Mia Is Now 4!!!

We had a great birthday for our Mia. She had a princess cake of course and then she opened up her very first doll house! It wasn't quite like the one Dad made for Cami, but she loved it nonetheless.

Thanksgiving Day Pictures!

Here are some of our pictures from Thanksgiving!

Mia's Dance Recital

Mia had her 1st dance recital. She won for the cutest one there! Holy cow, I never thought I would love to see ballet until now!

Christmas Season

This happened a while ago, but this is us decorating the tree. We actually did this the Monday after Thanksgiving. It was as crazy as ever. We had 10 strands of lights that did NOT work. I finally decided to just go to the store, buy new lights, and hung them over the top of the bad ones that were wired into the tree.

Respite Care Ball

We really ought to make going out as adults without the kids more than an annual event. :) I still can't believe Danny didn't show at his own company's table-- a free dinner no less!-- but I've had words with him, and if he doesn't get a date next year, I'll set him up with my hair dresser so he can be there too. Richards, we missed you as well. And your kids missed out on having Connor babysit them... they could have stayed up 'til midnight! :)









Adam may be better than Derek at a lot of things, but not the Charleston. So who thinks Adam will be taking dance lessons this year?

When Abba comes on, look out-- Alyson is The Dancing Queen.

The dancing was fun, but I don't know if anything could top these guys. The auctioneers were incredibly entertaining, not to mention lucrative. I think they even put the Micromachines spokesman to shame.

I know the Weaver men like to gripe about getting dressed up and going to this dinner every year, but you've got to admit, it's pretty cool to have played such a major part in this annual community tradition that has brought some of the same people together for 25 years.

I only wish I would have recorded Fred as the MC... especially when he referred to a certain someone as "BO"-- and a group of people unwittingly cheered.

It was a great night. Even Derek admitted to having fun, even though he did try to convince all of us to ditch the event to go see "Quantum of Solace."

Thanksgiving Day Plans!

Hey Everyone! I've been told that we need to be brainstorming ideas for fun stuff to do this week, so I've been thinking. In addition to going to see Bolt, (for which we turned down an invitation to a birthday party which held a private showing in the theater for one of Ethan and Reid's friends, just so we could wait and see it with all of you!), here are a few more ideas:

* Ethan would really like to do another Untalent Show. Anyone game? Mention it to your kids and get them thinking of ideas...

* My kids and I would like to do the turkey trot in Old Town... is anyone else up for it? I know Cami is having gum surgery Wednesday, and I have no idea what the recovery is like for that.... anyway, here is the link for the registration http://admin.timberlinetiming.com/TurkeyDocs/2008App.pdf or http://www.timberlinetiming.com/index.cfmaction=dspClientHome&clientid=10&showBanner=1 If we decide to do it, I'd like to sign up by Wednesday because it's less expensive than on race day. There is a kids' "Gobble Gobble" run which is 1/3 mile or four city blocks long. It's free, and starts around 8:45 am. The main race is 4 miles, starts at 9:00 am, and any kids 12 and under who want to run it with their parents can run for free in that race as well.

Derek is working from Tuesday morning through Wednesday morning (cross your fingers that he'll get some sleep that night) so he probably won't make it for the race and may need to go home to sleep for a while before joining us later in the day.

* We need to hold a gift exchange drawing for the cousins sometime that we are all together.

* FYI Derek works Friday and Sunday (but not Saturday). My sisters are in town until Saturday morning, so my kids and I will be going to Denver Friday to spend time with my family. We will come back Friday night unless we plan on moving the party down to Parker Saturday... Little Weavers, how long were you planning on staying in FC? Richards', you're leaving Sunday, right?

* I think a game night would be fun, but I guess that depends on how much energy any of us have at the end of the day.... Richards, do you want to bring your Settlers game? We have ours too...

Can't wait to see you all!

Weaver's Wrestling Again!

Preston was very aggressive, but just didn't have the moves needed to beat most of his opponents. His one win was AWESOME though!
This is Connor with a very familiar Weaver pose, for some Weaver's (Derek, this means you win!)
This is the ferocious Adin in action. He is wrestling a girl by the way and no he didn't beat her. Although Adin only won one match, he barely lost the other two (both by 1 point).

