The Tree

The New House

Tim & Amanda are almost finished with the hassle of buying their first home. Whoo-hoo! I am overwhelmed with joy for them. Hopefully come the first of the year, we can start moving them in!!

All the kids on the front porch!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is by far my favorite holiday. It's the start to the holiday season... amazing food, family, and all the silliness that goes along with it. A time for us all to think about what we have gone through and learned over the year, as well as what we are really thankful for... Being alive & living life to the fullest.

New Lens!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love the holiday deals for online shopping! I was able to get a new lens for my Canon camera... it's a 70-300mm with a built in macro option. The thing is ginormous! My previous lens was an 18-75mm.. so I cannot wait to get it out in action and see what it can do! Hahaha!

Hailey's Imaginary Phone Call...

Tim shared this with me today & I had to post it... I love my sunshine...
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i got home last night, asked hailey to get ready for bed. when she was done, i heard her talking in her room. figured it was a book or something. it went on for about 10 mins. so i went in to tell her time for bed and she is holding up the orange fake cell phone from your house, to her ear. she says, "oh, hold on a sec, what's up daddy?" i said, "oh, who are you talking to?" she replied, "i'm talking to uncle brian." they she proceeded to ignore me, and continue talking to uncle brian all about christmas, presents, the tree, thanksgiving, toys, tristan and ethney, gwen, the dogs, her room, evie, me and amanda, you. anything and everything. it was the cutest f'in thing ever and both your phones were dead last night so i couldn't tell you. it was so cute. then she ends the call, "oh, okay. sounds good. love you brian. bye bye. (smooch)"

damn kids are too smart and cute for their own good........

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Amen brother! ;)

My Apprentice

The day after Halloween, we went to Alex & Kelly's for football. It was a beautiful day and we were witness to an amazing sunset. This is one of my favorite pictures from the day....

Special Delivery

Special thank you sent to California for the great Halloween shirts and ice cream gift cards!

Halloween

Unfortunately, I forgot my camera on Halloween. Luckily, Gwen grabbed hers... so we have a few pictures of the night. We all went over to my mom's house to have dinner and then headed out into the neighborhood. Costumes are as follows: Tristan - Dark Knight, Gwendilyn - Batgirl, Ethne - Poison Ivy, Hailey - Hippie, Evie - Pirate, Brian - Spartan Cheerleader from SNL, Me - Pirate, Amanda - Hippie, and Tim - Wizard. Good times, Good times...

My Crew

The Best Friends

Evie & Tim... having way too much fun!

Pumpkin Carving

Being that Tim & Amanda are partaking in holidays this year, we decided to do a little pumpkin carving at our house so the kids could all carve together. The only one to make it to the end of the carving was Gwendilyn... Tristan had no interest what-so-ever, Ethne gave up once things got too sticky, Evie lost patience and Hailey was just happy going around taking pictures of everything (that is why she is my sunshine). It was a great night... very relaxing and therapeutic! If your stressed, take it out on a pumpkin! lol.

Juice & Scoops.

Tristan & Daddy taking funny pics.

Right before Ethne said things were getting too sticky.

Tim creating another masterpiece.

Finished pumpkin... that guy has talent!

And the end.
We are all in the other room playing Rock Band.

3.2.1. Bounce

For Jaden's birthday, we all went to 3.2.1. Bounce... which is this huge facility that has about 8 ginormus bounce houses & slides. All the kids, big & small, had a blast! Few pictures...

The big goofballs...

Ethne said this was called"Dance Bouncing".

Tristan & Daddy in the Boxing Bouncer.

Gwen on the big slide!

Leaving the bounce room to go have cake & presents.
Tristan said he was "too hot" for a picture. lol.

Fall...

Happy Little Squirrel

Such a poser...

Ditto...

M. Monroe

Since she is my Idol, I am currently reading "The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe". I appreciate how it starts out with the focus on her grandparents, mother, and people who influenced her during her childhood. It is haunting.

The making of the Jeep Cake...

For Tim's birthday this year, Amanda & I wanted to make his cake in the form of a Jeep Wranger. Keeping it on the down low, we got together on at my house on our usual craft night to build the cake and have it ready for Saturday. Amanda found a Guinness cake recipe online and we set out to the store to get all the ingredients.

Shopping was more like an episode of a reality TV show... it was hilarious. Realizing we would probably have to make extra cake layers, in case we fudged it up... plus we planned on making cupcakes for everyone else, it felt like we were cleaning the store out of baking ingredients.

We got home from shopping around 8pm and set everything up. It was intense looking, you couldn't even see the counters. We decided to have some Guinness before we got started. lol.

Um... so 6 hours later... the icing is colored, the Jeep cake layers assembled, rice crispy treats formed into rocks are cooling, and we are completely goofy. Problem occurs when we start icing the Jeep... it no longer wants to stay up on the base cake. We then relocate to the garage freezer, to continue icing while propping it up with the rocks & donuts tires. It's DONE! We are feeling so victorious!

Talking to Tim & icing the rocks.

Icing the Jeep!

Jeep needs a time out to set... TO THE FREEZER!

Top view of the finished cake.

Whoo-hoo!

White Album = Non-Stop Play

Just cuz he loves me so... Justin bought me the digitally remastered White Album for the one and only, The Beatles. I am in heaven! THANK YOU JUSTIN!!!

That's my story, morning glory. ;)

The Kid

Sunday, Bri & I were able to attend the last M's game of the season. We hit the Pyramid Brewery early for beer & nachos to watch the Seahawks vs the Colts. Then headed over to the team store and grabbed some Griffey gear & got an autographed book from the author of "The Kid Returns", which is a really cute book. We took our seats, front row bleachers in left field, sat back & relaxed. It was an amazing day. We walked over behind home plate and snuck into some seats so we could watch Griffey's possible last at bat. No home run, but a base hit was enough. Brian cried... I cried... then the standing "O"... a tip of his hat & a wave... and that was it. I love baseball.

Will the Kid return again???