Leading up to Christmas

We had some amazing Christmas celebrations this year, each one fun and memorable, for sure! We started with a gift exchange and party at Brian's parents house, the Friday before Christmas. All the kids got such fun presents from Grandma and Grandpa Bishop. Sammie especially loved her new hoodie towel, and Spencer's too. Unfortunately, we forgot the camera that night, so sad. But just imagine tons of delicious food and goodies, lots of songs and music, and great family time together.

The next day, we headed to Blackfoot for a Hone family Christmas party, complete with the traditional ham wraps, frappe, and chocolate goodies. We had our first ever live Nativity this year, with all the grandkids playing a part. It was so cute and fun... Sammie, Sara and Anna were angels. (Yeah, one angel had a nose fixation.)
And Spencer and Bryson were sheep. Use your imaginations, people... a headband and onesie make a great sheep costume, right Spence?!

Or you can go the fancy route, like Bryson did... ribbons and all.

We should have had each of the kids pose for individual costume shots, but we didn't. So, here's how they looked, in general. We had Mary and Joseph, a shepherd and three wise men bearing gifts. The grandparents especially loved it all!

We stayed at my parents' place for a few days and caught some good snow, which Sammie enjoyed until she touched it...

Spencer mastered (or worked on) the art of getting up and NOW, down, from the furniture itemes, and thinks he is pretty amazing for all he can do...
We stayed long enough at the Honestead, that Santa got the memo to come a couple of days early for Samantha and Spencer. How exciting!!

Sammie was overjoyed, and LOVED her new bicycle (really it's a tricycle, but try telling her that!), and Spencer loved his fun lights-and-buttons toys, too!
We left my parents' house and headed to Utah for even MORE fun parties and good food. Again, I was camera-less for some good family time. Sigh. But we had a great time being with everyone, just waiting for Christmas to arrive!

Our Christmas pictures...

I started this blog way before Christmas, to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! This was our family's attempt at Christmas pictures...

Hope you all had a lovely holiday season. We sure did!!

Christmas Angel Girl

A couple of weeks ago, we had our church Christmas party -- a big breakfast, followed by a Christmas play and singing. It was really nicely done and we had a fun time. Samantha REALLY enjoyed the whole affair.

As they started setting up for the Christmas play, they told all the little primary children (who had been practicing for weeks) to go get their costumes on and sit on the risers. Samantha watched all these cute children coming out as shepherds and angels, sitting front-and-center on the risers. She got a big pouty frown and turned to me and said, "I want to do that too!!" I told her she could probably sit with them for a little while (thinking no one would really care, and it would last about 5 mins before she wanted to get down). She insisted that she also wanted an angel costume. I walked with her to the "costume" room, and the "costume" lady said they had a few extra tinsel halos and collars, luckily. So, Sammie pranced up to the stage all proud of her new angelic do! And... she STAYED there the WHOLE hour-long play! She sang with all the other children, she got goodies from Santa, and she looked sooo very cute.

Funny how much more interesting a Christmas play becomes when you have your OWN help-yourself angel to watch!

Happy Birthday, Samantha!

Sammie called Grandma Karen after we got home from church on her birthday. She said, "Hi Gramma Karen. I just called so you could wish me a Happy Birthday." Grandma Karen said, "Who is this?!?" HA! The truth is, Samantha sounded SOOO grown up that Grandma didn't even recognize her voice. Must be because she's THREE now!!

We had a fun time celebrating her birthday. On Saturday, she helped me make a cute little princess dolly birthday cake. I have to say, I'm proud of the way it turned out... much better then I expected! Samantha wanted to eat it right away, but we talked her into saving it for her birthday, so we could share with everyone and sing Happy Birthday to her.
She woke up on her birthday to streamers and special a Happy Birthday banner, which was very exciting. She immediately put on her princess dress-up dress, and started finding ways to reach the streamers...

At church, her nursery class sang to her and gave her a little box full of chocolates and candy. This was her last Sunday in nursery class, as we'll be away for the next few weeks -- when she gets back she'll be in Primary! Wow!!

We had family over for cake and ice cream after church. Samantha LOVES playing with her cousins, probably more than anything else. So, it was a perfect way to celebrate. She opened presents and had fun "sharing" them (or showing them off?)


Her favorite presents were a new princess vacuum, one that makes noise and everything! -- yay! (sarcastic yay from Mom.) And a pair of new princess shoes that light up when she walks -- or jumps! Here she is, making them light up for Grandma and Grandpa...

We went to a little Christmas concert that Brian and I were singing in that night. Sammie loved the music, and loved sitting with Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Reed. Then we played games, and Sammie even got to stay up a little late so she could play with the grown ups!
We sure love our girl, and are so excited to have a three-year-old Sammie!!

Visit from Wade

My brother Wade came for a fun visit last week, just in time to help us celebrate Sammie's birthday! (She definitely thought his entire visit was dedicated to that very purpose!) He stayed a few days and we thoroughly enjoyed having him around, though we didn't take too many pictures.

We took a little day trip up to Bogus Basin -- just about an hour out of Boise. It was really a pretty view, more than 6000 ft high, overlooking the entire valley. We took some fun pictures of each other and the view...


Wade's camera got MUCH better pictures than ours, but I forgot to ask him to download them to our computer, so you're stuck with the best of our camera -- not great but it gives you an idea what it was sort of like...
We also had a fun outing to Carl's Jr., which Sammie REALLY appreciated! It was one of her birthday presents -- something she had been asking for all week. No pictures of that, because we don't want people to think we're totally obsessed with Carl's Jr. (even if it's true that Sammie IS!)

