Memorial Day weekend 2011 camping trip

(That's a mouth-full of a title! haha!)

The Pools (both sets!) and the Reece's went camping for the first time this season over memorial day weekend.  We were going to go to Panguitch, UT but a few days before the trip, Dad said the weather was going to be really bad so we decided to go to N. NV instead.  I will say this: it was really cold in Ut., but N. Nv was doing its best to keep up!!  Wow!!  It was horrible weather; raining, windy and Jeff and I even ran into snow flurries!!!! Snow flurries...2 days away from June!! So crazy to us...
Even though the weather was bad, we still had a great time. Thank goodness for Mom and Dads new, larger 5th wheel or we may not have made it the entire weekend!!! 
The kids had fun fishing and digging and being dirty and riding the quads.  I dont think the weather even phased them!!

Christmas 2010

Allison and Mom before the chaos! HA!

The 4 of us :)

Let it begin!

Last gift...what did Santa bring?

WOW!!  An LGB train set!!

One happy boy!!

Best Christmas ever...so far!

Cookie Exchange 2010

My annual cookie exchange was amazing as usual.  We missed a few of the regulars, but gained a few new faces!!  I made a ton of goodies and the others brought yummy treats too!!  I made sugar cookies which I vowed never to do again since the 1st cookie exchange, but it ended up not being as time intensive as I had thought it would be and everyone loves a sugar cookie (and no one ever makes them!)  Thanks to little Emma for taking this cute picture just in time!!! Everyone totally forgot to take them until the last minute! Opps! 

Inspired Post...What I didnt do

I read a blog tonight that made me smile. It summed up exactly the way I felt this holiday season. Its about all the things that the person DIDN'T do this holiday season. I was feeling the same way and guilty about it, but after I read this I remembered that sometimes most of my stress comes from doing things that I think I NEED to do versus the things I have TIME to do. I get this picture in my head about how things should look, how much I should bake, what I should cook for who, what to buy who and then the fiasco of planning who's house we go to on what day/time is enough to make me want to cancel the celebrations altogether! So here is my list of things I didn't do:

I didn't make sugar cookies from scratch for Santa. But I did let the kids roll pre-packaged dough out and cut out any shape they wanted without my help. And they didn't know the difference and Santa loved them!

I didn't write a long letter for each child to Santa, and no-one knew better or complained and Santa still came through!

We didn't buy $15.99 matching Christmas pajamas for each kid this year and drive across town just to pay another $15 to drive through the parade of lights. And yet we still had fun driving around town every night and looking at all the decorated homes.

I didn't wrap one present until Christmas Eve. Not one. And I got Jeff to help wrap and it wasn't overwhelming!

I used a Sharpie instead of fancy sticker'ed name tags to write to and from on. And it was fine.

I let the kids stay in pajamas all day Christmas day and only re-dressed them in clean ones before putting them to bed.

I didn't take a million pictures on Christmas, I may regret it, but I was enjoying the moment and trying not to get so caught up in "recording" it.

I didn't buy every single gift brand-new out of the box and the kids enjoyed them the same.

I didn't put up every single box of decorations in the garage and I have already taken the tree down. I have to say: it's nice.

I hope to be more organized about Christmas next year. But, if I'm not, I hope that I don't feel guilty for not doing the picture-perfect Christmas I see in my head. Life happens.

Holiday Pictures 2010

My Mom wanted Christmas pictures of all three Grandkids. I have been watching Brett (a.k.a "Little Mister") on Monday's while Krista is in school so I got all three kids bathed and dressed and toted them all to Sears to get pictures. It was horrible. The photographer was a male, so Allison shied away the entire session, Hunter mis-behaved and that Little Mister cried every single time I set him down!!! I finally gave up, called it quiets and scheduled another session for the next week with a woman photographer. The next week I bathed, dresses, and hauled kids to Sears again and still didnt get very good pictures, but decided it was good enough. Sometimes you dont win...I needed to accept that! Ha! Anyway, I snapped this picture the very first day and I have to say that its defiantly the best shot of the three of them!

