Monday, December 21, 2009

'Tis the Season . . .

. . . for picking out Christmas trees as a family,
and taking pictures in the evergreens.
For bundling up in the cold night air,
and climbing around in Santa's sleigh. (What, you don't do that?)
For trimming the tree while nostalgia fills the air,
(this ornament was given to me by my mom the Christmas that I was pregnant with the twins- it's one red and one green jingle bell, each with an angel attached. This is the first year that the girls could put it on the tree themselves- very special)
And for staring longingly at your parents . . .
while they force you to sit on the lap of a strange old man dressed in red.
Hope you all are enjoying the season!

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

It's All About Family

Wow I've never neglected the blog for this long! I've got some catching up to do. We've been able to spend time with both of our immediate families in the last few weeks and it's been great!
We took family pictures with my family while my brother and his family were visiting from Arizona to have their daughter's baptism. (That was neat seeing the first grandchild born into my family being baptized!) Then we celebrated Thanksgiving the day before Thanksgiving with my family in San Diego where I got to help my mom a lot with the meal. I made several pies and 3 pumpkin cheesecakes (1 for Russell's family and 1 for his partner at work) and I made the rolls. It was fun being a big part of the cooking this year. But like I said, we took family pictures
Here is the Hatch family picture 2009
Nathan got to meet his cousin Tyson who is exactly 3 months older then him (Nathan was trying to impress him by putting his whole fist in his mouth- Tyson doesn't look too impressed)
The girls loved playing with their cousins and here they all are.
(grandchildren from l-r: Nathan, Kaleb, Aubrey, Tyson, Madylin, Brandon, Emily, Morgan, Sara) What's kind of funny about the grandkids in my family is that you can totally tell which kids go together by hair and eye color. The 2 brown eyed, brown-haired kids are Matt's, the 4 light-blue eyed, blond kids are Spencer's, and the 3 blue-eyed, auburn-haired kids are mine! (You can also tell my kids by their inability to look at the camera for a picture, let alone smile! Grrr)

We were able to spend Thankgiving with Russell's immediate family which was a lot of fun. Ironically, Russell's sister Jennifer and her family were visiting from Utah to have their oldest son baptized and their youngest blessed in front of all the family.
Here is the Kinser Family Picture 2009 (minus Travis who is on a mission in New Mexico)
Nathan got to meet his cousin Ryan who is less than 2 weeks younger than him
The girls loved playing with yet more cousins (Jennifer has a way of getting the twins to look at the camera for pictures, and sometimes even have some semblance of a smile!)
Here are all the Kinser grandchildren
from l-r: Isaac, Austin, Madylin, Jeremy, Nathan, Stefani, Staci, Ryan, Morgan
We celebrated Jeremy's 8th birthday. Here is Morgan eating cake with Jeremy.
(Why does she look so OLD in this picture?!)
We also had the cousins exchange gifts, because Jennifer's family won't be back for Christmas.
They each got a pair of wings . . .
and a pair of dress-up shoes from Staci and Stefani (they LOVE them!)
It's been a great few weeks, which makes the time FLY by! I can't believe Christmas is NEXT week!!! The best part about having a husband who works for the school district . . . 2 weeks off!! So we'll be enjoying even more family time starting this weekend and I can't wait!

Monday, November 9, 2009

My Beauties

Just some random pictures of my beauties . . .
Christy watched the girls for me for a bit and she always likes to play with their hair. She took the 3-barrel to Morgan and the curling iron to Madylin. They looked so pretty!
He is finally starting to like his chair. Yay!

Monday, November 2, 2009

A Dr. Seuss Halloween

The girls are really into books lately and they love their Dr. Seuss books. I was trying to think of a cute idea for the twins for Halloween and this just came to me!
Thing 1 and Thing 2
with Nathan starring as the Cat in the Hat
It frustrates me to no end that I didn't get a decent picture of all 3 of them!
I made the bow tie and the hat and just sewed together 2 white felt ovals and pinned them to a black onesie and black pants for his belly. He has a black boa for a tail.
Nathan and cousin Luke
Cutest Cat in the Hat you ever saw- holding his own tail.
Thing 1 and Thing 2!
The girls costumes were super simple. Just bought the red pants and turtle necks from Wal-Mart and sewed together 2 white felt circles. I used iron-on adhesive to adhere them to the shirts and wrote "Thing 1" and "Thing 2" on each one with black puffy paint and voila! They loved that they got to have blue hair. All together I spent less than $25 on all 3 costumes and the pants the girls can wear all winter!
I hate that they refuse to smile for pictures
Here is some more Halloween fun-
The girls with their little pumpkins after Daddy finished carving them
Russell's pumpkin is evil looking- but he was proud of it.

Friday, October 30, 2009

The Pumpkin Patch 2009

LOVE the pumpkin Patch. Who doesn't love Fall? and the Fall isn't complete without a trip to a pumpkin patch, for me.
Our trip made me feel nostalgic. Just LOOK at last year's pictures on the hay!!! I was seriously close to tears going through the pictures from last year. They used to be so cute and little and baby-faced and now they look like beautiful young ladies!
Just look at my little chunker, Morgan compared to last year. She's finally grown into her chub and I think she's going to be a real beauty one day.

Madylin is the little "firecracker" as we call her. Still stubborn and temperamental and goofy as can be!
Nathan did NOT want to be put down in the pumpkins!
Love this picture!
It's rare that we get a picture of the 2 of us- so I took advantage of the chance. I love the contrast of our eyes- so far all of our kids have his blue eyes, but I hope someday we have a kid with my green eyes!
His shirt says "Baby's 1st BOO!"
Nathan spent most the time walking around with Daddy, as usual (he has a better back!)
Morgan said she was "makin a tower" with the pumpkins.
I love her sweet face in this picture.
They LOVE to hold their brother and include him in everything. They picked this tiny pumpkin for him
The twins blatantly REFUSE to smile for pictures. We stand in front of them waving our arms and making silly faces and sounds and they usually just look away. Madylin is the WORST! She is rarely even looking at the camera and if she is, it's 'cause we caught her for that brief second she wanted to see what silly thing Daddy is doing to try and make her smile.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009