December!

December 1st started with a bang at our house!  The kids have been DYING to open their advent calendars.  Tyson has a lego one (of course) and the girls have playmobil. 

Frank the elf has made a joyous return.

And the Christmas festivities have begun.  We ventured out to the Ethel M Chocolate factory in Henderson.

The kids loved all the lights.

I think the most excited about the outing was Hayden.

You could not wipe that grin off of her face.  She is our comic relief.  The only problem with the cactus garden is that they have no fences protecting the kids from the cactuses.  Or is it protecting the cactuses from the kids?

Anyway, the whole night Hayden would run right up to the lights and want to touch.  She is so accident prone the whole night I was planning our trip to the emergency room to get cactus needles out of her face. 

I am happy to report there were no trips to the hospital!

Ryan loves to be where the action is, she had tons of fun being pushed around.

Santa in a helicopter :)

We got there early enough that the line for Santa wasn't too long.  The kids had all of these plans on what the wanted to talk to Santa about and when they got up there they just froze.  Gotta love these crazy kids!

Yeah for December!!

Thanksgiving on the farm

Jason's brother lives in Sacramento and they have a little farm.  Tons of land and really cool animals. (according to the kids the animals are really cool )

Jason's parents live in Napa so they are only an hour away.  Grandpa DeMille goes up as often as he can to help.  He told Jason that when he retires he will probably move to Sacramento and get his own little farm. 

Here are all of the cousins: Dane, Maren, Tyson, Taylor, Ian, and Hayden.

To start off Thanksgiving morning the kids participated in the first ever DeMille Dash. They each had numbers on their backs and started the short run in the yard for the little kids.

Then they did a run around the neighborhood.  It was exactly one mile.

Tyson went for a little bull riding after the DeMille Dash.

He fell off into the mud and was really upset.  Grandpa and Uncle Brandon convinced him to try again.

While waiting for dinner the kids made butter.  It was the highlight of Taylor's day, the girl is crazy about butter.

The kids had the best time at Thanksgiving and had so much fun playing with their cousins.  I think Tyson loved the animals best of all.  They were going to show him how they kill the turkey for Thanksgiving but I said No.  He would have come home and never have eaten meat again.  He's a little too sensitive for the rough part of farm living.  Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!!!

Sacramento Train Museum

Jason took the kids to California for Thanksgiving and I stayed home with the guys, the baby, and the crazy dog.  It was a divide and conquer holiday :)

 On the way to Jason's brother's farm they stopped at the train museum.

When the kids called me before bed I asked how the museum was.  All they could remember to tell me about was that they had icees.  Gotta love these crazy kids!

Dinosaur Museum

Taylor's preschool class had a field trip to the Natural History Museum.

 They had an excellent guide who really got them excited to see all of the exhibits.  Hayden, of course, was in the middle of the action :)

 Taylor and Klara

 Taylor and her friend Becky

Super fun field trip, the only sad part was when it was over we went across the street to a park and a boy in our group fell off the monkey bars and broke his arm!  So sad, I think the broken arm wiped out all of the exhibits out of Taylor's head.  It's all she talks about if you mention the dinosaur museum.  We'll have to go again so she can remember all the cool things they have there!

Tyson's 7th Birthday Party

Tyson had his 7th Birthday Party at Chuck E Cheese. 

They have a crazy Zombie game that the kids were obsessed with.

Taylor and Hayden were in heaven on all the rides.

Tyson took 16 invitations to school and only 2 kids came from his class.  I was so stressed that a ton of kids would show up I had 20 gift bags made.  I don't think I will do school friends again. You can always count on the church friends coming :)

Tyson gets embarrassed very easily but he was a good sport about all the attention.

He laughed the entire night.

We got a cake from Costco of course.  He wanted to  buy a cake with the American flag on it.  I talked him into the baseball glove.

The boys were pretty excited to dance all over the place but the host couldn't get Tyson to join in.

 He was so excited to go in the ticket blaster.  He talked about it all week.

 

 He tried so hard and got 200+ tickets because he grabbed 2 50 tickets and 1 100 ticket.

 We ran out of time and had to take the presents home to open them. 

He got two packages of Zinkies and was so excited.  He actually slept with all of them in their miniature space ship.

He loved this gun he got from Owen!  Boys and guns always go together :)

His haul :)

Super fun party!  Tyson had a blast!  Chuck E Cheese delivered again.

Tyson's last soccer game

Tyson had his last soccer game for his rec center league.  It was a really great experience and his coaches were very good. 

Tyson always starts things a little hesitantly and then warms up and gets in the action :)

He likes being the goalie but doesn't understand he can jump on the ball and stop it.  So he was scored on twice.  The nice thing about him being so mellow is that it really doesn't get him too upset.  Always looking for the silver lining!

He got a nice plaque with his individual picture and his team picture which turned out really nice.  With him it's always a crap shoot.  You buy the pictures in advance and then when they come home he is making a stupid grin.  When I yell at him about this he always says, "I don't know how to smile!"  Such a nut :)

These are the standard trophies the rec center gives out.  His baseball trophy this year has ruined him to all other trophies.  He brought this one home and set it on the counter and when I said, "Wow Ty, what a nice trophy!"  He responded, "Well, it's not a piggy bank."

My boy, my boy...next up is flag football, wish us luck!!!