Happy 5th Birthday Penny!

May 1, 2009

Oh man. When we moved to Alaska Penny was a tiny 6 weeks old. My how the time flies! I can't believe Penny is all grown up, and that we have lived here for 5 years! We love Penny a ton and I will really miss her this fall when she starts full day Kindergarten. Hope you had a great day Penny!

Easter

What a fun weekend we had! New dresses, Easter egg hunts, a visit from the Easter bunny, and of course, a fabulous dinner. Who doesn't look forward to ham? Here are some shots of the girls in their new dresses that I was able to pick up during my trip to Salt Lake City in March. I can't believe how big the girls are getting, and how sweet they look in their dresses. Happy Easter!

Happy 10th Jaycie!

January 31, 2009

I can't believe she's gotten so old! We are so proud of how well Jaycie has turned out. Great student, great daughter, and great friend. We love you Jaycie. Here's her blowing out her candles, her new Rossi trifecta (gun from Dad)and some shots of her birthday haircut from Posh salon. What a cutie!

Poison Control?!?

In case you were curious, this is what it looks like when your 18 month old finds and EATS a hopefully non-toxic marker. Nice!

Christmas at the Reed house

First off, let's pretend that this was actually posted at Christmas time, and not 6 months later! We had a wonderful holiday, complete with Santa visits, new Christmas pajamas, lots of presents and happy dances! Not to mention all the good food and fun times with friends and family. Hope yours was as great at ours!

Thanksgiving!

Because we live so far away from family, our Thanksgivings are usually very low-key. The kids watch the parade, Brad watches football, and I watch the turkey bake! This year we had our friend Ken over and had a grand time. P.S.-Ken's single. Anyone interested? :)

Just one reason...

Although I have been leading the campaign to leave, there are a lot of good reasons to live in Alaska. These pictures show just one of them. These were taken when Brad was out hunting with a buddy from work a few weeks ago. Love you Babe!

Too Funny

Just recently Glory has become fixated with the camera. She's developed the canned, cheesy grin that toddlers often pull when taking pictures. She's also added "Cheee" to the short list of words she can say. These funny pictures were taken a few weeks ago during an assembly at the Elementary School when I was desperate to keep her quiet during the last few minutes of award presentation and was foolish enough to give in to her wanting to play with our new camera. Dang she's cute!

School Days

Holy Smokes! I never posted first day of school pictures. Here in little ol' Alaska we still have standard schedule school. We start and end a little early in the year, and have outside recess until it's 20 below zero, but other than that we are just about like everyone else. Ooh, except we get full-day Kindergarten, which rocks! Delta Elementary has just under 400 students enrolled this year, with most classes coming in at about 22 kids. I LOVE our school. Jaycie is rocking 4th grade this year (yikes!) and Hayden is in 1st. What cuties! Penny is attending Smarty Pants Preschool in preperation for the big "K" next year. How do they get so big so fast?! Watch out boys--Here they come!

An apple a day....

So, a few weeks ago I went shopping (Surprise) and was unloading all the groceries when Glory discovered a bag of apples on the floor. She started rolling apples around and taking them in and out of the bag. Then next thing I new I heard crunching. She was totally taking tiny bites out of the apples! She only had about 6 teeth, so I was surprised she could get her mouth around them. It was all fun and games until I realized she was taking bites out of ALL of them. Still cute pictures though. :)

Trick or Treat!

I know, it seems weird to be posting Halloween pictures right before Thanksgiving. But, better late than never. I'm carrying enough guilt around because of all the pictures we lost when the computer crashed. This is me moving on. Anyway, this year Jaycie was a witch, Hayden was bat girl, Penny was a giraffe, and Glory was an elephant......and a bear. Depending on what party you saw us at. It seemed this year like we had "Halloween Hanukkah" in that it went on and on. Between the preschool party, the branch party and friends' parties we had plenty of "ween" to go around. By the time the 31st actually rolled around not only were Brad and I partied out, it was so cold ('bout 10 degrees) we chickened out of trick or' treating and convinced the kids that it would be just as fun to hunt for the candy around the house "Easter egg" style. So we hid all the candy we would have passed out to trick or treaters (had we had any) and they filled their bags that way. All in all, we had a good time and are gearing up for Turkey Day!

Catch Up

Whew!! It's been a long time. We had some serious technical problems, but now we're back. Always one to buck the system, I AM NOT going private. I am a fan of stalking others' blogs just to check them out, without leaving any clues that I've been there. So, in all fairness, I'm leaving mine open to all you other late-night stalkers. I know, I know. People can steal my pictures. Well, I'm just not that scared. That doesn't mean that one day I won't be. For now, I have other things to worry about. Like how Hilary and Chris are going to pay back their student loans once we get socialized health care. (hehe, love you!) Anywho, I will do my best to get some pictures posted before more holidays pass us by. Thanks for checkin' in!

Who doesn't love a parade?

One of the first things we did after Mom and Hilary got here was attend the annual Delta Junction Parade. Parades themselves are just good old fashioned fun, if you ask me, but small town parades are even better. There's no traffic, or getting there early for a good spot, and most importantly, not a lot of competition when it comes to catching the candy. The floats weren't fancy, but we had some of everything. Police, firefighters, Baptists, farm equipment, and my personal favorite: baby goats. We all had a ball, especially Landon, who loved playing in the street. Especially when he suckered me into letting go of his hand for just ONE second so he could make a run for it, through the floats and to the other side of the highway! Good thing Jaycie could keep up with him!

Family Fun!

Oh dear. So much has happened since my last blog! I am so far behind that there is no way that I can post it all in one sitting, so I will work on it slowly but surely. In the midst of it all, our trusty laptop has bit the dust. So the "slowly" may win out over the "surely" for a while, until the necessary repairs are made. On to the good stuff!

After much guilting and begging, my sister Hilary finally made it up for a visit. Mom came too, which was awesome. We had a blast! (I wasn't the one sleeping on the couch though!) It was so fun to get to know Landon and see Hilary in "Mom" mode. I also got a taste of what it is to have a little boy around. Seriously, that kid can run! Here are a couple of my favorite pictures--I'll try not to duplicate the ones Hilary posted!

I will definately be posting more pictures and info about all the fun things we did while they were here! Peace out Hilary!

Not-so-Lucky Charms

Need I say more?

Happy 4th of July!

For the first time since we moved to Alaska, we bought fireworks for the fourth. In years past, we were always discouraged by the whole "never gets dark" thing and let it hold us back from a true celebration. However, I realized, that meant that my 3 youngest kids had NEVER held a sparkler or experienced the joy of sucking down the acrid smoke of a smoke bomb. So, we sought out the roadside stand, spent way too much money, and lit off fireworks in the light! **YEA!!**

Happy Birthday Hayden!

Ahhh, it seems like just yesterday we brought her home from the hospital.....and now she's 6! Here are some pictures of the birthday girl and her horsey cake. Also, I couldn't help but add one of Glory chowing on some watermelon. (I left off the one of her throwing it up later!) Ta Ta for now!