Almost Here!

Mikaila & Quinn One of our Christmas Traditions-seeing this house every year.

Casey and Camden

Somebody offered to take a family picture-it's as good as it gets!

Sara and Mikaila watching the Grinch.

Mikaila and her teacher.

Her work of art!

"And the award goes to......Miss Broadway!"

I was first, to get this up and coming star's autograph!

Part of the Russell Bros. Band "What is in this?!"

Which one's the boss?-You decide! :)

As I suspected, come Halloween, Christmas has a way of getting here sooo quickly! We have been keeping busy with family and different activities, and now only two more days till the big day!

A couple of weeks ago, Joel's work had an open house for family to come and visit and have dinner. Nothing overly exciting, but it's always fun to see where Daddy works and meet different people. Every kid never really "gets it" as to what their parents actually do at their job-do they really work?

Two days later, we had a Christmas get together with some of Joel's old employee's. Not that there "old" mind you, they're just no longer under his direction. Anyways, it was cute one of the little girls (5 yrs. old) asked if the twins could live there with her and her family. Had to say, "No" this time.

We had the pleasure of seeing our niece and nephew in their Christmas performance at church. It was very cute and well done & I'm not just saying that! After that, we had lunch at my parents house, played some Balderdash and the kids had fun climbing their tree out front. Now let me just say, we have not played Balderdash for forever, and just recently in the past month or so, it's become fun again (especially with Miss Mikaila). Love the "made up" answers that she comes up with-very cute!

Let's see, last week I came for the gingerbread house making at the kids' school. What kid does not like a project that involves every candy imaginable, a tub of icing, and graham crackers?! It truly was gross how much sugar they were inhaling, licking of fingers, touching other things....ewwww. Oh well, they all were having a great time, and that's all that matters!

This past Friday, we had family and friends over and it was so nice to finally get together. The kids ended up spending the night and were all perfect angels and so polite in the morning, thanking for their breakfast. :)

Saturday, we had our family Christmas get together with my side of the family. Dinner, a little Christmas violin music, and present opening. Thank you everyone for bringing things to make the evening all come together!

We asked for a teather ball set for the kids, and that's exactly what "Santa" brought us-Thank You!

Ashleigh had a simple, but fun time for her birthday on Sunday. Shopping with her friend at the mall and having a sleepover.

Lastly, we made an attempt to go to Phx. First's last Christmas performance last night. Absolutely nuts!!!! Line wrapping around the building-we said no thank you to that, and went back to Grandma Donna's house to pick up the boys and Ashleigh.

Every year we try to stop and see one of our favorite houses that is so fabulously decorated. In fact, KTAR radio station was interviewing the home owner while we were there!

The boys were in amazement at all of the lights and music and bubbles! The look on their faces, is what it's all about! :) Have a most wonderful Christmas!

Tis The Season.......Christmas and Basketball.

Kicking Back Before the Christmas Performance. Their Christmas Show last night.

Go Lucky #21!!!! Ashleigh's first game last night, & darn it, they lost by one!!

What's The Score?!!!

Even their YOUNG, Fabulous, Mom jumped rope with them! :)

Cam riding the scooter.

"This is how you do it!"

"You may watch Indiana Jones IF....You do Mommy a favor!" Boy those wet towels were no problem for Camden. He must have really wanted to watch it!

Mikaila & Sara Reid -Cuties!

Last Saturday-Mikaila & Ashleigh.

Yawwwwwn........

Quick pic. before practice. "Had" to include this one!

Poor Case!

The boys putting up the lights. (Sorry it's kind of dark)

Casey "needed" his mittens on.

Camden holding an ornament.

Helping!

Cute Mrs. Clause

I think our cat is in a trance!

Well, this morning was an early morning wake up call for all of us and in-fact I had to just carry the boys from their beds to their carseats. Why? Well, Miss Ashleigh made the basketball team this year!!!...Out of close to 60 girls who tried out, she made the final 12! So, out the door by 6:40 A.M. will be our routine 4 x a week for about the next six weeks. We of course are very proud of her, but mainly I hope she has alot of fun being in a sport. One of her good friends also made the team, which is nice.

Last night, we got our one lonely little strand of lights up outside, and the much anticipated ornaments on the Christmas tree. There's nothing better than having a clean house, all decorated for Christmas and the cool air coming through the windows. :) Fun times.

Play, Pumpkin Pie, Pictures & Pizza.....Our Week

Enjoying his army men.....

Case at Peter Piper.

Grandkids with "Bobby" and Grandmommy.

Love this one!!!!!!!1

Plenty more where that came from!!! Love, Camden

My fellow Black Friday Shopper! The morning after Thanksgiving-eating breakfast.

One of the MANY desserts!

Casey & Aunt Shawnie.

Thanksgiving night.

Camden-Cat in the Hat. Both were helping with the potatoes.

Quinn & his drama teacher.

Over the past ten weeks, Quinn has been in an after-school drama program through a company called Theater Works and has had a lot of fun doing it. Last Monday was there "performance" and I thought he did a nice job. It certainly would not have earned any academy awards for the level of play that it was, but it gave him a taste of the acting world and had fun doing it :)

Wednesday, the kids had off from school and we were trying to get things done around the house and prepare the things that we were to bring for Thanksgiving dinner the next day. Both Quinn and Mikaila peeled about 25 potatoes for me-they were cranking them out, and that was much appreciated! I also had some willing helpers in the fudge making dept. as well-wonder why?! Somebody has to lick out the pan...wouldn't want any left over fudge in the bottom!

Thursday we went over to my sister and brother in law's house and were able to have all 18 people sit together at the beautifully decorated table. We all had a turn at passing the "thanker-chief" around and sharing what over the past year we were especially thankful for. I thought the kids did a beautiful, and heartfelt job at sharing what was important to them. Nice job!

