Christmas week~

Our Christmas Week....started off as usual, hanging out.

We took lots of pictures so be prepared for the longest blog ever!

Abram and Mom

Eli, Mom, & Natalie....CHeEsEY

We went to see the Chrismas lights in Franklin, family Tradition.

We invited Eli's friend Andrew to come along.

Sippin' cider and eating cookies at this

Amazing display of lights!

The tree in the background has 13,700 lights alone.

Not to mention the whole property is covered

with animated everything & ton's of LIGHTS!

Natalie and Madison love this place, as do we all!

They have ornaments you can write a special note on to

remember a loved one that you've lost.

Then you hang them on trees and every year you

can come back and find the one you made.

It is amazing how many people come here.

The family puts it on every year in memory

of their family members that have past on.

Christmas Eve... we went to Shannon's house
to play some Guitar Hero of course. Then
on to Grandma & Grandpa Crist's house for a great dinner!
Cousins love hanging out!

Had a great time & opened lot's of nice presents!
Thanks Grandma & Grandpa!

Christmas Morning.....
We opened presents at 7am.
The kids had fun .
They loved, loved, loved their gifts!
And Amy loved her new camera!
Ya, more pictures!~sorry~



Aaron wanted a White Christmas so...
We let the kids know we were leaving for
Yosemite for a couple days!
Yeah, they all said!
So after an almost 4 hr. drive through the blizzard
the fun began.

....First icicles,

Then Snowballs,

...And Finally Snow angels!





















We woke up to a beautiful morning!

We took the bus around the park, saw some museums,
and then went ice skating.

The next morning we decided to go hike to Mirror Lake.
(The base of Half Dome.)
The kids were reluctant at first but had a great time in the end!
They couldn't stop throwing snowballs,
which would sometimes end in crying!
Hello.... snow is cold!

Aaron & Amy near Half Dome
(This is very rare for us to be in a pic. together!)

We sled for hours, made a snowman,
and had a really great time together as a family!

The trees were so weighted down with snow,

so we had to crouch down to follow the trails!

Like I said, we took lot's of pictures!

It was so gorgeous!
























The kids had a blast and kept saying
we want to live here!
With a high of 34 and a low of 20
while we were there, it was cold but great.


However, it was nice to get back to the warm!

Eli in shorts and boots, Classic.


The End.

~Thanksgiving~

It's been a long month without Blogging~Sorry.

Here we are and what we've been up to.

Thanksgiving 2008.....

As promised the day started with Flag football at the H.S.

Plenty of people showed up and had a great time with no injuries!

The pic. on the left my Brother in Law Jed took,

It was awesome how Abram blocked the pass from Briana.

After dinner we went to Consumnes Preserve to walk off the food!

My cousin Carl, Matthew's kids and some of mine & Shannon's went.

We love CA weather in the fall.

What a beautiful day it was!

The story of the Slug and Kelly Rae.

Aaron asked, "Who will eat this slug for a dollar?"

Of Course, Kelly Rae stepped up and said, "I will, I will!!!"

We couldn't believe it, within 5 seconds she had it down!

Matthew couldn't believe it!

And Tricia was not too happy about that either. (-=

She's so cute!!

($1 earned.... did she pay tithing on that earning?)

What a great day we had with Matthew, & Shannon's families,

Carl, Grandma & Grandpa Crist.

Princess Lexi!!

This is the Homecoming parade at Galt H.S. My friend Suzie texted frantically, "Do you know anyone with a convertable?" Hello, I guess she hadn't noticed our car before. So her daughter Lexi got to be the princess for Key Club. Yeah!! I told her it is a dream come true!(For any true princess at heart!) Drew Retherford was her driver. They had a great time and I always thought our little convertable Mercedes would be perfect for a trip around the track!

Yes she is sticking her tongue out at her friends.

She is a Sassy Princess, Lov ya Lex!

Crist family

We went to Vacaville to visit my family

a few weekends ago.Here's my sister Shannon.

She is 15 weeks prego & we are so excited!!

We had to get a picture of how BIG she is. Ya right.(=

I could show more than her right now! Love you sister.

All the grand kids are getting big.

They all want to be taller that Grandma.

She is about 5'7 and as you can kinda tell Abram

is almost eye to eye!

(Who's in this photo: Madi, Grandma Crist, Abram,

Eli, Brendan, Michael, Natalie, & Rebekah.)

Grandpa Crist with most of his girls!

I love the persimmon tree in the fall. My parents have 2 acres with lots of trees.

Almost all produce some kind of fruit or nut. Oranges, peaches, walnuts,

apples, pomegranates, pecans, plums, pears, persimmons, figs,

apricots, lemons, nectarines....etc!!

