Last year ;)

 All Samantha wanted was a pillow pet.  

 Nellie finally got her cash register!

 Hopefully Patrick won't get lost anymore with his new GPS

 I got a Kindle so now I can read in style...and everyone can play games and watch movies on it.

 Girls in their Mrs. Clause dresses and Owen in his NEW suite.  The top is too small and the bottoms were too big!!

 Owen's new toy for his cars

 Last year on Thanksgiving we attempted to make our first turkey.  Needless to say it didn't turn out at all! Cooking it at 180 degrees for 9 hours doesn't cook it!  Anyway, we tried again this year for Christmas and it turned out GREAT!!

Nellie's 2 front teeth have been loose for about 4 months now.  She's been too scared to have us pull them out.  The wed before Christmas we went to the dentist for a regular check up and he said they can come out any time.  She said she wanted to wait until Christmas eve so that the tooth fairy and santa would come together.  So on Christmas eve we got one out and then she was afraid to pull the other one out.

Christmas eve...one down!!

The day after New Years she had gymnastics and was helping a friend with a flip.  The friend kicked her in the face on accident and made the tooth even worse.  I told her it needed to come out!  So that night we got it out. She feels so much better now that they are gone.  

Now we get to wait for the new ones to come.  The dentist had me look at the x-rays and her new teeth are so huge! They are twice the size of her baby ones!  He doesn't even think they will fit in that huge hole in her mouth.  We'll see...;)

Polar Express!!

 This past summer Patrick and I decided that it would be fun to go on the polar express.  So back in June we bought the tickets.  We never told the kids until the day of.  The girls were very excited and Owen didn't understand except that we were going on a train.  The train itself was slow and really bumpy, but the kids had so much fun! They even talked to Santa!  

 I'm so mad! I only got a picture of Samantha with Santa :(  Oh well, I got video of the rest

 Waiting for the train to come

 Cookie and Cocoa station

Been a while

 Patrick and I just had our 9th anniversary!  Thanks to a wonderful mom and great friends, we got to go to the beach for almost 5 days!  It was freezing but so beautiful!  Here are some of the pix we got.

 All I wanted was one good picture of us and Patrick had to be crazy in all of them...oh well, what can you do ;)

 I guess this one is ok

We went to dinner in Astoria and this was out our window.  They people at the restaurant said that the birds do this every day!!  This wasn't even all of them either.  There were tons!!  They would do cool waves and dives all in sink with each other  It was very interesting to watch.

They're going to hate me for putting that one up :)

Sat we spent the day at the water park. It was fun not having the kids there, but we also got worn out faster.  We did all the slides a ton of times in only a couple of hours.  With kids it took all day just to go on a couple of slides.  It was still tons of fun!  If you look close you can see santa in his suit!  We got pix with him but it was with Corina's camera.

At Tillamock after the water park.  Don't we all look great...

Sunday morning before we went home we walked the beach and got shells for the kids.  There was hardly anyone there. It was so pretty too.

Right after we got the kids.  They didn't want to leave Grandmas house.  Guess we have to go away more often ;)

Halloween

This year was so fun!  Owen is at a great age.  Every single house we went to, he had to find the candy that he got and show everyone.  He was a train conductor, Samantha was the Hello Kitty witch and Nellie was a cheerleader.  

~A very special day~

On Oct 8th Nellie made the choice to get baptized.  It was such a wonderful, spiritual day for her and us.  Thanks to all who came and supported her!!

I can't tell...do you think she is happy?!?!?!

Us with Bishop Wilson 

 We had been looking for a dress for her and couldn't find anything we liked that was under $50.  My mom was at the Sears outlet one day and they brought out this dress with a fuzzy shawl. The whole thing was $5!!! It was meant to be :)

 The families from both sides, minus my sister and brother-in-law and Patrick's oldest brother.

Nellie with cousins