Thanksgiving Kindergarten Play

Last month Ella had a Thanksgiving play in her Kindergarten class at school. She was very excited to be a pilgrim girl and if we didn't practice each night she would say..."mom if you are going to be good at anything you have to practice!" There is my little 15 year old in a 5 year old body! Anyway, she did great and our family came and Aunt Natalie and Grandma came to watch as well. We also stayed and had her Thanksgiving feast for lunch with her.....it made me remember why I brought my lunch to school everyday :) Nice work Ella!

Here she is in all her glory!

Mrs. Adams class

Ella's crush is on the front row with his hand up...Grant. She came home a few weeks ago and said "mom..I have something to tell you. I love Grant and he loves me!??!!" wow



Her brother wants to be part of the fun!



Channing had to try on the bonnet as well :)

Thanksgiving Thankfulness!

This year for Thanksgiving we spent a few days and my parents house. They are only about 40 minutes away, but since we were the only ones coming this year and Ragnar was off of work, we decided to make a real mini vacation out of it. Thanksgiving day was yummy as always and we had really nice weather. My mom and I did a little black Friday shopping and we enjoyed hanging out with my parents and sister. The kids love spending time there. On Friday, we spent the morning taking a couple family pictures. My mom took some for us and I saved the best ones for the Christmas card....but here are a few I thought were cute.

I feel like these were engagement pictures! Haha...I think I like them better than our engagement pictures!

Our little sweetie!

Like Father...like son!

Ok are they spitting images of each other or what?!?!


This is just a silly candid one but I thought it was kinda cute

My little buddy

Ella sure loves her dad...and she is always striking a pose

I took this one of my dad and I love it :) He looks handsome!

And here was our three Thanksgiving buddies. We sure are lucky to live close to them and are indeed VERY thankful for them and for all they do for us!

And to top off the Thanksgiving weekend, we got WONDERFUL news.......THE NBA LOCKOUT IS OVER!!! Ragnar woke me up in the middle of the night when he found out with a huge fist pump in the air! He was so excited to have something to keep him busy at work again and to be able to do what he loves. He was like a little boy waking up on Christmas morning when he got ready for work on Monday! It was a huge blessing for us that work will continue and he will have something to sell! We continue to have lots to be Thankful for!

Naomi's Wedding!

While we were enjoying a visit from Chira and the boys, Ragnar was in Germany enjoying his older sister Naomi's wedding! We are so excited for Naomi and Sharlon. I was sad I wasn't able to go with the kids, but so grateful that Ragnar could be there. All of his siblings were there, even Daphne who just visited Germany...came back and surprised Naomi by being there at the wedding. Ragnar said it was a great trip and he was so glad that he was there for her and so grateful that she met Sharlon and is happy. Since I was not there, I wanted to at least post pictures for our "journal/blog" sake. Ragnar tried to take a bunch for me...so here are some :)

In Europe you have to get married "civilly" first because they don't recognize the church, so here is the civil ceremony in Holland where Sharlon lives.

Lunch after the wedding. The happily married Naomi and Sharlon

Cute Mia. Ragnar said she was adorable!

Belana, his other neice...she is growing up so fast :(

And the nephews..3 of them are his sister Pamelas boys (Fabian, Aaron, and Jared) and one is Sandras (Jonas the third one).

The next day they were sealed together in the Frankfurt, Germany temple (this is not actually the Frankfurt temple, it is just a temple they drove past). Rags says it was a little cold, but a nice day!

Naomi and her parents and Sharlon and his parents.

Naomi and Sharlon and all of Ragnars siblings. Daphne, Sandra, Naomi, Sharlon, Pamela, and him

Here we go again......:) She said YES...silly!

Naomi and Hellmut and Ursula

Ragnar with Naomi....she looks beautiful!

The next day they had a reception in their hometown Duesseldorf, Germany.



I thought the m&m's of them were cute. Congrats Naomi and Sharlon! I can't wait to come visit and finally meet Sharlon!

Halloween Visit

In October my sister in law Chira and her two boys Caden and Coleton came to visit us and my parents in Houston. Ella and Cavin were so excited to play with their cousins. They love having cousins and are so sad that now all of them on both sides of the family are far away. We enjoyed the upcoming holiday and dressedup in grandmas costume box, decorated pumpkins, made sugar cookies, had a sleep over, went to visit Ragnar at work and played in Clutchs corner, and had a fun time together.

Here is Indiana Jones, Clown Caden, and a firefighter

Cavin always stayed in the same costume...he sticks with what works :) Ella is now a princess and Caden is the firefighter

Ella was always changing...now a ladybug :)

Channing got into the fun to:)

Time for pumpkin decorating!! I am not too adventurous and haven't started the carving stage yet!

Here are our pumpkins! Cadens proud decoration!

Cavins pumkin

Ellas.....

and....we had to include cute little Coleton cheesing for the camera!

Onto cookies....there was a lot of dough ;)

And the sleepover.....not really much of one.....Ella left around 10:30 because Caden and Cavin were still talking and she was tired from school...so she slept with me, then Cavin woke up Caden so he went to his moms room and then eventually Cavin came too....so all kids slept with their moms.....not really a sleepover success! I think they are a little too young still! We had fun catching up though and are so glad they came to visit! (I wish I had pictures of Ragnar work and church, but I didn't have my camera :(

Halloween 2011

Halloween this year has come and gone. The kids enjoyed the celebrations. We had a church trunk or treat and they got a lot of candy and enjoyed playing the carnival games. Ella was Jesse for the church party, but wanted to be "Aurora" for Halloween day. I wish I had a picture of Cavin and Ella as Jesse and Woody, but Ragnar had the camera in Germany!

Here is our princess Aurora!

Woody sporting "Bullseye" thanks to his older cousin John who we miss :(

Channing is our sweet little thumb sucking ballerina

Here are the cuties

Here was a little Jesse walking around who wanted to take a picture with Woody and Bullseye. Cute! We only trick or treated for an hour because the kids were pooped and INCREDIBLY slow walking around, but we had a nice Halloween!

Channings Entry to Food!

So if you know anything about our family, you know we love food! We are excited to report that Channing is a true Hartzheim. Her love of food has much room to grow, but she started off great! This Halloween she ate rice cereal for the first time. I know many people say, she is 6.5 months, and she is just now starting food??? Yet for me if they are content on breast milk, then why bother with the mess! She had her 6 month appointment and was 18.2 lbs and so she is coming back down the charts. and now she is old enough now and was showing a lot of interest in food, so we upgraded our little baby to something more solid....and she loves it. I am afraid when she starts getting the real tasty food, we will be eaten out of house and home! She is a cutie and such a happy little lady!

Testing out the spoon before we begin!

Here we go......

YUM!!!

The only issue we had was her addiction to her thumb! After every bite she would stick her thumb in her mouth...so the solution for now is holding her hand while she eats :)