Christmas Day

The girls always open PJ's on Christmas Eve, and this year was no different. I always love how sweet and cuddly they look in new pajamas. Here they are, on their way to bed in anticipation of Santa's visit!

I was having camera issues, so I didn't get a ton of good pictures on Christmas morning.

I decided I was going to cheat on everything for Christmas dinner because our family is small and our kids are really bad eaters. I just didn't see the point in going to all the work of making a big meal. I bought a pre-cooked prime rib, Country Crock mashed potatoes, brown-n-serve rolls, gravy in a jar....you get the point. It was the nastiest meal I've ever had. I would rather fast next Christmas than eat what we had today.

Before we took our first bites.

Everyone was happy with their loot. Just another year in which I swore I would tone down Christmas, yet it only gets bigger. Next year, I'm revamping Christmas....really.

Favorite Gifts -

Haylie's - MP3 player and video camera
Katie's - Pillow Pet and "Junie B. Batman Smells" and "Junie B. Dumb Bunny" (both of which I am sure are amazing reads)
Audra's - Camera and a play phone with make-up

Too bad I didn't just present them with a list of 100 items before Christmas and ask them what their favorite things are. Instead, now we have 92 new pieces of junk, but only 6 that they really wanted. Yes, I am a grinch. I will say that it was fun watching them open all their presents. My personal fave was the kareoke machine. I'm trying to not take it personally that everytime it's my turn, everyone suddenly has things to do in the other room....

Merry Christmas to all!

Diciembre

December's highlights....

Haylie turned nine! We had our friends, the Thornocks, over for Sunday dinner to celebrate.




There were some cool little Christmas exhibits set up in Brownsville. We went down one night to enjoy them and braved the cold 60 degree weather. Don't worry, I had the kids and myself put on long underwear, hats, scarves, and mittens. Plus, I brought hot chocolate.

A night at the park

The annual gingerbread house decorating. We usually do this every year with our Plumas Lake family, so it was a little lonely by ourselves this year, but the kids kept on saying, "Now it really feels like Christmas!" It was a fun night!

Trevor turned 33 and got a Honda Pilot for his gift. Lucky dog.

Kids Christmas Bingo (or Jingo, if you're my Mom) at our house. Everyone won! A great time was had by all.

Audra and her cute friend Addie

We spent Christmas Eve with lots of our friends at the Torgesen's house. It was a fun night, with yummy tamales (tamales are everywhere here at Christmas time), lots of other treats, and good company.

Some of my sweet friends down here in the valley. From left to right: Amy, Jamie, Michelle and yours truly.

Totaled

Last night was a pretty typical Friday night at the Cardon house until about 8 pm. We usually have pizza and then watch a movie together. The kids were worn out last night, so I decided to feed them dinner earlier than usual and start the movie earlier - before Trevor got home from work.

At about 7:20 he texted me letting me know that he was on his way home. The girls and I were already snuggled down, eating popcorn and watching The Year Without A Santa Clause. I looked at my phone at 7:45, and figured that since Trevor hadn't shown up yet (his commute is only 10 minutes) he must have gotten stuck at the building - a usual occurrence.

At 7:50 my phone rang. I saw that it was him, and when I answered the phone he sounded sorry....the usual tone when he gets stuck at the building. Then he said that he had been in a car accident and needed me to come get him. As I repeated what I was hearing and started to ask questions, all three of the little girls burst into tears! He said that he was ok, but that we needed to drive on the highway until it was shut down. From there, follow the ambulances, fire trucks and police cars. Quickly, we changed out of our pajamas, said a prayer thanking Heavenly Father that Daddy was protected, and rushed out the door.

We got there as everything was being cleaned up. The man who caused the accident had a cut on his arm, and had already been hauled off to jail for not having any documentation (he was illegal), no licence, no car registration and no insurance. Luckily, a police officer had witnessed the entire accident - from the time the man swerved (and stopped) in Trevor's lane to the point when Trevor's car finally stopped spinning and hitting the center divide.

