Dad's Chirstmas present this year

McKay was in charge of dad's Christmas present this year. He chose for us to do one of three kids of humanitarian aid kits through the church services. Or we could serve hours at a humanitarian center. The humanitarian center is in mesa and so we decided to do some hygiene kits. My friend Tammi likes to get involved in our project so both our families headed to the dollar store one might for Family Night and we got the stuff for each of our families to put together 8 hygiene kits. we then assembled them to ship out.

Santa

While I was home I was able get a picture of Brody with my dad after he got home from one of his long days working at the local mall as Santa. He loves his job and comes home with great stories about the kids that came to see him that day.

We also went to the mall to get a sibling picture with "Dad" Santa. My mom said she emailed me the picture, but I didn't get it so I stole this one from Face book.

Someone got this picture of us all L to R Me, Elias, Mckay, Deianeira, Sam, Nate, Deveren, Mandi
Yes much to their joy the youngest two will be passing me up very soon. Like its such an accomplishment !! :)

Grandpa Borgia

My Grandpa Borgia Passed away on December 12th. Im still working on getting pictures gathered from family so here is one of him a few years back holding one of my nieces and one at my cousin Natasha's wedding. He went in for Gallbladder removal surgery and once they were in they found his gallbladder to be gangrened. After the removal his body was taken over by an infection that they tried to repair with another surgery and the doctors were optimistic until he contracted Pneumonia. He then passed away quickly and peacefully.

I traveled to California with my sister and our babies to attend his funeral services. As sad as the reasons we were together it was great to be together with the whole family. All but 2 of the 29 children were there and all my Aunts and Uncles along with of course Grandma.

The services were really great and very beautiful. Various grand kids were able to contribute by singing or poetry reading my mom gave his eulogy of his life. It was so great to hear about his life and more details on the little things I knew about him. Things like why he chose to go into Chiropractics and subsequently law. How he "stole" grandma away from his friend who was interested in her. How he came to be interested in the gospel. That was even more touched on When My Uncle Todd read Grandpa's written testimony which gave a wonderful account of his and his families conversion the gospel. It was such a great way to say See you later Grandpa, thanks for everything you have been and for everything you have done for us. He was such a great example and I know many of his grand kids strive to make the most of our lives so he will be proud of them. Love you Grandpa :)

All the grand sons were pallbearers or honorary pallbearers while the grand daughters all sang his favorite song "Families can be together forever" grave side.

Grandpa joined the Coats Guard in his youth so they were present to present a flag to grandma. It was very touching when the representative of the coast guard present the flag to Grandma and Gave condolences for her loss on their behalf.

Grandpa learned to play the trumpet in his youth and was a member of a couple of jazz bands in his retirement. he was put to rest with his trumpet.

One day I will have to get a picture with the gravestone in place.

1st grade concert

Courtney had her first grade concert. Her class sang "Jingle Bell Rock" We were serenaded to this song for the days leading up to the big night.

Court is loving having Mrs Rocky back at school. We will be sad when she has to go again to have her baby.

Aiden was so proud of his big sister!!

Christmas tree

Of course the kids wanted to get right to decorating the tree and they thought of plan to keep Brody away from it. Tyler had a plan for the whole lay out and everything. They thought that if Brody was in his play pen then that would keep the tree safe.
So on went the decorating.

Unfortunately Brody lost interest in the play pen and started to protest.

So we settled on plan 2. This worked for the rest of season.

Although he could still reach some ornaments, luckily I have some felt ones and those are the ones we kept in his reach.

christmas tree oh christmas tree

Once again it time to get bundled up in a jacket or sweater and traipse off to the Home Depot parking lot.......to get our Christmas tree. The kids were asking and asking when we could go get it, so finally we had a free evening so off we went.
The older boys had more of an opinion this year and kept pointing out where there were holes or bad spots as Chad picked up each tree for our viewing pleasure.

We finally settled on one and got wrapped and ready to go home. Man...hard work I tell you! they were pretty funny about getting "Tree blood" on them oh that sticky goo.

blog book

The reason I blog is to keep my family who live out of state updated on what we are up to. The second reason is so that I can get my blog book published at the end of the year. I have not scrap booked in probably two years, but I am OK with that since my book satisfies that need. I still plan on scrap booking for each kid but until I have the time to do that again i am satisfied. I love working on the book at the end of the year. I get to recap the year and cant believe the time that has gone by.

leftovers

After dinner i gathered the left over hens and made noodle soup for dinner the next night. Talk about some great left overs, Super Yummy!!!

Thanksgiving

We had Thanksgiving at home this year. When the kids told their grandpa about how they get their own turkey on Thanksgiving we knew we had to do it again and officially make it our tradition. I cooked 6 Cornish game hens....
and the rest of the must haves...potatoes, green beans, jello, personal bottles of Martinellis.....

The kids again had a great time digging into their own birds and immediately looked for the wish bone.

They loved having their own bottles of Cider and Aiden kept making us "Cheers" with our cups.

It was a very yummy meal and we had a very nice relaxing time, just us. We had great dinner conversation about what we are grateful for and many laughs and good times.

Here we all are with our wish bones.

I have sacrificed my back yard

Ok time for some major catching up......
Chad wanted to make a track in the back yard.....well it's not like he was keeping up the grass or anything, so I said fine. He and the boys spent a couple weeks planning the track out and then constructing it. It is finally ready and he loves driving on it. The boys love it too and ask constantly if they can go out and drive their cars. My rule is that they can't do it without dad. Chad even had one is buddies over to try it out....he gave his stamp of approval and went home to make one in his back yard.
They stand up in the "garden" area (or what once was the garden) to drive and the younger kids marshal for them.

Family Pictures nov. 2010

All I can say is.....I LOVE them! I cant decide which ones to print for our wall. I may just have to a huge collage of all of them! :)
We met my friend and Photographer (of Yellow Pear Photography) in a parking lot in Glendale and she made some magic happen. I love how she always makes me look prettier than I really am. The kids were great! The older ones harder since they are old enough to over think their pose where as the little kids just stand and smile without much thought. She got some great shots and it was funny because Tyler kept doing a funny thing with his shoulders and then when she got to Chad and me, Chad was doing the same thing...like father, like son.