Allison's 9th Birthday

Allison turned 9 on Dec. 21. To celebrate we went to Chuck E. Cheese. The kids had a blast. Unfortunatley I was not the skee ball champion of the night. That title went to Derek. On Sunday, Allison requested a turkey dinner with all the fixings so we had a nice dinner and had cake and presents. I think she had a good birthday.

Allison's Birthday Cupcakes

Right after the play last Friday, we took in cupcakes to her class. Ava had to have one too of course.

Ward Christmas Party

Last Friday was our Ward's Christmas party. The primary sang "Away in a Manger" and the kids got to see Santa again.

Allison and Emma's Christmas Play

Last week Emma and Allison were in a play at school about Christmas celebrations around the world. Allison had the lead role "Old Frost" and Emma also had several speaking parts. They did great!!

Look What We Got Today

and it's still falling. There are already talks of school closures and such. It is definitely fun to see and play in for a minute but now that it's here I am reminded of why we love living in the south! I have wet pants, coats, boots, etc.... strung all over my entryway and everyone smells like a wet dog. Oh well, we'll enjoy it while it lasts!

Jerrod's First Band Concert

Jerrod is way in the back.

Tuesday night was Jerrod's first band concert and I had planned on taking video of it to place on here but when we got there I realized the camcorder was dead. Since I had my final earlier that day the thought to charge it hadn't crossed my mind. Too many other things to think about. So, anyway, he did great and they sounded good and LOUD. There were a lot of them.

Just an update, I am now done with school until nursing school starts on January 20. YAY! I thought I would feel an overwhelming sense of relief but I still feel very overwhelmed with everything else going on. It seems like there is something every night which I guess is typical of December. I just hope I have a chance to slow down before Christmas and enjoy a couple of relaxing nights! Saturday I took a class to get CPR certified and I passed so now I am a certified health care provider in CPR anyway. Tuesday I bought a nice shiny new laptop for only $399 and a 40 pound box of textbooks for $460 (yikes!) so I am getting closer to being ready for the next adventure. Luckily we receive our books not only in print but on the computer which is why the laptop will be so handy. I won't have to haul those books to school each day. Now I am just counting down the days until Friday at 2:00 when I have my husband back from his finals week!! He has a mere 8 tests this week, I don't know how he does it.

Family Pictures

While in Elko we took family pictures with the Crouch's before Jason and Jamey moved. Here are a few that were captured with my camera.

Derek, Jason and Andrew

I had to take this one because Ava was being such a stinker. She kept kicking Emma in the head!

The whole fam damnly!

Who says white men can't jump!!

Thanksgiving

This year we headed to Elko to spend Thanksgiving with our families. We had a great time even though Derek and I both had tests to study for in between visiting. Here's some pictures of our fun weekend:

Ava helping make stuffing

Aunt Jenny and Clayton

The dogs enjoyed a turkey drumstick

Ava and Ashlyn and Grandma and Papa Crouch's house

Derek still can dunk the ball. Pretty good for an old man!

Ava and her cute cousin Kallista


It wouldn't be a real Thanksgiving without some football.


Grandma and Papa had a fun craft activity for the grandkids

More to come.............

Visit from Grandpa and Grandma

It has been a busy few weeks so I am pretty behind. Derek and I have been busy with school and looking forward to the Christmas break! Here's a little of what we have been up to.

A couple of weeks ago my parents came to visit. We had a fun weekend full of shopping, Cafe Rio, and In n Out burger. By the way, most of you might not know how special my Dad is. Here is a photo to prove it................










He got to referee a state championship football game here in Vegas. He referees basketball, football, and umpires softball. We are proud of you Dad...... p.s. had you worried huh!

Jerrod and Ava cheering him on

The B-52s Concert

I used to love the B-52s all through high school and have always wanted to go to one of their concerts. Yes, I know I just dated myself a little bit. ha ha. Anyway, when I saw they were coming here I wanted to go but knew I couldn't justify spending money on tickets. Well, the casino that they were playing at in Primm gave out 500 free tickets and even though I didn't get one people were selling them on craig's list for a huge discount so I was able to get two tickets for less than the price one ticket would have been and it was less than the cost of going out to dinner. Sweet!! Derek and I had great time. They sounded really good and we ended up moving down half way through to some really close seats.

Jerrod's First Court of Honor

I was going through pictures and realized I forgot to post about Jerrod's first Court of Honor. He did good and earned his canoeing, leather work, medicine and first aid merit badges. I can't believe that next summer he will be old enough to go to scout camp!

Painting!

I have wanted to paint a wall in my house for a long time. Even though we are renting I decided it was a cheap way to spruce the room up. I think it turned out pretty good!

Ava's Pictures

Last night I was putting the kids' school pictures in their frames and realized that I have really slacked on getting Ava's updated. I had one from when she was about 9 months old in her frame. So, I decided to take her this morning and just get it done. She was all excited, even asked for makeup on her eyes and lips which we pretended to do. Then when we got there she just turned shy. We could not get her to smile. The most frustrating thing as a parent is to take your kids to a photographer who does not do anything to get them to smile!!! They kept making sounds with their lips like she was 6 months old and she kept looking at them like you have got to be kidding me. Whenever I told her to smile she would look at me and say "Mom" under her breath like, stop embarrassing me! I even had them switch the photographer to a girl because I thought the guy might be scaring her. I kept asking them how they wanted her posed and they would say just standing or sitting. Nice and specific. So, anyway after a long session they show me the pictures and the guy wants me to buy the $100 package. I explained to him that I was only going to get the $10 package, which comes with a ton of pictures and he turns to me and says, "Really, after all that work we just did, you are only going to spend $10." Oh, that ticked me off. So, I said you might have thought you did a lot of work but you didn't work very hard to get her to smile. What I really wanted to say was "My husband is a medical student and we have 4 children. Every penny we spend is borrowed. Back off!" Anyway, I just needed to vent. I think I will be the photographer for a while.

Happy Halloween!

We had a really fun Halloween. I always hate the thought of Halloween when I'm trying to get all the costumes together but it is so much fun to take the kids out! We started off our morning going to the Shark Reef Aquarium at the Mandalay Bay. They were letting kids in free if they wore their costume so I thought it was a good opportunity to let them go there. Ava loved petting the sting rays. She would have stayed there for hours had we let her.

This is Ava with one of the listening devices they gave us as we walked in. They tell you about all of the different fish. She called it her remote.

Next we came home and made some sugar cookies. Then we met up with the Green family to go trick or treating. The kids got so much candy!!! Ava kept saying "I knew it" "I'm not afraid of heights" She was funny.

We went and saw my friend Karissa and her husband Chris. They live in a sweet neighborhood!

Ava and her friend Leila

Emma was so excited that she got a full size candy bar. I think they ended up with 5 of them