New Year New Beginnings

Well it has been a very long 5 years since I last posted and much has changed. We have now been without Steve for a little over a year and we are still adjusting to all the new things that are happening in our lives. We have moved to Utah and bought a home in Syracuse. The kids and I are loving our new home and being closer to family. Our new ward is wonderful and we could ask for a better neighborhood. The kids are all doing good in their new schools and we continue to work on moving forward in our lives without Steve. This holiday season has been a little hard but very nice and relaxing being able to enjoy each other and having Austin visit with us and being surrounded by wonderful family and neighbors who have made us feel so loved. I am hoping to start blogging again on a more regular basis with my new years goal of being at least once a month. We look forward to a new year full of endless possibilities and adventures. I hope that you will all have a wonderful New Year and that we all remember the love of our Savior and with him we can be okay with any trials that come our way. Love Cheralyn

Sienna's Birthday

Sienna had a wonderful 5th birthday this year. On her birthday Grandma Suzanne made her pancakes and cut up Kiwi (a new fruit to Sienna that she really likes. Grandma Kris send her a beautiful blue dress with butterflies on it that she made for Sienna as well as matching socks and blue butterfly hair assessories. Her birthday was on a Sunday so she got a special breakfast and got to open her gift from both her grandma's. Grandma Suznne gave her a necklace and a tithing box that has a lock and key. The next day on Monday the 28th we had her birthday party. She decided she wanted a ladybug party for her birthday this year so I got to work printing ladybugs and decorating everything all up. She had 4 friends come to enjoy the fun. We were able to have some fun outside since the weather decided to give us a good day. We went on an egg bug hunt, wrung flowers with hulahoops, had a ladybug flower beanbag toss, pinned the ladybug on the flower, and we also did musical bugs. I made her ladybug cake and little baby ladybug cupcakes. She got lots of great gifts including the dolphin pillow pet from mom and dad that she has been wanting since Christmas time. She is growing so fast and its hard to believe she is going to be going into kindergarten this next year. Boy how time flies. We love you Sienna!

Sienna's 5th Birthday Party

Photo album created with Smilebox

Flowers

My birthday was December 20. The kids and my mother-in-law put together a wonderful dinner and had these beautiful flower and balloons for me. They were so nice to have around for my birthday and the holiday.

My sweet husband got me these beautiful poincettas for Christmas. (What a stinker we were not suppose to get each other anything but I was really surprised and greatful beacuse they are wonderful).

Crochet Along Afghan

Most of you know I love to crochet and in September I came across on one of the sites I follow what was called a crochet along. A crochet along is when you are given pieces of a project each week until it is done and you don't know what it will look like until the end. All I knew about this project was the colors and that it would be an afghan so I decided I would try and do this for my mother-in-law for Christmas since she would be here and I knew she would love something like this. It was a lot of fun to do and see pieces of an afghan slowly coming together week by week. I almost finished it in time for Christmas day. I had the whole thing put together to wrap for her other then the border. I was able to finish the border before she left and this is the finished Afghan. I am very happy with how it came out and so was she.

Christmas Decorations 2010

Here is our beautiful Christmas Tree.

We have a potpourri tree a little of everything from my hope of a magazine tree bows and beads, kids handmade ornament, lighted ornaments, wood, metal, glass and plastic as well as stuffed animal ornaments. We just love our tree.

I got many wonderful Christmas cards yet again this year which is one of my favorite things about Christmas, getting mail in the mailbox. Don't you just love when you get something in your outside mailbox!

Here are a few of the Christmas art projects on display from years past.

We have a wonderful fireplace which made for fun decorating and hanging of stockings!

Our advent calendar house and some of my village pieces. I haven't had my village out in probably 6 years because of little people. I was glad to have it out this year even though a few pieces were broken Sariyah really enjoyed getting it out and the kids all loved looking at it all month long.

A few more village pieces and my big snow globe tree!

I just love Christmas decorations!

Christmas Morning

Santa must have loved the goodies the kids left because as you can see it is all gone as well as the milk.

Santa left wonderful gifts by the tree!

The stocking were all lined up in front of the fire place all stuffed with Christmas joy! Austin even got his own quart of Chocolate Milk (boy does Santa know him well).

