Ivie's sweet 16

Ivie turned 16 this week! Lara stayed up with a friend in the ward the night before and made this awesome "little red riding hood" cake complete with wolf tracks...

we sang the song, ate some cake, then Ivie had to go baby sitting. It turns out that the lady she was baby sitting for did not need her that night so we whisked her away to go eat. We ended up at the Macaroni Grill in Orem.

Happy Birthday Ivie!

Todd's Birthday in the car

We spent the day in the car driving to St. George to deliver some paintings to Dixie Museum (sears Gallery). Ivie needs to have 40 hours of practice drive time to get her license in March, so she was the driver. She did pretty good for 7 hours on the freeway, passing tractor trailers and crazy drivers trying to get through central Utah ASAP. We drove Linda's Chevy Impala.... on the way back Linda and Bob called the car through the Onstar system, our music stopped and there was a phone ringing in the cars speakers. Ivie yelled " the Stupid space car made a call!" we couldn't figure out how to answer the car phone....

A few pictures from a warmer day.....

I looked at the temperature online today, it said it was -8 degrees. It felt colder yesterday when it was 3 degrees outside, but I guess it could be -8... anyway all the cold weather had me feeling nostalgic for warmer days. I started looking trough pictures of the kids and found these great images of the kids at Lagoon and the first day of school. Enjoy.

Izzy and Rose at Lagoon...

Todd and Amelia on the train that goes around the lake, and past the animals....

Picture from the train of the swings.....

Ethan age 14, 5' 10"

First day of school for the fair and golden (Elise, 1st grade age 6) and the dark and beautiful (Isobell, 3rd grade age 8)

Cute sisters and Aaron (6th grade age 11)

Trampoline girls with the movie screen in the background...

working Mom

Lara has the hardest of all jobs raising our kids, but on top of thast she has 3 other jobs. Between her calling as primary secretary, doing some invoicing for his dad, and the work she does for Family Chart Masters... she has little time left for other things. This is not a rare thing to see; Lara at work with two devices going!

Scout the Beagle... and heres to the New Year!

Happy New Year! 2013 is here......

We finally named the Dog; Scout, as in the character from "to kill a mocking bird". We couldn't it call it Toby (like Lara's Childhood Beagle was named) because Aaron's best friend Tobias goes by Toby (just by Aaron) Isobell really didn't like the name snoopy, I said that snoopy is a boys name and we could femme it up a bit and call her Snookie, but that was quickly shot down. Everyone likes Scout.

We have a interesting deal with the Universe; we stay mostly poor, but when ever when ever we have a need for a certain thing we are sure to find that item at DI (goodwill store). We had been housing scout in two laundry baskets tied together with a Sunday tie. So we put on our list " find Kennel at DI". and new years eve we went and sure enough there it was sitting there waiting for me. $15 seemed like a lot for me at this time of year, but much better than a new price. now if we could just get the kids to find their own playhouse.

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.