Christmas

Christmas this year was wonderful for us. We had a lot of family in town and were able to do a lot of exciting things. On Christmas eve, we went to my parents house. My favorite uncle Mike came to visit from Las Vegas and was very entertaining. I forgot how funny he is. I only wish there would have been more time to visit with him, but is was awesome to see him for even a short time. Myles got a school bus toy from my parents and was captivated for most of the night with it. Prior to getting it, he passed out all the gifts with a little help from his mom and dad. We stayed up until 2 am exchanging gifts and visiting. It was hard to leave them Christmas morning. This was the first year we didn't spend almost the entire holiday break in Surprise.

Christmas day we went to Rex's parents and celebrated with his entire immediate family. It was such a joy for his parents to have all of their children and grandchildren under one roof for the occasion. Rex's oldest sister and family came from Santa Barbara, California and we had so much fun visiting with them.

One of my favorite and unforgettable moments during the holiday was painting Peyton and Sadie's nails. They decided I too needed my fingernails painted and of course I let them. You can see the photo below. They were so sweet. Sadie kept saying "So pretty" and Peyton would say "Sadie is kind of making a mess." I thought they both did a great job. Besides that I had different colors on each hand:)

Friday night we went to Organ stop pizza. The kids loved the pizza and the show. Definitely worth the drive to Mesa. Later at Tim and Cindy's, we played our favorite game Settlers of Catan. I won't tell you who won, wink wink. Ok, it was me and I can't let any of them forget :) Keeps the competition going and my ego high for at least a short while. However, I think I have used up all my bragging rights by now so I better stop here. Below are pics from the pizza place. As you can tell, the adults had a pretty good time as well.

We were so sad to see the Lishman family leave on Sunday and can't wait to see them again.

It doesn't snow...

In surprise or queen creek, Arizona.. but it does snow on our toes!!! Let me explain.... For Christmas, my sister Michelle treated my mom and all of us girls to a pedicure a week early. We all chose snowflakes as a design to be festive. It was such a treat and a lot of fun to have some girl pampering time together. Thanks Michelle for such a thoughtful gift to us all.

JUST SOME HUMOR..

Thanksgiving!!!

For the first time, Rex and I hosted Thanksgiving at our house. It was a wonderful occasion. We both cooked the Turkey and other side dishes. Fortunately, with a lot of cooking advise from my MOM, I did not have to post a sign that said "Hope you ate before you came :)" or "Enter with Caution" on my front door. I am mastering this chef thing after all, LOL! Our guests also brought a few dishes with them too.

We were filled with gratitude that both the Hill family and Anthon family were present to celebrate the holiday with us. Unfortunately, Rex's parents weren't able to make it out and my parents had their own celebration across town. After dinner, all the boys went to GOLFLAND for some fun and Alli and I took Cindy to see TWILIGHT:) I was surprised she made it out of the house after having a baby less than a week prior, but after months of anticipation it was the perfect time to see it. I loved the movie so much, I might see it again in the theatres despite the outrageous price of a ticket these days.

This week I am taking work off to help Cindy with the boys and Janae. After helping with the chores, running errands, visiting, and so forth I am hoping to make a good dent in the series of books that follow Twilight. Wish me luck!!

More hospital pics

Here are a few more pics of our new niece Janae from another day we went to visit her and Cindy in the hospital. We gave her the pink elephant. It's almost as adorable as her:)

I love this picture with Cindy and Janae. They both look so happy!!!!

You can tell Rex is a proud uncle!! And I am pretty sure when we get pregnant he will be requesting his own BOPPY, so I'll put two on the registry...LOL:)

BABY JANAE HILL IS HERE:)

She was born November 21, 2008 @945am. She is happy and healthy...weighing 8lbs and 2 oz. Only a day old and she captures everyones attention so easily:) Before you know it, she'll have us all wrapped around her little finger.
Unfortunately, Ethan hasn't been feeling very well so Tim and the boys weren't able to spend much time at the hospital yesterday. We are babysitting all of them today, so Tim can visit as long as he wants with Cindy and their new precious beautiful daughter. Rex and I are more than ready to have our own now...so who knows, maybe Janae will get a cousin soon. Enjoy some of the many pictures taken of her already.

Myles turns two!

Today Myles turns 2 and I can't believe how quickly time passes. Yesterday, Rex and I went to my parents to celebrate along with several other people. Both families were all there and several of Ashley's friends came. My aunt, uncle and cousin even made a special trip up from Colorado. Several of her friends brought their boys who were all around the same age to play. It was surprising to see how they all got along so well..since most them are the only child in their family. Myles did really good with sharing his toys and didn't seem to notice that anyone else was getting attention with so many distractions. The theme was animal centered and my sister made an adorable monkey cake and his other grandma made him his very own GIANT cupcake.

