Normal and Boring

Now that the holidays are over and we have officially sent home all the family that has been visiting we can get back to our normal and boring lives. It has been an unbelievable last couple of weeks. We have played hard, lost sleep, laughed, and cried. We have had a blast with all of our family and we already miss those you are gone. But we are glad that we can officially be normal and boring again. At least just for a couple of days and then we can start it all over again! Some fun things that we have enjoyed this last little while. Our first snowman of the season, we built clear back before Christmas. But we were so busy we didn't get to share it yet. Ashtyn and I built two. A girl snowman in the backyard and a boy snowman in the front yard. They melted all the way just a couple of days ago but the kids have loved watching them.

We also wanted to share a little bit about our special service for Christmas. We were supposed to complete a service for mom and dad by Christmas and then share it with them. Well we decided to have a special night where we honored them and their 37th year of marriage. So we nonchalantly invited them to dinner, just said we wanted to have dinner with them before Chrimstma and everything started to get crazy. Then after the night was reserved we sent a special formal invite and we prepared for our special evening. We served them a special candle light dinner. There was music from the appropriate era and rose petals and candles and an appetizer and a delicious dinner and of course good dessert too. We had a little corner display that included a picture of their wedding day and a picture of them now and their wedding book and a sign that we had made for them that said: For Time and Eternity and then their wedding date. We danced together and just really enjoyed making them feel special for having such a wonderful lasting relationship. It was a night our family will always cherish!

Then I also wanted to share cute pictures of my kids....in Christmas dresses and enjoying the prepartion of Christmas and the actual Christmas. We were sent some packages and this was the best one. The kids and I were laughing and had to take pictures because it looks like a person. Pretty funny. Grandma Hilterbrand this picture is for you. This is Arlene getting your present. She loved everyone just thought you would like to see a piture of it it since you weren't able to be here.Christmas Eve our kids were so excited. We did a chocolate advent calendar and they loved eating that last little chocolate and we have a little wood thing that we move Santa down and when he gets to the chimney wahoo!! Well, they were so excited that he was finally to the chimney. Hailey had such a hard time not eating the cookies that we were putting out for Santa. She wanted one sooo bad it was too cute. She thought they were for her not Santa. Ashtyn was so excited she wanted to know everything Santa was bringing her. She is already asking when we will have Christmas and what do I think Santa will bring her. I love the excitement that comes with Christmas. This is the girls in their new jammies that they got for Christmas. They LOVE them. Want to wear them every night. We loved seeing all of our family. And we loved all the pictures and the laughs and the memories. We love the holidays and all the memories and emotions that come with it. We had a wonderful Christmas and we hope all of you did too. We also enjoyed ringing in a new year and look forward to the blessings and adventures of the coming year.

Update!

Okay so we are finally adding a new blog. This is our last couple of weeks in pictures. Daddy has gone bird hunting. This was the duck he got one day and the girls were so excited they were right in the middle of it with him. Watching every detail up close and personal. They were pretty cute one day all dressed up. Ashtyn loves to dress up so she got a dress on and then she told me that Hailey wanted to dress up too. So they both were. This is one of our dinners. Not usually what we take pictures of, but this particular night we had too. Ashtyn has always been our good eater. Which I am sooooooo sooooo thankful for because now it is really helping Hailey who is a pickier eater. She especially turns her nose up to vegetables. Loves fruit which is great but not so excited about her veggies. So this night we were having broccoli. Probably like the hundredth time Hailey has been offered this particular vegetable and she was watching everyone else eat it especially her big sis who she loves to copy and she took a bite. And then it was another bite and she kept eating. Sometimes she has taken a bite and then spit it out but not this time. She was eating broccoli and loving it. Sam and I looked at each other in shock......big eyes, big open mouths, thinking are we dreaming?????? Thinking don't say anything pretend everything is normal and this has happened a million times. But I couldn't help it so I grabbed the camera and started talking pics and saying good job Hailey. Yeah! Thank you for sending me my good eater first so that she can set a good example for my pickier eater. Then here is a picture of Ashtyn. One day I was sooo tired and Hailey was sleeping and I really wanted Ashtyn to take a nap but she wasn't really interested so I turned on a movie for her and told her if she needed mommy to wake me up. Well, when I finally woke up it was quiet and I couldn't find Ashtyn. The TV was off and I looked in the living room and nothing. Then I looked in my room thinking maybe she brought in her blanky to lay down by me. Nope. So I went to her room thinking I remember hearing her shut her door while I was in dreamland. So I open her door and I don't see any sign of her. She isn't in her bed her room is clean and I can't find her. I started to panic thinking where in the world could she be. Both doors were locked so she didn't leave and then I noticed her closet door. It was closed and I thought please be in there. So I opened it up and there she was. And she didn't wake up so I ran and grabbed the camera to get some cute shots. Later after she came out I found out why she was in there. Of course she had to tell me because there was evidence all over her. She had got in the closet to hide from me because she had done a no no. She has one of those dry erase books to practice writing and she decided to write on her. Oh boy, it was on her face, her hands, her feet. I know this is what kids do. It is just something they are curious about and have to try. I thought it was going to be like permanent marker but it washed off pretty easy with just soap and water. Thank goodness. Also is the excitement the girls had putting up the tree. They got to pick out an ornament to put on the tree....Ashtyn picked strawberry shortcake and Hailey who loves bears picked out a care bear. Pretty cute. They were very excited to get it up and put their ornaments on the tree. Our first good snow was exciting too. Ashtyn is in love with the snow. Hailey isn't so sure, but Ashtyn loves to stomp through it and make trails and make snow angels and of course eat it. We love the excitement and the feelings that come at this time of the year. First to have Thanksgiving that stirs our hearts as we think about all the things we are so thankful for and then those feelings carry over to Christmas when we can think so much about those we love and trying to find others to serve and help and most important to think of our Savior, born so long ago in a little stable on a cold night. We are loving it. The music, the decorations, the advents, the wrapping and excitement of presents. We love it!!

