Friday, December 11, 2009

Dec 2009? What???

Our turkey centerpiece.

How did December come so fast this year? WoW, time is just flying by! We did have a wonderful thanksgiving with a last minute change of Amanda and Chris coming home for the holiday! What a joy it was to see them and have the whole family here for thanksgiving. The added bonus was finding a new house for them just ten minutes away... another 10 days and they will be making their move back to Arizona.

We have been doing some holiday traditions along the way in December... we went and saw Santa at the mall and danced with Mrs. Claus and listened to her read the book The Night Before Christmas. Princess P was totally into dancing and listening to the book. She even won a prize! Mrs. Claus said she thought she was just the cutest thing dancing with her!



I was not very happy with the Santa people this year! They would not allow me to take my own photos, even though I bought some of their one shot photos! I love capturing the kids with Santa and him chatting about their list... but no I get one photo that doesn't fit in my photo book properly because of the way the take the picture! ERRRRR!! I "accidently" took one photo of the kids on his lap, unfortunately the kids did not know I was sneaking it in and a couple of them we not looking at the camera. I did send them an email telling them that we will not be back unless they change this policy.

The house is coming along with our decorations... the tree is up... the kids did a wonderful job of decorating again this year. I love that they can do most of the decorating and they explore all the ornaments and the memories of the "special ones". I got the stockings hung and my door is decorated. Poor Tyler can't seem to get the lights on the house yet because he had to clear out the branches off the tree in the front yard. Boy do those mesquite trees grow like weeds!
Here are some holiday spots in our house.





Opps... these are Christmas Crafts we are working on.... gifts....

Friday, November 13, 2009

Monday, November 9, 2009

I'm lonely so I'll chat...


Well, I'm not really LONELY, but I don't have anyone to brag about my weekend. I already showed off my work to my facebook friends.LOL
This was a productive weekend, well at least in the creative crafting section of my life. Friday we finished up the 8 turkey shirts. They were a big hit and so easy. All you need is a plain shirt, some acrylic paint, and some hands and a foot. LOL And here is what you get....
I also had a sewing day with my Mamma. She and I had a blast embellishing an outfit for Kylie's big 8th birthday.

And finally with my small group (group of 4th-6th girls from church that I try to lead) we had a get together and made cute flower clips for our hair. I made a turkey.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

WOW, been away.... update!









OH ME OH MY... life has been busy but of course blessed and fun!
Halloween is quickly approaching and this years family theme is Star Wars... unfortunately I only have 2 of the 5 costumes ready.

We just returned from our fall break vacation... we had to crack open the coin jar and have a garage sale, but it was WAY worth it! We headed down the Mexico with 3 other couples and had the BEST time. There were 11 kiddos and 8 adults. We had each family make one dinner a night so I only had to cook one time! That was just one of my favorite things about the trip. The beach was perfect! We were a little concerned about the H1N1 flu but since all of our kids have it in their classes her in the states we figured, what's the difference?
Here are some pictures of our fab trip! I had been fighting migraines for two weeks before and I didn't have a one while we were there... tells me I need to move to the beach, right?

Thursday, July 2, 2009

San Deigo 2009

Our June has ended with a trip to USD for the Dobson Basketball camp. (The kids and I ride along and go to the beach while Tyler works his basketball camp.) We got to stay in the dorms. It was actually really nice, with two bedroom and a full kitchen/living area. There was no tv so it was a little slice of heaven. However there were 7 kids and 3 adults in this small dorm. But it worked!

We headed to the beach the first day and caught some huge waves for our boogie boards. Tanner was in the water FOREVER! Of course he got burnt on his face only to the point of blisters. Poor guy!

Tanner with shades and hat so he doesn't fry anymore.
The family at the cliffs in Point Loma checking out the tide pools.
Kyky loved to board but mostly build dams and castles in the sand.
The girls lovin up the beach!
Princess P loved playing in the sand and jumping in big holes!
Point Loma on top of San Diego.
Tyler doing a little boarding. (He and the other coaches played more than the kids!)
My oldest loved to hang at the beach too. She loves to be in the water and just sit and watch the water.