He received a tremendous amount of gifts and he loved opening all of them. He is all boy and is obsessed with trucks and sports. So one of my favorite memories of this party is when my sister let Myles pick out the gifts he wanted to open first. He quickly began searching throughout the piles to find the ones that were wrapped in Hot Wheels or "Cars" the movie paper. It was so cute!!!

The best gift was given by aunt and uncle..his very own quad!! Most would think too big of a gift for a two year old, but not for this boy. He loves it! Once he figured out what it was, he wanted to ride it all the time. We gave him a few gifts, including a puzzle that has wrecked cars on it with a tow truck piece that could pull all the pieces off by magnet. Its kind of an ironic gift considering I am an auto damage adjuster. It made my day to see him playing with that and loving it just as much.


My other favorite moment happened throughout the evening. Everyone brought cameras and it seemed like there was a flash going off from somewhere all night long. Every so once in awhile, He would turn a give a giant grin and say "Cheese". No wonder so many people showed up..He is very entertaining.

Before we headed home, we also got to see my sisters new house. Its so cute and perfect for her. Its just down the street from my parents, so she has a lot of help with everything she needs to make it a home. I am so excited for her to finally have her own place. Hopefully she will get married to Steven soon....they make adorable children!

BABY SHOWER SUCCESS!!

My sister in law Cindy moved to town a few months ago with her family from Nevada. She has 4 boys and her first little girl is on the way. When we found out that they were moving here, I was excited about many things and for many reasons...but I was almost jumping up and down since it meant that I would be able to throw her a baby shower. FINALLY, it was my chance to do something nice for her.

When she found out it was going to be a girl, I was ecstatic!...As most of you know I LOVE PINK!! So buying decorations was super fun and exciting for me. I was determined from the start not to throw a cheesy party... and believe me I ran into many roadblocks in the baby shower aisles at Walmart, Target, Party City, Pretty Party Place, etc.. as they are all filled with things that made me want to gag. You know the decorations that remind you of the 80's. Well wait..I honestly probably wouldn't have picked any of that stuff back then either. :) Anyway, I quickly found that it wasn't going to be as easy as I thought to complete my vision of the ultimate shower extraordinaire..however in the end turned out to be a lot more fun.

So I first decided on the colors..and choose to go with HOT pink, black, and white. A little risky, but a lot more trendy/modern. The invitations took me weeks to design and complete, but they turned out so cute. I want to post one for everyone to see, but still have to figure out how to display them without showing my address and phone number...you know things vital for the guests to know, but not any Joe schmo who might be actually reading this blog. So once I do, I will attach here for your viewing pleasure.

I wish I could take all the credit for how great the shower turned out, but I had quite a lot of help from the guest of honor, my other sister-in-law, my husband and my mother in law. Amber sent all the way from CA, a beautiful diaper cake that I displayed on the center most coffee table and made all of the treats for the guests (chocolates wrapped in pink tulle with "It's a Girl" silver charms tied to them with black ribbon). My mother in law brought all the vegetables and fruits...and I hate to say it but Cindy herself was my SAVING GRACE in completing so many of the other tasks.

I bought fabric from Joann's for the table cloths to all the tables that were used (6 total) as I thought the plastic ones would ruin the look I was trying to achieve. Unfortunately for Cindy she put all the work into sewing them. I found the cutest cookie cutter, its in the shape of a onesie, and wanted to make cookies along with the cupcakes for the desserts instead of having a cake...and again Cindy made all of the cookies. I really tried to help with that..but it was a disaster. The yummy cookie recipe we decided on was really soft..and hard for an ammature like myself in the kitchen to work with, so she saved me and stepped up to the plate. So much so, she was at my house frosting them until almost midnight the night before the shower...YIKES!!! Oh and she also made or bought most all of the other food too, like the chicken salad, punch, croissants, etc.. I appreciated her more than anyone could know, but couldn't help but feel guilty for relying on her so much when this was a shower honoring her.

My husband helped with running errors for last minute things from the store, cleaning the house, and blowing up all of the balloons. Oh and let me mention, he also borrowed a chocolate fountain from someone at work...a great idea, but one that was a total fail. We were going to dye the chocolate pink and have pretzels, fruits, marshmallows, and other treats with it...but it never worked. The chocolate did melt though and was used but never flowed like a fountain should...next time I will buy one or do a dry run first. Ahhh that's the "A" type personality coming out again.

