Christmas

Santa had a few helpers this year. It's tradition that Santa puts balloons on our tree every Christmas.

It's always nice to have family home for Christmas.

Every year Santa gives everyone an apple and an orange in their stocking. This year since I got to Help Santa out I put two oranges in my stocking along with the Candy mom had divided. Unfortunately some younger twin of mine decided to be funny and changed out the two oranges for to apples. Pretty funny!

The long awaited moment where Shalene opened her gift. I had her family this year and decided to make her a book of pictures with all her children's funny quotes. Believe me there are a lot. I'm glad she liked it.

Jonny, Alaina and Cody made Christmas much more fun this year. It is so much fun to watch young kids get all excited for their gifts.

Christmas Eve matching PJ picture!

I'd say Cody was done!

Beautiful Mary!

They did a great job acting out Mary and Joseph. It was nice to have them here this year.

Santa was good to us all this year.

We went looking at Christmas lights near the temple. When we were done we stopped off at the temple so that we could see the Manger Scene. Cody stopped long enough to pose for a picture with me.

Alaina and Jonny had fun looking at the water too.

Jonny tried to get out of the picture.

Can you get much cuter than this?

Manger Scene at the Temple! It's beautiful.

Alaina's all read for Santa!

Catch up

Ok so I down loaded these first two in the wrong order, but oh well. Our school had a sock hop night for our PIE night (Parents Involved in Education). We got to dress up 50's style all day. It was kind of fun. For the month leading up to the sock hop parents could check out books to read with their child that were popular when they were young.

Liz Ray, Me, Lindsey Rousseou all dressed up for the night.

Jill Ainsworth and I spent two hours of the night dishing up Culver's Custard for the night. It was a lot of fun.


Claudia, Baily and Kyla at the ward halloween party. It was a lot of fun, but very crowed.

I love it when Shanna wears her hair in ringlets. Kyla had fun with all the candy there.

Carson loves "New" Mario brothers on the Wii. I visiting teach his mother who is the Primary President in our ward. Her husband is also a councilor in the Bishopric, so I get to go over once a month and babysit he and his brother while they are at Ward Council meetings. It's lost of fun.

I love Claudia's custom!

Bailey did not like this hat very much so we had to snap a very quick picture with her wearing it. Ok so the candy bribe didn't hurt either. I love having the Bushman's in our ward.

Raggedy Ann and Tigger. Somehow I don't mind being the one to watch all the kids while the mom's go and get something to eat. Can you blame me?

Did you know there are "Mountains" In Texas? Dec. 9th I flew to El Paso to Present at Region 19 "Together for Autism Conference" We snapped this picture on our way back to the airport. Andrea Cherry and Heidi also presented.

I have never met a nicer group of people than I did in El Paso. They were all so polite and helpful in getting set up for the conference.

Christmas Vacation is never complete unless you are baking. So I'm catching up with all my cupcake decorating. I found these snowman in a magizine and just had to make them. It was a lot of fun. They are marble cupcakes. My roommate Kristen is getting married Feb. 26th 2011 and asked for me to make her cake. She want's marble cupcakes so I had to try them out first.

I also have been dying to make a cupcake wreath. I bought a book three years ago from our school book fair. I've wanted to make it ever since. The leaves are chocolate and the cherries are red gumballs. It took a long time to make but I think it turned out ok.

The leaves kept breaking as I tried to put them on the cupcakes. It took lots of patience.

Gig'em Aggies and Friends Reunion

Last month was a great month. I had reunions with several old friends and families I worked for. Made me miss my days in College Station!

Arzu and her family came to visit first. It was great to see them I was impressed that Shayan remembered what CD's we use to listen to in our car when he earned RT time. We went and had Chinese food together. Unfortunately I deleted the picture of Arzu, Reza and I.

Next came my good ol' aggie friends. Ben's 30th birthday was last month and his girlfriend Holly tried to have a surprise birthday party for him. They were all in town for Crystal's Wedding the day before. Holly sent out FB invites out to everyone, but two days before the party Ben sent his own invites out to everyone. We all kind of laughed at him. We met up at Goode's BBQ. We had such a fun group of people at A&M when I was there. It was nice to catch up with everyone.

Ashleigh, Katherine, Ben, Jennifer, Nefilinda, Daniel, Jacob, Bryan and his wife.

Gig'em Aggies!!!!!!!

Autism Conference

Texas State Autism Conference was held in Corpus Christie on Oct. 7-9. I presented on Saturday for two sessions. It was a lot of fun! Alona's School sent her and it was nice to have someone to hang out with at night.

I had two Sessions on Saturday. I think the first one went a lot better than the second one. I had lots of people who want to buy copies of my Picture Activity Schedules. I've made about a hundered of them now. I'm just waiting for the Sales tax permit to come so I don't get in trouble.

The room was huge. It seated about 500 people. Don't worry not that many showed up. I had about 40 -50 in each session though. Last year there were several fights amongst attendees that this year they decided not to have make and take sessions. Instead the presenter did a demonstration on how to make each item. That's not nearly as fun and to talk for 90 min on how to make a little book is rather hard. Needless to say we got out early :) I don't think people minded though since it was the last day of the conference. We all wanted to go home. There was not nearly the attendance as there was last year.

One night we went out to eat with a few people from Alona's school. I think I'll just say it was an experience. Teachers can get kind of crazy when they are not at work.

Harry Potter Piano Theme

Family Reunion - DC & Gettysburg, Family Photos

We went and watched the changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown in Arlington. It was the HOTEST day of the summer. I think it got up to 109. I've never sweated so much in my life. My Uncle Don met us there and spent the day with us. He is a marine and had some really intersting stories to tell. Story 1: Arlington National cemetary got started because Robert E. Lee coudn't decide which side to fight on, the North or the South during the Civil War. He decided to join the Confederate, the North got mad. In hopes that he would not return home they buried soliders (who fought for the north) in his front yard. The cemtary grew into what it is today
Story 2: We had lunch at Iwa Jima that after noon. Uncle Don told us that Grandma Clarice, who is also a marine was one of the first to see the photo when it was sent to DC for approval to be printed. She worked in the office that recieved all of the journalist photos when someone in the office opened up the photo and said "Oh this one will be famous." Her and several others gathered around to look at it.

We went and spent part of the day at Gettysburg. My camera battery died for part of it. We saw a short film on Gettysburg and then just drove around the battle field. The kids were getting hungry and tired. It was a really pretty day.

I must admit one of my most favorite parts about the whole reunion was playing games. We got some games of the "Minute to win it" website. They were absolutely hilarious. I'll spare myself the wrath of my siblings and not post any videos of us doing them, but here are a few pictures. Abby and Alaina put on a puppet show for us. I'm not sure what it was about, but they had lots of fun.

And what is a family reunion with out family photos. It's a little hard to get everyone looking at the camera at the same time. We walked down the street from Jason and Dadra's house to have their Relief Society President take the pictures. Her kids were jumping on the trampoline while we took photos. Can you guess which direction the trampoline was. :)

Family Reunion Continued - Antietam

We went to eat lunch at the Pennsylvania Dutch Market. The Amish come and sell food there and they make some pretty good BBQ.

After Lunch some of us drove up to Antietam and visited Burnside Bridge. It was amazing to think about how much history took place in this area and how it shaped our country. Grateful for those who fought for what the believed in.... OUR FREEDOM!