Happy Birthday Princess Greta!

Greta is 4 today!! I can hardly believe it. She is so excited to be 4, but frusterated that she's not older than Austin today:)

We had a brithday party for Greta on Thanksgiving since it was easy to have everyone there. With us moving this weekend we didn't want her to miss out on having a party. We will be doing a friend party sometime next week.. She has requested a Cinderella cake, we'll see what I can do.

Luckily Greta didn't wake me up for her present on the table at 4am like Austin, she kindly waited until 6am! I made her crawl into bed with us and she slept until 8am. As you can see from the pictures she wasn't too happy at first, but she lightened up later!

The princess dress she is wearing is from Aunt Shan and Greta loves it. It's acutally a brides dress and she always wants to wear it. Alina of course has to dress up with her.

Happy Birthday Greta!!!

O' Christmas Tree

Christmas is almost here and we are so excited! We finally got the tree up. This year is going to be so fun because all of our kids are old enough to be excited and anticipating every little part of Christmas!

We all went to a free showing of "Stalking Santa" Monday night. It wasn't really a show for kids, but we kept the popcorn coming so they were happy. I recommend watching it, it proves that Santa is real:)

It's not even December and we are finished with our Christmas shopping! I'm so glad! Cam and I went shopping on "Black Friday" and we got lots of great deals, it was fun!

Here are the kids lists, they requested I put them on:

Austin:

YU-GI-Oh CARDS!!!

Soccer goal

Baseball glove and mitt

Picture of Jesus (Greta asked for this first and the other 2 followed)

A toy castle

Any kind of Lion, Tiger or Liger toy (his favorite animals)

$50.00 (it was $20.00 and he thought he needed more)

Greta:

Doll house

Picture of Jesus

My Little Ponies

Princess dress

Princess cash register

Barbies

Princess clock

Makeup

Alina:

A puppy (this is what she asks for every time, we are NOT getting a puppy!)

princess dress

Anything pink or black (her words)

BARBIES (what she really wants)

Play food

makeup

I think the kids will be happy this year with their loot! I can't wait!! And to my husband Cam, I got you the BEST present ever! Only 26 more days until you can open it!!!

V.I.P.

Every Friday Austin's class has a V.I.P for 1 week. Austin is it for this week. Last week he made a poster of all his favorite things and he got to take it to school to show his class. He also got to bring anything else he wanted so the kids can get to know him better. He chose to bring in his favorite teddy bear for everyone to see, his favorite dinosaur book he got from his birthday and his sisters. Greta and Alina were very excited to go to school with Austin and he was very proud to have them there with him.

His poster has his own drawings (except for the picture of the dinosaur shark that he got out of his national geographic magazine). His favorite animals are the lion and tiger. His favorite foods are pizza, watermelon and butterfingers. He also made a family tree of us. His favorite superhero is Superman. He has a Yu-Gi-Oh card for his favorite card game and his favorite colors are red and blue.

After the VIP explains their poster all the kids get to ask 1 question to them. Every single kid in that class was amazed at his drawings and all of them asked him "how did you draw that lion?" "How did you draw that tiger?!" Austin's answer was..."ahhh it was easy." He is very good at drawing for his age. He decided about a month ago that he wants to be an artist when he grows up, he's on his way!

I Hope They Call Me On a Mission

My youngest brother Ryan got his mission call yesterday. He has been called to serve in the Peru Piura mission and he leaves on January 30th.

Ryan just barely had his interview with the Stake President last Tuesday and a week later he got his call. We were expecting it to come next week so it was a big surprise for all of us, except Ryan.

With all 3 of my brothers we have played a guessing game in our family journal of where they will go and when. My dad's first guess for Ryan was Peru, but he changed his mind because a missionary from our ward got his call to Peru and never got his visa. Then shortly after that all missionaries in Peru were sent home from Peru for some reason. So my dad would've guessed right.

After he opened his call we had Cameron on one laptop and Shane on another looking up all we could about Peru. Here is some of what we found:

-Peru has over 4,000 types of potatoes. Problem is Ryan isn't very fond of potatoes!

-They also are known for the best tasting cuisine in the Americas.

-Peru has a democratic government where the citizens 18-70 have to vote.

-It's home of the legendary Inca settlement of Machu Picchu.

-Piura is the oldest spanish settlement in the Americas.

-The city is also well known for its artisans who weave straw hats and make silverware.

-Piura means "supply base" as the area was used by the Incas as a stop to get provisions during their conquest of the area's original inhabitants.

-The population in Piura is 400,000.

-Piura is also on the coast which means lots of seafood that Ryan also doesn't like:)

-A favorite dish is called Ceviche, it's a citrus marinated seafood salad and is pictured above.

-They speak Spanish and not Peruvian Shane!!:)

Ryan is so excited! He really wanted to go spanish speaking. Now we'll have Cameron, my dad, Matthew, and Ryan speaking Spanish to each other. I really need to learn it.

Peru reminds Cameron a lot of Uruguay. We are all planning on picking Ryan up after his 2 years are up.

Ryan's girlfriend Kelley came down from Utah State to see him yesterday. I think she's a little shell-shocked. Kelley also plans on going on a mission so they won't see each other for quite awhile. It'll be interesting to see what happens, we all love her and would love to have her as part of the family. In our family with girls waiting for missionaries we are 2 for 2 so there is hope Ryan and Kelley:) Except that this time it will be Ryan waiting for Kelley.

Austin can't wrap his head around the fact that when Ryan comes home he'll be 8 and baptized. He just refuses to believe me. But when Ryan was leaving for work and said bye Austin freaked out and said "he's going on his mission right now?!?" We are all really going to miss him. I can't believe my youngest brother is all grown up. He is going to be such a great missionary and do wonderful things for those in Piura Peru.

Halloween

Well Halloween was a bit of a crazy day for our family. Greta woke up with the flu and I woke up with larengitis. I had Austin's school party to go to, thank heavens for my dad and Melinda. My dad watched Greta and Melinda took Alina for me so she could play with Cayden. It was a crazy day. Greta came down with a high fever about 5:00pm and I was out of medicine so Ryan ran to the store for her. She was sleeping when it was time for trick or treating and we couldn't wake her up. Cam and I took Alina and Austin around to a few houses and then Matthew and Melinda came over and Greta finally woke up. She had to be pushed in a stroller and I took up her bucket for her. She was miserable, we all felt so bad for her.

There were 2 homes that had some awesome "haunted house" themes. Our neighbor had a frankenstein theme and he's really tall and had a great frankenstein costume. He'd just stand next to the garage and the second you walked up to him he'd move and scare all the kids. They also had a coffin with someone banging inside and then they'd come out. And of course the candy bucket was sitting in the lap of a monster that looks fake, but it wasn't. All the kids were screaming and not one of them dared take a piece of candy by themselves. There were so many people watching all the mayhem, it was so fun!

Yes, that is Cameron in the scary scream costume. He even wore it to work. Matthew and Cameron scared a few kids trick or treating. They had a fog machine and mask and pretended to be stuffed and while the kids tried to figure out if they were real one of them would move and send them off screaming. It was great!

All in all it was a great Halloween, Greta was even happy that she got LOTS of candy!