My Christmas trees.... Finally!

I put up all my Christmas decorations and all my trees in the end of November but I am now just finally taking pictures of them. This is the tree in my upstairs entryway. It's a flocked tree and I have all the ornaments in lime, red and silver. I love how the decorations look on the flock. It always looks like it's glowing.

This is the tree in my downstairs family room. I have had these decorations for several years but I still love them.

And my favorite tree of the house....... drum roll please......

This is the tree in my bedroom. It's 9 feet of red, gold and green elegant goodness. I can hardly see the tree amidst all the decorations and that's just how I like it!

I am one of those mean mom's who doesn't let my kids decorate the Christmas trees. I know what you're thinking, "Mean mom! Let your kids enjoy it too! Build some memories! Have a tradition! Blah! Blah! Blah!"

Well it's not going to happen.

So to compromise, my kids each have a tree in their bedrooms that they can decorate themselves. See, I'm no so mean after all.

Sidney and Molly's bedroom tree. It's done in hot pink and lime green with fairy's and butterflies on it. Totally girly!

The tree in Cade's room. Stars with red and rust colored candy swirls and candy canes. Matches his room great. He loves it!

And alas, the tree in Jens' room. It's done in red and green with candy swirls, cookies, gingerbread houses and gingerbread men. It does NOT match his room in any way, shape or form. But have you ever shopped for Christmas ornaments that were pheasants, deer, fish, hunting or outdoor things? I have and let me tell you, they have been a hard find. So instead he has the gingerbread tree.

A second picture so you can see the decorations a little bit better.

I changed the way I decorate the top of my entertainment center this year. I used to have a ton of snowmen and Santa's up there. They are all still great decorations, I am just tired of looking at them. I climbed a step ladder and took this picture. It's bit blurry but you get the idea.

I changed my mantle too. I usually have it all decked out in lighted garland like my entertainment center. It's always really pretty but it's nice to have it look simple this year.

Molly the Red Nosed Reindeer

Molly came home from preschool with the cutest little red nosed

reindeer mask that she made. She is just so cute!

THANKSGIVING 2011

This year we had Thanksgiving dinner at Danny and Suzi's house. All of Jeff's family came, including some of his cousin's from Idaho. It was so great to be able to visit with them.

Cousin's

All the little girls who were all born back to back to back.....

And of course the most awesome people there.... at least according to them.

The teenagers.

Cade's Baptism

Cade got baptized this month. He kept telling us all along that he "wasn't gonna do it! Nope! Not gonna happen. Not gonna get baptized!" But in the end he did, and he was actually excited and happy to get baptized because his little buddy Michael got baptized with him. (thank goodness for Michael!)

Jens' Football Season

Jens' football team did so good this year! They only lost one game the whole season!

So because they were almost undefeated, they qualified to play in the Superbowl. We were the best team in the league. Other teams had lost more than us.

They played the Superbowl against a team that we had beat before. But we lost by one touchdown!

Good job on the season Jensy!

Happy Halloween 2011!

I loved my kids costumes this year. Sidney wanted to be a punk fairy. I thought it was a dumb idea at first and then we put together her costume and I loved it!

She put on Katelyn's old dance costume, our neighbors army boots and we added some fishnet tights, a fishnet glove, and wings and she looked awesome!

She was the perfect Punk Fairy!

I ordered the c u t e s t costumes for Caden and Molly this year from Chasing Fireflies. They were NOT excited to be the Big Bad Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood but when their costumes arrived and they put them on, then they decided that they were cute and they loved them.

Mostly I think Cade loved it because he could chase Molly around and scare her without getting in trouble.

On Halloween we always go to Sam and Whitney's neighborhood to trick or treat. We have a big dinner party with all of Whitney's family too. All the kids bring their friends and they have a blast. We all bring a ton of candy so every kid likes to trick or treat from us too because when the kids come to the door, they get to take like 5 or 6 pieces of candy instead of just getting one treat.

THE BIGGER KIDS IN THEIR COSTUMES

*Cooper: We're not sure what he was (including him!) *Alli: The 80's fashion girl *Keyne: The Chick Magnet *Jens: We're not sure what he was either. Just some kid with a mask on *Katelyn: The 80's fashion girl *Nick: Coach Hines from Mad TV *Sidney: A punk fairy

Every time these cousins take their picture together I always laugh to myself because:

Katelyn in 14 years old

Averi is 10 years old

Sidney is 11 years old

So even though Sidney and Averi are close in age, Averi looks like a tiny kid next to her and Sidney is a few years younger than Katelyn but she is almost taller than her and she looks just as old to me.

