Christmas Time

I started this post weeks ago but kept putting it off so here I am FINALLY finishing it! December was busy for us (like it is for most people). Busy taking care of the house, kids, shopping and Christmas shopping, and working almost everyday at Kohls. Pretty much everyday at Kohls was super busy! Lines and lines of people in the checkout line, cleaning up after people who leave piles and piles of clothes on the floor, people dumping stuff in the department because they decided not to buy it, babysit children because the parents don't pay attention to their kids climbing over and under the racks, the list goes on...don't get me wrong I like my job but during the holidays, I don't. December was also good with getting ready for Christmas, enjoying the nice weather, seeing how happy and excited the kids were for Christmas, looking at the Christmas lights and spending time with family on Christmas day! Here are a few pictures of what we did...

Kayla and Samantha making Christmas cookies

Kayla's 4th grade Christmas program. The theme was "The Night Before Christmas" where they wore their pjs, recited the poem and sang cute songs! Kayla is wearing pink and brown pjs close to the middle. They all did a great job!

The girls with their new pj's that they always open on Christmas Eve. Kayla's are Christmas/Wintery and Samantha's are Hello Kitty

Milk and cookies left for Santa...Santa thought they were delish!

The reindeer food Samantha left out on our walkway.

Christmas morning the girls woke us up about 7am and we all headed out into the living room to see what Santa brought. They first opened their stockings, then Samantha checked outside to see if the reindeer ate the food she left. Her reaction was priceless! She screamed at the top of her lungs in excitement! I got in on video but the file is too big to upload on here. Then we opened the rest of our gifts. The girls got a lot of the same gifts like 2 Webkinz, Webkinz t-shirts, and a necklace with their initial. But the BIG present they got was a Wii! They had been asking for a Wii since last Christmas! They were so happy to get a Wii that I don't think they really cared that much for the rest of their presents! HaHa Jake and I didn't get much for eachother, he got a wallet, and pjs with some candy and nuts. I got a popcorn popper, a pillow and a tennis racket. I don't play tennis but I guess Jake thinks I need to start taking it up!
Anyways, this is the only picture I took on Christmas morning. I took a lot of video but they are too big to post here. I really should of thought about taking more pictures.

Later that day we went over to my mom's house where we opened presents, ate a Italian dinner, and visited with family.

Samantha and Kayla opening presents from their grandma and grandpa with my mother's bright yellow furniture in the background. Ugh I hate this furniture! She's had that since before I was born! I keep telling her to get rid of it, but for some reason she won't part with it.

That's all for now, more later coming soon!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Richardsons!

For the month of November

We did this...

Samantha started a preschool class at the rec center. She gets to bring her own lunch and so we went to the store to find a lunch bag. She chose a Hannah Montana bag, gee what a surprise! (not) Even though its only once a day for 6 wks, she loves going and having her friend Kami with her!

We went to the Phoenix zoo on Veterans Day with some friends. Samantha didn't go because she had a birthday party to go to. So it was just me and Kayla! It was a beautiful day for walking around the zoo! But it was SUPER BUSY!

Kayla and her friend Lexi.

One of the few peacocks that were roaming around the zoo.

A Komodo Dragon!

The orangutans are one of my favorite animals to look at! This one is laying under a blanket! So funny!

Lots of monkeys to see up close in Monkey Village!

This was so cool! We got to pet stingrays for the first time!

Kayla just about to pet a stingray!

Kayla and her class were learning about electricity so they all got into groups and made their own houses with lights. When the parents came to see them, the room was dark and all the houses were lit up like it was Christmas! I thought that Kayla's group had the best house, and I'm not being biased at all!

A closer view of their house.


The best day of the month was Nov. 20th when I went to see the most anticipated movie of the year...NEW MOON!!! The movie was AWESOME! The actors were AWESOME! The wolves were AWESOME! The vampires were AWESOME! My friends Alacey and Jackie and I had a AWESOME TIME!!


Thanksgiving at our house. I cooked the turkey which I hadn't done in years! So I was a little nervous about it but with tips from my mom, it turned out really good! We just had my mom and stepdad over because my grandma and aunt and uncle couldn't make it. So we had LOTS of food left over! We stuffed ourselves till we almost popped! I was going to take more pictures but forgot about it. Oh well, I'm just thankful that we had a yummy dinner and a nice visit with my family!


Last but certainly not least...we put up our Christmas tree! We bought a new (used) tree a few weeks ago at a yard sale for only 15 bucks! Its taller and a lot fuller than our last one! We are really excited for Christmas!

