Annual Christmas Sleep Over

 

December 10, 2011 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

This year’s annual sleep over with the nieces and nephews was tons of fun – as always!  This year we had Elon, Christian, Sierra, Ethan, Maddy and Katelee stay over.  Emily loves having all the extra cousins around to have fun with.  As always we had a craft project and we made Gingerbread Houses.  This year we found a Gingerbread House kit and a Gingerbread Train Set.  The girls made the Gingerbread Houses and the boys made the train.  Ethan filled the caboose with so much frosting and candy that it had a hard time standing up (that is why in the pictures it is on its side).  He sure did enjoy eating it though!  Before the kids did the Gingerbread building they helped us color paper.  We had butcher paper that we bought and had them color and use stickers to decorate and that is what we used to wrap everybody’s Christmas presents this year.  On Christmas day everyone LOVED their wrapping paper!  The kids stayed up LATE, like they love to do!  The bigger boys wanted to watch a horror movie with Uncle Enrique so I had Ethan come in the room with the girls to watch TV with us.  Well, the big boys didn’t even make it past the opening of the scary movie, the movie didn’t even start, it was just the opening credits and they made Enrique turn it off because  they were too scared.  I had Ethan with blankets on the floor in our bedroom and told him when he was tired he could head out to the loft with the boys to go to sleep.  A few house later I woke up and went to check on everybody – Ethan was in the doorway of the hallway right by the loft, sleeping with his shirt off.   I laughed and covered him up.  The next morning when I asked him why he was there to sleep he told me that he had gotten tired and was walking in to go to bed with the boys in the loft, but he got too tired.  So, he was just going to sit there to rest for a minute and he fell asleep – so cute!!  The next morning Maddy, Ethan and Katelee went with Emily to gymnastics where Hilary and Chris picked them up.  Sierra, Elon and Christian’s went home with Marisa before gymnastics.  Everyone was extra tired from all the fun that was had, especially Aunt Anna and Uncle Enrique.

Cutting Down Our Christmas Tree

 

 

This year we decided that we would go cut our own tree.  Early in November I had seen some information regarding cutting your own tree on the news.

Caliente, Nevada December 2011 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

  I have very fond memories of going up to cut down a good ole’ tree.  So, I called Matt to see if he would like to join us (so that we would have a truck) and he was on board and so was Maddy.  He suggested that we invite the Judd Family as well.  So, Stephanie, Larry, Jake, Clark, Zack, Kate and Jane joined us as well.  We headed up to Caliente early in the morning so that we could get to the forestry office to get our tags shortly after they opened.  We got our tags and then the search began.  We started down one dirt road and soon realized that it was not a good choice, so we had to turn around.  The second dirt road that we found was much better.  If we had known then that if we drove a few miles up it would really open to up to some great trees then that is what we would have done and saved a ton of time.  But, we didn’t know that, so we would stop every few feet when we would come across a tree that might have some potential.  One thing to keep in mind when looking at trees in the wilderness – they are much bigger than they appear and could end up taking your whole space if you are not careful.  I remember this trick from when I was l

The Hunt VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

ittle.  Aunt LaRaine and Uncle Ben wanted us to get them a tree one year and Aunt LaRaine wanted it very bushy.  Well, we found her the bushiest tree we could.  I think that tree took up three quarters of their living room when we got it up.  Maddy and Emily played so well together.  They were throwing snowballs with the little bit of snow that was up there.  Then they were drawing on the side of Uncle Matt’s truck.  They really liked getting to ride in the back of the truck while we were looking for good trees.  At the end, while we were waiting for Larry to bring up the trailer to load the trees into, Maddy and Emily enjoyed treats in the back of our Sorento.  It was a REALLY long tiring day, but we had a blast cutting down our tree!!  We got two this year one for the living room and one for the loft.

Thanksgiving 2011

We Are Thankful for Family!!

This year we celebrated Thanksgiving with the Trevino Family.  Dinner – well it was really lunch – was at our house this year.  This was my first time cooking a turkey – and thanks to my cousin’s blog Junk In Their Trunk it turned out well.  The turkey took longer than expected to cook.  Well, it helps if we don’t trip a GFI outlet in the process.  I got a new roaster to cook the turkey in and it does not have a power light.  The GFI got tripped at some point and I did not realize it until I was thinking that they turkey should be about done….Oops!!  Lesson learned, I will be checking the roaster constantly next time.  The whole Trevino family was present and lots of fun was had.  Of course there was lots of looking for deals in the wonderful Black Friday ads.  There was also the annual Cowboys football game on the television.  Tons of playing by all of the kids – especially the youngest!!  Emily had this really cute dress with a turkey on – she is always so festive (I wonder who dresses her???).  I always enjoy having our family all around us!! Here are some pictures of the day – taken by the wonderful and talented photographer – Sierra Todd!