Our Latest Project!!

So we have been working on a home improvement project and we think we are finally finished. When we bought our house, it came with a lovely black/DARK brown lava rock fireplace. Well, we knew we didn't like how dark it was and discussed changing it. We did like the blue tile hearth but what should we do with the rest??? We tried to find ideas on the internet, but only found ideas on tearing out your old fireplace and completely redoing it. Not really what we wanted to do. So we heard of a family who painted their rock fireplace we went and took a look and decided we were absolutely 100% sure that is what we wanted to do to ours. So the next time we were at the house we mixed together some cheap leftover paint (it turned out kind of blue) and we started slapping paint on that big black sore in our front room. WE figured it would soak up a lot of paint but it wasn't until we actually started painting that we realized that we were going to be there a long time because that lava rock was soaking up sooooo much paint in every little hole and just not working like we wanted. So brilliant Sam took the Spackling Paste and started filling in holes and before we knew it we were on to a great plan. We started by filling in those little holes using spackling and lots of water to thin it down. Needless to say we didn't finish before moving in because by then we were sick of painting and the lava rock was beastly to our little hands that were trying to fill in little holes.......................So the project has been patiently waiting for us for six months. Looking like our little collection of fluffy white clouds.

Then just two weeks ago, Arlene came to our rescue and we once again began the process to finish the black beast. That first day we finished spackling......it ONLY took 5 1/2 quarts of spackling to cover that beast. Here it is all white with splackling. Wow isn't that even a great improvement. Way better than black but we didn't really want it just white. So a couple of days later we began to add the colors we wanted. We picked a grout color and a bass color that would go together with our walls and all the colors and each other. Then we painted all the grout lines first. Then we started painting on each rock with the bass color and then we sponged in some other colors to add a more natural look to the rocks. (blues, reds, brown, golds, and grays) We finished it about half way and had to take one more day to finish the not-so-black-any-more beast. We finished last Friday and we have just been observing our new neutral fireplace in all the different possibilities of light and looking for anything we don't like and I think that we have got a new fireplace that we can enjoy for years to come. Thank you to the amazing ARLENE who has such artisic capabilities and truly knew how to bring out the beauty in each rock. Thank you for teaching me and helping me be brave. Now we need a nice mantle like Arlene, don't we?? We love our new fireplace and the kids love that they now have a stage. Let us know what you think of our BEFORE and AFTER!!! Success or not so success???

Nacho Libre

The reasons Jack Black in Nacho Libre sent me gasping for air as I was laughing so hard:

1- It is set in Oaxaca Mexico. Many of the little amusing things about Mexican culture (that I grew to love) were captured and used correctly to make this screaming funny.

2- It knows it is pure silliness, and stays on that road the whole movie. It doesn't try to make some ethical point, or pull some moral out of the story.

3- The butchered Mexican accents used by many of the main cast.

