Elise is Two!!!

Elise sat still on the chair in my bedroom for exactly two and a half minutes this morning so I could attempt to take birthday pictures of her. My original plan was to get her all dressed up in her Christmas dress, blow dry her hair, and all that good stuff. But as a mom of four, you learn to be real flexible really fast. Right at this moment, she was in a great mood and had one of her birthday outfits on so-plans changed! After the two and a half minutes, she was off and running with the pack again. I feel lucky they turned out as cute as they did. Happy birthday, Elise-We love you!

This is one of the cute shots of Elise with her Lambie. Just for nostalgia, I included a picture of her at four weeks with the same lamb-she's actually smaller than it is! Time really does fly-they're not lying! We had a fun birthday party for Elise. I can't imagine our family functioning without her. She is definitely one of the crew, and feels just as big as everyone else. :)

Some Christmas and New Years Memories :)

Decorating the tree.



Hanging the lights.

Christmas Eve :)

Christmas Morning:

Yes it was all a blur! :)

The most popular gift of all: Carter asked Santa for a gold trophy and the kids were amazed-he actually got it!!
We're inundated with Webkinz!

Grant helping Lauryn on the wii Guitar Hero game.

Dinner out with some great friends I knew from elementary school and through High School.

My "god-daughter" Grace.

Yikes! I need to teach this child how to brush her teeth!

Great Grandma Stratton cuddling with Elise.

Lauryn and Alexis broke the wishbone from Thanksgiving.

Julia and Lauryn helped me make wontons for New Years Eve Dinner.

New Years Eve Dinner at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Slacking...

Something about this season makes me into a major blog slacker. Here are a couple pictures of the kids this season and I'll be sure to post later. We are just keeping so busy doing so many things that blogging seems to fall last on the list. Hope you all have a Merry Christmas! :)

Veteran's Day Remembered

When you drink from a well, remember the men who dug the well.

-Proverb I just wanted to write a note to remember the service of all those in the armed forces. Particularly my Great Grandpa, WWI, Grandpa Stratton and Grandpa Holt WWII and Uncle Roger Stratton, Vietnam. I can't even imagine the things that you saw and did for our country. Thank you so much- Love You!!

Lauryn's Baptism

Lauryn's baptism was Saturday November 1st. It turned out really nicely and it was so fun to have Grandma and Grandpa Klein and Grandma and Grandpa Holt there.

40% off Mary Kay Products

Hey everyone-I'm putting in my once a year 40% off Mary Kay order this Saturday, November 8th. Just go to http://www.marykay.com/ and check out the new products and catalog. You can order anything from the catalog. Subtract 40% from the suggested retail price to know what your cost would be (plus tax and $2 shipping). Let me know what you would like to order by Saturday. You can either call me or comment on my blog with a way I can contact you. Have fun shopping!

PS. If you are a friend of one of my sisters, I will be getting the products to them at Thanksgiving and they can bring the items out to you.

A Beehive to make mom proud :)

This post is a little self-indulgent-I admit. But I had so much fun dressing up for our Church Halloween party that I had to post a few pictures. I wore the dress my Grandma made and wore to my mom and dad's wedding in 1973. I also had her glasses, total coke bottles (sorry, grandma). Then after watching some tutorials on youtube-I did my hair in a beehive.

Basically you rat the heck out of it and spray it until it stands up in sections all over your head, then you smooth it into a mound that looks like shallacked cotton candy. My goal was to use the entire bottle of 99 cent hairspray I bought to get it to stay in place. I kept thinking- I can NOT believe people actually fixed their hair like this on a regular basis. I had to tell myself several times that once was not going to make my hair break off-but it sure feels like its going to!

We had a great time at the party eating and dancing-my friend Laurie posted a video on her blog of me breakdancing. Ha-Ha! I'll see if I can get a copy of it. :)

And amazingly enough, my hair did survive, and all the tangles came out after only two shampoo/conditionings! Happy Halloween everybody!

Here's the dress in full-length. I think it's adorable. Grandma was a tall lady! I'm wearing heels and its still dragging the floor! Thanks Grant and Lauryn for being my photographers!