"a christmas story" in tropic

Anyone who knows my mother-in-law, Dixie, won't be surprised by this. Anyone who doesn't may be incredulous at the amount of time and effort she puts into her theme parties. Let me just say, she goes all out. And this wasn't just a theme party, it was a theme week. We received invitations weeks ago with instructions, but we had no idea what we were really in for. She spared no amount of time or energy in preparing games, contests, awards, meals, and anything else you can think of to make it incredible. Here are some pictures of the fun. I'm sorry to say I don't have pictures of a couple of the games, the "You'll shoot your eye out" marshmallow shooting contest or the Little Orphan Annie decoder pin challenge. I also missed taking a picture of our Chinese Christmas dinner or the turkey dinner that did not get eaten by the Bumpus' dogs. Thank heavens!

And lest you think that all we did was this theme party for 6 days, let me assure you that there were plenty of other events and activities to delight and fatten all who were there. Here is a sampling of the other goings-on.

I hope you all had as much fun and food as we did this Christmas season. It was truly a wonderful time to spend with our family. I am so thankful for both of our families and the good relationships that we have. We love spending time together and celebrating whatever brings us together. We are blessed to have these great people in our lives!

scrapbook pages

These are the 2009 scrapbook pages for the Coleman family. We do this in both families now instead of exchanging gifts with our siblings. Everyone makes a two page layout and then copies it for everyone else. The parents get the originals (if it's paper scrapbooking) and everyone else gets copies. I make the pages a bit different for the Burbidges and the Colemans, but basically I get it all done in one shot. It's a wonderful album to look back through. I highly recommend it! I especially enjoy it now that I do digital scrapbooking.

graffiti

On the way home from school I got an earful from my kids about how last night someone sneaked onto the school property and graffitied all over the place. Coleman's comment was, "Ya, and it wasn't even good drawing!" Claire said, "Seriously, I mean, if they wanted to write all over our schoolyard why didn't they just write something nice?!" I'm glad my kids don't know why this goes on. Innocence is bliss!

school prayer

I said a prayer in school yesterday. Yes, you read that right. I said a prayer, a Christian prayer, out loud at a public school. Ellie's teacher, Mrs. Her, asked if I would be willing to say the prayer at the kindergarten Thanksgiving feast. I was amazed that we were allowed to do that, but I readily agreed, of course. How could I pass that up? Afterward one of the moms told me what a nice prayer it was and how as the teacher was talking about the pilgrims and indians and how they gathered for a meal together she was thinking, "And they prayed!" And then Mrs. Her said we were going to have a prayer before the meal! I don't know how they were able to do that, but I was just happy to be a part of it. Mrs. Her told me that was the nicest prayer in many years. That made me feel good :) And it made me feel good to be at a school that will take a stand like that and not let fear of being politically correct govern every action and activity. Yea John Wash Elementary!!!

Ellie and her friend Emma--cutest pilgrim girls!

All the cute kids in pilgrim and indian costumes surrounded by parents with cameras, of course

school pictures

I don't know how they all ended up in green this year. I didn't plan it, honest! I guess I need to take a picture of Anson in green now!

just to say we've been there

I always forget to take my camera to the lake--until this week!! After all summer of skiing, wakeboarding, tubing, and generally hanging out at Wolf Lakes, I finally have it documented this year.

First of all, me. I know the form isn't great, and my legs aren't well-toned, but hey, I think I look pretty good!


Next, Coleman. He is still a bit timid since his big crash last summer. Some advice--don't put a 6-year-old behind a pro-wakeboarder's boat--wake BIG, very BIG!

And last, Garrett. He just had to show me up, didn't he? Okay, so he's a lot better than me. I wish I could actually watch him sometimes. His mom took all the pictures and thoroughly enjoyed the entertainment. Especially his crashes.



The other kidlets just enjoyed the boat and hanging out on the dock with grandpa. No one else is super excited about water sports--yet. We're still working on them.

Coleman's Baptism

Today was Coleman's baptism. He was so excited and so proud to be wearing his new suit--thanks Grandma and Grandpa Burbidge! Chad and Tiffany and the boys came down. Coleman was thrilled to have some of his cousins here. Both grandparents came. It was really nice.

Claire sang with 3 other sisters of kids getting baptized. They did a great job.






After reading this I realize that I'm so tired I can hardly put 3 words together. Sorry it's not entertaining. Just the facts ma'am . . .