Halloween 2010

The kids in front of my Grandpa Antoninos house

We went to Utah again for Halloween.  The kids just love to hang out with all those cousins that they dont get to see very often.  We have a ton of fun.  The Moms get together and bake all day while the kids play, I usually get my hair and toes done, and we eat pumpkin shaped pizza!!  On Halloween night we usually hit up about 3 trunk-or-treats and visit all the Grandparents.  Then we go back to Talias, eat something warm and hit her neighborhood for at a couple of hours!! The kids totally score and its sooo much fun!  Hunter was Batman this year and Allison was a 50's poodle skirt girl! They were adorable, and I love watching them run from door to door screaming "trick-or treat"!

4th of July 2010!

We stayed home on the 4th this year which is pretty unusual for us.  Luckily, we got a spectacular show from Green Valley Ranch.  We also lit off a few of our own, mostly sparklers and kid stuff.  It was pretty fun!

Memorial Day 2010

We went to Cedar City this Memorial Day with the McGeary family and had so much fun!  It was cool to take a vacation with friends and their kids.  It reminded me of when I was a kid and we went on family vacations; I still remember where we went and what we did...it was nice to do it ourselves and to give the kids the same experience!  I cant wait to do it again!
The guys fished at Yankee Meadow mostly and Kandi and I entertained the kids at the house.  We did bubbles, chalk, played in the dirt, quad rides, took a walk into town and the boys rode their bikes 1578 miles (at least!)  It was a ton of fun.  The Dads took the boys fishing on Sat afternoon and no one but Hunter caught anything.  HA!  We really thought Hunter had a fish on his line, but he managed to hook a huge rock!  How did that happen??!!  In all my years of fishing I have never seen that happen!  Good thing Hunter is such a good sport, he laughed with the rest of us!

Santa Train

The McGeary Family invited us on the Santa Train this year in Boulder City! It was so much fun and I got to spend some time with just Hunter and I , which is always a nice treat! Here are a few good pics! Some I think were even taken by Hunter!

Hunter and Noah!



The boys playing around

Hunter took this one of Noah! What a cute kid!

Christmas 2009

What a fun Christmas! We had such a good one this year...lots of friends and families and WONDERFUL, EXCITING announcements....none I'm sharing here just yet though! ha! Sorry!
We spent the morning and early afternoon at my parents, then drove to Jeff's parents and spent the rest of the evening there. Jeff's step-brother (or brother from another mother as they say!) lives in WA and got leave from the military (he is an RN at an Army base there) to be in LV over the holiday, so that was exciting! We were happy to have him, as I'm sure he wont be so lucky every year.
Of course the kids got entirely too much stuff, and after leaving Debbie's it looked as if a Toys "R" Us exploded in the back of my truck! The kids haven't stopped playing with their new toys in 2 days! I think while they are distracted, I will be a mean mom and clean out their old things to make room for the new!

Hunter trying to see if there was an H or an A on the pakage! Thats how he could tell if it was for him, or Allie!

Here is Hunter opening the Batman house that he wanted so badly! He was really excited to get this!


Here is sissy on Christmas morning! So cute!

Thanksgiving and Christmas at Pre-school

Hunter attends the best preschool! He has such a good time there all the time! They do the cutest things at the holidays. For Thanksgiving they all made these really cute pilgrim shirts and feather hats and had a HUGE feast! The kids loved it!


For Christmas the kids always learn a few Christmas songs and have a Christmas program in the Chapel of the church connected to the school and they sing the songs they have spent so much time learning. They are very excited and proud of themselves...as they should be! In my opinion they are the cutest group of 4 and 5 yr olds I know!

Thanksgiving 2009

We did Thanksgiving at Chad and Krista's new house this year. My parents were going to be in Jamaica on the actual day so we met up a few days earlier and, for a change cooked for our parents instead of the other way around. Chad and I both enjoy cooking, and we probably get that from our Mom and Grandma Antonino. Our parents declared it a success and suggested that we do it this way from now on! All they had to do was entertain the kids and give advice when asked...oh, and I think they did help w/the dishes!