Hailey's friend

Hailey has made a special friend in school this year. I never really thought Hailey would be interested in helping handicapped kids but she has really proven me wrong! She loves to visit Talyea every day during recess. She reads to her and paints her fingernails. Today was Talyea's birthday so Hailey planned a little surprise party for her, and she loved it! After school we took her some presents at the care center. I'm so proud of Hailey, I really believe she has a gift!

Snow Fun!

Justin took the kids and some of their friends sledding over Christmas Break. They LOVED it! I was perfectly happy to stay home with Max in the warm house. I sent plenty of hot chocolate to keep them warm while they were gone. Good times! (why is this post blue and underlined? I don't know)

Merry Christmas!

Whoa! What a year. Christmas came and went in a blur and I hardly took a picture! We were so busy this year I feel like I hardly took time to slow down and enjoy it. Here is a little of what we did:
Danny had the cutest preschool program, but when I pulled out my camera...the battery was dead. But I did have my video camera so I do have some video. Hailey had her first orchestra concert. She is learning to play the violin and doing a good job. I hope she will stick with it. Have you ever been to a 5th grade orchestra concert?! They can only get better! Jonah's whole class wrote letters to my parents on their mission. I thought that was pretty sweet, and so did my mom and dad.
I was in charge of the Bliss family Christmas party this year. That was a little stressful...there are a lot of Blisses! It turned out great though, thanks to lots of help from the family. We had a good dinner, a nativity with LOTS of angels and shepherds and opened gifts. When I pulled out my camera, my memory card was full. Nice. Christmas Eve dinner with my family was at my house this year. It was a little lonely without my parents but we still had a great time. We opened our gifts from them and we are all official Colts fans now! Justin set up a video messaging online so they got to see us all. It was fun.....til the call came from the dairy that two workers decided they didn't want to work Christmas eve night and Justin ended up milking all night!! Lets just say Santa did not like working alone.
When the kids woke up they were pretty excited to see what Santa had brought and I think everyone was happy.
I really wish I had more pictures :(

Next year I'm going to do better.

Max with his farm.

Here are all the Colts fans on Christmas Eve

Danny the little shepherd boy

Making Gingerbread houses at Grandma Judi's

Hailey got her reborn doll, Syd got her ipod, Jonah got his nintendo DSi, and Danny got his dinosaur castle. All in all a good year.

A trip to Texas Part:1

Our family took a road trip for Thanksgiving this year. Justin grew up in Texas and still has one sister that lives there so we decided we'd get a motorhome and take a drive half way across the country! It sounded really fun til it came time to pack and go. But it was definitely a trip we will never forget. We had a great time! Our motor home isn't exactly brand new :) it was a total trip back in time!!! It is definitely the way to travel long distances with five kids. We listened to books, ate breakfast, lunch and dinner on the road. The best part was just letting the kids sleep while we drove early in the morning or late at night. What a trip!
This is Max after I told him he was going to be in his
car seat for the next 24 hours or so


Hailey and Claire helping with the Thanksgiving food

Black Friday!!! Woot Woot!

Of course the best part of the trip was getting to spend time with Heather and her family. We only get to see them about once a year so it was really fun to be able to spend time at their house. Our days and nights consisted mostly of movies, dutch blitz, yahtzee, dr. pepper and lots of food! What more could we want?!

Here we are ready to pile back in the RV and head home. The ride home wasn't nearly as fun and exciting as the ride there, but we survived......and we hope we can do it again!!

Bliss and Christiansen kids!

We did take a trip to Justin's home town and our first house we lived in on the dairy. When I have time I'll post part 2!

Want to see something cute?

Could these be any cuter? Brittni Schroeder is a friend of mine from High School turned awesome photographer!! I love these! Did you notice Max is missing? He wasn't in the best of moods, so we're hoping to get him later. I could look at these all day. Thanks Britt!
Check her out at pocketsfullofposes.blogspot.com
There is a link on my blog

Happy Halloween!

Halloween came and went in a blur this year! Is our school district trying to punish us by having Red Ribbon week and Halloween in the same week?!?! Pretty much every day was Halloween for us, and when you have 4 kids in 3 different schools....things can get confusing! I do wish I would have got more pictures of the kids though. They looked pretty cute. But since we barely were making it to the bus in time, there was no time for pictures.

Sydni was a go-go girl. She looked so cute in her costume. She went trick-or-treating with her friends this year and LOVED it! Jonah was a vampire and Danny was Mario! When Danny got his costume, I was seriously in love with it! It was so cute on him! But after putting the mustache and inflatable belly on him 500 times, I got really tired of it. But it was a hit on Halloween! Max was a 5th child, which means, he probably won't dress up until he starts school and demands to.

After some fun trick-or-treatin we came home and had soup and a movie with Kim and Cory. We made homemade root beer too and it was delicious!

Hailey was a zombie this year. Her dance team does Thriller so she decided her dance costume would make a good Halloween costume. Easy! After her Thriller performance on Thursday night Justin took the girls to the Pizza House for dinner. They were supposed to be at the daddy daughter date at the skating rink, but since Justin couldn't skate they didn't want to go. Anyway.....Hailey took my camera to the Pizza House and LEFT IT THERE!!!! It has a memory card full of pictures! I am dying over it. So if you find a camera and there are pictures of my kids on the memory card.....PLEASE return it to me!

Happy Halloween!

Poor Dad!

About a year and a half ago, Justin came off a horse and broke his leg. He was in a boot forever and it still kept hurting. After seeing several different doctors, he finally got an MRI and we found out he had a cyst growing in his bone and needed surgery. :( They got in there and found way more than just a cyst. There was torn cartilage, a bone spur and pieces of bone just floating around causing pain. Poor guy! He made it through surgery and is recovering well. He is so excited to be pain free!! While spending the first week in bed with his leg elevated, he had lots of company!!

I can't wait til this is all healed and we can start running together again! Maybe even go to Disneyland!!!