First Day of School--Finally!!!

The "finally" isn't necessarily for the fact that I'm late in posting, it's that the kids FINALLY got to go to school! There was a long drama with getting them released from Fresno School District. When that finally happened and I thought we were home free, we had to wait to be accepted by Sanger District. So the kids missed the first 7 days of school--can we say bored? But they are all settled in and are loving John Wash Elementary. Ellie was the only one I actually got a picture of 'cause my camera battery was dead when the big kids left for school. Boy was she excited to start Kindergarten!

She was also a bit nervous so we did a fancy hairstyle to help her feel happy. She was a little worried and didn't quite know what to do, but by the end of the day she was ecstatic. She said, "can I go to school tomorrow?" Hopefully that attitude keeps up!

moms album

Click here to view this photo book larger

This is what I've been doing for the past several weeks. It has taken the place of all other blogging, reading, and general caring for my family. No wonder I don't scrapbook! But I'm done and I think it turned out pretty well. Now I just want it to get here!

I'm back!

I know it's been a while and I have no real excuses. Just lazy.

To get myself back into the blogging world I decided to just post a few fun pictures of the family.

To start things off, here are Coleman and Anson showing off their new wall accessory.


I thought I ordered the "large" poster---Hello!!!! This is courtesy of Uncle Ryan. He works for a printing company and this was a vinyl print made to demonstrate their cool machine to a potential customer. The boys couldn't be more excited. Thanks Uncle Ryan! And thanks to Grandpa Ron for hanging that beast.

Next are a few pictures of our new pet. Sadly, the pet we had managed to keep around for the longest, Lucky the rat, died while we were on our trip in July. Coleman was very sad, but the whole family was comforted knowing that we had our new kitten, Zoe, to fill the void. She is a little more cuddly and a bit less repulsive to our friends and family.

Just awake from a nap in Ellie's doll cradle.

She was watching us eat dinner and fell asleep right on the stool.
It totally reminded me of a kid who falls asleep in their dinner plate!

She is a bit spoiled by Claire who insists that everyone leave the room when Zoe is napping and moves her to comfortable spots, like this bean bag in her room. She closes the door and turns off the light and yells at anyone who makes too much noise. I may as well have another baby! Just kidding. I didn't just say that.

She also enjoys playing pool. She actually will bat the balls around and when they go in the holes she goes in after them. Hours of entertainment--for her and the kids. The pool table also provides her with an excellent view of the TV. Yes, she really does watch TV. No picture of that yet.

We had a couple of fun visits in July. My sister Lisa and her kids came for Lisa to do a Wildtree tasting with me and also just for fun. The kids love having their cousins visit.

Ellie and her "best cousin" Abby

We also had a quick but very fun visit with our friends the Armstrongs who were driving through Fresno. They live in Mexico now and were driving to NoCal for a family visit. We were lucky enough to see them for a couple of hours. We bribed them with lunch.


It's been a fun couple of months and I really need to catch up, but for now this will have to do!

california the beautiful

Before I get into a travelogue, I wanted to share some of the gorgeous scenery we enjoyed over the weekend. Long story short, we had to go to Brookings, OR (just over the CA border) for my grandpa's funeral so we made it into a road trip. We had no plan (other than the funeral) so we stopped when we saw something interesting, camped when we were tired of driving, and just enjoyed ourselves. I'll post more pictures of individual excursions, but the scenery was amazing.

a feel good mom moment

I still need to do other posts, but I just had to post this. This was my interaction with Coleman tonight.

Coleman: Mom, today at school they gave us chocolate chip cookies.

Mom: That sounds yummy.

C: Ya, but I pulled this piece off the wrapper. (He then fishes this small piece of plastic wrapper out of his pocket and holds it up for me to see.)
C: That's so not true! Yours are WAY better!

M: Thanks Coleman. (I gave him a big hug and kiss. He really does know how to make his mom feel good.)

quick rundown

Much has happened over the last couple of weeks. I'd like to give more detail, so I'm going to need to do several posts. But for now, I just want to assure my friends and family that I am still here, and I haven't given up on my blog.

I finished my diet--35 days, 20 pounds, 4 inches just off my waist. Yes, I'm way excited. More on that soon.

