A busy January

Eddy's First Lost Tooth!  It's a milestone in our family-our last first tooth.  Cam kicked Eddy in the mouth while they were in the bath.  Cam was yelling..."Eddy's bleeding...alot!"  I guess it wasn't QUITE ready to come out on it's own yet. 

Johanna's all business at her ward YW volleyball game

Camden and friend, Abe watch their sisters after having their last basketball game.

We spent 2 weekends plus painting Johanna's room this delightful green color.  We painted one wall with these snappy diamonds.  I'll post a finished room picture later.  I also decided that I definately don't want to paint the whole house.

 What a mess!

We had 10 kids at our house last weekend for play, dinner and lateovers.  I spent all afternoon making homemade spaghetti and meatballs, garlic french bread, fudge sauce and brownies for everyone.  It was super noisy, which was okay until the girls wanted to watch "Love Comes Softly"downstairs and the boys wanted to play Wii Rockband upstairs-Romance and "Eye of the Tiger " didn't go well together and the boys and the girls were all yelling at each other.  Everyone must have had fun, because the girls and some of the boys came back again last Friday.

The girls thought it would be fun to take off their shoes and

run around in the rain......whatever

 Eddy and Jillian gettin' ripped in 30

Camden and his "sick" day at home.  He just didn't feel up to going to school that morning, so I let him stay home.  He layed on the couch and read books and then we made mini doughnuts...thanks, Hansen's!  He was feeling much better after lunch, so I sent him back to school with a plate of doughnuts for his teacher.  It was fun to spend a morning at home with him = )

Tofu key lime cheesecake

It's good....really!

I opened the door to get a picture of the boys coming home from school and Ed did this "ta da" kind of thing....funny

Eddy picked the David and Golieth FHE lesson last Monday-they had a great time shooting marshmallows at Golieth

What you CAN"T see is all the needles on the ground

Our gargantuan, 14 foot tall tree makes it's exit from our house.  I grew to love it, but was not sad to see it leave.

Johanna busied herself with this lovely painting on the last day of Christmas break.  She's planning on adding a phrase or saying to the left side of it-I'll post that later.

Some Salem Scenes

Spruce Goose.  We had a great time at the air museum-what a beautiful building!  We declined to pay extra to sit in the cockpit because I was so excited about getting in for FREE, I didn't want to ruin it!

I thought this turned out cute, even if it is cliche-I"m just noticing grandpa in the background.....

The SR-71 blackbird-Blake and Logan think it's pretty much their favorite airplane ever.

Gingerbread and Grandma's house-a holiday tradition!  The kids had so much fun!!!!

Okay, I did too-it's been years since I had "my own" house to decorate...I have to say, it was beautiful.

Finally, the Kroc Center!  We've tried to go before and been foiled, but this time we enjoyed it's chlorine waters, until some kid vomited in the kiddy pool....

So, we climbed on the rock wall instead

OMSI was also---FREE!  Thank you museum membership!  In this picture a current is passing through the Hoth/Thurman family while we laugh at the strange feeling.

 Also finally-everyone (for some reason I didn't go) visited the submarine at OMSI-I think the kids enjoyed themselves, and Grandpa too.  We've gone to OMSI before and it was booked up.

 This is a fun one..I woke up to damp sheets one morning and a dripping sound above my head...never good.  Grandpa's roof has finally caught up with him and it was leaking.  Luckily we were there so that Grandpa didn't have to climb on the very slippery roof.  With rope safely tied to front yard tree to hand on to, Blake nailed plastic over the back side of the roof and we slept dryly that night.

 Ahhhh...the obligatory Carousel visit.  This was our only time with Kevin, and he had a great time.  Kevin acted like he'd never before seen me in his whole life, but of course, he LOVED Blake and kept pointing at him and making everyone else point at him too.  My theory is that they were best buds in former life.

I thought this was a cute photo of everyone.

We had a great time at Mom and Dad's house-the days went by quickly, which they tend to do when you stay up late and sleep in!

A very merry Thurman Christmas

Cookies for Santa.  I was so tired and I'd been in the kitchen for awhile already, but I just couldn't skip Santa cookies-glad I didn't, the kids had a great time decorating them.

