New Years Eve 2008.....

For New Years Eve we had Mike's family (Steve's brother) - Jan's Family (Steve's sister) and Ashlee's family over for a get together. We started off with some delicious pizza from The Pie. I have never in my entire life seen a pizza that HUGE!!! Mike kept telling us if we ordered just one extra large it would be plenty for the entire crew. I did not think one pizza could possibly be enough for that many people so we decided to order a second one just in case. Well.... If you have not had the chance to eat a pizza from that place I will warn you now- THEY ARE ENORMOUS!!!!! And I might add, DELICIOUS! We had tons of pizza left over. It was nice of Mike to suggest pizza because I had been so sick and was not up to making food for a lot of people. Good call, Mike! We loved it! YUUUUMMMY!

Brayden and Luke on the other hand enjoyed the CANDY!

Come to Grandma "T"s house and the candy comes out...

Ashlee made these delicious cookies on a stick for us to enjoy. (By the way I still need the recipe) Very tasty! Luke kept sneaking over to the table to get another one. He reminded me of the "cookie monster" GIVE ME COOKIES!!!

The Howell kids enjoyed the "fake food" down in the play room. "This doesn't taste like the food mommy makes!"

Hey that pizza looks almost as good as the pizza the adults are eating upstairs.

I love to watch their creativity. I snuck down several times to snap a few pictures of these cute kids. They play so well together. I think they had a great time.

Addison wants her brother to share the milk.

All this food made her thirsty.

The girls decided to open a pet hospital downstairs. I have a huge box of stuffed animals so they were set for the night. They were so much fun to watch as they played together. They had made a little reception area where the pet owners would come and get help. The tissue box Sidney has was used for the sad people who would come with their sick or injured animals.

They did operations on the animals. Notice the instruments they used. Screwdrivers, hammers, drills. YIKES! Hope I don't get sick at their hospital.

Kendra took much care in bandaging up the wounded pets. Tissue paper sure comes in handy.

These kids played downstairs for HOURS!

Nathan stayed entertained with the "Bop-it" game and movies

Mike and Suzy brought a card game to play with everybody.

It was called Bang ( I think). It was pretty confusing at first.

It seemed to me that everyone understood the game but me. I hate learning new games because it always takes me so long to "get it!" By the time everyone is ready to quit the game for the night I am finally understanding it! UUURRRG! (I did win once without really knowing how I did it! Go figure!!)

Jan on the otherhand picked up on the rules of the game almost instantly. She was like a pro. She was even giving her big brother, Steve, hints and clues on how to play!

I had asked Ty and Ash to bring over their Wii supplies so that we could play it all together but the card game lasted much longer than I expected. They decided to play with the Wii instead of joining us in the "Bang" game. I felt bad but they seemed to be enjoying themselves as well.

They had just recently bought a Wii for their home and loved it. It is really a fun game for the entire family. There is bowling, golf, boxing, tennis, baseball and several other games. FUN, FUN, FUN!

STRIIIIIIKE! Way to go Ash!

Addison (which up until this day I had called her Madison-ooops) was amazing. She was so happy and seemed to be enjoying all of the activities going on around her.

She was passed from one person to another but seemed to especially love being with her Uncle Kendall. It was fun to watch her interact with him. She especially liked to play with his beard.

The last time Mike's family came to Utah to visit, Addison was just a baby. She has grown so much over the past few months. It was fun to see her sweet personality coming out. I love this picture of her kissing her big brother, Nathan.

Playing with her mom .....(and her tongue)

Daddy's little girl.....

She looks like she is getting groggy.... Time for bed!

Tyson had to leave early to go to work but Ashlee stuck around for a while longer. I love these pictures of her playing with Brayden. She is a wonderful mom! You can sure tell she loves her boys.

These are some pictures of some art projects that we did with the grandkids over the Christmas Holiday Season. They are made with their feet and handprints. April and Ash have posted some cute pictures of the kids (on their blogs) actually doing the activity- tracing, cutting and gluing them. I just wanted to post these picts. for my own record. Fun memories with the little ones :)

It probably seems odd to have these posted with our New Years pictures but that is when I actually took the pictures. New years evening when the kids were playing down in the toy room.

Ash left early to get home to put her boys into bed. Hey Ash... You look darling by the way. Thanks for the cookies you brought. They were a HIT!

Jan, Kendra and Kendall left early too.

It was fun to see them once again.

They are a lot of fun to be around.

What a great family!

Photo moment before putting Little Addison to bed.....

Anticipation for the countdown to the new year....

Mike and Suzy wanted the kids to be a little quiet during the New Year Celebration because the had just got Addison down to sleep. They had been traveling and the baby was not sleeping well at nighttime. They did NOT want to chance waking her up.

But I did not make it easy for them to be quiet when I pulled out the party hats and noise makers.

They had the popper guns going off.... the Kazoo thingers blowing.... and the confetti throwers.

I had this on video so that I could post it but once again my blog will not upload it. Surprise, surprise, surprise!!! I had to just pull these few pictures off of the video so that I had something to show the night celebrations. So the quality of these pictures are not good at ALL! At least you can tell they enjoyed themselves. Cute kids!

HAPPY 2009 TO MIKE AND SUZY.....

We have had a memorable 2008. I can't believe how fast it flew by. We have grown so much closer in our marriage. My only wish is that we could have met 30 years ago. The one good thing is that we have Eternity to spend together. I can't get enough of this man. He is absolutely the best thing that has happened to me in my life. I love him with all of my heart! ( I look like CRAP in this picture because I was sooooo sick) Poor Howie has to put up with all of my illnesses. Thanks to the kids at my school I am always sick! It sure gets OLD!!!

New years day was spent just lounging around playing Wii and other games with the kids. But first thing in the morning as I was making breakfast for everyone, I almost burned down my house! Remember the cookies I mentioned that Ashlee brought the night before? See picture below......

Looks great right? Well the next picture will show what it looks like after spending 4 minutes in the microwave!!!

Nathan had asked me to warm it up in the microwave for a few seconds. At the same time I was taking the bacon and eggs off the stove so I quickly stuck it in the microwave and pressed start. Well guess who forgot about it?!!? A few minutes later it started smelling like something was burning. I kept checking the griddle which I was cooking on and finally turned it off. I thought something must be wrong with the wiring on it or something. After another minute or two my entire main level was filled with smoke. THEN... the microwave timer went off! YIKES!!!! I forgot all about the cookie for Nathan and now it was TOTALLY toasted! I just had to laugh because it reminded me of a story from our daughter Heather. Luckily Howie is very understandable. The house STUNK for days. Seriously Smokey Yucky STINCK!!!! I could not get rid of the smell no matter how much we aired it out or how much air freshener we used. Just a note to all those out there reading this. It is probably NOT a good idea to heat these cookies in the microwave- especially if you are busy cooking food for company.

Just hanging out and playing games.....

I wish Mike and Suzy lived here in Utah. We don't get to visit with them as often I we would like. I am so happy when they call and say they are stopping by. I really enjoy their company. They have a wonderful family and they make me feel so welcome into the Howell family. The kids are absolutely adorable. Very, very cute personalities and fun to be around.

Well 2009 is now here and I look forward to many more fun memories with Howie and our families. We have grown so close together and I am excited to see what the year 2009 has in store for the two of us.