Several Attempts at a Family Picture

All I wanted was one nice family picture and this is what I got...Makenna makes me laugh when I look at these pictures -- she's a difficult one! These were taken at Dustin's graduation.

Yeah...He Did It!

Dustin just received his Bachelor's Degree in December. It is crazy that he actually has it because that is all we have known the past 6 years we have been married. It is a stress reliever to have this part of his schooling done -- now on to Physical Therapy School. Dustin took 19 credit hours his last semester, worked, and did his calling.....WOW -- I could never do that! He also graduated with an awesome GPA, but I won't say what it is because he doesn't like me to talk about him. Anyways, I am so proud of him! Not sure of our plans for the next year....only time will tell. The goal is to go to Physical Therapy School sometime in the near future. Good job Dustin!

Makenna Attempting to Feed Hollis

Makenna was suppose to be helping me clean up and the next thing I know she is trying to feed Hollis. I guess it looked more fun than her dolls -- this was the real thing! It just lead to a lot of frustration because every time she tried to give him the bottle he would try reaching for it and knock it away. It didn't take her long that she figured out the only way to make this work would be to pin him down.......poor little Hollis! Although, I think he thought it was a game and was a real trooper through the whole ordeal.

Thanksgiving with the Elliott's

We did Thanksgiving with the Elliott's this year. The whole family was there....yeah! That first picture is of Makenna snuggling up with Grandpa Russ with Mocha's travel blanket....YUCK! Anyway, we got there late Wednesday night and both of the kids got a cold Wednesday morning before we left. It was a night of H-E-DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS! I think that was the worst sleep I have got since Hollis was born. He would sleep for only about 15 minutes and then wake up crying.....that lasted all night. At 5am I finally had Dustin go out to the car and get Hollis's swing to see if he might sleep in that -- we had tried everything. Luckily, he slept in the swing from 5am-6am and then woke back up. That was the most sleep we had all night. Then my wonderful mother-in-law took him at that point so that Dustin and I could sleep for another 2 hours. THANKS JANIE! Every night was a little rough there but that first night was definetly the worst. I would always have to go to bed early when everyone else was playing games because I didn't know how much sleep Hollis would give me that night. Besides that, the food was good and we had a lot of it -- thanks Steph and Janie. They did all the work, I just made a few pies. The boys and Janie, Steph, and Becca played an early morning Turkey Bowl. I just watched from the car with my sick kids and recorded a little bit of it for them. We played cards and Josh and Becca taught us the game MAFIA which was a lot of fun. You can't help but really get into that game. Maybe I will teach it to my family at Christmas time. I am sure they would like it a lot. We also did a little shopping or more like "window shopping." Then Dustin took me, Janie, Russ, Josh, Becca, and the kids up to Bayfield, CO to see what it looked like up there. I really liked it up there. It is very pretty and it started to snow on us a little which I loved! The video is in the car on the way back from Bayfield. Makenna was making up her own song and insisted that Grandma Janie did all the actions with her. It was hilarious! She did it a few times. Anyway, we had a great time!

Tis The Season!

I just love decorating for Christmas! I decided we were going to make it a family night and I was going to listen to Christmas music while decorating, have Dustin get pizza, and then we would watch "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." I had Dustin go get the movie and pizza. Dustin really didn't want to watch the Grinch movie and wanted to get something else. I told him this was Makenna's night and insisted on him getting the Grinch movie with Jim Carey. I was so excited to watch the Grinch movie with Makenna for the first time and thought she would absolutely love it. Well, we only got about 10 minutes into the movie and Makenna was begging us to shut it off because it was SCARY! I guess I haven't watched that version in a while and truthfully, the Grinch is a little scary in this version for a 2 year old. I felt really bad and a little bumped out. Dustin then asked Makenna if she wanted to watch football or the Grinch and she actually said football. So we decorated for Christmas and watched football.

Little Dustin

Now you can't tell me that the picture of Hollis in just his diaper isn't totally a Dustin facial expression! I couldn't believe it when I saw it! As for the other pictures -- I am just trying clothes on Hollis for family pics. They are size 12 months and he is only 5 months (but a very big 5 months). They were really cheap at Target and it was the only black shirt I could find and the smallest size. I decided to take it home and try it on and if it didn't work I would just take it back, but I think it works good enough. As for the stocking in the background -- it is Hollis's for his first Christmas!

Veteran's Day Parade

My friend, Kristen, invited me to go to the Veteran's day parade downtown with her family. Dustin was working so he wasn't able to go with us. We had a very fun time but didn't stay for all of it because there were 109 floats and we were only on number 65 when we left and we had already been there for 2 hours -- not to mention, we were also getting very hungry. The kids had fun though. This was the second year we had taken them.