHING! Well we did get rain. Anyway, 5 days after Christmas, the kids come running up to my room to let me know that it was snowing outside. Granted it wasn't much, and it wasn't Christmas anymore, but I'll take what I can get. This picture is pretty disceiving, as there was barely a dusting on the grass. Even with this little, it still was pretty, and you could still hear the "hush" of the falling snow.

The big 5!

I can't believe that my little baby is 5 already! Time really does go by too fast! It just seems like yesterday I was coming home from the hospital with her. After having only 1 boy for almost 5 years, it was a change to have a little girl. While Braxton was mischievious, and couldn't sit down for more than a minute, Haileys more calm and loves to sit and color and play quietly. She loves to help me with household chores, and with Nicoles baby, Spencer. She is very loving and loves affection, where I'm not really that way, it's been good for me to learn that it's important to show that more often, to my kids and family. She loves to laugh and has a very loud giggle, she idolizes her brother and loves to snuggle with Mike, and to my surprise is very much a mamma's girl, eventhough she is more like her dad. She loves for me to do her hair and paint her nails. One of our favorite things to do together is to sit on my bed and color in her coloring books. She doesn't like to see anyone upset, but isn't afraid to stick up for herself. She is truelly a blessing to our family and we don't know what we'd do without her. I can't believe she will be starting all day kindergarten next fall. Our gift to hailey was this vanity. She loves to sit and play with her hair and play dress-up. This year she's been talking about having a party at Chuck-e-cheese. I gave her a choice, a party or I would take her to get her ears pierced....she chose the party. CRAZY! So I guess we'll be headed to Chuck-e-cheese soon.

Hailey with her cute headbands from Grandma and Grandpa Ellsworth. The perfect gift!

Christmas 2009

Christmas this year was pretty quiet. No family visit's, or anything out of the ordinary. Although with my sister and her family living here we are able to spend it with them. We headed over to their house for a delicious honey baked ham, Christmas Eve dinner, followed by a Christmas program, put together by Uncle Mike. After, the kids exchanged gifts with each other and then they all were able to put on their Christmas pj's.

Hailey and Kira are the angels, Noah was a shephard and Joseph and Braxton was a wiseman. Kristine played Mary since she is "great with child."Everyone in their pajama's

With the Sampson Family still living with us, that makes for a very large crowd, Christmas morning. It's just not the same if Christmas morning is calm and quiet, so I enjoy all of the excitment and craziness that comes with 7 children. About a week before Christmas, I was talking to Braxton about one of my favorite Christmas's growing up and asked him if he had a favorite Christmas memory, he replied that last year was his favorite Christmas. I asked him why and he answered, "because the Sampson's were here". I wonder what the kids are going to do when their friends don't live here anymore.
The tree, Christmas morning.

Opening gifts from Santa.

No one was left out, not even Ellie.

This year Braxton asked for several versions of the rubiks cube and an acoustic guitar. He was very excited when he saw that santa had left him the guitar and that Dad had signed him up for lessons. I decided to take lessons with him, and we start tomorrow. This should be interesting.

Santa gave hailey a three muskateer barbie, a barbie guitar and something else I can't remember. However she was very disappointed that he didn't give her the cupcake maker she'd been talking about for the past few weeks. And she was sure to let everyone know, that he didn't bring it! I pointed out that maybe he didn't bring it because he knew that someone else was going to give it to her and that she needed to be patient. Well, sure enough, Grandma and Grandpa gave her the cupcake maker and she felt much better. When all of the gifts were handed out and unwrapped she came up to me and said...."that's it?!" Wow, she is hard to please.

Preschool performance....

Well, this was the last preschool Christmas program I will have to attend, for Hailey. She did a great job, singing all of the songs and doing the actions. It was fun to see her up there having a good time. The best part was to watch the little boy behind her pull faces and goof off.

If Hailey didn't know the words, she'd still move her mouth, like she was singing.

Last year Hailey and her class were supposed to black, which wasn't very exciting for her. But this year, they were supposed to wear their "best". She picked out a fancy church dress, and was very excited to wear it. Miss Nancy and the kids playing a game at the class party.

Gabby and Hailey. I never understood why they invited the parents to the class parties, just so we could stand around awkwardly and watch the kids eat.

Christmas Goodies..

I grew up with a Mother, who would make and hand out plates of goodies to friends and neighbors, every Christmas season. I remember the homemade cookies, suckers, marshmellow/popcorn candycanes, and my personal favorite, the homemade carmels, that she she spent hours putting together. Then my dad and and all of the kids would drive around and deliver it all.

I never realized how much work she put into those plates, until I tried to do it myself. Every year, I'd make a goal to at least come up with something for the neighbors, and every year, I never followed through. This year, Nicole and I decided that we'd spend a day baking and put plates together. We made sugar cookies that the kids frosted and decorated, she made "bark" which is basically chocolate, corn syrup and saltine crackers, I was to make chocolate mint cookies, which I botched the recipe of course, and they ended up having to be thrown away. And our pride and joy, homemade chocolates. Destin headed this project up. We all painted molds with colored chocolate, which took hours. And they looked amazing. I'd never done this before, and actually had a lot of fun doing it. After we painted the molds and filled them with chocolate, we then put them outside to keep them cool. Well, we forgot about the molds and they sat out in the sun for most of the day. It wasn't super warm, but just warm enough to melt everything together, ruining all the work we had done. The big chocolate blob.
Nicole was actually able to salvage some of them and we did include them on the plates. I am proud to say that dispite all of our little snags, our Christmas goodies were a success!