Blaize was so excited to see his red present from Santa of which he was sure was his Chow(Lightning McQueen) Computer!

A little bit of the wrapping paper got torn so he could see into the gift a little and couldn't wait to open it.

The kids all got what they wanted for Christmas from Santa and enjoyed seeing what each other got from Santa and everyone else. We really had a wonderful Christmas day and hope that everyone else was able to enjoy their Christmas day as well! Merry Christmas 2010!

Grandma Kris's Gift for Blaize

My mom was able to be with us this year for Thanksgiving and left her gifts for the kids for Christmas when she left. I put them under the tree after we got it up and decorated. I wasn't sure I would be able to put gifts under the tree before Christmas due to Blaize (I thought he would not be able to help himself opening things) Much to my surprise he did just fine with leaving the gifts wrapped, what he did do was he liked to look at the gifts and hold them or play with them. Blaize would get his gift for him from my mom and take it all around the house he even used it as a ramp for his cars once or twice. He always held it by this one ribbon. He would use this one ribbon to twist around his cars even. As you can see the gift stayed in tack the whole month and he was able to straigten that one ribbon from all of the carrying. This was Christmas morning so the paper being torn at the top was from him starting to open it but I had to get a picture of it before he finished opening it. I have a couple of picture of him playing with his cars with the box once I figure out how to down load pictures off of my phone I will add them.

Merry Christmas Eve!

Blaize was probably the most excited to have Santa come he has been talking about the Chow (Lightning McQueen) computer that Santa would be bringing him in Red paper for quite sometime and really enjoyed watching as presents were slowly coming under the tree throughout the month. He just loves the tree and looking at everything that is on it. Too fun!

We were able to have Austin and Grandma Suzanne join us this year for Christmas which was really nice. The kids had a lot of fun having them both around. The kids have missed them both terribly now for some time and have really enjoyed them being here. We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas Eve and were able to stop and remember the true meaning behind it all, that being the birth of our Savior. Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve Gifts

One of our family traditions is that on Christmas Eve the kids all get to open one gift which is always a new pair of Christmas PJ's which are usually made by mom but this year I did a little after Thanksgiving shopping and got PJ's at a good deal so bought them this time although I have to admit that I really missed making them and probably won't buy them again making them is much more fun!

Sienna had asked me for a new pair of Buzz Lightyear PJ's since the pair she had last year are now too small and have gone to Blaize. Everytime Blaize is wearing them she says something to me about wanting another pair so now she has some along with matching Buzz Lightyear slippers. Blaize has had a thing for Spiderman this year, his birthday party was Spiderman themed this year as well so when I saw these I knew they would be a smash! They too have matching Spiderman slippers!

Savannah is my girlie girl and really loves nightgowns. I was excited to find this ICarly nightgown which is one of her favorite TV shows!

Sariyah got a pair of really cute bright pink monkey PJ's altough you can't see the pants in this picture she did really enjoy the bow that was on her box and wears it well!

Austin to is styling in his bright new PJ's along with the ever present hat!
Not the most flattering picture of Sariyah in her PJ's but now you can see the bright pink pants with monkeys all over them. I'm sure she will apprecite me pointing this out to everyone! :)

Santa's Cookies

The kids all decorated some cookies for Santa. Blaize really had fun with his!

Savannah and her creations!

Sariyah and Sienna too had fun!

Sienna is also wearing in this picture her new skirt that Grandma Suzanne made for her that she absolutely loves! The shirt she is wearing is not what goes along with it but she didn't care she just wanted to wear that skirt.

Now which ones to give the big guy!


Each of the kids chose one from their creations to give to Santa along with a snowman cup for the milk. Hope he likes them!

A visit from Aunt Janel & kids

Aunt Janel and her two kids, Hannah and Colton came to visit for the week. We had lots of fun just hanging out and enjoying each others company. The three little girls, Sienna, Savannah, and Hannah really enjoyed playing dress up and Blaize just liked watching them. Lots of fun.

Cute little Hannah loved playing dress up with the girls and being a dancing ballerina.

