My Cozy Little Christmas Elves

A Christmas photo shoot with my kiddos yielded tons of silly fun and laughable posing. I couldn't help but share the entire experience. I think I ended up with maybe 2 usable shots in the end. I love these kids!

Art Day!!

We had an art day! I bought some little wooden plaques for the kids to paint their own version of Blue Dog. Ellie had an itch to be artsy and Michael and Elle quickly followed suit.




It wasn't long before these amazing art pieces came to life! Large green canvas by Huntie. Praying Mantis and Blue Dog on blue background my Michael. Blue Dog on orange background by Huntie. Two abstract pieces by Ellie.

Happy Good-bye to Mulberry

Hunter's grammy made a special cake at Hunter's request for her last day of school at Mulberry. It was, as usual, deliciously amazing. The deeply-colored blue frosting was the "icing on the cake." (and Huntie's teeth) You're only able to see a small section of the cake here, as her school class DEVOURED more than half of it in record time. We made quick work of the leftovers.

Crazy Pete

Huntie was required to write a story using this week's spelling words. She, with her dad to help her along, wrote this hilarious story. I wanted to share it with you all.

Crazy Pete
By. HunterEve Voisin
 
Crazy Pete had lived on many ranches. He never really liked the berries he had to eat.
 
He was named crazy Pete because he was always making crazy mistakes. Like once, he ate moss and got gas. The whole barn (including his parents) hated him for that.
 
Another time, he ate the Farmer’s wife’s green dresses because he thought the flowers on them looked tasty.
 
Once they tried to put him in the circus, but it turned out he was afraid of arrows and babies, So they sent him to be a mining horse, but it turned out he was afraid of caves too.
 
So this time, they sent Pete to be a racing horse, but they sent him to the wrong track. His first race, he realized, all of the other horses had four tires and engines. At first, he thought he forgot his glasses, but the realized he didn’t wear glasses, only his mom did. Then he thought they were robot horses because they all had batteries.

 
When the gun shot, instead of running the race, he ran for his life screaming, “Mommy SAVE ME!”
 
When he won the race, he got his trophy and asked, “What is this for”? The crowd roared with laughter, so Crazy Pete laughed until it was winter, got sick, and sneezed his brains out, put it back in, and went home to finally see him mommy.

Hurricane Hunter!!

Huntie made a beautiful gingerbread house out of graham crackers and candy at Activity Days last night. She worked so hard and carefully placed each piece. Then, once she was finished and satisfied with her work, she said, "Here comes Hurricane Hunter!!" as she took her hand and smashed it on the top of the house and crushed it.

LOL, I love it! She is such a free spirit and so funny. The house tasted so yummy. We've be enjoying it all day.

Happy Halloween!

Our great friends the Noonans joined us this Halloween. Deya is Ellie's bosom buddy and they both went trick-or-treating as Princesses. Go figure.




Ryan and Amanda patiently allowed me to dress them up - Amanda was Padme, thank you Huntie's costume last year; and Ryan went all out with the circus hat.

Kevin and I were quite a pair in our Janice-inspired "Whoopie Cushion wear."



Happy Halloween! We had lots of fun trick-or-treating. Huntie dressed up as Kit Kittredge, the American Girl. Michael was invited to a boy Halloween party and hay ride, so we girls had a night to ourselves!



And of course, the loot:

Rise and Shout the Cougars are out!

We got invited to a special brunch in the French Quarter with BYU alumni group. So fun! Kevin was serenaded by the jazz band when Huntie told them it was her daddy's birthday.


The weather relfected the sad sad showing New Orleans' Tulane Green Tide football team showed against the Cougars - 54 to 3!! We cheerfully wore rain ponchos to and from the Superdome.


Elle wasn't do keen on rising OR shouting.


BUT, Kevin and Huntie (just like her mommy) are diehard fans. I thought it was pretty poetic to paint my family's faces for the BYU game in New Orleans - a skill I learned as a face painter in the summertime to pay my way through BYU.



Huntie and Cosmo. Oooooo, it's just so magical!


Ok, this is so sad. Look at the Tulane side of the field. So sparce, it was such a weak showing.


Now look at the BYU side. We clearly whooped their hind ends in the fan support department. Looks like we brought our home field advantage with us!


Kevin showed Mike the highest seats in the Superdome - truely the nosebleeds. Look waaaaaay up there . . .


Then he, Huntie and Michael hiked the entire distance to the center top seats of section 610. Whoa!


Look at that view!



Ellie Bellie was so tired and grumpy that she fell asleep during the game.



Huntie and I decided #51 on BYU's team was our favorite player. Can you see why?


Michael kept torpedoing into Uncle Greg, so Uncle Greg gave him a little what for with an upper hand diversion and a lower hand smack to the tummy.


Over and over again, Mike would torpedo into Greg. And over and over again, Greg would distract Mike with his right hand in the air and then slap him in the tummy with his left hand. It seriously took Michael a good 10 tries to firgure this trick out. I think he was enjoying the "game" so much, it took him a while to start dodging the slap. Lol.


It was so funny. Michael loved it.




WOOhOO! The Cougars came to New Orleans and played the Tulane Wave in the Superdome and WE got to see it! Kevin's sweet connections got us 15th row seats on the 40 yard line.

BYU has been looking great this season and just whooped up on Oklahoma, seated #3, last weekend 14 - 13! That win jumped BYU up 11 spots to rank Top 10 at #9. Very nice.