Birthdays, Birthdays, and more Birthdays...

It has been quite some time since I have written, as usual, and so I must play catch up! In my defence, I did plan on posting after Christmas but our internet has been down for a while and we just got a new provider so we are back in business.

Jared turned 30 and looks just as cute and young as ever. In fact, he is way cuter now than before and yet he is all worried about the grey hairs and increased smile line wrinkles. I love him and think him very handsome!!!!! Well, the teachers have a birthday pot luck lunch once a month for the teachers whose birthdays land in that month and Jared's in the only one to land in December. So, he gets his own party. Since he was hitting a mile marker in his life, the secretaries made him a very special bithday cake.


Introducing, the bikini cake
Jared was super embarrassed. I thought it was awesome. It must have taken quite a lot of time to make. Kally, the greatest secretary ever, cooked two heart shaped cakes and then used snowballs for the....It turned out great!

Many of Jared's co-workers and freinds asked if I was the model...I replied, "Do I look like I could have modeled that!" If I was the model, they would have needed to cook a dome cake and place that on the belly.

The funniest thing about this picture is Eli's face. It is like, "va va va voom!" "Ahhhh, mother's milk!" (That is a quote from Ferngully)

A lot of Jared's family has birthdays in December and so we combined that with our family Christmas party every year. This year, we held the party at our house. Here is Jared, Jared's mom, Betty, and sis-in-law, Des blowing out their cake.

Chad, Jared's older brother, is always good for a laugh. He found this divice in his parents shed and brought it to the party after doing some research on it. It is some sort of Violet Ray Electic blaster thing that was made in the 40's that claims to heal ANYTHING! I was afraid to try it in case it sent some sort of electical pulse through me and mutated the babies growth. Chad still managed to put in on my wrist. It was like getting shocked by an outlet.

Byron is getting his wart treated. He has high hopes that he will be healed soon!

We then gave eachother presents for Christmas. Byron and Jemayla gave Eli this football which he still loves playing catch with.

Mackenzie is showing off her her dress up jewlry.

We drove up to Washington to my parents house for Christmas. This is Christmas morning. Jared and Eli getting ready to open presents.

The whole younger half of the family was home this year. I am the sixth child and so...I start the younger half. We are called the "little kids" but we are not so little any more. In the back is Baili and Kristen enjoying their new bikes they got from Santa. Those cute girls are Rebekah's kids. Alexis and trying to stay warm with her blanket.

We spent the rest of Christmas day hanging out and playing Sharon and Darick's band hero. It was set up in mom and dad's bedroom for a while. We all sat on their bed taking turns with the drums, guitars, and microphone. Nancy and Bex are waiting in the back. All the playing was too much for Kenzie and she fell asleep in Aunt Sharon's lap. Cute!

Mackenzie and Alexis are opening their presents from Santa.

Eli is enjoying the sled that Grandma and Grampa gave us.

We all gathered later that week at my sister, Shavonne's, house. We celebrated her's and my mom's birthdays. Jared and I are just hanging out together. It was really good to go up to Washington. We got to see Rebekah and her kids, Sharon's family, Ian (and his super cool girlfriend Karissa and his roomate, Yessen), Nancy, and Shavonne's family. It was a wonderful trip! Not to mention that it was super wonderful to see my parents too!!!

And lastly....the girls have been asking to get their ears pierced for a long time. They don't forget. They see someone with earings and ask if they can have holes in their ears too. So...we finally let the girls get them done by Ian's girlfriend, Karissa, who works at Clair's. This is their early birthday present since their birthdays land in January.




The girls were so good. They sat still while Karissa and a co-worker did a double gun piercing. It was nice that it only seemed like one shot instead of two!

Here is Karissa marking the spots to see if I thought they were even.

Mackenzie is showing off her beautiful new earings. Kenzie's earings are flowers with a blue center and white diamond petals. I thought she and Alexis made good choices in earings!

Alexis said that she wanted colorish earings. She got what she wanted. They had flowers with each petal being all rainbow colored.