(Who are these people:

Natalie, Rebekah, Madison, Grandpa Crist, Kelly Rae, & Suzanne.)

Madison & Kelly Rae

(My brother Matthews daughter.

She looks a lot like me when I was young.

My kids look nothing like me, oh well!)

I decided to try and take a family picture

when we went to Vacaville. However, Aaron stayed home sick.

So here's my kids with no parents!

This may end up in our Christmas Cards.

~Fall~

Eli played Soccer this fall and had a good time doing it.

His last game's were in the pouring rain.(Nat in her little rain tunnel, eating a candy bar at 9am!) They played Four games in the two day tournament of rain. They ended up getting 3rd place! Which was awesome because from where they started it felt as if they were going no where fast. They had a lot to learn and they kept trying harder. It was great for us to watch but I think I almost had a heart attack at every game. I would scream like one of "those" mom's...You know who you are.

Any who, now we are off to watch and scream at more sporting events for the boys. Eli is now playing competitive soccer & 5th grade Rec. Basketball. (He's in 4th) Abram is playing on the 8th grade McCaffrey M.S. team and 8th grade rec. ball. I can't wait(ya right) until my dad finds out they are playing. He thinks they do too much and doesn't hold back giving me a hard time about it. I say, if they can still get good grades and they are having fun, then go play ball. (Both made Honor roll=) They don't play on Sunday's so that is nice. We do tend to revolve our lives around our kids.

Madi & Natalie are the cheerleaders for the boys. They aren't playing any sports right now. I wish I could get them into dance/piano or something but it is Cha, ching$$. I am going to try and work it out. They would both love it. So maybe more practices will be on the calander. My dad will love that! (=

Here is my baby blue eyes!

She just got done with her day of Halloween.

I know we are wearing red. Well, it was Red Ribbon week,

so she wore her cute sweater that is very long.

She calls it, her robe.

Halloween 2008~

I guess I will start with Halloween............

it's already starting to feel like Christmas though.

I'd better hurry up.

Aaron really wanted to do an elaborate Haunted Garage this year. That just kinda sounded like $$ to me so he got creative. He amazes me.....really. I got a package in the mail that looked like junk. It turn out to be a mother board thingy(I'm sure it has a name!) that he made into lightening effects. He was soldering one night for hours. You plug in lights and then it flashes to the lightening sound effects hooked up to a stereo. Pretty cool, eh. He bought pipe to add to the fog machine to make it work all over the garage. He took our Rock Band box and made it into a coffin for Eli. Actually, the pictures look pretty generic without it being dark. I went out there a couple times during the week, I was freaked out when it was too dark & quiet. We had black lights as well. We had fun for two nights with it. We kept collecting kids as the night went on. They all wanted to participate. The kids had a blast and loved scaring their friends...& the Adults too!

It's all about the kids at our house!

Our friend Karen's dad came to help spook!

YIKES!

Thanks Bro. Kraude!

This guy really scared some kids.

How its made?? Well, Aaron wrapped himself in Duct Tape!

(That, I should have video taped! So funny & stressful!)

Then we cut the clothes off his body

to make the mummy like form.

It was working fine until it got tight in some places...Yikes! :D

Anyway, Some kids ran out as soon as they saw him.

Spencer with a strobe light in his face.

Eli was on the right side of the Coffin,

and the left side was open with a fake mummy.

He would then lift his side to scare kids!

Aaron with his voice changing machine.
He stood behind black see-through material.

It's was really dark, so when the lightening would flash you'd see him.

One teenage girl wacked him with her candy bag

(He thinks she chipped his tooth!)

and screamed a swear word at him. I guess it scared her.

He found most ideas online.

He's my project finishing husband.

He almost never leaves something undone!

I could learn a lesson from him,

maybe tomorrow....( :

Zac & Abram had fun spookin'.

Until Abram said,

"All the little kids are taking over MOM!"

Hey there old timer!

This is Adrian our neighbor, he's 8. Not 88.

He shaved his head for his costume!

The best was Church on Sunday.

I thought it was fake until I felt it!

So funny!


Trick or treating before the Haunted Garage.

Eli, Natalie, Kaitlin, Ethan, & Spencer.

Mother/Daughter activity. Madi was a Rock Band Character.
I love hanging out with my Madison!




Side note:

I gave Abram 2 disposable cameras for his D.C. trip.

What was I thinking?? He came home with 8 camera's.

He kept buying more. So now I had to get them developed.

It would have been cheaper to buy him a camera.

Their are about 20 pictures that are good.

One roll was completely blank. UGH.