Our 2011 Gingerbread House

Every year we make a gingerbread house. This year was no different....however the outcome was...read below.

Here we are setting up the house and decorating it. The house was a little unstable because the frosting was not helping to keep the house together. Oh well, we continued.

Notice the lovely decorative icicles hanging from the roof. That was my addition to the house. The other beautiful decorations were done by Katie and Kellen. Tom was here as well. He was the one taking the pictures.

Almost done...
After the house was all decorated we went to our room to watch a Christmas movie.

After the movie...........

We found the house like this!!! The house had totally fallen apart. It looked as if the big bad wolf came over while we were watching the movie and blew the house down. Sad!

Next year we are going to hot glue the house together first and then add the frosting for looks.

Random Shots

Here are some random shots.

I love to do hair. Katie told me what she wanted and here is the finished product. She looked so cute!

One night Brielle came to our house while Shellie was sick. She and I cuddled and watched a movie. She was such a good little princess!

Here we are in the middle of decorating the tree. Kellen has a guilty look on his face. Why?

Kellen and Brent were playing pillow fight at G&G Lyle's house. Kinda looks like Kellen was winning!

Thanksgiving 2011

This year we had Thanksgiving dinner at my parent's house. My grandpa and grandpa Higgins and Brent and Jen came as well. We all had a wonderful time. The food was fantastic. The main debate this year was whether or not to stick the stuffing into the turkey. I prefer not to put it in, others prefer it in while the turkey is cooking. The debate made for some good conversation....believe it or not :)

Also, this year we had a new little cousin to celebrate with us, Brielle!!!! She was never put down!
Jen (Brent's girlfriend), Katie and Brielle.

Sisterly love. Diana, Shellie, myself. We are missing Erica. She spent Thanksgiving in Hawaii....poor thing:)

Tom, TJ, Dad, Brielle, and Scott all waiting for the food to be ready.

Tom fell asleep holding little Brielle.

New Favorite

LeGrand Richards once said, “If you are going to leave footprints in the sands of time, you must wear your working shoes.”

This has been me for the past few weeks....only the female version. School has been out of control hard. I just took my final last night. It was crazy hard. I was so annoyed with the teacher that for every question that I hated, I wrote on the test that it was a dumb question. True story. I was so annoyed with her!

I am glad to be back in the land of the living. I am SO happy that I do not have to study for another few weeks!! However, with all the craziness that school brings, I am SO grateful that I can be in school, for a very supportive husband, for super awesome kids that pray that I will do well on tests and do not bother me once they are bed and I start to study, and for a brain that still functions (kinda:))

Oh, and this post is dedicated to my sister Diana. She just told me that I have not posted in a while. I am sorry about the wait :)

The Middle Finger

The other day I told Tom and the kids that the house was a mess and that I was not going to help them clean it. This bold statement came after Tom had been gone for about a week in California. I was tired and wanted to make sure the kids and Tom had some quality time cleaning. :) Any way...

This is the conversation that what went down-

Me: Kids, you and your father are going to clean the house and I am not going to lift a finger.

Katie: Well, I am not going to lift my middle finger.

Roaring laughter ensued....especially since Katie is still not sure why we do not put up our middle finger at someone.

Halloween 2011

This year Katie was a vampire and Kellen was Woody from Toy Story. We went to several Halloween parties and got a lot of candy! Kellen called his candy bag his "load". It was awesome!

Notice the awesome vampire teeth. They didn't last long; the teeth were slightly annoying.

If you look closely you can see that Katie is pretending to bite Kellen's head.
Carving pumpkins....so fun!

Katie wanted to show the progression of opening her little pumpkin.

The finished results! The pumpkin on the right is Kellen's pumpkin. He outlined his jack'0'lantern face for me to cut for him. I guess I misread his drawing and I cut out a too many shapes on his pumpkin's face. The top two shapes are actually eyebrows. Oops! My bad!

Katie is walking in her elementary school parade.

Kellen found some funny glasses at the dollar store. He loved them so much that they became part of his costume.
Woody with funny glasses at his preschool halloween party.