So, all this talk of the preparation and little of the shower. Let me start my saying it was a total success!! My house looked adorable and PINK was everywhere. It was a social shower, so I didn't have any games to play..but that wasn't a problem as most people knew each other or were very friendly. I did do a diaper raffle, where the guests who wanted to brought a package of diapers for Cindy and received a raffle ticked into a drawing for a prize. The raffle tickets were die cuts of a baby carriage and about 8 ladies brought diapers. 2 big prizes were given...large smell good candles that were wrapped in black paper with white polka dots and tied with hot pink ribbons. And all the others out of appreciation for their generosity were given black and white notepads, sticky notes, and to do lists also tied together with hot pink ribbon.

The shower started at about 11 and the last guest didn't leave until around 5pm. Time flew fast, but it was so nice to visit with everyone. Cindy received a lot of wonderful gifts for her baby and all of us enjoyed looking at them. So many sweet things. The only REALLY unsuccessful part was the fact that I was so busy hosting and visiting, I didn't get to take a whole lot of pictures. I have some of the decorations, food, and few of the guests. In fact I feel so lame because the pics I tried to take of everyone cut Cindy out of the photos. I guess I just wasn't thinking. Chalk it up to exhaustion and ADD at this point. So I will post a few that I have. Can't wait to meet the new bundle of joy that will be coming in less than two weeks. I am sure I will have plenty of photos then. I am going for Aunt of the Year award...OK well I might loose that one, so maybe Sister-in-Law of the Year award:)

IN THE SPIRIT OF...

HALLOWEEN and the upcoming election. It's just too funny not to post this.

SCHNEPF FARMS FESTIVAL, YEAH!!!!

Yesterday we went to the pumpkin and chili party at Schnepf farms for the first time with Tim, Cindy and all the boys! Rex and I have been wanting to go to this for the past couple of years so we jumped at the chance to go with our nephews. They decided to surprise the boys with the trip so I teased them the whole way. The whole way...meaning about 5 minutes, as the farm is just around the corner from our house! I kept telling Garrett that we were going to Walmart or QT , but he was way too smart to be tricked. He would say...."Aunt Jessica that's not a fun place, where are we REALLY going?"

Once we got there, we discovered why its the hit of the town. So many things for everyone to do..We started off with a few rides and the giant slide...and then it was time for the AMAZING dog Frisbee show. We even got to see one of the rarest dogs in the world as its almost extinct, looks something like a dingo..doesn't bark, just makes a singing sound, but I couldn't tell you the name if it off hand. So anyway they were selling the same Frisbees their dogs were catching to help save this type of dog and we bought one. I left there thinking how cool would it be to teach Huck or Buster (our basset hounds) to catch the Frisbee at the park. As I shared this idea with Rex, he looked at me like I was crazy and reminded me that for two dollars you don't get a MAGIC Frisbee:) Oh well..it was for a good cause.

After the show all the boys played minature golf, Cindy and I took off and she bought a large bag of freshly made kettle corn for everyone. I am not a big fan of popcorn, but this was way different and very good. The older boys went off for more rides and we tried to take Ethan on a train ride through the farm but he wasn't in the best spirits at this point. So we visited the country store and the old farmhouse museum until we figured out everyone was getting hungry for dinner. We opted to eat at the restaurant rather than spend $6 on a hot dog or chili. We got there just in time as a long line of people formed shortly after and were seated right away. Besides the delay due to a busy night, the food was pretty good. And best of all most of us enjoyed a large cup of hot chocolate for dessert. To all of our surprise, it was a pretty chilly night. And when I say all, I mean our group...everyone else around us had jackets, coats and blankets. Oh well...next time right.

After dinner we stood around a fire pit to warm up a little and some of the boys roasted marshmallows. Spencer really wanted to go on the train because after dark it turns into a "Spooky" train, so Cindy and I took him and Garrett to do that while the others went to see the Pig show, petting zoo and visit more of the attractions. Some of the other kids on the train kept yelling "its a death trap", but neither Garrett or Spencer got very scared. We all met up afterwards and at this point the farm was almost closed and Ethan was ready to go. The poor little boy was freezing and oh so tired. He managed to go on the Bumble Bee ride with Cindy, but that was pretty much it.

Tim came to the rescue and took him to the car to rest and warm up. The other boys went on the country road rally again and we discovered they were playing ET on a large screen. As soon as the boys were done we went to the pumpkin patch and they all picked pumpkins. We ended the night just shy of the firework show, mostly due to the lack of jackets. But we'll be back another day, they have so many activities throughout the year.