Christmas!

Christmas is so wonderful with children!  Even though I wasn't feeling so hot over the holidays, I found so much joy in watching my family enjoy all of our fun traditions and taking time out from our busy life to relax and be together.  The kids got spoiled as usual and we got to split our time amongst both of our families.  I am very lucky that our kids don't wake up too early too :)  I love the sweet Spirit that invades our home during this time of year and I am especially grateful for the knowledge that I have of a loving Heavenly Father and a Savior who takes away pain and sorrow if we but rely on Him.  We are so blessed.

Coming downstairs to see what Santa brought!

Rick got a sweet Ducks hat

New jacket for me Yippee!

Kids got new duffels at Grandma Dyers

Fun at Nanas!

Christmas Eve

We love our traditions on Christmas Eve! We always gather for a fun dinner with the Dyer side of the family, which is a ton of us now.  We have a yummy dinner and then gather to hear grandpa tell us a Christmas story, and read the story of our Saviors birth as the little ones dress up as the characters. We then exchange presents with each other and head home for our own families traditions.  At our house we open our P.J's and then take our annual Christmas Eve picture in pajamas in front of our tree.  After that we talk about the gifts each of us give to our Savior that year and review previous years.  We have a white stocking with a story in it.  We had some funny gifts that Abby came up with the past couple of years..things like "I will stop biting," or "I will potty train"  Pretty cute!  We always leave food for the reindeer and santa and check the computer to see where santa is delivering. NORAD always shows us where he is. :)

Cousin Exchange

Syd loved her gift!

Cute kids!

Family Jammie Pic

Piano Recital

We had a family piano recital this December with all of the Dyer's. That is at least 25 or more of us...All of the kids and some of the adults got to share their skills.  It was fun to get together and see what all of the kids have learned.  I must say that the Dyer's definitely have some great musical ability :)

Syd-So Serious

Avery is our lefty so it is more work for her to learn with that right hand! :)

Adyson loves playing

Rick doesn't like to read music but he is very good at memorizing

Christmas Tree Hunt!

Our Tree!

Abby fell-not too happy :(

Avery was excited to get a turn to cut on the tree.

Family photo moment.

My boys love animals!

We love to try and go hunting for our tree every year at a local farm.  This year we got lucky and had decent weather.  The kids had fun looking for the tree, petting animals and having hot cocoa.  Abby took a spill in the dirt, but other than that we had a blast!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Group Picture!

Adyson keeping Abby out of trouble.

Love that we can do pig tails now!

We spent Thanksgiving with my family this year and we decided to avoid the stress of cooking and go to the Heathman Lodge for dinner together, Yummy!  It is a beautiful lodge type hotel and they have amazing food.  We had a great time visiting and eating like crazy.  Everyone was there except the Davis Family :(  We have so very much to be thankful for this year.  I am so grateful for the blessing it is to be a wife and mother.  Sometimes I joke with my husband that I get too much love and attention from my family that it is overwhelming, but it is so great to have all these people loving and supporting me.  It is also wonderful to be wanted and needed so much.  I love this time of year when you can gather around and really reflect on the blessings in your life.

Rick is 35! Wait...that means I am too

We got a yummy Larson's cake for us to enjoy!

Rick opening his gifts.

The kids love singing happy birthday.

Rick's excited face :)

We celebrated our 35th birthdays this year, crazy!  Time really does fly when you are having fun and chasing kids...We celebrated Rick by having dinner with family. We had fun spoiling him.  Although it is a little weird to be heading into the second half of our 30's, we sure have done a lot in the past decade and our family is so blessed to have had such a great man to take care of us. We sure do love him.  He is seriously the most tender, sweet man and father I know.

We Love Halloween!

Rick is starting to be less excited about dressing up :(  He let me make him a black eyed "P"

I always make them take a pic on the porch.

Abby, the dragon loved her treats but wanted to eat them all right away...

Sydnee, the witch and our Monsters Inc. pair.