Christmas Spider

Last year my sister Shauna found this really cute story about Christmas spiders and how much they love the beauty of the Christmas tree and add their beautiful tinsel to the tree. Shauna made beautiful Christmas spider ornaments last year and gave it to me with the Christmas spider story. Well my Christmas spiders didn't let me down last year and as you can see they didn't let me down again this year. They left me their beautiful Christmas tinsel yet again.

Christmas 2009

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

We had a very nice Christmas season this year. We went and picked a tree from a tree lot. We looked for the biggest tree we could find that we liked. The kids had a lot of fun hunting around the tree lot looking for a tree. Once we found the one we wanted I had to hold it up while Steve cut it. I was buried in the tree. We found a 11-12 foot tree. It was beautiful. We had to use a ladder to put the lights on the tree.

Christmas Eve was also nice. It was a little different this year because we did not have any extended family here and Steve had to work and Austin was with his mom for the holiday but we were still able to enjoy the night together just me and the 4 little ones. I made their pajamas again this year and made hats to match all of them fit except Sariyah's hers was to small but she wore it for the pictures to make me happy.

Christmas morning daddy came home from work and we had a wonderful surprise for the children. Santa had left all kinds of wonderful things for each of them. Sariyah got a mp3 player and I-Dog, Savannah got the barbir balloon carriage she asked Santa for, Sienna got a kitchen with all kinds of food and fun to go with it from Santa and Blaize got a new Lightning McQueen bike of which he said "OH WOW" (one of his favorite expressions). Steve and I also got some fun things for Christmas. We missed having Austin around but know that he was enjoying his time with his mom and sister and brother. All in all we had a great Christmas!

Cookie Exchange

I was invited to attend a Cookie Exchange at my friend Ann's house. I decided to do peanut butter popcorn trees with m&m ornaments. They turned out really cute and yummy and were a big hit. I think I may have to do these again next year. This is what 6 dozen peanut butter popcorn trees look like. Had a great time and can't wait for another fun time with Ann and her family!

Santa

The kids got to see Santa at our ward Christmas party. Blaize, Sienna, and Savannah were very excited to get to see him. Blaize wasn't scared at all he was very happy especially when he was given a bag of candy to eat. :)

Christmas Lights on the House

As many of you may know Christmas is my favorite holiday and I love to decorate. This year while my husband was out of town for a few days I was a little inpatient and decided I would put the lights on the house by myself. Well I managed to get it done and only fell off of the ladder once. A few little bruises never hurt anyone right. :) Anyway it really did turn out nice and Steve thought I did a great job.

Jumping in Leaves

The girls have been talking about wanting to go outside and rake up the leaves and jump in them. Well we don't have very many trees in the front yard but they managed to rake up a little pile big enough for Sienna to jump in and have some fun.

Family Pictures 2009

Our Family Pictures 2009

We took our pictures by the Pudget Sound this year

The boys!

The Little girls!

All the girls!

I just love this shot of Savannah & Blaize it was one of the few pictures I got with Blaize smiling so good. He is usually such a camara hound but wasn't feeling much like it this day!

We took advantage of my mom being here and was able to have her help take our pictures this year which helped tremendlessly. We got alot of great shots. The pictures on the front of our Blog on the right are from this shooting. All of our children are growing so fast we can hardly believe we now have a teenager and a 2 year old little man. We feel truly overwhelmed but extremely blessed to have all of our wonderful children.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Thanksgiving Dinner 2009

We had set the food out buffet style we just didn't have room on the table with all of the people.

Janel, Hannah and Colton were able to join us for Thanksgiving


Hannah really enjoyed the food!

Here is my mom Kris showing some of the beauty of our table with the glasses and table settings (got to love our wonderful wassel sitting on the table doesn't every Thanksgiving table serve 2 liter bottle of your favorite soda) :)

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner we had all of our children here as well as Grandma Kris, Grandma Suzanne, Aunt Janel and her two kids Hannah and baby Colton. We had our dinner on Friday this year due to the fact that Steve had to work Thanksgiving day and Suzanne's plane didn't come in until the night of Thanksgiving and so it was planned for Friday instead and it was wonderful we had lots of great food and enjoyed having so much family here to be with us for the holiday. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!