So, I spent my Saturday at a wrestling match! Sounds like old times! Connor, Preston, and Adin all started their wrestling career's today. It was actually a lot of fun. The nice thing is that they don't know enough to have it matter. I think it's probably better that way. So, how did we fare? Connor was 1-2 for the day, Preston was 1-4, and Adin was 1-2. The funny thing about it, even with our very poor record, the kids absolutely loved it! Adin was by far the most entertaining. I knew I was in trouble when, after he won, he started pointing to the crowd saying, "Oh yeah, oh yeah!" NO LIE! I wasn't sure how my reaction would be going back into my wrestling past, but I really did enjoy it and better yet, so did the kids.

Happy 34th I'm Old, I'm Old!!

TYSON at sourdough

With grandpa boyd, He loved the bus

I cannot even believe it. He would have been 34. It tears my heart to think of all he could have been or would be doing. I am also glad he is in a better place, but I miss him immensly.

Update #2

Once again, we got NO pictures of Alyson and me together at the race. It was a fun get away, I promise.

The next weekend Grandma and Grandpa took our kids up to the Fort while I competed in my last triathlon of the year. The 70.3 World Championship. It was fun, but a flat tire during the bike kept me from hitting my goal. At least I finished and still had an impressive race considering.

This weekend we're up there again for the Respite Ball and then Thanksgiving where we'll see all of you again!

Update #1

Our Ft. Collins weekends started with Halloween. These are our "scary" kids before we went up to the Fort to trick or treat with the cousins.
Halloween weekend was also the BYU game. On the day of the game, we went for a hike. Mia and Luke enjoyed hanging out together!
We were the craziest BYU fans there!
The boys loved cheering against the home team!

I had to get rid of the lizard picture. Besides, I haven't updated much. Mostly, this is for the RIchard's because we've been in Ft. Collins the last couple of weekends...

Meet Gidget...

The newest member of the Richards' family!

Gidget joined our family last night. We are so exctied to have her...note I could not get a single Richards' child to hold her for the picture...including me! Shelby was "DYING" to have her own pet. This was her $130.00 (for pet plus housing and 2weeks worth of live food) choice. She says she needs to warm up to her before she holds her...hmmmm, lizard anyone???

Meet Shelby's other newest friend...her packing tape body double...

And the reason it looks just like her...

is because it was made from her own body! We wrapped packing tape (sticky-side up) on each part of her body. Then we re-wrapped twice (sticky side down) and cut each peice off and re-taped the cut line. Finally we taped all the parts together. This is what we got. This was a fun school project she was so excited to do. She was one of ten students in her class who were chosen to do the entire body.

Belated Halloween Wishes

Grandma and Grandpa's Halloween party at their church was AWESOME!!!

I don't know if the Richards got to see Grandma and Grandpa dressed up, so I had to post these. Check out more on our blog.

Hooray for dad, again

HOORAY for DAD!!!
Adam may be a great tri athlete, but his daughter is wonder girl

A cheer from the home front for another great race by the Adam dad.  We love you dad, Connor, Preston, Batman, Wonderwoman.  Wish we were there!!!! the kids.

Almost a grandkid camp

Hot chocolate and pancakes
The good witch

Real Angels 

Well if we only had the Richards kids and Jane, we would have a grandkid camp.  7 kids allocated to grandma Nori.  It is like a batch of worms.  They play really well together, but they talk about the Richards kids.  Luke says his favorite is Alec.  Perhaps if Alec were here, Luke would be GI Joe and not the witch.  I think he likes the dresses the best.

We finally got them all to bed last night and Luke and Mia were only quiet when I put Maggie in her cage in their room and told them they could not wake Maggie up.  They were asleep in no time at all.  Of course they were up before the crack of dawn and dresses up all over again.  Luke claims he is the naked strong man, but only until he gets the dresses on.

Grandma Nori has to keep reminding Ethan that she is older and knows more than he does, but I think he is just ignoring her.