Abby got pretty mad when we cut her off of her treat bag :(

Our family loves to dress up each year, and even though it is a bit stressful to get five kids to decide on what they want to be, quit changing their minds, and gather all the necessary items, it really is fun!  I am not one of those overly ambitious moms that makes homemade costumes each year, but we manage to make everyone happy.  This year I did make a felt version of Mike Wozowski from Monsters Inc. for Adyson.  We had a fun Sully costume from when Rick was younger that Avery wore to match.  Abby loved going to our ward trunk or treat and having everyone hand her treats like crazy.  After we pigged out on homemade donuts we headed out into our neighborhood to trick or treat for awhile.  The kids had a blast running around with their friends.

It's Pumpkin Carving Time!

Avery's camera face :)

Abby loved it!

Rick was happy to do his own.

Our master carver.

Adyson's pumpkin was really hard for her to cut through.

My brother, Tanner decided to join us!

We have always had the fun family tradition of carving pumpkins together and roasting the seeds afterwards.  I think my husband is starting to enjoy it more now that the older kids can do there own and he isn't carving all of them by himself :)  It is a messy affair, in fact this year I found pumpkin on things for a week.  It was even on the ceiling in the next room....

Court Of Honor-Rick's a Star!

Rick has really been enjoying all of the fun activities he does with the scout troop in our ward.  He is always working on parts of different merit badges and rank advancement.  This fall he received the rank of Star and is on track to eagle.  We are so thankful for this program and for all of the great leaders that he has working with him.

I couldn't be there so his dad went up to receive the pin from him.

Rick receiving his awards.

Adyson the "Captain"

Adyson recently finished her first cross country season with Pacific Middle School.  She did great and had a lot of fun!  Her team voted her to be one of next years captains and gave her some fun socks and roses.  Only one other 6th grader has ever been picked.  She was pretty excited!

Captain Adyson!

Getting her certificate

Sharing her PR

We have a teenager in the house!

Rick and his friends

Yummy ice cream cake

Rick and Braiden...too cool for a picture :)

New beanie!

Sheesh! He is getting big!

Pumpkin pie for his family B-day Dinner

Our only boy is "13"!  It is hard to believe how big Rick has gotten, but when I look back on all of the fun things we have enjoyed doing with him, and what a joy it has been to have him in our family, we have spent the first 13 years of his life wisely :)  We celebrated him by having a big waffle breakfast the morning of his birthday.  Then he and his dad went to the rock climbing gym for a bit.  After that we had a fun joint birthday party with his friend, Braiden Broadbent.  They both invited friends to come and play basketball games and dodgeball at one of our church buildings.  They had fun goofing around and then we had snacks, ice cream cake, cream puffs and presents at the Broadbents house.  On sunday, we had a family dinner to celebrate.  Rick requested Beef Stroganoff.  We are so blessed to have such a great kid.  Rick is truly a good person.  He is sensitive to others, and such an obedient, hard working child.  One of his gifts from us was a scrapbook of letter, pictures, and advice from close family and friends.  I wanted him to have some things to think about as he enters his teenage years. Some of his favorite things are:  Food: Beef Stroganoff, Orange Juice, Sports: Running, Wrestling, Basketball, Books: Anything by Rick Riordan, Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, Movie: Finding Nemo, Cars 2, T.V.Show: Psyche, Phineas and Ferb, Family Vacation: Yosemite and Disnseyland-Big California trip, Family Tradition: Summer Camping.

Districts!

Getting ready at the start-her coach made them all cute hair ties.

Up front with some of her teammates.

Pain in her face...but she still ran hard!

Adyson had her first District Cross Country Race.  She was hoping to stay in the top 10, but she was fighting fevers, headaches, and a sore throat all week :(  She even came home early the day of the race with a sore throat.  She took tylenol, and decided to go anyways.  It was a rough run, but she finished and got to be a part of a fun meet.  She placed 14th overall with a time of 10:23 for 1.5 miles out of almost a 100 girls in the district.  Not bad for her first year!