Snow Sharks...

One of my all time favorite comic strips is Calvin and Hobbs. This one in particular always got me smiling!

This year, instead of a snow man, Nick was sweet enough to try to recreate my favorite comic. I think he did a great job!!!



Hee Hee Hee

Family Santa Picture

Some great Christmas gifts

Ashleigh and Preston received some GREAT gifts this year for Christmas...These just happen to be 2 of them that I got cute pictures of as well...


My aunt Maree gave the kids these bathrobes while we were in Reno...Ash has it on constantly! We think Preston looks like a mini Hugh Hefner...lol.

Juli gave the kids these Spongebob Squarepants PJ's. They are THE chosen pj's to wear everynight which means I am washing them more than anything else they own. :-) So cute!

Christmas Party with Gma and Gpa Ballard

My parents decided to do something fun and unique this year for all the grandchildren who do not wear diapers...they (all 10 of them) met at the party room at their apartment complex and had a fun Christmas party. I know that Bridget was really missed....
Thanks Gma and Gpa for a very fun night!

Top row: L to R: Suzanne (Gma) and Russ (Gpa)
Middle Row: Tyce, Braeden, Sheridan, Teriesa, Teagan
Bottom Row: Ethan, Talon, Nathan, Maura, Ashleigh

The kids left with all sorts of great gifts...Ashleigh loves her new keyboard!

Ashleigh

For Christmas, Juli gave Ashleigh an at home Build a Bear....its a learn to sew kit, so they in essence, got to make/create a monkey and then stuff it and dress it, etc. It looked like a really fun project! It came with a birth certificate and I gave Ashleigh the opportunity to name her monkey...after about 5 min she decided that his name could be Curious George Call, or C. George Call. She treats him like her little baby. I got this really cute pic of them sleeping.

Preston

Nick's closet has been cleaned up since this picture, but at the time Preston thought it would be great to get in and play in all the clothes. Being a kid is so much fun!

Ni-night phone

I've mentioned before that Preston will make a bed for himself pretty much anywhere around the house. He rarely if ever falls asleep, but it's cute to see him bring his pillows from his bed, get a blanket and tuck himself in...this day, he happened to have his little phone with him and decided his phone needed to go to sleep too. He tucked his phone in to bed and laid there with it for a few minutes before getting up and telling his phone it was time to wake up. Kids are so cute! They are so entertaining and do the darnest things! ;-) I love them!

Borrowing the truck

Last month we switched cars with the Calls for a few weeks--they took our Corolla and we took their truck. I'm not sure what the original reason was for the switch, but we love having the truck anytime we can...and Juli just loves driving the Corolla so it works well for all parties involved. Anyway, one day, Nick took Ash out on a daddy daughter date and they took the truck up in the hills by our house for some mild 4-bying.

Lets feed some horses

I have so many pictures right now that I need to blog about so I am backing up a bit...

2 or 3 weeks ago we decided to stop and feed some horses that are near our house. There are usually 6 horses, but that day there were only 2 and 1 of them was a big fat bully--as soon as the other one would come close to us, the bully would try to kick it, or push it out of the way. So sad...we were able to distract the bully and throw some carrots to the other one-which she got and ate with what I think was a huge smile on her face! :-)
Ash was very timid at first, but I taught her how to hold on really tight to the carrot and keep your fingers far away from the horses teeth. She never did feed one on her own, but she did have fun feeding it with me.

The spotted one is the bully--the brown one is the innocent one who got attacked!

Before feeling the horses Preston got in to the bag and started eating one of them. He's a funny kid.

Reno Red Robin

I just love this picture of Nick and Ashleigh at Red Robin in Reno. Nick and I constantly marvel at how beautiful Ashleigh is and I think this picture just supports our opinion.

Then we asked our server to take a picture of us all. It was a fun/yummy dinner.

