Christmas Festivities!

We had a fun time with some of our closest friends last night. I enjoy celebrating the holidays with such great people! We feel very fortunate to know such nice, giving, fun friends!

Bobbie, Steph and Marie

Matt, Tom and Deric

Steph and Matt AND Rhonda and Matt

Brady and Otto - BFFs!

Matt and Rhonda - the shutterbugs!

Tanya and Rene - beautiful ladies!

I'm trying to figure out who took this picture and why?! Anyone want to confess?

Time for the white elephant gifts!

What did you get, Otto? Looks like Rene's getting a kick out of it!

Brady had to get out the pump....

Tanya and Steph trying out Tanya's white elephant gift!

The ladies - what a beautiful crowd!

I like our new tree ornaments!

Gibson's artwork!

Here are some more examples of Gibson's art work.
He is learning so much at school! He wrote this Christmas list himself! If you look, you can make out "monster truck", "darts", and "airplane"! (We're hoping he settles for a remote-controlled airplane!)

This is Gibson's "thumb-art". I think he got the idea from watching "Bat-Thumb" on TV. He traces his thumb and then turns it into characters. The green one right in the middle on the bottom is "bat thumb" standing in front of his bat mobile. Gibson pointed out every feature on the bat mobile and told me what they do! The red 'thumb' on the right is "vampire thumb" - complete with fangs and wings, as is the green 'vampire thumb' to the left of the red one.

Our festive house!

My New Wallpaper

Enough said.

Annual Family Pictures

So after quite the ordeal this year, we finally got our family Christmas portraits. I'm just happy they are done! We ALWAYS take this picture on Gibson's birthday - but this year Brady had to work and Gibson's fifth disease rash was out of control on his face that day. So we scheduled for another time - we chose a weeknight thinking that it would be a lot less busy than a weekend. Well, Brady almost didn't make it home from work in time. Then, after scrambling to get there and barely making it on time, they didn't even have our appointment down. But, fortunately, they did our portraits anyway!

Thanksgiving

Well, I managed to take only 1 picture on Thanksgiving this year. This is a picture of Gibson in the car on the way home from Aunt Meili's house - he was exhausted! But he was not going to let go of his new Lego set he got from Grandma!

Animal Pics

Brady took this picture yesterday. It's really cute, so I'm sad that it turned out kind of fuzzy. Squeakers actually sat still for a few minutes - AND in Gibson's lap! (Note - you can still see that Gibson has a slight rash on his cheeks).
This picture documents something VERY amazing - all five animals all together at the same time! And there was NO hissing going on at all! Not even when Squeakers and Baby Girl were drinking water together!

My cute nephew!

We got to see Lukas on Sunday! He is SOOOOOO cute! Courtney, Daryl, Brooke and Lukas came over to give Gibson his birthday present. It was very nice to see them and Gibson LOVED his present (Spongebob legos). Look at this cute picture of Lukas! He has just barely started to sit up by himself.
I love this video because you can hear Lukas do his "fake" cough. Courtney says he does it when he wants attention! What a silly boy!

Jazz Game!

We went to the Jazz game on Monday night. We had never been to a game before as a family. Gibson got tickets through his Jr. Jazz program. I really enjoy basketball and had a good time. They had a lot of promotional items that night, such as the picture below. We also all got Jazz luggage bags. We did leave at half-time though because both Gibson and I were worn out! Even though we missed the best part of the game, we still had fun!

A Squeakers Snuggly - Kind of!

I know I have mentioned to several people that I wish I had a Snuggly - not for my kid, but for my kitten! Squeakers LOVES to be carried around and it's hard to do that all day and only have the use of one hand. Today I found a solution. I just wrap him up in the folds of my robe. He sits in there while I walk around the house and loves to sit there while I'm at my computer working! It keeps me warm, too!

Bathroom Remodel!

The amazing Brady has finished yet another remodel project! I always forget to take a good "before" picture - so here is a "during" picture. This is after he demolished the old bathroom (the one downstairs).
Note the beautiful tile work! A vast improvemt over the disgusting linoleum that turned purple from the rug!

The new vanity and mirror and paint job. I couldn't fit the light fixture in the pic - it looks nice, too!

Ahhh! The new toilet! Yeah! There's something about knowing that another family has never used your toilet.

More of Gibson's artwork!

This picture is Gibson's cute spider that he painted in school for Halloween!