Trevor walked away with cuts, bruises and 3 major goose eggs - one where he broke the windshield. We are so thankful that he is ok.

Today we went and said our final good-byes to our little Camry and took some pictures. The Camry has served us well for 7 years and 173,000 miles (totallying 250,000 miles on the car).


This was my favorite part! Who has an "Emergency Preparedness Policy and Procedure Manual" in their car (nursing home administrators do!)?!?! I envisioned him grabbing it as soon as he stopped spinning. "What to do after the accident?"

Upon examination of the car, Audra told Trevor the he needs to be much more careful. Then the whole way home when she spotted cars on the highway she yelled, "Watch out Dad! There's a car!"

Camping, Cruising and Catching Up

My friend Anna and I took our kids camping at Garner State Park in October. She home schools too, so it worked out swimmingly. It was beautiful, quiet and we enjoyed wonderful weather.

The Rio Frio -- and it is one frio river. But we had a great time swimming and swinging from the big tree swing.

A deer wandered into our camp! There were lots of deer, skunks and armadillos.




Purdy.

Enjoying a snack on a cool tree on the river.

Hiking. The kids were troopers. At one point we got attacked by bees, but other than that, it was a great hike!

Coryann, Haylie and Brook

A couple of days after we got home from camping, my wonderful Mom flew out to watch our kids while Trevor and I went on a cruise for our 10 year anniversary. We went to Jamaica, Grand Cayman and Cozumel. We had so much fun!

The water in the Caribbean is amazing. I saw shades of blue that I didn't even know existed!

This made me super nervous!

Jamaica

One of our Thanksgiving high lights was having the BYU basketball team play in a tournament in South Padre Island. It's been a long time since I've seen that many members of the church in one place! BYU won!

Last week our sweet friends the Leinwebers came out from Plumas Lake to pay us a visit. It was so fun to have a taste of home.

Last year Merrilee got Michael and Trevor matching PJs for Christmas. These boys live to watch sports together, while ingesting every type of junk food known to man. And that's exactly what they did.....

And now, my friends, you are up to date. More to come...tomorrow Haylie turns nine!!

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!

One of my favorite (and least favorite) things about the Church down here in South Texas is that it's relatively small compared to all the other places we've lived. We have 11 units in our stake; 9 of them are Spanish speaking, and TWO are English! Yes people, this is south, south Texas...almost northern Mexico!

Due to the fact that there really aren't all that many kids, all the girls here of all ages are friends and get along so well! We decided to have a girls late night party at our house on Friday night (we sent Trevor to the movies!). We had 13 girls - from 3 to 13 and a great time was had by all!

Let the fun begin! Waiting for more friends to arrive.

Pizza! These girls put down 3 family size pizzas, lot of jell-o, chips, cookies, cupcakes, 6 quarts of lemonade and lots of candy!

Twister!

The big girls painted the little girls' nails.

The Beauty Table

Some of the little girls took a stab at doing the big girls' makeup.

The big girls were such good sports!

Movie Time

Working on the puzzle

Still working....

And finally, just when the brothers arrived, the girls' persistence paid off!

Audra's Style

Three and a half. It's really not the best phase of life for the Cardon girls. We don't have terrible twos. My two-year-olds are sweet. It's my three year-olds. Cardon girls are sweet and sour at this age.

Audra is fitting the mold quite perfectly. Like most little girls, she loves to dress herself. When the other girls were younger, I used to change their clothes before going into public. But, I'm over that now. I mean, who doesn't know that little girls like to dress themselves??!?!? I love that she loves how she looks. I mean, wouldn't you, if you were wearing outfits like this....

The Witch's Birthday

This year, as Katie's teacher, I am learning how much the child does not like to put her pen to paper. Her penmanship is so perfect and neat though. Since writing is not her favorite activity, I was so impressed with her when she spent a lot of her free time today writing a story (it is very similar to a book we read last night called "Ladybug's Birthday" so I know she was listening!).

After writing it, she kept on saying, "Oh Mom! I am just so proud of myself." So cute!