This movie didn't just hit my funny bone, it struck it with such amazing force, I literally had to pause it in order for my wife to be able to hear it, as I was laughing so loud. My sides hurt.

Some of the best quotes/moments:

"Be grateful Juan Pablo, today is especially delicious."

"Are you aware that I have had diarrhea since Easters?"

“So anyways, let’s get down to the nitty gritty.”

No swear words, no sexual content, just good, clean, 13 year old fun.

I loved it.

Our little miss smarty pants

Tonight while we were reading scriptures, we were talking about Jesus visiting America, as well as living in the middle east. "A" promplty replied, "And He is going to come visit us too." And we told her that He will, we don't know when, but He will. Then she asked, "How will He get here if He doesn't have a car?" We said, "He knows how to get here, and He will get here." She said, "Like will He walk on the side walk?" "Ya, maybe He will walk on the side walk dear."

She was then asking why people were mean to Him and cut him(we were talking about His hands and feet). We explained that some people didn't love Jesus and weren't nice to Him. She then said, "Well, I love Jesus, and He loves me. He loves all the children, He loves everyone. You, and you, and you, and me." "Yes dear, He loves everyone."

Where does she get all this? Well, we know, but it is so amazing that it is all in there and she just spurts it out some times.

She is so precious we just love her to peices. We talk after we have little moments like that with her and just think, she is so smart, she is going to pass us by here pretty quick, and she is only 3. We are so lucky to have such chosen little spritis come into our homes and bless us and teach us. Yes, it is discouraging at times, as she can be very determined with a lot of things, but we try to love her and guide her to choose the right. We just love her.

She lives with us, and nobody else, so neener neener!

Halloween!

Halloween this year was very fun........we had some fun halloween tights from grandma that we had to use on sunday.....this was our sunday before Halloween attire....cute tights huh?? (Ashtyn's has black cats)........Then we also had soem fun halloween outfits to wear this time of year near halloween.....look at little Ashtyn strut her stuff....Pretty cute.....and for halloween we had a kitty cat(including a tail to match the ears that you cannot see) and a ladybug at our house. Aren't they adorable.......I can't help how cute I think they are. The girls loved their costumes and we really had fun watching them have so much excitiment to get dressed up and enjoy being dressed up. We had a fun family party at our house on Monday night. We had fhe and then we played a few games and ate good chips and dip and decorated cupcakes.....that was our mummy game we played (Ashtyn is on the left and Owen on the right along with their wrappers)it was great!! It was really cold last night so we just took the girls to the mall and did trick or treating there. Most of the business were handing out candy...it was fun but a little busier than we would have liked. The girls went right along though....they kept getting candy every couple of steps and Ashtyn was like dazed and kept running into things and Hailey was just like wow all I have to do is hold up this bucket and I keep getting treats. Then we stopped by both the grandmas to trick or treat. Of course that was the girls fav.......not because they got the most candy there but because they love their grandparents!!! he he

Catching up!!

Ok, so I have been down and out for almost a week with a cold/flu. I feel like I am totally out of the loop and am now going to spend the next week catching up. We are doing great now but there are some things that I missed sharing. First of all Ashtyn got to go on her first field trip with her preschool. Her preschool is going great by the way. She loves it and loves the kids. It is working out really well to trade off weeks. I finally had my turn to teach last week. I was the last of six to teach. It was great. I did the lesson on the five senses and we had a little thing that we did with each sense and then we also learned about the letter F. We did a fun textured craft and the kids got to show off their show and tell. The kids are really good together, they do like to copy obnoxious behavior I noticed. If one kids starts something and another likes it, they are all doing it within seconds. Pretty funny!

Anyways, back to the field trip. They took their trip out to an Apple farm in Greenbluff, just twenty minutes north of Spokane. First they were taught about the trees and how they grow and that they need bees and blossums and then the apples comes. They let them try applebutter, and an apple slice. Then we got on a trailer with benches and rode out to the orchard. Then we were taught about golden and red delicious apples and then we got to pick our very own apple. Then we went to the cider house and they told them how they make the apples into cider and then they got to try some cider. And at the very end they got to pick a pumpkin out of the pumpkin patch. Ashtyn loved it as well as all the other kids and the adults too. They even had a few bonus things that you could do afterwards, feed the two goats a handfull of food and they had a little play area blocked off and their gravel/bark was dried peas instead. They had all of these digging toys and they just climbed in and played for a while. It was the perfect fieldtrip.

