Thanksgiving 2014

It's been 7 years since we were able to enjoy Thanksgiving with family. 7 years of missing out and wishing we could join in the festivities. We had the gathering at my brother's house and all brought various dishes to share.

(Please excuse the crappy phone pics but... you get what you get and we'll all survive.)

I made deviled eggs and this green bean casserole (watch for the recipe soon).

The kitchen was the popular gathering point for us adults. Duh, that's where the food and wine were.

The kids kept themselves busy playing with train tracks and various electronic devices.

The dog gave up. This many people were exhausting.

The babies love grandpa.

After everyone had their bellies filled, it was time for football and games.

Between jokes, farts, and many many laughs, we did manage to snap a few nice family pictures. These were the first ones we've taken in probably 15ish years and I really wish we were smart enough to choose a better place with better lighting.

Our lovely cousin joined us for a few pics too. :)

And now the outtakes...

My niece wanted in the pictures too.

And those pics preeetty much sum up my crazy family. We're weird and proud and of it.

Wordless Wednesday - Christmas on Her Mind

I caught Alena writing this by the glow of her night light. She says it's a poem and I say aside from it being one giant run on sentence, she did a darn good job.

Someone is excited for Christmas to come.

Q&A With Alena

I can't believe I never did this sooner! I have several of the "what to ask your kids" or "birthday questions" pins on my Parenting Pinterest board and was feeling like a lousy parent cause I would never have these answers to remember. Well, Pinterest is a good way to make anyone feel inferior even though I know I'm not. BUT! I went ahead and finally just did it anyway. Of course, Christian being a typical 5 year old boy, all his answers were "I don't know." so we'll get him another day. But Alena was cooperative and I think she gave some great responses.

1. What scares you the most? - "I always think wolves are watching me and are under my bed when I try walking out of my room."
2. What was the happiest day of your life? - "When we went to that super fun water park."
3. If you could change something about the world, what would it be? -  "That childbirth wouldn't be painful and people would never die because I never want grandma and grandpa to die."
4. What is something you can't live without? - "You can't live without food, water, or clothes."
5. What is your favorite movie or TV show? - "19 Kids and Counting."
6. If you could have one super power, what would it be? - "Good eyesight and ice."
7. What don't you like about being a kid? - "That Christian is always annoying."
8. What do you like about being a kid? - "That I don't have to do all the laundry, dishes, and all the mom stuff."
9. Describe a perfect day - "My wedding day."
10. What job do you want when you are a grownup? - (after telling me to change grownup to teenager) "Babysitting."
11. Who are your best friends and why? - "My stuffed animals, my bed because I love it so much, and Tylah.
12. What is your favorite color? - "Pink, purple, gold, and silver."
13. What is your favorite holiday? - "Christmas and Halloween because you get presents and candy."
14. What is your favorite thing about yourself? - "That I'm very cute and I'm a Walters' daughter."
15. Where would you like to travel? - "Grandma and grandpa's house."
16. What is your favorite thing about our family? - "That we have Walters DNA in our blood."
17. What annoys you the most? - "Christian!"
18. What are you proud that you can do? - "That I can snap (fingers), whistle, and do cartwheels and stuff."
19. What is one thing mommy always tells you? - "Do your homework before you play."
20. Who is your hero?- "Daddy, my teachers, and you (mommy)."

I got some real gems in there! Now if I could get Christian to sit still for five minutes to answer some, I'll be golden. Have you ever done anything like this with your kid(s)? What were their responses?

They Say...

Me as Gabe is spinning in circles with Noah who was supposed to be going to bed. "We're not trying to rile him up right now."

Gabe - "But that is my job as a dad!"

Alena when I commented on how funny she is, "I know. I get it from my dad."

The other night Alena and I were playing dress up with her wooden doll and she gave the doll clogs to go with her sweat pants of the same color.

Me - "Alena, she needs running shoes. She can't run in heels."

Alena - "Yeah, but at least the colors match."
Priorities...

Hearing Noah cry from the other room, I ask, "What's wrong with Noah?"

Alena responds, "Nothing. He's just dramatic."


The kids have to clean up the bedding mess around the chinchilla's cage. As they're sweeping I hear Alena grumble under her breath, "Daddy wants clean. I'll give him clean."
And she did!

Lessons Learned

After watching me make my delicious pumpkin cookies, the kids wanted to try their hand at making their own... sans recipe.

