Thanksgiving

This is our second year of doing Thanksgiving day with the Hopper side at a waterpark. It's a pretty fun day, if not traditional. We started the day with a big lunch out then headed to the hotel and got ready for a day of swimming. Since it was Thanksgiving day, there isn't much of a crowd at the pool which makes it much more enjoyable.



Kole and Ari had their cool floaty swim suits again, they are fabulous.

this trip and all the waterplay is Grandma and Grandpa's Christmas gift to all the kids and they LOVE it.




Xander and Sophia coming down the big slide.



Dalia even got in on the swimming, she liked it!

Lots of random cuteness

In an attempt to keep bloggy motivated, here are some cutesie pics of my cutesie kids.
I have so very many pictures that look like this:
Dalia loves her baby dolls. This is one I knit for her before we knew who she was. She likes it a lot, and I love how well she's matching it in this picture.

This is the typical Ari picture pose, good thing it's a cute one.
Millions of pictures that look like this too. Ari loves her sister!
mustache fun :)


a little school thrown in. Here's some prek math going on


and some big girl math. We were learning money math


as part of our money math we played restaurant the waiters had to add money and make change. I like Sophia's "in character" face, and Ari's good waitress impression.and will end with more baby cuteness. Ari loves to sing to Dali, all the time. And Dali loves to her it, and sing back.

Birthday party!

Well, that was a long blog break, but it's time for some pictures!
We had a super fun birthday party yesterday. Sophia turned 8 and Kole's getting ready to turn 3, so we had our annual costume party.


Sophia was a rock star
Kole the dino, complete with spikey head.
some scarecrows stopped by
One cute little lady bug (the other one slept through most of the party :)


The girls colored rock stars to play "pin the rock star on the stage" the boys had swords, and therefore had no interest in coloring or game playing.
here's Isabella pinning her rockstar (she's dressed as a tap dancer)


Sophia made and decorated her own cake this year. She made a rainbow cake, so when it was cut it was all different colors on the inside. Then she decorated it into a volcano. (like my cowgirl outfit? picked by Sophia, who insisted I dress up)


Here's that other cute lady bug after waking up from her nap. She got lots of Grandma(s) and Auntie time.
Lucas the ninja holding Gabe at sword point
with this many ninjas in one place, we had some serious battles going on in the back yard.

the boys had mustaches in their goodie bags
Lips from the girls goodie bags

Ella wore both :)Fun group of kids!

Xander's pre-birthday fun

Well, Xander turned 6! He's been talking about it for quite a while, and it finally happened.

This year we decided (read: I kind of talked him into) not to have a big party, but to have several smaller celebrations. As it turned out Faron was in Germany on Xander's birthay birthday, so that ended up being a pretty good plan. We had his birthday dinner out at his choice restaurant (Red Robin) the week before, and then on the morning of the day we were taking Papa to the airport we did his big birthday present, which was a newly redone bedroom!

We had kicked him out of his bedroom for the 2 days before this, but I still think it was a total surprise, the redo wasn't anything that ever crossed his mind. Really, I think he though I just had his presents hidden in his room for some reason. :)

So on Saturday morning we lead him up to his room (eyes closed of course)

When he walked in he did a quick scan of the room and discovered it to be a new star wars room. I had 2 wrapped presents sitting on his bed, so he went for those first. I was kind of afraid that a newly decorated room might not be too exciting for him. I knew he would like it in the long run, but wasn't sure about the wow factor. He was pretty wow though.
In his presents he found this Yoda
and an (original) star wars bed spread.

He went around the room admiring all the pictures I had framed up from calendars.

My favorite part, and I think his too, was the toy box. I took it from a white Winnie the Pooh toy box to this.

Fun fun birthday-ness!

zoo pictures

Ok, so our zoo trip was over a month ago, but I have a few cute pictures that I'm going to post anyway, cause their cute :)

When we were staying at Uncle Gabe's house waiting for our paper work, we decided to take a trip to the zoo. It was a fun trip for our first outing as a family of 8.

Proof that Dalia was at the zoo

I don't remember what he was saying to me, but I see this face often.

this is the first picture that ever made me think, wow, that's kind of a lot of kids. I actually don't think I've thought that again since about pictures, not sure what it was about that one.

cute blond brothers in the midst of all these girls

The big girls wanted this picture especially for Grammy, because of the flamingos