Gingerbread Houses and Tractor Rides

This is how the Lewis' do it!

Again a pre-celebration with my parents and sister, we headed over a few days before Christmas to their home and "helped" grandpa use up the gas in his riding lawn mower. Our kids LOVED taking turns doing this!
Then for the second year in a row (now a tradition) we decorated gingerbread (graham cracker) houses with CANDY!!

And we opened a few presents. This little guy really likes his reindeer, I think he's eaten all the little bells off the antlers by now!MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Thanksgiving 2010

Thanksgiving 2010 was double feasting for us!!

We enjoyed a pre-thanksgiving feast with my parents and sister a couple days before Turkey Day and then drove to have a second helping with Stephen's parents in College Station.

It was special because ALL of Stephen's siblings were able to be there including Sarah home from BYU-Provo and Joseph who came from Boston.

FUNNY STORY TO LAUGH AT: We took the opportunity to take a family photo with everyone. Mom McKneely had this idea of us all dressing in black with Santa hats and so we had planned to take this photo on Wednesday late afternoon. I had spent a lot of time (and some money) gathering appropriate clothing for our family--dressing nice in black wasn't just in the wardrobe already and so new items were purchased. A couple of hours before the photo appointment I was digging around in our van and didn't notice the pile of black hanging clothes intended for the photo. When I asked Stephen about it, he got a really worried look on his face and admitted that he'd forgotten to grab them and that our clothes were still at home in Dallas in the dining room. I made sure he wasn't just kidding me, he wasn't, and grabbed my keys, my wallet, and some moral supporters and hit the stores buying another batch of all black clothing for the photo shoot. A couple good things came from the shopping trip though, a darling black dress for Lindsey that she LOVED, and a really cute SANTA SUIT for the big man to wear (which Stephen HATES because it takes a shot at his manhood--but enough women in the family had my back and he wore it anyway!!) Here are some of the shots from the photo shoot:
Some other highlights of the weekend was spending time with Rachel's fiance--the soon to be Uncle Kodie (who Lindsey has especially bonded with):
Attempting this human boomerang game (didn't go over like we thought it would):
kids playing in the leaves:
having smores outside in the fire pit:
and at the Thanksgiving table when Lindsey was asked what Stephen was thankful for she replied, "Naps!"--too true "maddie" too true!!

A CRAZY weekend

The FIRST weekend in December was kind of nuts for us, and let me tell you why:
1: I ran my first ever 5K!! Now this is a BIG DEAL for me, I've never been a "runner" but have always wanted to run a race. We were given a treadmill shortly after moving into this house (and my husband thought we'd never use it and I took that as a challenge to prove him wrong!) and I was out of excuses for not exercising. Every year our city has a 5K Rudolph Run the first weekend in December and so last fall I committed to training for it. I started slowly, only being able to run for 5 minute intervals and then walking for a minute and I gradually built myself up to being able to run a mile without stopping to walk at all!! I completed my 5K in just under 30 minutes, and came in 9th in my age group. I'm pretty proud of myself and am now pondering another 5K (or dare I do a 10K??) in April in Brenham, TX---they bribe you with Blue Bell ice cream before and after the race!!

Also, this Rudolph Run was really fun because there was also a 1 mile fun run for kids and I got Stephen to take all 4 kids (and an amazing helper from our ward,) the younger 2 in the jogging stroller, and do the fun run with the kids. They went first and Stephen was skeptical that our kids could run that far but they surprised him and did great and then waited for me to complete the race!

It was a gorgeous day for running!!

#2 reason of Craziness was the 8th Annual Nativity Display sponsored by our church for our community. I work heading up Public Affairs for our church in our city and so I helped to oversee this event. Over 500 Nativity statues were put on display with Christmas Trees, twinkling Christmas Lights, live music by community performing groups and other churches from our community. We had about 2600 people enter our church building to view the display and about 600 of them were not members of our church!! This effort takes hundreds of man hours in planning and setting up and executing, but it's worth it to be able to spread the message to our community that we ARE indeed Christians who celebrate Christmas to remember the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Our event got print media in local magazine and 2 articles in a local edition of the Dallas Morning News. This article even featured a photo of Kaitlyn (a total surprise!--she was thrilled!!!). Every year we learn things to help improve the event, what's most important is the spirit that is felt by those who participate and attend. We're already thinking of next year's event.