Halloween

We had a great time with Halloween this year! I decorated the outside of the house more than I've ever done! In the past I would just put up a couple of things in the window but this year I got motivated to do more. I put up spider webs, a picture of Frankenstein on the door(which was actually suposta be tied on the tree but our tree is too crooked), I hung a freaky monster head by the door and we had spooky music playing. I wanted to do so much more but I waited too long to buy decorations so a lot of stuff was gone. Even the black spider rings were gone so I had to use colored spider rings to put in my web...oooh scary!

Our scary decor!

A few days before Halloween, I got a package of these push in face pieces for the girls to decorate their own pumpkins, they had so much fun doing this! Then on Halloween we put them in the front of the house. I carved a pumpkin on Halloween but I forgot to take a picture.

Friday(the day before Halloween) was our ward's trunk or treat. Actually we aren't in that ward anymore because the ward split but we were still invited to go. Kayla and Samantha were cats, Kayla a tiger cat and Samantha a black cat.

The girls and their friend Lexi that came with us to the trunk or treat, goofing around and decided to do some funny poses! (look below)

The devil petting her pet cats!

I told them to pose like this! LOL

Jake and I dressed up as Clark Kent and Lois Lane. When we first arrived to the party, it was so cold so Jake left to get our jackets. So I'm walking around with the girls and no one knows what I'm dressed as! So when Jake came back, then people figured it out! I knew it would be hard for people to know who I was without him, but all they had to do was read my press pass around my neck! LOL

Halloween night! I made this tutu to go with Samantha's cat costume. She told me she would wear it but then when Halloween came she changed her mind and refused to wear it! I spent 5 whole dollars on making this tutu and its just went to waist! I thought about forcing her to wear it but I don't want her to hate me. So I said let me take a picture of you wearing it. She looks happy in this picture but she really had to force that smile!

Just before going out trick or treating!

Jake and I got a little crazy with the camera!

Don't we look so cool!

Look how strong he it!

My hero!

Jake doesn't usually like to dress up for Halloween. We talked about it about a month ago and he wasn't really thrilled about the idea and so I stopped talking about. Then the day before Halloween I was like I really want to dress up! So I thought it would be easy to find a few items for our costumes as CK and LL. Well I went to Good Will and found the white shirt and black blazer, looked for a Superman t-shirt and glasses but found nothing. Called around to all kinds of stores and nothing! So I was getting bummed out that this wasn't going to work but then Jake calls me from a differnt Good Will store after he gets off work and says he found a Superman shirt and glasses! Yay! So I found a picture of a Press pass for Lois Lane on the internet, printed it out and stuck a picture of myself on it! Used my friends lamanet machine and lanyard and my Lois Lane costume was complete!

The Arizona State Fair!

We went to the Arizona State Fair last Friday and we had a great time! The weather was beautiful! It was a discount day so admission was 1/2 off and the rides and games were a dollar and some of the food was a dollar too! The girls rode a few rides, there favorite was the Ferris Wheel! There were 2 huge Ferris Wheels and we rode on the tallest one! At first they were nervous about it but once we went up to the top, they thought it was so awesome to be able to see everything down below...I just wish I thought of taking a picture! We looked through all the exhibits but we skipped the animals because we ran out of time. We had plans to watch Figure 8 car racing later that evening so we wanted to get there kinda early to get a good seat.

Kayla enjoying a HUGE snow cone!

As you can see, Samantha spilled some of her snow cone, it was just too big for her!

Jake wearing his MANLY green shirt! haha I don't really like this shirt, so I always pick on him for wearing it!

This ride reminded me of the Dumbo ride at Disneyland but its smaller and doesn't go as high.

The girls played on this fun house. They went through 2 of them and this one was the best one. The other one lasted about 5 seconds, I told them it would be real short but they didn't listen to me.

Wheeeee! She looks so funny coming down this slide! LOL

Kayla practicing her farmer skills! haha Its not a real cow!

Samantha squirted a little "milk" on her shorts!

We had fun looking at ourselves in these crazy mirrors! We look like Oompa Loompas in this one!

Kayla, Samantha and I went down this really tall slide. It was a lot of fun!

Woohoo!

Samantha rode the carousel

Round and round we go!

Watching Figure 8 car racing!
I took this short video and as you can see the cars come really close to crashing into eachother in the middle! Later on there were some crashes, thankfully no injuries.