Fifth Disease

Never heard of it? Me neither - not until last week, that is. On Saturday, Gibson's cheek was a little red. I figured it was from swimming. Then on Sunday it was worse. I thought it was turning into excema. When I picked him up from school on Monday, his cheek looked like it had been slapped! I asked him if anybody at school had hit him. When we woke him up Tuesday morning for his birthday (that's what I'm doing in the picture below), you can see how horrible his cheek looked by then. So the poor guy had to go to the doctor on his birthday. I had never heard of fifth disease! But if any of you are worried about exposure at the birthday party - don't be. By the time the rash appears, it is no longer contagious (as proof - they let him go to school)! There can be a few early signs: low-grade fever, slight runny nose, but Gibson didn't exhibit any of these.
Fifth disease is just a virus and he's fine. The rash spread to his entire face and ears. Then it moved down his arms and a little onto his torso. Then back up to his face. I think it's pretty much gone by now. Unfortunately, when he was contagious (and who knows when that was - it can incubate anywhere from 4-28 days), mom and dad got it. Most adults had it as a child (it's like chicken pox - once you've had it, you'll never get it again). But apparently Brady and I never had it as children. Brady's been stuffy and achy. On Friday, I felt like I'd been hit by a truck and run over by a steamroller. I ached all over. I had never felt so tired. And my joints all hurt. I also got a slight runny nose, which was just enough to turn into a sinus infection! Oh joy! I still ache and am tired, but nothing like Friday. What a strange virus.

Gibson's 5th Birthday!

These pictures are not the most exciting - we had to wake him up to open presents since Brady had to go to work early. But I did want to have some pictures from his actual birth"day".
Of course, the presents that took you hours to wrap, only take 5 minutes to open!

Gibson showing off his blaster. All he talked about was getting a "blaster". So Brady had to search high and low the day before his birthday to find them. Gibson was so excited to get it. Then we opened it. Unfortunately, the trigger was too hard for him to pull and load (it was hard for ME!). We took them all back to the store!

The Best Birthday Party Ever!

Gibson celebrated his 5th birthday today with a swimming party at the Sports Mall! (I can't believe he's 5!). This party was, hands down, the best party we've had in our 5 years of parties! It was easy, free of stress and a lot of fun for the kids. Plus it combined 2 of Gibson's favorite things: being together with all of his best friends and swimming! Thanks to everybody who came - we appreciated it and had a great time with all of you!

The kids enjoying pizza in the party room! Tyson, Mason, Gibson, Shea and Nicholas.

The other side of the room! Alison, Steph, Alexandra, Rhonda, Brady, John Luke, Tanya, Mason and Brenna.

Gibson chose a "pirates" theme for his birthday and we got this awesome cake! Beside being a cute cake, it was also delicious!

Gibson blowing out his candles - too bad the picture's a little fuzzy.

Gibson obviously enjoyed his cake. (You should have seen his shirt by the time he was finished!

The kid's all had a great time in the pool!

I got in and swam with Gibson - I wasn't going to pass up this opportunity to pretend it was summer!

Rhonda and Stephanie should have worn their suits - they sat right in the splash zone!

Sassie Howling at the Sirens

Nobody will probably find this as cute or as endearing as I do, but I LOVE it when Sassie howls. She always does it when she hears sirens (which is quite often as we live close to the fire station). American Eskimos do not normally howl, but she learned it from our other dog, Kita, who was half wolf and a great howler!

Since I discovered the cool video option on my camera, I've been trying to capture all these moments/things that I love: this is one of them!

(Yes - I know the video is turned sideways - I turned it around and saved it, but it still posted sideways).

First Snow - Bleh!

Gibson was SO excited to play outside on Wednesday - the first snow of the season. Of course - I took this picture from inside the house; you won't find me outside playing in the snow!

Also - it is our fault (or "thanks to us" as my friend Gwen said) that it snowed. Our garage door broke last weekend and we had to park outside all week. So we were out scraping windows in the freezing snow Wednesday morning. Bleh!

Today made up for it, though. It was beautiful and 69 degrees! Not bad for Nov. 8th. Sassie and I went on a nice walk to make up for the 4 days that I didn't taken her this past week.

Gibson's 5 Year Pictures

Here are a few of Gibson's 5-Year Pictures.

Gibson's Basketball Team

Gibson has had the worst coach for basketball this year. Brady volunteered to coach, but they already had a coach. Too bad he's only shown up twice. So Brady and Roland (on the right) have ended up coaching most of the time. Today was supposed to be picture day, but everything was so unorganized that we just got together as a team and took our own team photo!

My 2-Headed Cat!

Squeakers and Two were cuddled so close together that it looks like I have a 2-headed black cat! Two was also licking Squeakers ears and face - what sweeties!

Halloween '08

Hooray - Halloween is finally over and we can get onto the good holidays! I've never seen so much candy and junk in my life. When I was a kid - I went trick-or-treating that was it. MAYBE a Halloween party at school where I got one donut or one cookie. But Gibson - he went 'trunk-or-treating' twice; had a school Halloween party where every kid brought treats; and he went trick-or-treating in our neighborhood and then with his friends in their neighborhood. Too bad the candy fairies came and took 9/10 of the candy away! But guess what.... he hasn't even asked for a piece of candy today! I LOVE that Gibson doesn't like candy. Of course - the candy fairies kept quite a few Reeses Peanut Butter Cups and Butterfingers for themselves!
Our SCARY Darth Vader! (This is the only time all night that he wore his mask. Mom or dad carried it the rest of the time).

Trick-or-Treating with his friends Mason and Tyson.Our awesome jack-o-lanterns! Brady did a great job with the pirate ship!