Etcha-sketch talent

At my Aunt Maree's house she tried so hard to find "girl" toys for Ashleigh to play with--she raised 3 boys, so girl toys are hard to find there. She did find this Etcha-sketch (is that how it's spelled?) which Ashleigh loves--she is always asking for one of her own. Well, I think my aunt is very talented...she etched this picture! Pretty good, huh? What was even better is that she was able to do it in only like 5 minutes! I was impressed!

Visiting my wonderful Aunt and family

On day 2 we went to Circus Circus...but the fun stuff didn't start until later so we went to my Aunt Maree and Uncle Martin's house.
I keep forgetting that I have my camera until I've reached the end of the house tour...but you get what you get.
These cars are in their 10-car garage...Nick and I are partial to the Viper that is on the lift. It's so pretty!

Nick is in heaven in their garage....here he is next to a Subaru STI.

Inside they have the most beautiful Christmas village display--Preston was obsessed with all of it, but especially the electronic train.

Then we had some lunch...in the back is my cousin Dustin and his fiance Tori--whom we met for the first time on this trip and absolutely just adore! She is so sweet and has a great personality! We just love her and can't wait for her to be a part of our family.

This is my Uncle Martin. He's a funny man...it seemed like he and Nick bonded a lot on this trip!

Maree and Martin have 3 sons so Ashleigh got pampered on while there--Maree painted Ashleigh's finger and toe nails and let her wear a pair of her high heeled shoes. Ashleigh loved it!

Pictures of our "suite" in Sparks NV

This is the beautiful room that Nick and I stayed in

The vanity in our room

The kids' room...they slept SO good in the room together
except that they both woke up earlier than usual every day! Ugh!

Ash took the camera and took a couple pictures
Preston outside our bathroom

Preston playing again with the ping pong table

Ping pong at the Powells

When we arrived in Reno we went strait to my Grandma Leslie and Grandpa Roger's house (in Sparks). We were able to stay with them in their beautiful basement "suite" for the week. They have fun things like a ping pong table and fooze ball. The kids have never played either before so they had so much fun.

Our funny quirks

Nick and I bought our Toyota Sienna van about 2 years ago. It has these buttons that heat each of our seats. We constantly play jokes on each other by turning them on to HI when the other person isn't looking. It was really funny the first dozen times we did it, but now it's pretty much habit to look at those buttons when we get in the van to make sure we're not going to have hot bunz.

For dad

Hey dad--guess what we saw on our trip to Reno??? This wonderful truck!

Good memories! Love you!!!

Meg

My first Reno scrapbook

This is the first scrapbook I have ever made!! I took 247 pictures on our trip so it was really hard to cut out so many for this book...I'll be posting more tomorrow though--there are other fun things we did that I did not include this time...enjoy!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Home from Reno

Hey everyone....we are back from Reno safe and sound...happy AND sad to be back!
It was a great family vacation!!!
Once I get unpacked and my pictured downloaded I'll blog all about it! There will be a lot as I took almost 200 pictures!!! :)
Glad to see a lot of you have blogged while I was away...can't wait to read all about what you've been up to!

Upcoming road trip!

We are off to RENO NEVADA in the morning!!! Woo Hoo! Definitely excited about taking a family road trip! I'll be back in a week!

More random posts

Preston has decided to make a bed for himself pretty much anywhere around the house. This night it happened to be on the family room floor. And laying in front of a movie is not complete with out a bunch of popcorn.


Funny story--Imagine it all in very slow motion cause that's how Preston did it---
He was riding his bike and suddenly stopped and said--oh no, I falling. ahhhh. oh-no. and then he fell over and pulled his bike down too. LOL. He is SO dramatic.

Our future Motocross star...is that the right term? Preston stands on his bike and jumps all the time, it's funny...he is such a boy! I don't think that boy will ever stop moving--even if he does ever hurt himself.

Ashleigh has been so attached to Nick lately. She is REALLY happy that he is home and can spend every day with her. They actually had a daddy-daughter day yesterday where they cuddled on the couch and watched a princess movie and had McDonalds. It's been wonderful!!

Tonight I spent some time with Preston...and happened to get a cute picture of us together.