Gingerbread

I was so happy to be home for the traditional decorating of the graham cracker houses this year!!  Jason has so much more time on his hands now that residency is behind us, and as a result, he got very ambitious and was determined to create a real gingerbread building.  We made a church together, complete with Lifesaver stained-glass windows.  I've never had success before using real gingerbread, but Jason found a recipe online for a non-edible gingerbread that was hard as rock and did the job beautifully.  We had some fun!!  Look how seriously they take this!  Serious fun.

 William just sat and enjoyed M&M's.

 Due to a living space much smaller than our last house, this is all the room I have for our village.  Next year Jason and I will have to take that into account when we design our newest creation.  Notice the pretzel bench on the church grounds.  So cute.  I love Sara's chimney made from caramels, too.  

Sara Turns 6

 Lets try this again.  Blogger is giving me grief.  If you see a giant picture of the statue of liberty on my blog background, just pretend I put it there on purpose, when in truth, I have no idea why it's showing up.  

Anyway, Sara had a very fun birthday party.  She got some great presents, including a basketball and Optimus Prime--the best of the Autobot Transformers.  What a goofy kid.

Thanks to Pinterest, I was able to create her dream superhero cake.  The rule was that it couldn't have Spiderman, because she doesn't like Spiderman, but it did have to have Captain America and Batman.  Those are the best.  The Superman layer even had a cape!  She was embarrassed t

Halloween 2012

Halloween was especially fun this year because I was not on bed rest this time!!  I got to enjoy all of the festivities and it was wonderful.

William made a very handsome cow and Emily was so excited to be a pretty princess.  I think all five of my girls have worn this dress for Halloween.  Maybe not Ashley. I don't remember. Anyway, it's gotten a lot of good use!

Sara, of course, was Captain America.  This kid is so funny!  If it's red white and blue, it's awesome-- and don't tell our AF peers, but the Marine hymn is her favorite song in the world.

Rachel was a BYU cheerleader, Melissa was a bride.

 Of course, we carved pumpkins and roasted five pumpkins worth of seeds.  That's a ton of seeds, by the way.  They all turned out pretty cute.

A Dream Fulfilled

Having five daughters, it's a given that we're going to have some horse lovers in our home.  They have all expressed interest in these huge animals at some point, and Jason is convinced he will be a hobby-rancher some day, so we are learning about horses as a family.  We went out (all but the two littlest ones) to the Dream River Ranch, not too far from home, to learn about these beautiful creatures.  The trainer there spent five hours with us teaching us safety, how to groom, saddle, and ride.  What a great experience!  Of course, it takes more than one lesson to learn everything, so we plan on making this a regular occurrence.  Here are Ashley and Rachel picking out their horses.

 Jason and Rachel hard at work brushing Amber.

 Melissa and Ashley were brushing Fancy.  We also cleaned their feet (not easy!!) and combed the tails.

 Sara got the biggest horse, Dylan.  He was a very gentle giant. She was giggling uncontrollably when we got to trot.  So fun!

 Melissa rode Fancy.

 Ashley rode Storm, which was great because she loves XMen.  Ashley was a natural out there!  She is great.

 Rachel rode Yankee.

 Here is a group shot of all of us.  I rode Amber and Jason rode Pearl.  He was only a little embarrassed by his horse's name.  She was pretty enough that he didn't care too much.

Ashley is 14

Ashley is now 14 years old.  That's the make-up milestone in our house, so that's a big part of what she got, along with clothes and jewelry.  I also took her to get her first pedicure!! That was fun.

 She was really full from eating too much pizza.  So full that not even a chocolate cheesecake looked good.  I think she enjoyed it more the next day when there was more room for it.  I know I enjoyed it both days!!

School Time

School started this last week.  The girls were excited to meet new friends.  Ashley is going into the 8th grade at the junior high,

 Melissa is in 6th grade at the middle school,

 Rachel is in 4th grade at the primary school,

 And Sara started kindergarten at the primary school.  She was so excited to finally start school!  Too bad they only do half day kindergarten here.  That's a concept I will never understand.  Yesterday they learned about the number 1.  Wow.  They even take time for recess in that wee little three hours of school. 

Pictures, Finally

I am finally getting to a point where I can blog again.  Moving with six kids is no easy task!  We still have a lot to unpack, but it's getting there.  This is a picture of the path all the girls walk to and from school.  Two kids go on base, the older two go 20 minutes into town, but the bus stop is at the base school, so they all walk this.  It takes them 10 minutes to walk it.  You can see the school if you look at the tree in the middle of the picture--it's the tiny building to the right of that tree. 

Our beautiful home!

 Our very cute street with actual sidewalks and street lamps.  You have no idea how excited I am about that!!

 The family room.  Oops.  Left a pair of kids p.j.'s on the floor. 

 Kitchen and dining room and Emily playing play-doh.

 Master bedroom.  Quite a bit smaller than our last house, but that's ok!

 View of the backyard as seen from Ashley's room.

 View of the commons area in the back of the house as seen from Emily and William's room.  Notice the playground.  Those are everywhere here.  It's awesome.

 This is one of my favorite things about this house--a huge pantry.  I love it.  A lot!