Jesse's Birthday!

I am a terrible mother!!! Its official! Jesse turned 16 on his birthday in November and we didn't even celebrate it! It was a tuesday, which means YM/Scouts and they went to the ice caves up in St. Anthony not to return until nearly 10pm. So no birthday celebration that day, Wednesday Jesse has debate nights at school on those nights, thursday I was at Girls Night, and all day Friday and Saturday was the Joust Debate Tournament at Hillcrest and Jesse was gone. Then Sunday morning bright and early I took Bill to the airport for his trip to China and he was gone until that Friday. Nothing was working out for us, until Wednesday night before Thanksgiving.

Jesse didn't want an ordinary Birthday cake, he wanted Hot Wings, no ordinary hot wings either he wanted his dads famous hot wings! So Jesse's birthday celebrations was hot wings, little smokies and ritz crackers. His gift, well, he didn't get one of those either! (See I told you I was a bad mother!!!) I guess I should say yet. Last spring Bill got tickets for March Madness this year. A ticket for each of them, they were expensive enough we are calling that his gift. Aren't I a bad mother?

The sunday before Jesse's birthday we went down to Utah to see my nephew give his last talk in church before his mission. Bills parent's came over and gave Jesse's his present...Jesse's favorite...CASH!!! And a really cute card. And my parents gave him a couple of golf balls, one was from the US Mint and had $100 in it, they also gave him a little cha ching!

This picture is Grandpa McCammon, Jesse and Grandma McCammon.

We are so lucky to have Jesse as part of our family, he is such a great kid!! Some days Bill and I ask ourselves what line in the preexistence did we have to wait in to be this lucky! Jesse is a normal teen that has his mood swings, but he is inherently good. It is his personality, that's who he is. Bill and I get after him a lot, being the oldest we pick on him probably more than we do the girls to be 'the perfect child', but I really don't have much to complain about. When he's asked to do something he may say no, but he's in the process of doing it while protesting. Maybe he has the Ella Enchanted Curse!!! We love him very much and appreciate all that he adds to our family. It brings tears to my eyes when I think of the few years he has left in our home. We love youj Jess! Yesterday (Sunday) Bill also was able to ordain Jesse a priest. I am just so proud of him!!!!!

Crazy Hair Day

Besides the fact that my girls hate having thier hair done...well I hate doing it! Ever since they were small they would just scream and grab their heads when they see you coming at them with a comb or brush. Trying to comb hair with hands in the way is kind of tough, so needless to say we don't "do" hair very often. For crazy hair day this is what Abbie wanted. The ponies all over her head turned out cuter than crazier...and so did Cierra's.

Cierra decided she wanted a mohawk, I wasn't sure how to do that so I ponytailed her hair in chunks and then we ratted it up. Her hair was ratted and sprayed and by the time she got home it looked combed. Did the 80's do nothing for me? I can't even rat hair and get it to stay up all day! Matbe we should have put colors on it, or maybe they are just so cute, nothing I can do will make them look crazy!!! ;-)

Halloween!!!

Halloween is always a fun time of the year especially at school. At the girl's school they have a costume parade. Here are a few fun pictures of the kids during their parade.

This is Cierra's Teacher.

Here is a picture of Cierra's Class.

Here is Abbie, female version of the grim reaper I guess! Abbie changed her mind and she wanted to be a corpse bride for a friend party and trick or treating. So here she is in that costume. I don't know what happened but I didn't get a picture of them before they went out trick or treating so I don't have a picture of Cierra in her full vampire get up! Oh well.

Frightmares at Lagoon!!!

Its been about 10 years since Bill and I had been to Lagoon. I am pretty sure Jesse was 5 and it was Lagoon day for ICON, and Jesse was too small to ride even the Roller Coaster. We had some friends invite us to go to Frightmares this year and decided that we couldn't go without the kids (sorry Derik and Andrea I'm sure it wasn't the time you thought it would be!!). We had a great time, Abbie was fearless and wanted to ride everything, Cierra was apprehensive, but rode it anyway and ended up having a blast. She couldn't ride everything she was about 3 inches to short to ride the jet star and the re-entry, and we couldn't get her on the colossus yet she rode the Wicked! Jesse, well that's a totally different story he's got his mother's guts...none! We're just chicken I guess. Along with me he closed his eye's on the Wicked! but at least we rode it!! It took us all day to ride the rides, it was relatively cold, and the kids didn't want to hit the Haunted Houses. So we left about 7pm. But had a great day!!

Waiting for the Roller Coaster!

Jesse and Cierra took a second ride! Fun picture ops!

Here are the kids just hanging around!

Haunted Gingerbread

I love making gingerbread houses. My one goal for the future is to figure out how to make one that is a Pirate Ship! Someday!!! But for now we'll settle for house + Candy = fun!!! Here are a few pictures of the girls decorating ours! The house ended up not being cooked long enough so it was still soft and ended up falling in, oh well...live and learn.