THE MEDIUM KIDS IN THEIR COSTUMES

Gunner - Chase - Hunter - Caden

THE LITTLE KIDS IN THIER COSTUMES

Ellie - Lia - Emma - Gracie - Molly - Alivia - Peyton - Addison

Italy

Jeff and I went to Italy because Jeff had some work there. Rich, another employee and his wife Mari came with us. We had an absolute blast! We spent our first two days in Jesolo and then we took a water taxi across the bay to Venice and spent two days there. It was the most amazing place! I fell in love with the entire country. Every day we would get gelatto. It was divine!

We ate the best food! Everything single thing is delicious! I loved the little restaurants. Tables would be set up right on the street. Cars and pedestrians would be all around us and I loved it!

Venice was my favorite place that we went to. It is so pretty. It looks just like I had always seen in paintings. Gorgeous little streets with canals in the middle of them. Flower pots hanging off of windows, cobblestone and brick pathways...... So pretty!!!! Our water taxi pick up spot, which was literally just outside our hotel doors was even so pretty!

There truly are not cars around. Everyone walks or takes a boat. I loved the gondolas! I had to keep asking myself if it was real! We rode in the gondolas with a man in a stripped shirt and he sang to us in Italian! It was just so pretty.

I loved all the laundry hanging out to dry. I don't know why I loved it so much. It was just so quaint!

Rich, Mari and I walked way FAR away from the main tourist part of Venice to the residential part of the city. (Jeff was in the hotel taking a nap, suffering from jet lag!) It was so pretty and quiet. I loved this doorway going into the residential area.

There was also a beautiful park over there. I loved how the trees formed an archway over the path.

Then we took the train from Venice, down through Milan an into Arona, which is just outside of Milan. It was such a beautiful area. It is 45 miles from Switzerland. You could see the Swiss Alps off in the distance. Arona is known for it's lake. It is the most beautiful lake in all of Italy. This was our view of the lake from our hotel room.

We took a boat ride out to the middle of the lake to an island where there is this restaurant and nothing else. It was really neat. There was another island across from where we were at and it had a castle on it. The castle was stunning in the dark and I could just imagine how amazing it had to be in the light. I wanted to spend a few extra days here to sight see more. It was a beautiful place.

We had the best meal.......and even better desserts!

Then we flew to Rome. We spent 3 days there. Rome was awesome! There is so much history and so many things to see. We went to the Colosseum.

Right outside the Colosseum is Constantines Victory Arch.

We went to the Trevi Fountain. We all made a wish and threw our coins in backwards like we were supposed to.

The streets were narrow and there were a million little cars and a million scooters and motorcycles.

All the cars would seriously park this close! I would watch people parallel park into a spot so tight that it seemed impossible. But they did it with no problem. It helped that their cars were itty bitty. I could just see myself trying to park my Expedition or worse yet, Jeff's monster truck. I would crash into not only cars, but also buildings and people!

I am only 5' 6" and I totally towered lots of cars. Can you just imagine Jeff and I TOGETHER at the same time in this car! It would be horrible!

People would park all over in Rome. Anywhere and everywhere! Even in the middle of crosswalks. They would park 2 and 3 cars deep too. I guess you just had to wait in order to leave if you needed to.

We went to The Pantheon. It is an amazing building.

It was built in 448 BC! It was built with a big hole in the top of the dome so that they could have light and it also helped control the temperature inside the building.

The floors were slightly built on a slant towards the middle so that when rain water came through the hole, it would all go down into these little holes in the floor and they could collect the rain water.

Every building and structure of every kind was built so beautiful. I know that I keep saying the words "amazing" and "beautiful" and "gorgeous" but it all really was!

We went to the Vatican City.

I can't even describe how big this place is.

After we left Rome and drove to a place called Fiuggi and stayed there for 2 days. It was a beautiful, mountianous place. It was a "spa town" and it was quaint and really pretty. Then we drove back to Rome for 2 more days and then we flew home. Do you remember the movie with Steve Martin and John Candy called Planes Trains and Automobiles? Well that was totally our life on that trip, only it was planes, trains, boats, and automobiles! It was so much fun but after 6 different flights to get us where we needed to be each time, I was very ready for home.