Christmas Break Fun

This last week over Christmas Break the girls had a sleepover with the twins and Codi's friend Victoria. The girls did a fashion show in the hallway...Codi/Victori/Kaelyn/and Lauren put on outfits of Codi's :) Carli was the photographer!!

Codi on the runway!


Victoria (such a ham!!)


Lauren was not about to change her clothes but was still a good sport!


Kaelyn striking a pose!
On Tuesday both of the girls had a volleyball tournament in Queen Creek. It was a great family day! Since I am coaching Codi's team this year, most of my pictures will be of Carli playing...last year I had mostly pictures of Codi playing!! Carli's team ended up winning the tournament. My team (Codi's) got 3rd which was good considering we were the only 13 year old team!!



Kayla and Carli after winning!


Carli's team


My lone picture of Codi from the day :(



The faithful Grandparents!!!

Christmas 2009

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve/Christmas with our family and friends. Our normal Eve routine is to go to mom's church and then we all head over to Craig's parents to eat and watch Christmas Vacation. Christmas morning the girls woke up at 5am so excited to begin opening their presents. (I have to admit...I scored the best of all of us with my new Mac Book!!) I had absolutely no clue!!! I am so excited to begin learning all the cool things that it does!!! We had all of our families over for breakfast...lunch...and endless grazing!!
Christmas Eve 2009

Grammy and PaPa with the grandkids!

Marci*Mom*Me

Grandpa and Grandma with Carli and Codi


Christmas Morning...

Carli taste testing the Potato Salad

Our endless game of Phase 10!!

Codi*Kaelyn*Lauren

Nowlin girls and Bauer girls :)


Serious game of Family Feud!


Dad had this hat on all day...more hair than he has had in 30 yrs!!

Polar Express 2009

Last Thursday we loaded up with the Putz and Falkenborg families and headed up to Williams for the Polar Express...Craig and I had taken the girls 5 years ago and it is a priceless experience!! There was lots of snow which helped the mood feel like Christmas!! The look on the kids' faces gives you goose bumps!!

The Whole Place was lit up outside with lights :)

Kelsey, Sandy, and I (and Brooke:)

All of the kids in their PJs before going to see Santa!!

Never too big to believe :)

Carli and Easy E (was easy until 2am!!)

Codi and Kaelyn just got on the train!


This picture sums it up!!

Merry Christmas :)

Thanksgiving Weekend!!

The 4 day weekend has been such a good weekend of family and friends!! The tradition has been going for some time that my mom comes over in the morning and takes over my kitchen!! :)




Food Coma :)...although I don't even think we had eaten yet when this was taken!!


These 2 harassed each other all day!!


Craig doing his traditional "Carving the Turkey"!! (Which I don't think he enjoys at all)


Codi and Emily


Cousins :)


This year for Black Friday--We tried a new plan with the Mall opening at Midnight---Kelsey, her sister Courtney, and I thought we would try it!! We took Carli with us---she was SOOOOOO excited!! Unfortunately we learned our lesson to just stick to the early morning Target/Walmart...the mall was full of teenagers (did their parents even know where they were????)...we went back home..slept from 2-4:30 and then headed to Target.


Waiting outside the Mall for it to open.


We hung out at the Putz house on Friday...the kids did a "painting with pudding" activity...


Friday evening we loading all the kids up on the rangers to have a camp fire. The guys built a great fire (minus JJ losing the hair on his arms during the actual "Ignition")


All the kids


The big Kids :)


It was a perfect evening :)

Controlling the hormones!!!

I know that people say "where has the time gone" all the time...but seriously...especially with Carli..she has become such a young adult in the last month or so...Along with the growing up so fast comes the transition "attitude"...I'm not sure if attitude is the correct word...but she is very expressive lately.

Which leads me to the best discipline strategy!!!...I am a genius!!...It took me a long time to give in to the whole cell phone idea for her...I work around 15 year girls all day..I have seen the bad choices they make with their cell phones. A couple of weeks ago a parent at Carli's school was thanking me for have such a wonderful daughter...to make a long story short...This parent's daughter has special needs and for the last 3 years Carli has been really good with her in classes..teachers have intentionally kept them in same groups knowing Carli would help out...Instantly I was reminded what a good kid she is and felt compelled to go buy her a phone.

...back to me (or Craig and I to keep it fair) being a genius...We now have a wonderful little piece of technology to dangle over her potentially sassy/moody/rotten 13 year old. :))


Yesterday we took some pictures at Cassie's wedding shower...standing next to her I realized she is quickly catching me!!!

Not our Traditional Halloween!! :(

It has been too long since I have taken the time to post some pictures and happenings going on in our life!! Things have been pretty busy...and with this past weekend of club tryouts...it is about to get busier!!!

Our normal Halloween tradition had to take a year off :( I had a tournament all day in Tucson, my cousin having a 40th birthday party, AND the girls having club tryouts very early Sunday morning forced us to postpone our normal Halloween gathering until next year!!! Craig and my mom got the girls ready in their costumes and they drove to the Dallmanns to hang out and trick or treat with them. Carli was a Hippie and Codi was a punk rocker :)

Superb Weekend :)

Carli's school team was in the Spikefest tournament this weekend...all the elementary schools in the district participate (25 schools)---Carli's team got 6th which was a good fininsh for their inexperienced team :) Carli played well and made the all-tournament team along with several other girls from her club team.

Carli is #20

Carli and Codi :) It kills Codi to just sit and watch!!!

All-tournament team :) Carli and Abby!



After watching lots of Carli's vball---Craig and I headed on the ranger with JJ and Kelsey for a quick trip to Crown King. We couldn't have asked for better weather!! We took our time stopping along the way...hitting the infamous "Cleatter Bar" (some serious redneck peeps up there!!!)--Kinda cool way to make you appreciate all of our "haves" in life!!! We had a great "Linner" (in between lunch and dinner) at the restaurant...hit the general store to get the kids some of their homemade fudge!!

Craig with his pink "Stachel"



Not too many full mouths of teeth at this bar :)