Gingerbread Houses!

A Peterson tradition that we all enjoy is decorating Gingerbread Houses on Thanksgiving. Kefford always complains about it but I think he secretly enjoys it since he sticks with it and keeps the frosting going so we can put candy on.

The kits that Alison gets are better and better every year. The house comes already put together and this year when we opened the box we found that the frosting was already mixed up. Score for us, the mixing of the frosting was always the worst part. I love these new kits!

Rylee was front and center all ready for the decorating.

Kenedy was all ready to decorate also!

Kefford was in charge of the frosting while the rest of us put the candies on.

I gave Avynlea the gingerbread men to decorate which she was excited about.

Ryker also got one of the men but it came from Mikell's kit, she was very kind to share.

Joshua came over and helped out also!

Ryker worked really hard on his cookie.

He made a happy gingerbread man...

and it could also be a mad face gingerbread man.

Joshua got clever and made the windows give a cheery HO, HO, HO!

I got creative and made my signature palm tree, using Twix for the trunk and green gum drop leaves for the fronds.

How cute is that tree? Oh man so cute!

Avynlea finished her cookie and I think did a mighty fine job.

Then she took a big bite out of it, it tasted as good as it looked!

Rylee was the best decorator and stayed with the house until it was absolutely perfect. She had so much fun and did a good job putting the candies on.

At one point Rylee turned to me and with a sad face stated that nobody liked her decorations. I assured her she did a good job and then told others they better tell her also. What,s with the kid needing so much validation?

She is kind of cute!

Once it was all done Rylee was ready to take a big bite out of it!

It sure did look delicious!

Joshua and I thought it would be a good idea to put some red hots in our apple juice. The idea sounded really tasty but the taste was not so great. Bummer.

Kenedy wanted a nibble also. :0) I think we did the best job on ours. Great team work and lots of fun!

Thanksgiving Fun!

We had Thanksgiving with the Peterson's again this year. It was fun because all of the siblings were in attendance!

Avynlea enjoyed playing with Isabelle whom we hardly ever get to see since she lives in Utah right now.

Ryker found a new game to play with. I don't really know anything about it but he really enjoyed it!

Kenedy got a hold of my camera and decided to take some self-portraits.

Who does this one remind you of? ;0)

I think she is taking lessons from her Mom~! :0)

At this point I saw what she was doing and took the camera away from her. I think she needs her own camera!

Brooke had her hat on funny, her Mom said she looked like a bum because her jacket was also buttoned wrong. I think she looked adorable! Unfortunately she was playing shy and would not let me take a good picture of her!

We also got to see Audrey for the first time. This is Dustin and Sara's second baby girl and she was born the end of August. Isabelle is her big sister.

She is such a cute baby, I really love babies with chubby cheeks!

We all loved holding and playing with her and were very glad that we finally got to see her!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sprite Ball!

The other day Kefford went to the store and when he came home he had a little treat for me. A Sprite but the bottle was shaped a little differently.

Once I finally opened the bottle, I let it sit in the fridge for a few days, I had fun finding different ways to hold the uniquely shaped bottle.

The Soda inside tasted pretty good but more fun was had in that the bottle was round.

A Sprite bottle shaped like an ornament perfect for the Holidays! I love it!

Random Pictures by the kids

The kids got to have their cousins over to play not to long ago and somebody got a hold of the camera when I was not aware and took these pictures. I suspect it was Ryker who did the picture taking but I really don't know.

Qiana after eating and enjoying a yummy cookie. :0)

All the girls liked playing on the swingset. Lots and lots of fun!

Sharing the red baby swing was not as fun and caused some arguments and crying kids.

Lovely picture of the trampoline and grass.

Look at Rylee swing that swing like a pro. You go girl!

This is an interesting shot. Very closeup of Qiana and a further shot of Rylee.

And last but not least a nice one of Kefford. This one should go up on the wall somewhere! Ha!

Kenedy is growing up!

I knew for a while that this was the year that I needed to start preparing Kenedy for the joys of womanhood that she is fast approaching. I realize that she is only 10 1/2 but I wanted to do this before she started hearing things from classmates and also because fifth grade is the year that they get educated on the changing of their bodies in school. I wanted her to go into that presentation prepared and already knwoing what everything was. Because I had no idea how to go about this I bought this book for her to read and for us to look through together. It came highly recommended from a friend whom I trust completely.
It is a really great book and it is very tasteful talking about the changing that young girls will have to their body without getting crude or vulgar. The section on getting your period was very enlightening for Kenedy. She had no clue about any of it and after she read it she thought it would only happen once. I was the lucky one to shatter that dream...poor kid!

After all of the changes to your body talk I knew I needed to tell her the bare basics of what Sex is. I asked her if she had heard about sex and she said that she had heard the word before but did not know what it was. So I explained it to her and I was so embarrassed, I am sure I was beet red. I also had a hard time controlling my nervous giggles. Seriously I was giggling so much, it was pretty awkward. After I told her what she needed to know at this point the look on her face was priceless. Horrified, shocked, incredulous. Oh my poor baby! She loudly proclaimed that she is never going to do that and I had to laugh and say that was fine and good to feel that way now but at some point she will want to. She thought about the entire thing for a little while and then asked her one and only question regarding sex. She said "so did you and Dad do that one time and get all four of us?" I had to inform her that no we had to do it at least four times. Wowzers!

We got through it and when it is all said and done I am glad we did it. I would rather she hears this stuff from me and I want her to feel comfortable talking to me about these things and am hopeful that by doing this we will keep the lines of communication open!

Basketball

This Fall we signed Ryker up to play YMCA Basketball. His team name is Speedy Heat and he is really enjoying it. I had him signed up for soccer a couple of years ago and he did not really like that. I didn't like the soccer because all of the practices and games were outdoors. It got really cold the more into the season we went, so I am really enjoying this indoor Basketball stuff.

The pictures are pretty blurry because it was in the gym? I don't know, hopefully in time I will learn to take better pictures. Here Kefford is giving Ryker a little bit of coaching before the game starts.

Ryker and his teammates sitting on the bench waiting to go in. The cool thing about this Y-Ball is that they implement equal opportunity sports. Which means that everyone gets equal chances to play no matter what skill level they are at. It is a good thing!

There is Ryker in action. He is in the green shirt with the dark blue shorts.

What a cute little basketball player he is. He is pretty good at the game too. He definitely needs to work on his shots but he is VERY good at defense and offense.

See him? He is number 7! Right in the middle of the crowd.

We have been really enjoying him play this sport and look forward to him growing and improving through the years.