After the kids were in bed each night, we thoroughly enjoyed playing some fun games together. Wade introduced us to Ingenious! and we had some nice rounds of Settlers of Catan. Good times!
Samantha was enthralled with Uncle Wade and loved following him around, asking what he was doing every two minutes. She especially loved the fun Birthday princess presents he got for her... he is definitely a favorite now! :) Come again soon, Wade!!

Weird rash

Poor Spence. He's had a rough go of it lately. First, he had a bad ear infection over Thanksgiving weekend, with a temp of 105F! That was scary, and he ended up in an urgent care center a week ago Sunday, to get some amoxicillin for his infection. Then, just this past Sunday morning, when I went to get him up, he looked like this...

The pictures don't even do it justice. His cheeks were so ruddy and red, and he had little red pocks all OVER his body. Who would have thought?! He acted fine -- even a bit more rowdy than he has been lately. No fever. No loss of appetite. It was just a weird rash. Well, we didn't want to risk infecting anybody so we did some shuffling for church time (Brian went to Sacrament to be sustained for his new church calling in the Sunday School pres., then I went to RS to play for our special musical lesson.) And Spencer stayed home and slept.

He was fine all day, other than looking a little freaky with the spots all over. Then today, it started lightening up. We still took him to the doctor, even though it seems to be clearing on its own. Dr first said it was probably a viral infection that is just ending. Then he called in the special pediatrician, and she said it looked more like a reaction to the amoxicillin -- but it could still be a virus, possibly. The good thing is that it's going away, and Spencer seems to be fine.

It's just crazy how much we worry about our kids, sometimes. Always better to be safe than sorry, I suppose. Anyway, just thought I'd share the mundane details of life here, so you can be glad for my absence from blogging. ha!

I have to say, our super-cute Spence still looks super cute to me, even if he is covered in red spots...

Gotta love those baby blues!

Holiday Fun

We've been busy having some good times these past few weeks. Thought I'd post a few of the pictures to share...

Here are the gorgeous lights from our little downtown Caldwell. We went last night to see the annual Christmas parade, and ended up meeting with several other families we know from church. The kids loved the candy and the lights.

We also got our tree yesterday and got out the Christmas decorations. (The tree isn't quite decorated yet, so you'll see picts of it in some other post.) Here's Sam and Spence, with Sammie modeling some of the decor'...

And Spence just looking cute, sort of waving (he doesn't officially wave yet, though I like to pretend he does)..

Samantha figured out what the Christmas stockings are for...

We went to the annual Christmas tree lighting in Nampa with Brian's family just before Thanksgiving. This year we actually MADE it there in time for the lighting! yay! (Then we ate loads of chocolates and meatballs they were giving out for FREE at the old train depot. yum!)

Sammie is making her amends with Santa... no more screams of terror. She actually allowed him to give her a candy cane. This is real progress!
The whole gang, gathered round the tree...
And last, the not-so-great photos from our awesome Thanksgiving dinner. We had a HUGE group from Brian's mom's side of the family. It was a fun reunion, with all the TG trimmings and lots of catch-up time for everybody. Someone got a REAL family photo, while I just took a few shots of people rallying for the picture...

We've been having some fun times, enjoying the chance to be with family.

New tricks and things

I know, now I'm going a little TOO "slowler" -- especially with the blogging. Sorry. I may be making a come back here; or this may be another false start... I just can't seem to get into the internet groove these days.

Anyway, I thought I'd share some cute picts of the kids and some of their latest fun stuff. Spencer has learned a lot of new tricks lately. First trick...

Brian calls it his Bat Boy trick, and sings the Batman theme to him. Spence just LOVES being our upside-down baby. Cute.
Next trick...
Our little man is on the move. This is a little video I took when he was first scooting, a couple of weeks ago. Now he's crawling everywhere, quite professionally.



And along with crawling, he has another trick to share...
That's right! He's STANDING. Sort of. He can get himself up, but can't get back down. Either he'll stand there and start crying for help to get down, or he'll eventually just lose his balance and take a tumble. But he sure is proud of his achievements!
He's also trying to master the stairs, even though I secretly discourage it... The landing onto hardwood is just NOT a good idea. But he's pretty determined.
As for Samantha, she has some new toys and things to share. First, play dough...
This kept her busy for nearly an hour, even though I was momentarily sad she mixed all the colors together. She was very proud of her "family" creations. Here she is singing, though a little more shy about it than usual, I think because of the camera...

She also got a new princess game that she plays with almost every day. It was one I got awhile ago and told her it looked a little too old for her so we would save it until she was a little older. Well, in a pinch I got it out and told her she could play with it (to keep her busy). She immediately asked, "So, now I'm a little bit older?" Here she is clutching her new game, as she sits in her NEW booster seat -- proving that yes, she IS a little bit older!
For the holidays, Sammie got a new "princess" dress, as she calls it. She wants to wear it EVERY Sunday (and every other day, for that matter), and often asks if I can put on MY princess dress (wedding dress) too, so we can be matching? Hasn't happened yet.
Sam also has a new love for "all things baby." She loves playing with her dolls, changes their names every other day, and changes their clothes every other minute (which gets tricky, as both dolls only have two outfits each). I find her babies in the strangest places... here they are in the bathroom closet upstairs, and later they were sleeping in the tub. I think it's cute, and so much fun to see her imagination develop.
I find her babies in the strangest places... here they are in the bathroom closet upstairs, and later they were sleeping in the tub. I think it's cute, and so much fun to see her imagination develop. She put Bob the Bear in time out yesterday for hitting, "we AREN'T supposed to HIT, BOB!". Hmm... sounds familiar?

That's all for now, folks. Sorry to be such a slacker blogger. I'm amazed anybody still reads, though I'm really glad you do. Thanks! I'll try to get a post up sooner this time, kay?