Well, this was the big night where all the cousins were to be spending the night there-even Camden and Casey. This was their first sleepover and they did a little too amazingly well. In fact, come bed time when I was just making sure they were all settled in, they wanted Uncle John in the room and Mommy and sissy to go out! Well then!.......... Actually, I'm really happy that they felt comfortable enough to stay and had a nice time.

We ended up staying at my parents house that night, instead of driving back home also with the intent to get a little Christmas shopping done that next morning.

We were up a little after 5:00 A.M. (which is no big deal compared to even crazier people who are up all night or way earlier) and out the door by 5:30. Our first stop was Target-nice parking spot, got exactly what we were hoping to buy (only 3 left when we got there)-can't say what it was, due to possible snoopers in our family:)

Then we made our way to Wal-Mart, which I don't really care for to begin with, let alone on a major shopping day, BUT I can honestly say it wasn't bad at all. There was only one other person in the check out line and we were done for the day.

Saturday, we had our family Christmas pictures taken, and I'm always so glad to cross that off our list. It's done and I'm happy to get some updated pictures of all of us. After pics. we had been promising the kids that we would go to Peter Piper, and so we did...and yes, after all those tokens they walked away with the typical army men, whoopie cushion, and those little tootsie rolls! They really like the "prize guy".....he gave us extra stuff! Lets hope so!!!!

Have a great week. :)

Changes

Well, last week the kids had Veteran's Day off and Quinn had a buddy spend the night. They always get along well, and don't have to constantly be doing something to be content.
I'm not even sure how many months have passed with Ashleigh begging to switch rooms. Now, I ask myself why would someone want to switch rooms, when you have the largest out of the bedrooms-next to ours?!!! She said she got tired of everyone waking her up early in the morning downstairs, and she wanted a smaller room, and she always wanted to be upstairs. Hmmmm....I was even willing to paint the room downstairs-but hey, if she still wasn't going to be happy, why should I bother? So, all that to say, that's how last Wednesday was spent-switching rooms. Yes, I finally gave in -after a year of her begging and pleading. Quinn now has her old room and lucky for me, he likes the paint colors I like. It's cool how you can go online and see how a room will look with different paint colors. So, once I finish with our kitchen, hopefully his room will be next :)

Another change we made, was making the decision to get rid of our cable. It was one of those things that you talk about forever, and never "pull the plug". Well, with an extreme motivation to make extra payments on things (braces for example) we couldn't honestly justify keeping cable for the mere pleasure and convenience of having it. Knowing that it meant we would have no t.v. seemed like a strange idea. Honestly though, the kids still have plenty of dvd's and even the shows they watched on Nickelodeon and Disney, we just check out from the library. So not to worry, the Russell's arn't totally living in a cave, and obviously we still have high speed internet-so Joel can still get the play by play of what's happening in the sports world!

Lastly, we were able to put our litter of kitty's up for adoption through Pet Smart, so thank goodness we are down to 2 cats! Poor Bella, she still has an excess of milk since the kittens are no longer nursing from her and I thought I would help her out by wrapping her up tight so she could dry up! Hey, I had know idea what to do for a cat but it was funny seeing her try to walk around last night, I should say roll around last night! Poor thing couldn't walk, so there went that idea!! Why did I even tell you this-I have no idea!!

The boys like to tell me how to get home (turn here, or go straight ect.) so the other day they safely got us home, and I told them they were both very good navigators, and they proceeded to ask me, "What kind of
ALI GATORS?) :)
Then Cam was walking bare foot in the garage, and I told him don't walk in your bare feet, he then tells me-their not BEAR"S feet, their mine! :)

You just never know what's going to come out of a three year old's mind! :)
Have a great week!!

Sunday

Big Daddy

Shawnette & Kate

Diana, Joel, Myself & Chuck

Chuck, Ashleigh, & Diana

Dad

Playing Perfection Together

Happy Belated Birthday!!!!!!!!!!

Cutie Pies! :)

Our Own Bill Gates Jr. Of The Family!

Sweet Girls!

Uncle John with Quinn & Case

Long Day For The Boys!

Casey, the first one "out"

It's always good when we have get togethers, because it means a deeper kind of cleaning that tends to be put off sometimes. Don't get me wrong, cleaning has to be done on a daily basis, or it quickly gets out of hand, but you know what I mean....the carpets being cleaned and the couches, and finding all kinds of dust bunnies behind things and just weeding out a bunch of stuff! Not to mention we had a humongous rip in our trampoline net, no thanks to the Az. sun that beets down on it, and I've really been wanting to try to repair it. Both Quinn and Camden fell through the net and onto the ground-pretty sad. So, I thought I would use white dental floss, since it's sturdy and take a whack at repairing it. It took about three hours, but hopefully it will stay together now.

All that being said, we had my side of the family over yesterday, along with my mom's cousin and his wife who were visiting from Philadelphia. It's always nice to see them and do a little catching up.

We got to hear some funny stories they told and how they first met-very cute!

The little guys didn't get a nap in yesterday, so by 5:30 they were taking turns falling asleep in the living room, trying hard to watch Peter Pan (for the 3rd time that day!)

Not that this has anything to do with yesterday, but Joel took Ashleigh to the Coyotes hockey game last Monday night, and Ashleigh really had a great time, I wasn't sure if she would like it or not. She said that the camera was on some people sitting right in front of them and you could see her jacket behind them on the big screen. I think they were only like six rows from the bottom, so even if you aren't really in to hockey (which I'm not) it still makes for a fun evening together and I'm glad they went! :)