So as much as I was cringing inside at the thought of all that mess, I gave Alena and Christian (almost) free will of the kitchen. They had no idea what they were doing but they just knew that their cookies were going to be the best ever. 20 (or so) mixed ingredients later, they had a dough-like substance ready for the oven.

The cookies were baked and as soon as they were cool enough to eat, the master bakers themselves tried them. When asked how they tasted, they replied through forced fake smiles, "Mmmm. They're really good!". Did they taste good? NO. But they were proud as peacocks over their creations.

Christian's face says it all.

PS - They walked away from this experience learning two important lessons...

1. Throwing random ingredients together a good cookie it does not make.
And 2. When all else fails, smile and pretend to like it. :)

It's Tough Being a Mom

Last night Alena begged me to let her wash the dishes and though I normally don't because I just know the mess she will make, I figured I wasn't doing her any good by never letting her learn. That, and I just really didn't want to wash them myself. ;) So, I handed her some gloves, filled up the sink, and let her have at it. Did she get water everywhere? YES. Did I have to do the dishes? NO.

Alena claimed as she was washing that she felt like a mom because you know, only moms can do dishes... This is the conversation that followed.


Alena - "It's tough being a mom."

Me - "Yes, it is."

Alena - "What's your favorite part of being a mom?"

Me - *thinking*
 
Alena - "Oh wait. Let me guess. Taking care of the kids and kissing your husband!"

Friday Funny

If this doesn't put a smile on your face, I don't know what will.

Here's Noah cracking up over a happy meal toy.

11 Kids, 1 Picture, Not Having it

So in my Michigan vacation post, I had showed you our best photo we had of the 11 grandkids. Even then, it was quite a mess. We had ages 11 down to 2 1/2 months. We tried to get them all to sit in chronological order but with three of them being 14mo and 22mo twins, getting them to sit together was just not happening. Stick them with older siblings and it's a little better but with a lot of tears. Ah well, it made for a great memory!

Here are some of the outtakes...

Noah isn't sure what to make of his crying cousin.

If you ever attempt to do a similar photo, just accept that it will not go as planned, be perfect, and you will not catch everyone looking at the camera and smiling all at once. It just won't happen.

Funny Friday

Christian was saying how he was going to have a baby one day and Alena tells him he can't because only girls can. Gabe corrects them and says that it takes a special ingredient from both the mommy and daddy to make a baby.

Alena - "I know what that special ingredient is!"
 
Hmm, where is this heading?

Alena - "It's LOVE!"

Yes, that's it. Love. These kids never cease to amaze us. :)

So We Don't Get Fat

Gabe has started working out and the kids are loving it because they like to join in. And they claim to be doing it "so they don't get fat." Ooook... Whatever gets them to exercise I guess. They get up early with him every morning and do burpees, pullups, pushups, whatever daddy's doing. And would you believe that they actually enjoy, like, and have fun with it?! Yeah, I don't like to exercise and since I'm pregnant, I get to stay in bed and enjoy an extra 5-10 minutes of sleep. Works for me. :)

After dinner one night, they wanted to work out again so I caught it on camera this time.

Here they are doing burpees. They have so much energy!

And miss Alena, the beast, can do some awesome pullups. These pictures were taken AFTER the burpees and AFTER doing a ton of other pullups. (please excuse the blurriness)

And then Gabe joined in and did some burpees with them. Love these shots!

This Dog...

So Flower is six months old now and acts JUST like a toddler. I feel like she's our third kid. You take your eyes off of her for a minute and she WILL be getting into something!

She seems to have a thing for paper. Whether it's tissues, scrap papers, books, toilet paper, anything of the paper variety. If it's left out in her reach, she will chew and destroy it.

Like this morning... The kids and I went to gymnastics while Gabe stayed home to do homework. We came home and Alena comes running from the bathroom screaming "You gotta come see this! The bathroom is destroyed! Toilet paper EVERYWHERE!".

Sure enough, Flower had gotten into the bathroom and unrolled and chewed through a brand new roll! Gabe assured me she was by him the whole time we were gone chewing on her bone. I swear this dog is secretly a ninja because she can be so quiet and sneaky. Hence why I say she's like a third child and toddler.

So not only do we keep our bedroom doors shut all day from her, we now have to keep the bathroom door shut too.

Has anyone else had a destructive dog? What did they do?

Pregnancy Announcement

First off, let me welcome all my new followers. Thank you ladies! I tried to follow each of you back so if I didn't, just holler at me and I'll fix it. :)

So I scoured the internet and Pinterest to try and come up with a cute pregnancy announcement. There wasn't much out there that we could do without having someone else take the picture or use a self timer. I liked the photo booth pictures I saw and decided to put a couple of my favorites together.

I went out and bought a can of Prego pasta sauce and off we went to the mall. There are two photo booths in the mall and we walked to the closest one first. They give the option of using your debit card so after practicing our poses, Gabe swiped the card. Hmm, didn't work. Tried again and realized the card reader was not even turned on!

So off we went to the other end of the mall to the second booth. Practiced again then swiped the card. This one was on but didn't accept the card. Tried a different card, no luck. The card reader was showing a message, "Not able to accept cards at this time." Well, shoot.

Luckily, I remembered we had some cash in the car! I go to the car, grab the cash and head back to the booth. It worked! We choose our design, and as the first picture was about to be taken, we realized the camera was stuck pointing at the ceiling and it wouldn't move! So there Gabe and I were; standing on the tiny bench inside trying to hold the kids up high enough to get in the picture. Before the first camera click, I lost my balance and fell OUT of the booth! Well, there goes that picture. We must have looked like a bunch of goons! It was not happening at this booth so off we trudge to the OTHER booth yet again.

We only had enough money for one more try so this was it. We put in the money, pick our theme, and would you believe it... the camera was STUCK AGAIN! This time it was low so Gabe and I had to slouch down low but it was perfect for the kids. All this trouble for one little pregnancy announcement!

But we did it and love the result! Unfortunately, when I put it on Facebook to announce it to everyone, the words on my sign were barely readable. :(

What do you think? Don't you just love the theme we picked? Here comes trouble. Perfect...

Visit From Grandma and Grandpa

Has it really been a week since I've been on here?! Whew! What a week it has been!

First off, my parents flew in on Saturday afternoon and we picked them up in the RV. Then we took off for the Grand Canyon. We left our house at approximately 115-130 and didn't arrive at the GC until after midnight. The word tired would not even describe what we were. Not to mention, it was frigid cold at just 38 degrees!

Early the next morning (too early), we woke up, made and ate breakfast, then got ready for our day at the Canyon. I think we finally left the campground and got on the shuttle around 11.

The Canyon was beautiful, majestic, amazing, huge, colorful, etc etc. There's so many words you can use to describe its beauty. We ended hopping on another shuttle that took us to the Train Depot and El Tovar Hotel. We saw more amazing views and even got to watch the train depart from the station!

After being at the Canyon for five hours, we were wiped out. The kids were quite the troopers. They walked all day, had no naps, and never complained! We took the shuttle back to the RV park and made dinner. Right after dinner, we ended up seeing two elk running around the campground! They were on the other side of a fence, so the kids and I crept up to within 50 yards of them and I was able to get some great shots of the two.

Monday morning, we were off to my mom's aunt's house just north of Phoenix where we stayed for the night. We ended up finding a hole-in-the-wall Flinstones camp and restaurant that we of course, had to check out. They had a whole Flinstones Bedrock village in the back! We had a blast and the funniest part was the kids finding an old golf cart that was made to look like a Flinstones era car. Gabe touched the gas pedal to see if it would work, and it did! There were no workers around so Gabe and the kids took it for a spin. I just about died laughing at them. The kids loved it!

The next morning, we headed home right after breakfast because the kids had swim class at 330 and then Gabe, Alena, and I had piano lessons at 630. AHH! Tired would be an understatement of how we were all feeling.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were fairly relaxed. I took my parents to the Copper Queen Mine and took the tour there. Of course, I forgot my camera and didn't get a single shot of it! oooh, I could just kick myself for that! The mine was a freezing 47 degrees and our tour guide had actually worked in the mine until it was closed down.

Well, that's our week. I tried to keep it short for you guys. The kids were sad to see Grandma and Grandpa go. Christian was hugging them and saying "Don't go! Don't go!".  :*( 

Grandpa's got the chicken nuggets!

Alena and Grandma on the Ipad.

Add caption

On the road again...

Beautiful

The picture doesn't do it justice.

Here we all are!

Stunning

The Colorado River at the base of the Canyon.

Doorknob of the Train Depot.

The coolest bike EVER!

aww, they're kissing!

Metal slide on a 95 degree day = not a good idea!

A walk-thru snake.

The cart Gabe and the kids took for a spin.

My Great Aunt's restaurant.