The Weather Outside is Frightful...

But today was so DELIGHTFUL!! Haha.. sooo cheesy, I know. A few of us decided to get together for a play date. We probably do it just as much for our sake, as for the kids. Now that I am working from home I appreciate any excuse to get out of the house. :)

We went to Bree's and had a delicious lunch.. oooh and the cookies.. man the cookies!! Bree's little sister, Britney, and our friend Jen came too!! Thanks for hosting a fun get-together Bree!!


Stella, Kapri and Addison played together, as much as one year olds do anyway. We brought along my niece Cadence to play with Bree's older daughter, Reese.. they dressed up the babies in dress ups.


Stella was a Hawaiian Babe..


Kapri was a Princess..


Addison was an Animal Print Diva!!

Santa Clause Came to Town!!!

I'll admit, I was really sick Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, and I was not feeling the Christmas Spirit.. but once we got Kapri out of bed (we woke her up at 8 in the morning, she'd have slept 'til 11 if we let her) and brought her downstairs I got over myself not feeling great. I love this first picture of her after we put her in front of her ball popper.. she has a look on her face that says "you got me outta bed for THIS??"

Once she realized the awesomeness of it, she decided it was pretty alright. She hasn't stopped playing with it since.


David always adds a bit of fun, craziness to the mix. He gave me "Rocky Horror Picture Show" and I absolutely love it.. how could I not have seen it before??!!


Kapri wasn't too fond of opening presents.. even after we would tear a piece of the wrapping paper she didn't get the point. Luckily, I had put about half of her presents in bags.


We had delicious cinnamon rolls for breakfast.. I had thought about making them myself.. but then I resorted to buying the premade Rhodes ones.. they were pretty delicious. After breakfast we played a little Wii.. and even squeezed in a nap.


We went to Cody's mom's for dinner. Kapri is wearing a dress that Ma (Cody's Grandma) had brought back from Germany. I thought it was perfect for Christmas day!!


It was a very relaxing, and fun Christmas this year... Cody even went as far as to say this was his absolute favorite Christmas since we've been together. Now, how am I going to top that next year??



MERRY CHRISTMAS from our family to your's!!!

T'was the Night Before Christmas...

For the past few years we've spent our holidays driving from one place to another.. rushing to eat, trying to visit. By the end of the day we were exhausted, and not always in the best of moods. We've finally decided that its just not worth it anymore. We came the conclusion that we would spend Christmas Eve with my family, and Christmas Day with Cody's. That way we aren't rushing, and we can actually sit and enjoy ourselves. We had Christmas Eve at my Mom's house.. she loves entertaining in her new house. There's a lot of space, and even with our entire family there it doesn't seem cramped. Half the time you don't even know the kids are there because they're off playing in the playroom. It tends to get a little chaotic when we all get together so this has been a nice buffer for family parties. Mmmmm.. lasagna... Last year we decided to start a tradition, family lip syncs. Each family organizes a lip sync/skit/dance.. well each family is SUPPOSED to organize one. We had a lot of losers this year that didn't do it. I know every party has A pooper, but since when do we have TEN? Pretty much a few of us were ready for competition. My mom, who courageously and AWESOMELY did one by herself, the McPherron's (cause we're awesome), and the York's (cause they wish they were awesome).

We went first...


Then, the awesome wannabe's went...


Then my mama...

I can't get their videos to load.. I'll try later or put them on a separate post.

A few of the kids decided to throw together some songs at the last minute.. Conner and Braeden... Cadence... Ashlyn and Lynsie... Apparently, she farted on Santa's lap. I knew I smelled something funny.. Then we all voted on our favorite entertainer, and played Pictionary while Jay tallied up the votes. And the winner is... TEAM MCPHERRON!!! Thats right SUCKAS!! Yeah, we totally knew all along. (Well, one can HOPE, right? We did spend a couple of hours getting together/making our props and rehearsing, afterall.) We opened our one Christmas Eve present.. pj's of course. Then we headed home. My cousin David just moved here from California and he was coming to our house to spend the night. As we were putting out presents, and preparing to go to bed so Santa could come, Cody realized that we had forgotten batteries for Kapri's ball popper.. him and Dave made a quick run to Walgreen's and saved the day!! Or night, whatever. ...and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse...the stockings were hung by the chimney, with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there!!!