The other kids had a few burns from missed sun screen. We were grounded from the beach because of the burns for one day. Total torture for me since the beach was a mere 3 miles away and I had to sit around in a dorm all day with crabby sunburn kids and no tv! But the next day we were back at the beach and got a couple more times in from begging dear Dad for another day at the beach to play. Here are some photos of our trip. We also went to Point Loma for some tide pools and a national monument.

Summer, summer timmme!

Remembering the good ole days of listening to summer music with the windows down in the yellow bug. Gosh I actually miss that little car! I'm thinking how fast this summer has already gone by! First starting the summer with a camping trip, next a week at camp at UCYC camp as a camp group leader for Kelsey's group, and then a week of rest (LOL) vacation Bible school, and then onto San Diego. WOO and that is just the half of it!

Here's the crazy waterslide at camp we called it slide and die. (I was not brave enough for this one!

Girls on top of camp from our Geo Cache Hike.


Kelsey rock climbing... all my group got to the top. (I did not try this one either.)


The worship time at camp was the best. The lessons were fun and the music was amazing. (I still am having a hard time hearing because the worship center was a rockin!) God is so great and through this camp I saw kids just purely worshiping the Lord. AMAZING!!


Here is a link to see the video of camp.
http://www.ucyc.com/Junior2Videos2009.htm

The boys had a weekend with our small group for a paintball weekend in Flagstaff. They had a great time too.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Mud vrs The Dumas Family



This year for memorial day we decided to head up to the mountians and camp. We started off the trip by backing out and then deciding to go ahead a try. We knew the weather was going to be wet and cool. One of our four had a bit of a cough, but we decided ok, lets go for it!
We brought along a friend and our two dogs which meant to were really loaded up! The drive up was really good, not alot of traffic. We started looking for a place about 5 pm and ended up stuck with a place at 10:30 pm. (When I say stuck with a place that is very literal! We got stuck and just put up the camper. Note alot of stressful moments of backing a camper and tempers here.)
We finally got to into beds about 11 ish and had a nice rain to put us to sleep. The next morning we had to make the camp area livable. Ty and I moved pine needles in all our mud areas so the kids wouldn't be falling and tracking mud all over.
We played most of the day under the cover of tents from the rain occasionally having a dry spot to run through the forest on a quick walk.
The kids had some new toys to play with bb guns, archery sets, and knives.
Can't believe we didn't have a run to the hospitial! We went fishing in the evening to Black Canyon Lake but didn't catch a thing.
I didn't even get out of the car because Princess P had fallen asleep and it was just too plain cold to be out there fishing.

The kids had a quick fire before the rain started up again and then we were off to bed. The next morning brought sunshine and a ray of hope that we might actually get some of the mud to dry up so we could get out of the mud. We decided to go to the lake and fish while the weather was nice. We headed for Willow Canyon Lake. There were open spots for parking at 9am on a holiday weekend so we were excited. Then tons of people filled the lake and there wasn't an open spot on around for fishing. Luckily we had saved a spot before the rush and were actually catching fish.
Of course every-time a kids caught a fish there would be some sneaky fisherman come in and put his pole right next to ours. Poor manners in my opinion! Trying to steal someone else's fishing spot! BOO to them!



After fishing we headed back to camp. We caught 6 fish and thought we would eat them for lunch. But after seeing big black clouds start to come in we quickly decided to load up and try to get the camper out of the mud. WE DID IT!! Yeah, and even on the first try as the rain quickly started fall. We threw everything in and jumped in the car and headed down the mountain. On the way home we had a blow out on the camper. Luckily the sun hadn't set so we had light. We had a really nice officers pull in behind us so no one would run into the back of us on the busy highway, and our spare was not flat! Yippee! We did it and the kids loved camping! So for all the downs at least we caught some fish!

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Mothers Day Tradition






I love my mothers day book and each year I put in a new picture I'm amazed at how fast the year has flown by. This year Kelsey and I went on a shopping day for my mothers day gifts. The kids were very generous this year. (He He) I got some perfume and a couple of new shirts and some earrings.