Santa came to town!

Every year Santa comes and visits all the grandkids at Grandma and Grandpa McMullin's home. This is always a well anticipated event each year!  We go caroling as a BIG family to a lot of their neighbors and then head back to the house where Santa soon comes. He brings a small gift for each grandchild and then is on his way. Having kids excited about things always makes the holidays that much better!

Star Student

M&M got her chance at being the "star student". For this she comes prepared with a poster all about herself and presents it to the class. After that she was to teach the class some kind of science experiment. She really wanted to use dry ice, so she decided to show how you can fill up a balloon  using the gas emitted from the dry ice. All the kids were mesmerized by the dry ice. M&M did a great job!

Christmas Around the World

Little A had a program at school called "Christmas around the World". All the classes prepared songs, props and a little jig to songs from different countries. Little A's class performed "Feliz Navidad". It's always fun to see them work so hard to learn something and then see the final performance. All the kids always help with all the artwork for the props on the stage too.

Happy birthday Dad!

We celebrated Dad's 59th birthday together with pie! Of course his presents included a GIANT tootsie roll and a candy machine with only red, orange and purple skittles. All greens and yellows picked out since he doesn't like those flavors. What more could you ask for? :)  Happy birthday Dad!!

November randomness!

Happy Birthday M&M!

 We traveled back from Snowbird on M&M's actual birthday so when we got home we gave her her present. Now remember this was the tortuous drive home where I was deathly sick and could barely move from the seat in the car to the chair in the house. We figured she needed to open something on her birthday so she got the garbage bag wrapping. A new keyboard! She turned 9 years old this day. 

 We had a small get together with some friends to really celebrate her birthday. My favorite reaction was when she opened a card from the Smith's. It played a funny song and all the kids swarmed around her as soon as she opened it. So funny!

9 years old going on 15! She is my sweet girl who is such a big help. She does really well in school, loves the extra challenges, and knows how to still have fun.  She loves to read, play outside with her friends, and her best friend is LittleA. Happy birthday sweet girl! 

Snowbird 2011-snow time!

Every year we get to go to Snowbird, Utah and stay for a week at a timeshare usually during Thanksgiving. My kids look forward to it every year. We've been going to Snowbird their whole life, and I've been going almost my whole life. So many memories at this place. We had some friends come and enjoy the snow with us.

Some cute pictures of my nephew (4 months). He's adorable and it was fun to hang out with him for the week. 

Snowbird 2011-misc

We had to go to IKEA of course! I will always remember the drive back up the canyon. A car packed with 8 of us, M&M not feeling well, and then M&M losing it as we were halfway up. We were all doomed in that car. Nothing like cleaning up puke and freezing! Aww, the memories

 My Dad only emerged from his room a few times. Being sick we were all trying to stay clear of each other. Luckily he was able to go swimming!

 Thanksgiving dinner was pretty low-key. We had good food, but only some could enjoy. The girls were sick the day before and eating was the last thing they wanted to do. Lucky for some of us we got sick AFTER thanksgiving. :) The drive home back to Boise was miserable. Let's just say a Subway bag is great to have on hand in those circumstances. Thanks for the tip Jme! <3 as="" be="" forever="" his="" known="" nbsp="" p="" pukefest.="" the="" trip="" will="">

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Happy 65th birthday Grandma!

All of the McMullin crew (well most of us) were able to go over and help celebrate Grandma's 65th birthday. I made the cake, chocolate with raspberry filling. My favorite way to frost a cake too. It was a big cake and took a lot of frosting to frost this way, but it was sure yummy! Happy birthday Grandma!

October Randomness

A lot of random happenings going on here.

Halloween continued...

Can we say WAY behind!! My goal is to catch up. I may post in order from where I left off, or I may throw in some up-to-date things to keep myself entertained, but I will be caught up eventually. James was accepted to medical school so my goal is to be caught up to the present day by the time we move (July)!!! Here goes...

 Halloween Party at Nate and Jamie's house. All the kiddos that were there.

 Carving pumpkins at Nate and Jamie's house. 

Boo at the zoo. The kids have a great time walking around and looking at everyone in their costumes, seeing all the cute animals (and stinky) and even getting candy on top of that! 

I missed posting this. Back in October 2011, CJ's preschool class went on a field trip to the pumpkin patch. CJ's cousin is in his class and they always know how to have a great time. They got to jump on a big air trampoline, pet the farm animals, ride the tractor, pick their own pumpkin, play on a big slide,  and freeze! It was really sunny, but SO cold. The kids still had a great time.

Halloween party

Every month James' side of the family has a birthday party for everyone who has a birthday in that month. Halloween is always a fun birthday month since all the kids get to wear their costumes and trick-or-treat at all the doors in Grandma's house! The kids love it. Here are a few pictures of that night. I didn't come close to taking a picture of all the cousins. Including my kids there are 35 kids between all of James' siblings! 

Daddy/Daughter

I serve as an Activity Days leader in our ward. We had a daddy/daughter activity that turned out to be a lot of fun! We served dinner (chili haystacks), and then had a talent show. Most of the dad's and daughter's had some sort of talent that they shared. We of course provided an endless popcorn and candy bar for everyone to fill up on. I'm a little biased, but my favorite had to be of M&M and James and their lip synch to "In the Snow they Melted" by InsideOut. For some reason the video of it has no sound. So bummed!

September randomness

So we continue with September. Hang in there, I promise I will be caught up! Ha! 

 Our cute girls! (Little A-6 yrs, Miss L-6 months, M&M-8 years)

Our crazy boy! (CJ-3 years) 

Sweet Miss L-6 months. Starting to sit up, full of smiles!!

Cute baby shower thrown by Jamie and her sister. Loved the decor! (I helped a little)

Wedding cake and grooms cake for a friend that cuts my hair. Backyard wedding. 

Our girls!

Little A-6 years old, Miss L- 3 months, M&M-8 years old

Miss L 3 months!

McCall with friends!

 Back in September we had a fun get-together with long-time friends from Utah. They should just be called family! Sad that only one in their family couldn't come (missed you Jamie!), but we had a blast with the rest. We hiked, biked, swam, played in the sand, took family pictures, celebrated a birthday, ate a lot of food, played games, and did lots of visiting. So many memories with the Shurtleff crew! I was terrible at taking pictures that weekend and really only have a select few. These are the ones worth posting. This was also the first trip with all the babies together. 4 babies to love on!

Some of these pictures are courtesy of Jessie. She's the gorgeous one blowing out her candles! She did a great job taking our family pictures too (below). Considering we had grumpy kids and mosquitoes! All of us had burp rags hiding to swat them in between shots. They were out to get us. These are some of my favorites from the shoot.

Thanks to all the Shurtleff's for coming and chilling with us. We loved it!!