We enjoyed a tour of our neighborhood Christmas lights Christmas Eve

One of the two pictures of me taken for posterity's sake

Ed was hilarious as "Baby Jesus".  He was way too big for the manger, but played his role nicely.  Cam had wiseman, shepard and innkeeper costumes on simultaneously.  All the kids got into dressing up for the nativity reading.  More so then when they were younger, I think!  Do you think baby Jesus would have liked footsie pajamas?

We read President Monson's "A Christmas Dress for Ellen"

11:30 p.m.  All is calm, all is bright, all is under the tree

Inky had a wonderful time with all the wrapping and ribbon.  She was intrigued by all the new smells and arrangements. Cam quickly shooed her off his gift.

Eddy with his gift from Santa, and a dragon he got in his stocking.

Johanna rockin' out with one of our new rockband instruments.  She had fun playing rock star all afternoon, until the drums and one guitar stopped working (that's what you get with used electronics!)  I'm hopeful in at least one case, new batteries are the fix.

The aftermath....

Breakfast-huckleberry french toast....mmmmm

Picture of Andrea no. 2  Post church.  Notice my corsage.  Our ward music chair got them for everyone participating in the program today-I accompanied a vocalist on "o holy night".  Also, this adorable velet jacket (Katy's castoff) looks much better in person-this picture just does not to it, or me, justice!

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

Christmas-lots of work for Mom, lots of fun for kids

Camden, Logan, Blake and I worked hard for an hour making 34 reindeer bags for Cam's class party.  I almost tried to do them all by myself....1 hour times 4 people = 4 hours!!!  glad I didn't

My first batch of holiday treats for our new ward friends.  Pizelles, JoAnn's chocolates, white chocolate dipped gingerbread stars, fleur de sel caramels....oh my!

Earlier this week all of my kids, plus a number of kids from our ward sang and played instruments at the local VA facility.  I think they all had fun.  They all got jingle bells, which Ed loved 

We have a Super 8 hotel close to our neighborhood.  They have a water slide with open swim hours.  We tried it out on Wednesday.  The kids had so much fun in the water, and I happened to meet two friends there, so I got to chat while the kids swam.

The pool pictures all turned out steamy.  Cam thought this was quite funny in the hot tub.

Ed loves to give the thumbs up sign.  He had a fun time in the pool too, and managed to keep his hair dry until the last 30 minutes.

Johanna and friend Sophie have been hanging out all week.  Good thing we like Sophie!

Cam performing "Go tell it on the Mountain"  flawlessly

Holiday Happenings

This little gnome popped out of a birthday card for Blake singing a very annoying song-Blake is checking for hidden gnomes in this picture.  Also pictured is Blake's Jello cake-his oft requested birthday treat.  Happy 40th Blake!

Grandpa brought some wooden turkeys he'd made for the kids to paint.  They had a great time doing it and they turned out beautifully!

This picture is for Jennifer-who makes fun of my Turkey Frame Soup.  It was delicious-why waste a thing of taste and beauty (okay, not so beautiful..but tasty!)

Cam and Logan drinking our fave holiday drink-grapejuice (grandpas) and 7-up. 

Our 5 buck Christmas tree (plus a little gas).  Really, why buy one?  The kids had a great time looking for this, though Johanna had to stay with Ed because somehow he got in the car with no shoes.  It was great to drive up out of the fog too-we all brought snow clothes, hot cocoa, etc. because it was cold and frosty in the valley, but as we drove higher-all was sunny and bright!

Can you see that the tree goes well above my second story bannister???  If you look closely, you can see the string Blake tied from tree to bannister because it started falling on me when I was putting lights on.  I actually like it now that it's decorated-it's very pretty, though I don't think we'll get one this big again...14 feet!!!

Logan and Johanna had a concert last night.  Johanna played with the concert band and they both played guitar.  It was a very interesting, and actually entertaining concert.  Blake had the camera and couldn't get a picture of both of them.  Too bad-I had come later and was in a perfect spot, but alas, no camera...oh well.

turkey trot

We had a great time running the Turkey Trot Thanksgiving morning. Johanna and Logan ran the 2 miler and Blake and I did 8 together. What a great way to prepare for feasting!