Merry christmas 2012

What a wonderful time of Year. Our house is warm, the food is good, and the nights are long and cold outside. Our family is so thankful for all our blessings, of which we have had many! Thank you all for your love and generosity, we love you all!

Too much fun stuff to mention this morning, I'll add a update later when we get a chance to decompress.

The big news is... we are now one more strong here in the Orchard House. One wet nosed, black, brown, and white, 3 lb beagle arrived Via Santa Nelly (AKA Sister Rhodes). she has already gone potty outside once and survived a constant handling by the crew.

 Aaron made some videos of the chaos...

Ethan in his new fish pajamas gettting ready to start the paper mess....

Ivie playing Just Dance 4, she has played all of JD3 so she is excited about the new challenges.....

Amelia loves her Lalaloppsi doll and her "Brave" Dress up that Ivie Gave her.....

Ivie and Elise with Monster High dolls, they both light up, one is like a glowing ghost (along with a Creepy noise) the other is a "Frankensteins' Monster" complete with bolts in the neck and it lights up to reveal the inner skeleton....

Snoopy houses and all that

We had another really fun family night this week when we got a ginger bread house kit, and the kids put them together at the kitchen talbe.

 Ivie and Amelia were on one team

 Ethan worked on his own creation, notice he is using nutella insead of gross glue frosting?

 Me and Elise worked on this snoopy house...

 I did the structure and Elise did the decorations...

 Isobell and Lara worked on another one...

 Aaron's snoopy house was uniquely Aaron... sorta Charles Schultz meets Tim Burton.

 2 proud sisters

 Elise's final decorations... and goofball smile

and Ethan's creation with a "generator" on the far side......

Decorating early

Most years we barely throw the fake Christmas tree up in time for Santa to put presents under it. This year we were hounded early by the 6 and 8 year olds who are quite excited about Christmas this year. This was our family night activity, one of the best we have had, there was very little fighting or breaking things or even wandering off to other parts of the house to play video games (he know who I am talking about!)

Ivie has made a tradition, since she was very small, that she wears the Christmas tree skirt before it goes on the tree... I think somewhere we have a picture or her every year since she was about 4...

these 3 little girls were very helpful with the tree, Elise made sure we were getting the right branches in the right spot,  Isobell was helping with Ornament placement and ribbon (dis) placement, and Amelia was doing quality control.

I'm not saying that people were not goofing off last night , here is some evidence to the contrary.... Ethan singing  a song from fiddler on the roof, Aaron doing his impression of a low flying aircraft, and Amelia in constant motion...

But all in all it was a Very Good night!

Sunday at home

Its a strange Sunday at home. We went to Stake conference at the Church, (the main meeting was at the tabernacle with the overflow at the church) but they could not get the feed to the church to work. We sang a few songs then the Priesthood leader that was presiding said there was a little room at the tabernacle, but there was no hope that the link would get fixed. So we are home reading and writing Blog posts.

Aaron was ordained to the Aaronic Preisthood on November 4, 2012. Grandma and Grandpa Orchard, and Grandma Linda and Grandpa Bob were there, Aaron passed the sacrament for the first time... he was very small compared to the older boys. Grandma Linda bought Aaron this snazzy new suit for the occasion. he still wore his pajamas under the suit, because he is funny that way. it was a good day. 

This was last week when Isobell and Elise were preparing Family Home evening together.

halloween images

I have been such a bum about posting pics of the family. the 2 people that actually look at this at in grave danger of forgetting who the Orchard family is! here are a few pictures from around halloween.

this is Ethans "ID" photo shot; we made him and Ivie's doctors badges to go with their scrubs outfits.. 

 these two were sooo hyper, this was one of the clearest photos I had of them.. the rest of the pictures are just blurs. Amelia is a candy corn witch, and Elise is some sort of ballerina pirate... its like shes just rolling dice to come up with her outfit.

Cute pictures from outside

I'm telling you 'constant motion'!

Isobell was a beauty Queen, she was missing her ribbon that went over the front of her so she just looks like she's a princess... which she is to me.

Aaron of course is Sonic the Hedge Hog... that boy is obsessed. He runs with his arms back like Sonic and swears that it makes him go faster.

Here are some random moments form my mom's party that night; doughnut eating contest (on a string) and the Pinata. thanks Mom! 

face painted Kids

Lara took the kids to a school fair at Aunt Becky's School in Draper a few weeks ago. They all got to choose what they wanted painted on their faces. Isobell and Elsie have butterflys, Aaron is the victim of a werewolf attack, and Amelia is a Kitty.