Oh, the drama!

It seems to happen more often than not--when I get ready to snap a few pictures of the kids, something "tragic" occurs.

Our latest incident was the first Sunday in December. The kids were all looking lovely for church, and the girls were in their new holiday outfits, so I wanted to capture the moment. No one could figure out where to stand. In the process of regrouping and scooting, Lily got her foot stepped on!

SO, my kids looked cute for their photo, only Lily's injury prevented her cute little smile from showing up.

Laughing at silly Dad

Doing our best to all smile!

Evie's clothes

If you ever see me around town with Evelyn and you question whether or not I care about her appearance, please know that I do. However, she is 2. And she LOVES her pajamas. In the morning when I ask Evie to go and get dressed for the day, she simply changes into another pair of pajamas. They might match. But probably not. They usually fit at least!

During church each Sunday, Evie will at some point remind me that when she gets home, she needs to get her jammies back on. Every now and then I can get her in clothes in order to leave the house, but more often than not, when we get home...we are back into pajamas!

Evie is a little fire cracker, and we love her. Pajamas and all.

Multiple children

Children are wonderful. They are fun and happy and playful and bring all sorts of adventure into a home! All parents of multiple children know one thing: the more children, the larger the potential for messes! It is particularly the younger siblings you have to watch out for, because there is simply more available for them to get into!

A couple of weeks ago Alexis made us some of her delicious brownies. After putting them in the oven and setting the timer, Alexis left to go play. Evie must have been paying close attention, because within a couple of minutes of Alexis leaving, Evie reached up to the counter, grabbed the not-yet-rinsed-out-batter bowl and was on the ground in sweet brownie batter bliss!

Caught!

But not really caring...

Enjoying every little lick!

Gingerbread Train!

Our family experiences with gingerbread houses actually started out rather simple. Our first couple of times were simply with graham crackers, icing, and candy. Then we moved onto the prepackaged kits. Those were fun because they stood up much better and actually looked like a house!

The problem with the the kits, however, is that none of the candy is any good. What good is making a gingerbread house and decorating it with candy that is no fun to pick off? Seriously. Isn't it all about the picking-off of the candy???

After a couple years of enduring the yuck candy, we decided to buy the kits and then buy a bunch of candy that we wanted to put on instead. I liked this solution--still simple, but far better in the snackage department.

Then along came the wonderful idea in the Family Fun magazine about making a gingerbread train. I held onto that idea for a couple of years, and then finally acted upon it. We made a train two years ago, and we had so much fun decorating! It was definitely a lot more work, but it was really enjoyable to do.

We repeated the train, upon kid's request, this year. I decided to go a bit bigger and make a car for each of us to decorate. Seven cars. That is a triple batch of gingerbread. Lots of rolling and cutting and baking and icing and assembling. We bought lots of candy. Far too much. But we need options, right?

We all decorated, some with more patience for style than others. We all ate candy and laughed and played and ate candy and decorated and ate candy...and ate a little more candy. Finally the trains were done and placed in their annual location of the top of the piano. They barely fit, we had too many cars in our train!

It was so cute, but next year we are probably going back down to five cars. Mom and Dad will just have to assist.

Lily, Evie, Alexis, David, and Joe

Some of the candy!

Evie placed all her candies by herself!
David hard at work

Lily

Joe and Ez

Evie sneaking a taste of the candy!

Keri and Alexis

Alexis's creation

Beauchamp Family Train 2009 Artists in order by car: Joe, Evie, Alexis, Ez, Keri, David, Lily

Trimming the tree

The kids had a great time helping to put together the tree this year. I think it gets more fun each year that the kids are more able to help with the decorating. It makes it special to watch the excitement of the holidays begin to glow in their eyes.

Joe

Alexis and David "fluffing" the branches. That's right. It's fake and pre-lit. I love it.
David

Lily

Evie loves Minnie Mouse!

Joe, David, and Ez

And then there was December...

Our family had great intentions this year. We planned to put up the tree early, decorate the house, and start having all of our holiday fun and make it last the entire month of December!

Well, we did get the tree out and up the day after Thanksgiving. We were well on our way to our goal....but we didn't finish decorating that day because mom didn't have the little sticky pieces for the back of her wonderful 3M hooks. So, she laid the stockings under the tree and wrapped the garland in the corner around the book basket. She left the nativity scene in the garage.

Time passed and mom consistently forgot to get the parts for those darn hooks, so everything remained only half done for quite a while! She finally did buy the parts she needed, but then decided it was just too late to make the effort to finish getting everything up! (How pathetic, right???)

The one thing that we managed to do was our annual decorating of a gingerbread structure. We've done many houses, but our kid's favorite has been the train. SO, we had a seven-car train this year. It was a bit too big, but tons of fun.

December flew by. We are not really sure where it went. Some goodies were made and passed out, but not as many as we had initially planned. Family photos never happened. For that matter, neither did our annual family Christmas letter! (which we are actually aiming for making at New Year's, so stayed tuned...)

We are suddenly on the tail end of December but looking forward to the new year...

