Dashing Through December

Christmastime is one of my favorite times of year! Everyone tries to be a little nicer, a little more patient and more thoughtful. It's also one of the busiest times of year which can make being nicer, more patient and more thoughtful really hard! But after all the end of semester projects and dance programs were done it was nice to have some time with my family to just BE.

Among the many Christmas happenings we took the kids into my Dad's office (he's my OB-GYN) for the ultrasound to find out what kind of baby we were having. The boys were very anxious for a sister. Blake made it very clear that we had enough boys in the family and that he wanted to name the baby Emily (after a friend at school). When the ultrasound tech confirmed undeniably it was a boy, Blake and Bryson both said "Noooo!" Blake followed that with telling the tech and my dad that we should name the baby Emily anyway because that would be funny! After we got home and the news settled for the boys Blake came to me and said we should name the baby Rockstar. I told him that was fine but we might have to change his name after he was born. We even put Rockstar on his Christmas stocking!

But back to Christmas. Here are my cute boys all dressed up after Christmas Sunday.


Bradley


Bryson


Blake


Brock fell asleep on the way home from church so here we are sort of still in Sunday clothes after his nap.


Boys and Penguins


So cute and sleepy Christmas morning!


Let the unwrapping begin!

After all the Christmas Festivities were over we still had a week left of vacation and a fun visit from the California cousins--Jake, Regan and Alli with Aunt Flower and Gene. We spent one night at Amazing Jake's playing around and eating tons of food!


Chase took Brock on this little teacup ride. He loved it! Head banging and swirling and all!


Blake, Bryson and Bradley on the train. It's cute and goes around in circles a million times. They love it!


Jake and Alli in one car and Katelyn and Regan in another go on a really fun and fast--forward backward spinning thing. I clearly have no idea what the real name of this ride is but it looked intense!


Although it might sound crazy to buy snowballs, this was one of the funnest activities I've done with my kids. We had a giant snowball fight courtesy of Bahama Bucks and their ability to make really good snowballs! Here is the girls team ready to aim and throw.


The boys team was equally confident in their abilities!


Bryson and Jake


Regan (running in the back) with Katelyn and Alli.


Brock was the smart one gathering up more ammo!


At some point the boys decided to use the lids from the coolers as shields. Nice engineering boys!


Blake is just having a good time. This was taken before he got pelted in the head by a snowball!


Megan running to attack some unsuspecting target!


Kaley trying to show off her mad skillz!


Brock and Adam were totally content picking up all the snowballs on the ground and putting them into whatever container we would give them. Sooo Cute!


Apparently at some point Brock got hungry.


Adam is trying to decide if Brock is an Evil Genius or completely Insane!


Guess I was a little hungry too! I blame the hormones.


Brock with a mouth full of snow. I think he ate more than he threw!


Now he's concentrating on building instead of eating.


Two of my cute boys and their little pile of snow. Life's simple pleasures!

Fun Family Pix--and some BIG news!

The day after Thanksgiving we went to take some family pictures for our Christmas Card. Aside from sending all our friends and family our well wishes for the Christmas Season, we wanted to announce that we are expecting Baby #5! The boys are really hoping for a sister but the odds tell us to play favorites for something blue. We should find out right before Christmas. A perfect Christmas Surprise!


Blake--5 1/2


Brock--almost 3


Bradley--11


Bryson--8 1/2


The real feelings behind the pictures!

Fallin' for Mickey--in the Fall--Again!

Just when you thought it was safe to go to Disneyland and not run into us, there we are again! This time it was work related. The dance studio took our Company dancers (cute niece Katelyn's class included for the first time this year!) to dance at California Adventure. So our family, Chris/Cassi's fam, Kaley minus Chase, Mom, Dad and even Grandma-ma headed for the Happiest Place on Earth for a fast, fun weekend.


It appears we're all looking at something we've never seen ever before in our lives. How can that even be?


Brock and I sit for a spot of tea . . . cups.


Bradley on the carousel. All the boys had red shirts on that read: "Caution. May require supervision." That was about right!


Bryson clearly happy to get out of town and have some fun!


Blake, Katelyn and Megan wait for lunch with Grandma-ma in the back. We love to eat at the Tomorrowland Terrace and watch the Star Wars Jedi Training Academy show. No jedi's volunteered for the show from our group this trip. They were too hungry! A Jedi's got to keep up his/her strength you know.


Scott and I in Toon Town. I think we've decided to take up a permanent residence here! We fit in a little too well.


Brock's favorite ride of the whole trip was the Teacups so Scott braved it with Bryson and Brock late Friday night. (He--Scott--is not really a spinning type guy.)


Cute fam foto from Saturday in California Adventure. Leave it to Disney to put gigantic Christmas ornaments in A Bug's Land. Lots (but not all) of Christmas decorations were around here and there which was fun to see.


While the older boys were on the bumper cars Brock found a place to run around in A Bug's Land. Here he is on a giant popcicle stick bench. The only 10 seconds he sat still!


Dad aka Grandpa found the games on the Boardwalk with Bradley and the two came away with armfuls of fun. Of course that led to a few repeat performances with Grandpa and other grandkids. Everyone came home with lots of fun "souven--ears!" HA!


Tired boys crash after two days of non-stop fun!


One is really never "ready" to go home but at some point the car does have to head that direction. Our dance show was really great--Katelyn's class was fantastic and another amazing Disneyland trip will go down in the Grover Family History!

Halloween of Heroes!

As I have posted before, I take most of the fun out of Halloween by picking a theme for my kids to dress up. This year was Super Heroes. We had Captain America, Iron Man, Batman and Superman who were joined by 2 Wonder Women (aka cousins Katelyn and Megan), and another slightly smaller in stature Superman (aka K&M's brother Adam). Scott and I even went a little crazy and dressed up this year too.


Bradley as Captain America


Bryson as Iron Man


Blake as Batman


Brock as Superman. (He flew away just after this picture was taken!)


Scott and I were pseudo Heroes as the Budget Ninja and Vampire. (I was on a Twilight kick and found this t-shirt that read "Only Vampires will love you forever!") We crashed Mom and Dad's block party, headed to our own neighborhood party for more candy than you could imagine, then made our final stop and Grandma-ma's to let the kids show off their costumes and consume a few pieces of their loot. A fun--and somewhat exhausting--but still fun Halloween!