The next day, we headed back up to Greenbluff with Grandma and Grandpa McComas and Carson and Jess and fam. We first went to a cute little store that also sold some lunch food. We bought some hot dogs and the best slice of apple pie ala mode we have had in a while. Then we headed to the Knapp farm where we each picked out the perfect pumpkin and then we headed over to watch the pumpkin cannon. The pumpkin cannon is a huge pipe that launches a pumpkin out and up into the sky and sends it hurling towards another field with a target about 1/2 a mile away. They also had a huge stack of hay that you could watch the pumkin being launched from and then turn around and jump off the back into a big soft pile of hay. And they also had a little stray maze that you could walk through. The kids loved it. To top it off the kids got to pet a pony and we looked at all the different kinds of squash. It was another great trip to Greenbluff.

We have also been busy bees around the house. Sam has been putting plastic on the windows to keep us warmer. And making holes in the walls for me so I could hang up a few things(it has only taken us six months to do that). Plus Sam raked leaves and we had our first fire upstairs last night. I have been slow to comply but Sam has finally reassured me and made promises a million times that I finally gave in and told him to start a fire. It was really nice. I am just a poop I guess. I really love doing the fire thing outside but something about having it inside my house just made me really scared. It must be a first home owner thing!! We have also been getting to know people better in our ward this month. We have so far had a New Comers Social, an Elders Quorum activity, a stake dance, a Pack Meeting/Scout of Honor and a ward activity. Whoosh! WE loved it all. We got to know people better, carve a pumpkin, dance away the night together, eat dirt and worms(gummies and mashed oreos) and have fun seeing all the kids in cute costumes for Halloween. We are doing Great and are having fun while we are at it!!

Makes me laugh still...

Best quote from The Office thus far this season:

"His cap was de-tated, c'mon people!"

3 yr old!!

A. and I spent 1 hour last night, from about 830 to 930 simply getting her ready for bed, including only the simple tasks of brushing her teeth, and going potty. She was battling with me about every little thing. She wouldn't open her mouth for the toothbrush, she wouldn't pull down her pants so she could sit on the potty, she wouldn't wash her hands, she wouldn't put her pants back on after going potty. She wanted to prove to me that she didn't have to do it. YET, she did have to. I am in charge here, aren't I? Between time outs, screaming fits, and crying, we had a great little hour before bed. As soon as we finally got done, she wanted to read books and go right to bed, all smiles.

Ashtyn's new bed!

There is always a long to do list at the McComas house. Especially since buying our home. Well, one of the things we can finally cross off the list. We acquired a bed for Ashtyn when we moved and so far she has just been sleeping on the frame and mattresses. But we finally got her bed painted and put together and she was pretty excited. It fits in perfect with her bedroom and she loves it. She was so excited she just kept hugging Sam and I and saying Thank you over and over again. It was pretty fun to make her day!!

Our Cutie Pies!

This is simply an entry to show off some or our most recent pictures that we think are pretty cute. Sisters-they sure are cute together. We are so glad that they have each other. They love playing together and I am so glad that they love each other so much. The other day I was driving to run an errand and all the sudden both of the girls just started laughing. I still don't know what it was that gave them the giggles but I loved it. I loved that they were making each other laugh and be so happy. These are some more of Hailey's cute faces. One night she just kept making funny face after funny face and it so happened Sam had the camera and he caught a bunch of them. We were all laughing so hard, because she just kept making silly faces. We have about ten different pictures each with her making a different face. This is our fav, she wasn't really making a face but it was all in sequence with the other funny ones. All we can say is we love our little Hailey May. This dress up picture was fun. Ashtyn was getting all dressed up in a leotard and princess shoes and gathering her purse, well Hailey didn't want to be left out so she came toddling out to me with this pink dress that's super long and notice the cute cinderella slippers on her feet she requested those too. We love it when they dress up. Isn't that the cutest hat you've ever seen. Some of you might remember a similar picture taken about twenty five years ago. The picture was of a cute little boy with a box on his head. My little Ashtyn is so creative and loves to be silly. She requested I take a picture of her, and as soon as I saw her I knew I had too. Especially since someday we can show the two pictures side by side and get a great laugh. In this one, I could hear them laughing and when I got in there they were both in this tupperware box pretending to drive a car. What big eyes and pinchable cheeks you have my dear!! We sure do love Our Cutie Pies, Ashtyn Marie and Hailey May!!