Living a Dream

David is a HUGE USC fan. I think it all started a couple of years back when David was the right size to fit into a USC jersey that Ez's uncle had given him when he was young. That was just pretty cool to be wearing Dad's old jersey. Then David got old enough to really enjoy watching and understanding football and his love for USC football grew from there.

Last year Ez took David out to Stanford to watch USC play there. That was pretty special, and David has been looking forward to the chance to get to go down to LA to actually see them play at the LA Coliseum. Well, David and Ez were finally able to make that happen just after Thanksgiving.. It was a whirlwind trip--there and back in one day--but they had the time of their lives!

Ez and David were particularly lucky that Ez has become friends with someone on the inside with USC football, and they were able to get really great seats to the USC vs. UCLA game--for free!

Upon arriving in LA, they picked up the tickets, and then went out to eat at the ESPN Zone. They had a great time eating man's food (ribs). Yes, the food was good. BUT, the bathroom was better! It was fun and fancy--and filled with TVs so that you don't have to worry about missing any part of the game during a personal emergency!!! There was also a very nice man willing to pass you a paper towel after washing your hands. David was very, very impressed!

They got to the Coliseum early enough to walk around and really explore everything. Ez and David loved their seats. David brought enough money to buy himself a USC foam finger, which he proudly used in cheering on his team. And the best part? USC beat UCLA. Hooray!

Ez and David had a great day, and real special time together they will not soon (or ever) forget!

***DISCLAIMER***
Ez and the rest of the family still really love BYU and hope that one day David converts and decides that BYU is acceptable of his enthusiasm.

Ez and David

USC stretching out




Ez and David among the large crowd

David was excited!

80's Day

There was yet another fun dress up day at school that Alexis participated in--80's day! We had a good time coming up with her costume. I only had learned about it the day prior so we didn't have a lot of "prep" time, but given our circumstances I think we did pretty good!

Essentially, we just found a few of Alexis's old clothes and used them--things that are a little too short or snug! I didn't have leg warmers on hand, and knowing it was an essential part of the outfit, we found an older pair of striped tights and cut those up to use as makeshift leg warmers. We added poofy bangs and a side pony, but I personally think the winning touch was her earrings. Grandma Jane just happened to be heading to our house that morning, and she just happened to have saved this crazy pair of yellow earrings from the 80's for just such an occasion, so Alexis was wearing some vintage 80's jewelry too!

I think she looked darn cute, and scarily close to what I remember wanting to look like back then!? (Should I really admit that?)

Halloween

The kids were able to dress up for Halloween at school on Friday if they wanted to, except for Alexis. At their school, the 6th graders don't dress up for Halloween, they get to do crazy hair day instead. It is kind of a bummer since everyone else gets to dress up, but we still had fun with her hair.




In the afternoon on Halloween, David's flag football team had a game, which they won! David got to play quarterback a lot of the game, his favorite position, so he had a great time.





By evening time, the kids were quite ready to get out and trick-or-treat! This year, Alexis went as a chef. I made her a really cute apron(so that she can still use it), and she looked great! David was the "no face" type of guy, and Lily was more an extension of herself than an actual costume--she was a pop star. Joe was a Storm Trooper, and of course, Evelyn was Minnie Mouse. The weather was perfect for going out at night, we didn't even need jackets! After getting home, they all had a great time going through their candy and making all their "trades".

Halloweenish Stuff

We had a great time with Halloween this year, perhaps because we actually have all of our kids old enough to be excited about it. The kids had a great time carving pumpkins. Of course there is always the initial gross-out of feeling the insides of the pumpkin, but after that, they all had a great time! Unfortunately, Evelyn was so wiped out that she fell asleep drawing while the kids were busy gutting and designing!

The Saturday prior to Halloween we had our Trunk or Treat party at church. The kids had fun playing games, getting prizes, and running around collecting candy as well! The favorite with Evie and Joe was the cake walk, which they each did a few times.

Monterey!

My birthday falls in the week that the kids have off of school. Ez had to head up to Redding to help teach a class for a couple of days starting on my birthday, but for my gift Ez took us to Monterey for a few days and got us a family pass to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

We stayed at a cute, funky little place in Pacific Grove. Part of this inn has an old Victorian home converted into hotel rooms, which was really fun to stay in! I don't think that it would be great to stay in the winter months because the heating system was questionable, but we all had fun crowding in and being together.

The Aquarium was so much fun! We haven't taken the kids there for about 7 years, so it was great to see it all again. We were so busy playing and looking and learning that spending an entire day there felt like nothing! We loved getting into the little water areas where you can pick up the animals and learn about them. The volunteers answered every one of the kids questions, and we learned so much! We went back the next day as well to revisit our favorite parts.

Our favorite dinner out was a trip to Bubba Gump's, which is always really fun and a great treat since there are none near us! We finished the night with ice cream from the Nestle shop! Of course, he trip wouldn't be complete without a visit to the Dennis the Menace Playground and a visit to the beach!

We had a great trip, mom had a great birthday gift, and we can't wait to get back!