Kellen playing musical chairs at the preschool party. He actually won this round! Yay, Kellen!

Moves Like Jagar

Last night, during scripture study, we were reading about when Nephi and his brothers went back to Jerusalem to bring Ishmael's family into the wilderness with them. The kids were not totally sure why they had to go get another family. We told them that Nephi and his brothers needed to have wives in the wilderness. We were teasing the kids that one day they would have a boy or girl friend. THEN Kellen busts out "I am gonna have MOOOOOOOOOOOVVVVES like Jagar." It was so hard to regain composure after that one. Love ya, Kellen!

Kellen's latest prayer

I know I keep writing about the prayers that Katie and Kellen are offering but sometimes they are just too dang funny not to!

Tonight Kellen asked that he be blessed with the following:

1)He asked that he no longer have wrinkles even after a bath or swimming. I have NO idea where that came from. Apparently, it is an issue that he felt needed to be included tonight.

2) He asked that he be blessed with a pet platypus...thank you Phineas and Ferb!!

Tom and I tired to remain quiet and composed but it didn't work. We were both laughing by the time the prayer ended :)

Baby Brielle

On October 20, 2011, our first Lyle cousin came into the world. The kids just about split a gut when heard baby Brielle was born. Her full name is Brielle Christine Bolen. She was 6 pounds 13 ounces and 19.5 inches long. To me she looks just like her dad. When she was born she had such cute little cheeks and was given the nick name of Smushy! She is so precious!

Katie and Kellen holding cousin Brielle.

Grandpa & Grandma Lyle

The happy Bolen family.

Grandma & Scott enjoying their doughnuts.

Kellen really wanted to hold Brielle. I was a little nervous about it. It took many adjustments to make it happen. He felt like such a big boy.

There is a story behind these doughnuts. My dad took Diana and myself to go get doughnuts when Shellie was born. When we were ordering Diana kept telling my dad she wanted a chocolate bone. It took a while to figure out what she was talking about BUT finally my dad realized that she wanted a long doughnut with chocolate frosting. Every time a baby is born in the Lyle family (Erica, Scott, Katie and Kellen) we get "chocolate bones". Diana and I didn't get a hold of each other before we purchased a dozen doughnuts. Yes, we had 24 doughnuts and they were so yummy!

Shellie looks great after having a C-section.

Katie and Brielle. Katie cannot wait to help babysit!

Uncle Scott holding his second niece.

Greek Day at Val Vista Lakes Elementary

Katie just recently celebrated Greek Day in school. Her teacher assigned her (which means me) to bring Baklava. Before the assignment I had only heard of it. I had no idea what is was made out of it or how it looked. Thanks to an internet recipe and help from our pastry chef friend Jenica I made it. Katie said most of the people liked it but some kids spit it out. That's always nice to hear when you spend money on making a gourmet dessert for third graders. Oh well, it was fun for them to try and Katie had fun.

Here is Katie in the traditional Greek garb.

Kellen's Birthday and soccer game

This fall Kellen started again! Woo-hoo. He is having a lot of fun. His team is The Rattlers. He is always so happy when he makes a goal.

Something on his stomach must be super interesting because he stopped playing for a minute to check it out.

*************************************************************************************

Kellen just recently turned 5 years old. I am not sure where the time went! He is such a good little guy. Kellen is really funny, he loves to quote movies and play with his sister.

This year we had a family party for cousins at Chuck E Cheese. It was a lot of fun to watch the boys run around earning tickets. That weekend we had another family party with grandma & grandpa Lyle and aunts and uncle Scott. Thanks everyone for celebrating Kellen's birthday!

This picture is so blurry but cool at the same time.

Katie pushing the car :)

Kellen, cousin Jack, & Katie.

This was Kellen's birthday cake this year. It was the easiest cake I have ever made. It was fun to have something different.

Aunt Di with Kellen and Katie.

The box was a real hit with Kellen.

Uncle Mark liked the box too!!