Christmas Festivities part 1

Well we have sure been busy so far this holiday season. Here are a few pictures to highlight what we have been up to this season.



Savannah performed as a doll with her dance class at a retirement center. It was fun for her and the old folks loved it.

Dan, Savvy, & Paige were once again able to go to Ballet Idaho's production of The Nutcracker. The girls said they thought this year was even better than last year. They loved going with their dad.

This year our bishop asked Dan to be Santa, and be in a skit with Savannah. I honestly am not sure why they would ask a Dad who has small children to pretend to be Santa? However, Dan was a sport and said he'd play the part. When he got there he realized he'd forgotten the beard! The bishop told him to go on stage anyways. Well anyways it was clear he was not the "real" santa. He gave a great message about the true meaning of Christmas despite being called an imposter.

The next few pictures are of the girls decorating our family tree. This is one of our favorite activities of the holiday season.



Here are all the kids this Sunday in their dresses (and suit for Abe) that I made for them. They were excited to finally be able to wear them (except for Abe- he despises the tie and dress shirt!)


Here he is pre-suit.....

and 30 minutes after wearing the suit. Doesn't he look nice and cozy?

The Spelling Test

As I was going through Savannah's weekly schoolwork folder I came across her spelling test.

This was not too surprising to me because she almost always gets 100-105%. Spelling seems to come easy to her. What did surprise me was what I saw written on the back...

Yikes! I guess the kids sitting next to her better keep their eyes on their own paper. What a feisty girl!

Festival of Trees

This last Saturday Savannah had the opportunity to play some Christmas music on the piano at the Festival of Trees. Dan played the duet portion for her. They played "Jingle Bells" and "Deck the Halls". It was fun watching the two of them play together on a beautiful grand piano while people were passing by. They did very well. I wish I could have gotten some video, but I was lucky to get these few shots while holding Abe and trying to stop Lydia from bouncing away. The trees this year were really neat! I wish we could have seen them all, however, there were so many people that we left ASAP.



Abe is super cheery here. It was funny because anytime I pointed the camera at him he got a silly grin.

Pierced!

Lydia has been asking for earrings now for awhile, so when we went to the mall the other day we had them done. It was amazing how good she was. She sat perfectly still. She really wanted those earrings! Also, she is perfect to let me clean them and never touches them. A true girly girl!

Halloween Party

This year to pass the day on Halloween we had a party. We had family over for chili, homemade doughnuts, carmeled apples, and other tasty treats. Everyone came in costume, and after we ate we had a pumpkin carving contest.

Here is the "Pirates of the Carribean" crew. My favorite was Jana's tattoo on her neck. Nice touch.


And here we have Snow White and her Knight in shining armor. This is the first time that I can remember Jordan in a costume. I loved it!


I haven't dressed for Halloween for quite awhile, but I did sport this witches hat. Abe wore his costume for about 5 minutes. Sigh. Oh well I'm sure next year he will love Halloween.


Here is Savannah as the Little Mermaid & Grandpa Malan as the "Great Pumpkin" (what a sport he was to wear the provided costume :) ).


And Paige (Snow White) and Lydia (Belle) with Grandpa.


Dan sported the M&M costume. He was great to have a party when he wasn't feeling tops. Strep throat will do that to you.


Paige loved that Jenna (my soon to be sister in-law) was Snow White too.

Here's all the kids together, sadly this was the best shot. Well this is a true picture of how life really is.

These two can often be found bickering (to say the least), but they do love each other.

Jenna carved a mean pumpkin!


This year Savannah carved her own pumpkin by herself. She did a great job! I was truly amazed! We had a vote for the winning pumpkins and Savannah and Paige tied for the win (imagine that :)). Savvy truly deserved it for her bat pumpkin.


Even Ms. Hailey showed up for the event. She looked a little spooky with her wig and make-up. Here she is carving a green pumpkin.


Here Dan is carving a pumpkin for Little Paige.


This picture obviously has nothing to do with Halloween. I just like it. The other day at the dinner table Abe just fell asleep with his face in Dan's hand. It was so cute I started snapping photos. I just love the peace of looking at a sleeping baby

Savannah's Halloween Recital

Yesterday was Savannah's Halloween Recital. She did very well despite her nerves. Here are some pictures and video. Great job Savannah!

Fire on Cake!

My mom turned 55 on Saturday, and to celebrate we had her over to our home for a birthday dinner. For dessert my mom once again chose an Angel food cake which the girls helped me decorate. Savannah wanted to put the candles on her cake, so we let her.....
There was a small argument, but Paige was finally allowed to put the last five candles on the cake. So here it is all 55 candles. Dan was saying we would need to light them fast, I was kind of thinking the candles were so close to each other we'd could probably get away with only lighting one before the rest caught fire. When we did light the candles there was a bit of surprise.....
Goodness! I didn't know if mom would be able to blow the candles out before the whole house caught fire.
It took a few tries, but with a little help from Dad (I missed that shot, darn it!) she was able to get the candles blown out. The whipped cream frosting did get a little runny, but luckily that was the only harm done. Next year I'll make sure to have a fire extinguisher handy.

Fall fun

The leaves are coming down and on Saturday we started round 1 of raking. Our pile was not as large as to come in the next few weeks, but it was enough for our girls to play in. They sure had a lot of fun.......

Pumpkins Galore

Yesterday we went out and harvested our pumpkins from our garden, and were happy to have 7 pumpkins from one plant. Our kids just loved to pick their own pumpkin. A couple are still green, hopefully they'll orange up by Halloween.

Here are the girls picking out a pumpkin.

And here are all the beauties that we grew on the side of our shed.

Then today Paige, Lydia, Abe and I went with Paige's preschool group to the pumpkin patch and went on a hayride, picked a couple more pumpkins, fed the ponies, and went through the straw maze. We had a great time.

Here is Paige with the pumpkin she picked.

Here is Lydia with her little pumpkin.

In the straw maze Lydia made a little friend. They were so cute, holding hands through the maze.

And here is Mister Abram- he slept most of the time but woke up in the end for this shot.

A happy boy

It's so very interesting how different each child is.... from Lydia who as a baby it was exhausting to try and get her to crack a smile to little giggly Abe. He is laughing and smiling all the time. I actually grabbed the camcorder about 5 minutes after he was laughing at Dan, so this is the tail end of his giggle session.

Krafty Kaleidoscope

For those of you interested, I have started another "krafty" blog with my sister and sister in-laws to show different projects we are working on. It is called the Krafty Kaleidoscope and you can find it here . Also, if any of you have some project you'd like to share on our blog we'd love it. Just e-mail your project at meremalan@yahoo.com.

Abram 7 month pictures

A couple of weeks ago I took Abe to JcPenney's to get some pictures taken, and they got so many cute shots it was very hard to pick. But here are some cute pictures of my baby boy.