Over the Hills We Go!!

Kapri got a sled for her birthday from the York's. Shonni was ecstatic to give it to her.. I think secretly because she wanted Addison to use it (no complaining here). A night last week, after we had a snow storm, we took the girls outside to try it out. They loved it!! Well.. they loved it until they face planted it in the snow.

Errr.. gingerbread messes.

Shonni, Josh and Addison came over to have dinner and make gingerbread houses. It was chaos, as usual. Shonni and I were also trying to finish up on some last minute projects/gifts.. and we never seem to give ourselves enough time for anything. We are also great at forgetting/losing things. I hope Kapri and Addison grow up to be a little more sane, and organized. But wait.. what fun would that be?

The girls were chilaxin', watching "Little People's Christmas". It didn't last long though, there was too much other stuff to get into.


Josh read them a couple of bedtime stories.. I think Addison was having some jealousy issues.


After we put the girls to bed we started on our gingerbread houses. Scratch that.. me, Shonni and Josh started on them. Cody crashed on the couch.. he missed out.

It was A LOT messier than I had expected. Also, it took a lot longer than I thought it would. Too bad I didn't have a partner to share the work. (Ahem, sleeping Cody.)

Here's Shonni and Josh's house.


And this AWESOME piece of art, is mine.


The trick is.. you see.. only look at it for about three seconds. Then you won't notice the crooked lines and drooping candy.

Christmas Bunko!!

We just had our December Bunko last week.. the past couple of years we have decided to change our form of buying prizes, just for this month. Instead of paying our regular ten dollars, and having the host buy all of the prizes, we just each brought a prize, wrapped so no one could see the contents.. well, most of us did. (I'm not naming any names.. he hum.. Britney.) (I'm only teasing.. mostly.)

Poor Cody had to put up with me changing my mind about 8.7 times. I walked around the store and put things in the cart, took things out of the cart, spun in circles, went down the same isles twelve times (I'm pretty sure this is a trait I inherited from my mother, indecisivness). He was a good sport.. and was patient with me until I chose the "winner", which was a glass cake platter that can also be used as a punch bowl. I have one, and love it. Then... as he excitedly (is that a word) pushed the cart towards the front of the store to the registers.. I said "STOP!! We need bread!!" The look of disappointment on his face was priceless.. he just wanted to leave the store and go home!!

Wow.. now that I took up twenty minutes of your life explaining my trip to the store.. we'll move on to bigger, more important things... like dinner. Mmmmmm... Jalynn made a delicious homeade chicken pot pie. I pretty much just wanted to eat the puff pastrey off the top.. heaven. (I wonder if people really care to hear what we ate, and how much I enjoyed it.)

I, of course, walked around with my camera and forced people to look happy for a picture. I threatened their very livelyhood if they wouldn't cheese it.




Speaking of taking pictures.. Come on people.. just look at the camera and SMILE dang it!!

But no.. they're too busy giggling. So I'm posting this laughing/eating/closed eyes picture to prove a point. If you would just cooperate for the 3.5 seconds it takes to get take a picture.. well, it'd be a better picture. But no.

Here's another perfect example of two grown adults (well, sort of) trying their hardest to be serious for a picture.

First picture.. Bree can't cooperate.

Second picture.. Britney pulls a cheeser.

Third picture.. Bree has a laughing fit.

Ahhhh... now THATS what I'm talkin' about!!


After dinner we started rollin' the dice. Oh the BUNKOS!! People were rolling Bunkos one after the other!! It made for an exciting, and very loud, night!!


After the game was over we had dessert.. it always comes back to the food. She made a delicious, I believe, egg nog cake with caramel drizzled over the top. I have yet to find anything that wasn't good that had caramel on it. Oh the caramel, that heavenly caramel!! Excuse me.. got a little carried away for a second there.