I flew to Utah and attended Womens' Conference at BYU with Dixie, my mother-in-law (who treated us all to this fabulous experience), and Garrett's 3 sisters--Marci, Teresa and Angela. Lyn couldn't come :( It was an incredible conference, one I hope to attend more in the future. More on that later.

While I was in Utah, Dixie's mom, Grandma Swallow or GG as my kids call her, suffered a massive stroke and died a few days later at home. So our whole family drove to Salt Lake for the funeral last week. Unfortunately we had to miss my cousin's wedding, but we were glad that we could be there for Grandpa and for Dixie. More on the funeral later.

Claire's rabbit, Pippy died last night. We don't know why. We're about to go have a funeral service in our back yard. Then we're probably headed to the pound to find a new lucky rabbit.

easter festivities

Another fabulous Easter in Paradise, albeit without Garrett once again. Maybe next year Easter will be well in advance of tax day. The kids all enjoyed the festivities and the parents took lots of pictures. That's the order of things.

We also had a little celebration for Anson's and Abby's birthday. We made fun Easter basket cupcakes and special ones for them. Somehow I didn't get a photo of Abby's, only Anson's. Grandma went all out with the candles!

Anson's 3!

Happy Birthday Anson!

Am I getting old? My baby's 3!!! I know it was bound to happen, even though I constantly tell them to stop growing. No one listens to me. I don't know why I expected this to be any different.

Anson has great reactions to opening presents! This was from Grandma and Grandpa Burbidge.

He was thrilled with his Thomas cake

Love the cheeks!!

We had a fun Easter egg hunt birthday party because Grandma and Grandpa brought Easter treats. It was very fun to have them with us.

This is his most common expression right now

preemie photoshoot

I did a photoshoot a while ago for some friends. Their baby was a preemie, so I wanted to get her while she was tiny. I had to wait until she was a month old because she was in the hospital for a while. So here she is--finally!

This is an artistic effect that I like. I thought it was so sweet with her.

Here's mom with her older son. He needed a little attention too!

and so it begins

What a little stud!

Coleman had his first ever baseball game on Saturday. Garrett is the coach (no one else volunteered--what a surprise.) Coleman was so excited. I didn't know what to expect from minor/minor, the step above t-ball. Well, it was adorable. None of the kids knew what to do--a bunch of dads stood all around the field to tell them. Every time one of them got the ball they looked around without a clue until they realized that 5 dads were telling them where to throw it. Everyone got 5 pitches, no one got out, no one kept score, everyone got to run all the way around the bases no matter what happened. Very very cute.

Waiting for his first at bat

I love how Coleman's running as if he was about to be tagged out--It's serious business!

well said

Last week we attended the baptism of a man in our ward, Albert. Well, now he's in our ward officially, but he's been coming for quite a while with his member wife. He's a great guy with a strong testimony. He's the kind of guy who greeted every single person who came to his baptism with a handshake and a thank you--and there were a lot of people there!

When it came time for the baptism our kids joined all the other young ones up near the font so they could see what was happening. When it was over there was a quiet moment--everyone was smiling and looking at Albert's happy face. Just at that moment Anson jumped up from the floor and as he was running back to us said (or rather, yelled), "MOM, that was AWESOME!!!"

Of course, there was a lot of laughing, but the woman behind us said to him, "You're right--that was awesome!" With no inhibitions or social know-how, a small child expressed what he felt watching a sacred ordinance. I'm sure the whole dunking-a-grown-man-under-water aspect of the baptism made an impression on him, but I also think he felt the Spirit, and the only way he knew how to express it was with a shout!

Thank heaven for our kids!

happy 40th chad!

The four Coleman siblings--Amy, Chad, Wendy, Lisa

Chad turned the big 40 this weekend, so we all gathered for a little shin-dig at their house. Tiffany planned a really fun "wigging out" birthday party. Everyone was required to wear a wig to get in the door. They have a lot of fun friends--no one was a party pooper about the wigs. We played games, ate good food, and gave Chad mean presents to remind him how old he is.

Tiffany, the mastermind of the party (and Chad's wife)--lovely in purple

Wendy and Lisa--both of them got lots of compliments on their hair color and style!

Do you think black suits us?

Lisa and Andy--gone red!

Mom and Dad--I couldn't help but laugh every time I looked at Dad. This was his mom's wig!
Mom looked so cute in her blond bob!

The whole party gang! Everyone was a good sport and wore fun wigs.