Christmas Eve

All right, we are going back in time to Christmas. . .yep, I've been slacking. . .but I have a big project just about done. . .so, while I have access to the pictures. . .I will blog :)

On Christmas Eve day, we celebrated with my brother Drew and his family as they had other commitments in the evening. Tyler came too and brought along a friend along with Grandma and Grandpa and GG coming to watch!

We started out at Grandma's house and had, a Easter Egg hunt -- random, I know, but my mom thought that it would be fun. The kids found some eggs and they were happy. We then went over to the Riparian Preserve and had lunch and then a fun soccer game. It was really fun. The kids loved exploring at the Preserve and with my brother Drew, and all of the girls, we were able to keep the game to a tie :). It was a fun memory to make. . .

 

Year in Review

I sometimes find myself trying to remember different things about the year, and in doing our family calendar this year, remembered a trip we went on that I had forgotten! With today being he last day of the month, and I am waiting for the time to be "appropriate" to drop something off at the ladies I Visit Teach -- yep it has been a month :)--- I looked back at my blog to see the fun things I did each month. . . so I can just review it here -- here is the DeGraffenried recap for 2010!

January -- Ryan turned EIGHT!!
February -- Ryan is baptized! Jake and I go for a few days to Vegas for a convention, and Jake and my dad take the boys to a monster truck event (don't know what they call that :))
March -- We have a fun St. Patricks day party, we get chicks, and we go to San Diego!
April -- Jacob turns ELEVEN!! Jake and Jacob go on their annual horse ride to Utah.
May -- I go with my mom and sil to New York City. Jake, Spence and I go to Utah, and we go to a D-back game.
June -- We go to Utah for a wedding, I get to fly back to get my boys on Monday -- we leave on Saturday :)! We go to the Wildlife Zoo.
July -- We go yet again to Utah for another wedding and our family reunion. I take the boys to the circus.
August -- The boys all go to school and we MOVE!!
September -- We had a party.
October -- We have more paries and cancel our trip back East because we have too much to do on our new house.
November -- Spencer turned SIX!! Fun Thanksgiving and black Friday with my mom and sister. Spencer does a performance at school.
December - Christmas! FUN, FUN, FUN Christmas Eve that needs to be blogged! Christmas mornin we sent my parents off on their latest mission!
Just recapping my year makes me TIRED!!!! 2010 was a wonderful year, but we are excited about 2011 and I am sure we will have some new adventures that we are sure to ENJOY! Happy New Year!

Christmas Card 2010

Ok, I have a ton of things that I want and need to blog about. . .somehow I have been crazy and haven't updated my family's day to day happenings. . .I guess those will go unpublished. . .but, I wanted to post more for my posterity our Christmas card and my first choice on Christmas cards -- Jake nixed it :) -- he thought we all should be in the picture. . . I ended running out of cards. . .maybe next year I will do better :). . .and I used the same card with a little improvement. . .


But my favorite part of this Christmas card, is the letter and Spencer's name. . .He was the first to sign, and wanted to be sure to have enough room to sign . . .I love this, someday he will probably be mad that I sent this out to so many friends and family. . .but, it is Spencer right now.

 

To those who I inadvertently missed, I am sorry, leave me a note and I PROMISE you won't be forgotten next year! We wish you all a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Snowman Quilt

It's DONE and on the WALL!

 

I have spent a long time working on my snowman quilt, and had a goal. . . to have him hanging BEFORE Christmas. . . the clips came today, and I love having him up! I have a huge sense of satisfaction seeing it all done. . . a fun project and I LOVE the outcome!

Happy Birthday Spencer Boy!

My Baby is SIX today! I can't believe it! It seems like just yesterday, well maybe a couple of years have gone by and he was born! I have been on a quest the last couple of days for a picture. . . I finally found the one I wanted. . .but in the meantime, I was able to find several fun pictures of Spence through the years. . .Blogspot likes to change things around so it is what is timewise. . .but I will give you six things that I love about Spencer!

1. He is almost ALWAYS Happy! He just has a zeal for life and living life that is fun. As far as the almost part he is only not happy for a few minutes when someone is mean. . .

2. He loves to pretend. . .he is easily entertained.

3. He is friendly and likes other people.

4. I love his smile and his eye lashes.

5. He is a good helper.

6. He loves his family. When he was in preschool, I would say Spencer you need to quit growing, and he would say he would quit growing. . .one day I teasingly said, Spence you said you would quit growing, and he started crying and said I am trying to quit but I can't!



Even when he is a stinker, I feel so blessed that he is my baby boy! Happy birthday Spency-B!

Halloween Party

Now that some of our traditional activities are over. . .I need to break and blog some of the FUN things that we have been doing. . .when my kids get older. . .they need to be reminded of some of the fun things they did. . .
We are pretty casual with what we let the kids do in our front yard. . .the other day, I came home from the store to find this adorable sign Ryan made. . .I LOVE it!

 

I found this Vampire shirt for Spencer and thought that given his lack of front teeth it was almost mirroring him!

 

We had a couples party a few days ago and some of the husbands didn't dress up . . .but we had so much FUN!

 

And finally, our Halloween party was last night! My kids look forward to this party every year (I think we have done it for four or five years in conjunction with our HOA. This year, we were on our own. . .It was a blast, whirlwind, exhausting event! Every year it gets bigger and better. . .this year didn't fail on either end. . .Hopefully, Jake will let us do it again next year. . .we will talk about it later. . but we only got the camera out at almost the end. We had a cupcake walk, a pinata, bobbing for apples, crafts --we ran out of time for those, and a bounce house!

 

Thanks everyone for coming and for ALL of your HELP!

Halloween!

We decided kind of at the last minute to do our traditional party. . .if you are in the area and want to come. . .

We'd love to have you!