As we sat down to oogle over the prizes, Jalynn explained that we were going to start with the biggest "LOSER" and work our way up to the "WINNER". (Even though, technically, there are no losers cause we all go home with something.. the joy of Bunko!!) So the person with the lowest points picked first. Then the second lowest.. and so on.

It was Jalynn's turn and I may have mentioned that I thought she would love my prize (then about had a heart attack when she chose it because I was afraid I was wrong). She loved it.. I knew it.


Oh, I didn't mention.. you were able to steal someone's already opened prize, or get a new one. So as we're going along.. no one is stealing!! Every one would hum haw.. look at all the opened prizes and then go to get a wrapped one. Until... Jenni (she's my friend Deana's, mom's, friend's, daughter.) saved the day!! She stole Jalynn's cake platter, much to her dismay!! Once she had the guts to steal.. everyone else started stealing, which made for a much more exciting game. My sister-in-law, Kim, ended up stealing Bree's (my hot friend, if I were a guy...) gift, which was some cute christmas mugs and dish towels. So then what was Bree to do? She stole the cake platter from Jenni of course!! I'm tellin' ya, my gift was a hot one!! I think it would have continued to be the "hot item" until Jalynn put a damper on the game and said each item could only be switched twice. Ahhhh... but really, it was a good rule, I guess.

Kim Fitch (who happens to be Cody's cousin... and also the negotiator of our first blind date) ended up stealing her own prize from Nanette.. which created an uproar of hootin' and hollerin'. I couldn't believe she did it!! Poor Kim probably didn't sleep that night, she was frettin' over stealing her own prize.

The best part of the night, you ask? Britney (she is my friend Bree's sister) was the last person to choose a prize, there was one un-opened prize, and 11 visible ones she could choose from. After much oogling, and oohing and awwing.. she ended up with a bracelet/watch.


(I can't remember who she stole it from.) One of those ones you can switch out the faces and bands. She pointed out that she collects them and this one would bring her up to four!! She held it up in the air in triumph!! Then almost as quickly as she sat down and put the watch on, Nanette (who works with my mom and helped us make freaking delicious tamales a few weeks earlier) swooped in and took it away!!

Britney's face was utter disappointment. She was pretending to cry, but I think there may have been real tears in there!!


Phew.. that was a lot of info.. sorry if I've scared people away. Ten points to anyone who pushed through all that utter nonsense and made it to this point!!

It was a night to remember.. I laughed more in those three hours than I have in the last month!! (I think that may be partly to the fact that I started working from home a month ago, and I needed some "out of the house, adult time"!!)

Excuse me...

..just one minute while I slop up all this snot and tears.. sniff, sniff. My baby is one. Can I even call her my baby anymore? Some people consider one year old's toddlers. Noooooo!! I refuse to call her a toddler. I won't do it, you can't make me.


In all seriousness, this last year has flown by. I wish I could just stop time, or just slow it down a little. I cannot think of anything that is more rewarding than being a mom. Its ridiculous how proud I am of her when she does tiny things, like drinking out of a straw. Who would have thought that would be such a big deal. Oh but it was!! The week of her birthday she took six steps.. six steps, and I was the proudest mama ever!! Now she's walking all over the place. If she falls, she quickly crawls to the nearest chair/wall to get back up again. Before I know it she'll be running around the house.

I had a little get together for her birthday.. luckily Jalynn has a roomy house and was willing to let us have it there. Good thing, cause if you've seen my house you know 50, or so, people would NOT fit comfortably.

I made super cute owl invitations.. "Its sure to be a HOOT"!! Too bad I forgot to mail them out. Most people got phone calls the day before, so maybe I'm a slacker. We had delicious soup and rolls.. and a Costco caterpillar cake!! I got Kapri a little flower cupcake.. at first she wasn't so sure about it. Then she dug in!!




Thanks again to everyone who came.. and a double thanks for all the presents!! She's loving all of them!!

As a side note, I gave her a "Little People Dance Party" CD and after everyone left we had a little jam session. I couldn't resist posting this picture of Shonni. Frankly, I have NO idea what song we were listening to, or who she was doing an impression of.. but its funny to look at anyway!!