Spotlight on Kaitlyn

So Kaitlyn had a special kind of day mid November. On the same day she was recognized at an early morning school assembly as a "Marvelous Maverick" and then had her very first Piano Recital! Woo-hoo!

(she's the one in the hot pink in the middle)

(don't mind Sam--he was in a mood!)
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Then later that night, after only 6 weeks of lessons, she participated in her first ever piano recital. She was so proud of herself for learning her pieces and memorizing them. She did great!

We were actually quite surprised she didn't act more nervous because we would expect a bit of anxiety from her because new things are overwhelming for her but she didn't show any signs of nerves at all......until the car ride home when she threw up! Yup! in the car, it was awful and smelled even worse. Then my husband--wonderful man, cleaned most of it while I got the other kids in bed and cleaned her up. It was a memorable event, to say the least! But we are very proud of her performance....at the recital that is.

Lindsey's Day!

The Day after Halloween is Lindsey's Birthday! That's how she explained it to everyone and true enough it dawned and it was HER day!

Her FABULOUS Nursery leader had made her a Birthday Crown (which she wore for a few days) and it got her lots of attention as she explained to anyone who would listen that it was her birthday and then she'd proudly display 3 fingers!

Sam was at preschool that day so she and I were able to spend some special time together. Our friend Dee Dee (Divinidee Cakes) has a cake shop and I was such a cool mom to take her to get a cupcake but they were "closed" but luckily Dee Dee was there and she had some little cake bites just her size AND a purple balloon and that was even better than a cupcake! Then we drove through McDonalds and ate a picnic lunch in the living room (because it's one of her favorite things to do).
She helped make her birthday cake, white cake with the confetti sprinkles and purple frosting (do you sense a favorite color here?)

And then that evening Grandma and Grandpa Lewis came to help celebrate and open presents. She got new pajamas, some play food and from my parents: a new suitcase (for our cruise in the spring). She was so excited with the suitcase she exclaimed, "This is the best suitcase EVER!" It was priceless!

Happy Birthday to a girl who brings so much laughter and happiness to my life. She is her daddy's buddy, my wild child who always surprises me with things she says and does--we just love her to pieces and are so grateful she's part of our family!

Here are some great shots of her over this past year:

Trick or Treat

So Halloween fell on a Sunday this year so that meant that the Halloween festivities took place around here on Saturday in the form of a 2 ward (LDS Congregation) Trunk-or-Treat--and believe me we got all the candy we needed and threw away half of it!

For Halloween we had a Princess:
She was going to be a cow (a perfect companion to Sam's costume) but at the last minute decided to be Cinderella.

A Howdy-Dowdy Cowboy:
And here he is with a little friend from church who was "Jessie" from Toy Story:And Kaitlyn was going to be a butterfly fairy but that morphed into the story book character "Fancy Nancy" who is just an over-accessorized little girl who uses big words--fairy wings are required part of the Fancy Nancy outfit!:And Matthew used the obligatory "First Halloween" costume that Sam, & Lindsey both used:
Hooray for Trunk or Treats! I seriously passed out over 300 pieces of candy/pencils & erasers! There were a ton of kids there!

And someone decided that Matthew had to have his first ever piece of candy--he was teething so he enjoyed it even before he could taste it--but once he did WOW was he LOVING it!!

Fieldtrip & Pumpkins

Happy Halloween!! Oh wait, yes it's December and I'm THAT far behind in updating the blog, so here's to a week of catch-up! Woo-hoo!

Sam's preschool went to a little farm (Owen's Farm) with a petting zoo that morphs into a pumpkin farm for the season. Lindsey and Matthew and I tagged along for the fun of it.

Lindsey is quite brave! My older two are a little hesitant to try new things (Sam mostly is because he watches follows Kaitlyn's cues) but Lindsey is so confident and independant and LOVES animals so I wasn't suprised at all to find her doing this:


We also took a hay ride, saw other farm animals, and picked our own pumpkins to take home.

Then THAT night we had grandma and grandpa Lewis come over and help us carve pumpkins--this is really the ideal way to do this because this way each kid has an adult to work with and it goes pretty smoothly, enjoy some photos: