Go Heels!!!

Born into this family you are automatically a Tarheel fan. All of the kids know what a tarheel is and what it means. They have been to Grandpa's office (which reminds me, I need a picture of) to enjoy the light blue paint and all the fun gadgets he has in there. Here are three of my own little Tarheels showing off Landry's present from Grandma and Grandpa Collins.

Family pictures~finally

Well we finally made some time to take some family pictures together. We have not done this since I was pregnant with Landry. Honestly it was so nice to go back and see our whole bunch together finally. The kids did really well through the photoshoot. Unfortunately, I did not take very many individual ones, but that's ok it was more important to get a lot of group shots. I was so thankful that my friend Melanie made time to help us with this....she was also the one who found this cute little house out in Marysville. I love that it shows a few things that we love about this area and will always remember, the orchards, and cute little rustic houses!! We will miss this place.

Merry Christmas

I can't believe this, but we actually had to wake the kids up early to open their presents Christmas morning. Poor Landry and Brody were so sleepy, they could barely hold their heads up. With church being at nine o'clock in the morning we needed to get right to the morning fun. It never gets old watching your childrens expressions when they see all the gifts under the tree. It almost makes up for the many shopping headaches I endure leading up to Christmas. The girls all received a new hello kitty sewing machine from Santa. (it's a Janome....so yes I think I might need to borrow that one). Landry was so excited for his Cars and Brody was amazed he got his ninja castle. Bryan was completely surprised about his Ipad....so was I.....thanks Santa!! ;) I am also hoping that Bryan will take me to the Cirque de Soleil, Michael Jackson show he got tickets too....that sounds amazing. I finally have a new video camera, our other one broke and my slr camera doesn't take video, so this made me happy.

After present opening....and assembling or disassembling in some cases (that's the part I always dread). We headed off to Mema and Pepa's house for dinner and gifts. Stacey whipped up a yummy batch of her delicious homemade mac-n-cheese to go along with the ham dinner mom prepared. It would have been even better if we didn't forget about the sweet potatoes in the oven....mom found those the next day. Family dinners are the best, well I think they are. Even at home on a daily basis. It's a time to share, laugh, annoy, laugh some more and fill up. I cherish this time with our family.

Mom borrowed the Charlie Brown tree....hehehe. Ok I'm kidding mom, it is a cute little tree, love you.

Did you know that my dad does Zumba? It's true, he loves it. This is him showing off some of his moves to all the grandkids....needless to say you can't get that kind of entertainment just anywhere.

Christmas Eve

Christmas time is full of traditions. One of my favorites is retelling the beautiful story of the birth of our Savior. The kids love participating and have a lot of fun. This year little Lucas was Jesus and a very strong Jesus infact, he titlted his basket over twice during the production. If you feel like you have seen this picture before, it might be because Cambree and Tyler insist on being Mary and Joseph every year. Of course they do a great job, they are always so reverent.

Check out the bored shepherd in this picture...can you find him?? (hint it's Landry)Brandon was so cute, he would only wear his costume because he was told he was a ninja, oh the things we do as parents. It did work, but than I had to explain to Brody that he could be a ninja for real after the story. There are 12 grandchildren on the Collins side of the family, so of course it is always loud when we get together, but it is so much fun.

Grandma Collins did a great job as director this year. We have never had a director in years past. Besides sending in the shepherds to soon, it went smoothly. Doesn't Alyssa make a cute angel, so precious, I love it!

We are truly blessed.....Merry Christmas from our bunch to yours!!!

Friendship

One of the things I have noticed about having five children, is how hard it is to recall all the conversations you over here throughout the years. Some are just down right funny, or cute, or oh so serious. Today I was fortunate to over hear Brody discussing friendship with Landry today. It seems Landry left Brody to play alone in his room and he wasn't very pleased with this choice.

So while seated on the stairs he explained the following to Landry:

Crying about friendship is not a good idea.
Playing good guy/bad guy is a good idea.
So that is why we should play.
Friendship is the nicest thing on earth.
Friendship is the most important thing.
Friendship means that you have to be friends.

Landry's reply was this:
I don't think I want to be friends.

Brody can be such a deep thinker sometimes and Landry does love to play with his brother and wants to be just like him.

Emery's Birthday Dinner

So the whole week leading up to Emery's Sunday birthday dinner was interesting. First Landry and I caught the flu, I hate flu bugs! I wasn't completely surprised by this because one of my friends recently had a party at her house and the birthday girl was throwing up that night. I teased my friend that she was handing out flu germs as party favors. Of course I am grown-up and do realize you can get these germs anywhere, I just like to be a pain every now and than. Emery was starting to get a little nervous when we got sick, she thought we would have to cancel our plans for dinner if the flu was still lingering around. Every morning she would get up and ask me if anyone was sick in the night. We prayed every night as a family that we would all remain healthy and strong through the weekend. Of course it all seemed to be going well and so we kept our plans to have family over for dinner.

It was nice to have my Aunt Sandy, Uncle Terry, cousin Terry (aka Mert), and his daughter Emily join us. My cousin Terry doesn't live too far from us, but of course we still don't see eachother that often, except for the occasional run-ins while out doing errands. It was great to catch up and visit with them.

We were all smiles and having a nice time getting dinner ready, waiting for Bryan's side of the family to arrive, etc. When I went into the living room to help get a game of spoons going for the kids. I took a look at Emery and she didn't look well at all, I mean she looked like death. There were dark circles under her eyes and all the color was gone from her face. I asked her is she was feeling alright and in Emery fashion she replied quickly with a yes. But I knew when I got back to the kitchen that something wasn't right and I wouldn't be surprised if she was lying to me. No sooner while I was having these thoughts, I heard the kids yelling from the living room, "Mommy Emery just threw up!" Oh man I thought. Poor thing, she had caught the flu bug, the one she dreaded the whole week....so not cool. We quickly made some phone calls to the family traveling up to our house and told them they should turn around. Everyone else decided to stay and eat and had a great attitude about still being there and celebrating Emery. Luckily, we didn't hand the germs out as a party favor to anyone that night (well at least no one told me about getting sick). Cambree and Brody did get sick a few nights later and I was still holding my breath for Christmas.

The Dorman Family

I took these pictures of Ang and her family while we were in Hawaii this past summer. We found this great little building right down on the North Shore. We had great lighting and the kids actually did pretty well. I love spending time with all of them, just wish it didn't have to be for such short periods of time.

Landry Transforms

Lately Landry loves to pull his shirts down over his knees and "transform." He usually walks into a room and says look mommy, I transformed . I think he looks like a frog....so cute this kid!

Kelci's 10th Birthday

Kelci turned 10 this past August, oh man double digits!! We had a little friend party for her at our new house. She was so excited about having people over and couldn't wait to play all night. That weekend we had a little family party with my family to celebrate and have them over to the new house. Amazingly Pepa even came, although he was taking the picture at the time, so you can't see him. The kids love to spend time with family and I can appreciate that.

First Day of School

Kelci~9years old headed to 5th grade
Cambree~6years old headed to 1st grade
Emery~11years old headed to 6th grade....middle school here she comes.
Good luck to my girls, something tells me it's going to be a great school year. These girls are so bright and love school!

Lake Tahoe

Every year I talk about how lucky we are to have this opportunity to go to Tahoe with Bryan's family. Thanks to his parents all of us take turns and head up to the Lake to hang out and relax and play. It doesn't always work out that all of us can be there at the same time, but occasionally it does for a day. The Lake was pretty cold this summer thanks to the late snow storms we had this year, but despite that, we hung out at the beach for awhile playing in the sand and even went over to a nearby pool and swam. It is so beautiful up in the mountains! We even sang happy birthday to Carter and Brandon while we were there. Carter turned 1 year old already, man that was fast. Brandon was turning 2, and despite not feeling 100%, he was pretty happy spending time with everyone.

Collins Cousin Camp 2011

We had our annual Collins Camp in July this year and the kids had a lot of fun. We decided they would love to wear shirts with the number from their birth order on them. It was fun when we took them out and everyone kept trying to figure out what the number meant. We were so excited to have Carter join us this for his first camp, he sure loves to be around all his cousins.

We played a few intense games of sock tag in the house, mostly because my kids love this game and why not. Looks like Leah finally got Uncle Bryan's sock....that is not easy to do. After we had a camp fire outside and roasted marshmellows and listened to grandma lead us in some campfire songs. Jeannette slept with the kids in the tent this year. Some of the kids wanted to sleep in the house, which was fine. Of course they were all up early the next morning and ready to run. We took them bowling and than out to lunch at our favorite restaurant, Costa Vida.

Despite the faces on these two little grumpy heads, we did have a fun time. We always look forward to Cousins camp for sure. I'm hoping this tradition can keep going even though we are moving ot Utah in a few months.