WII Fun!

Santa brought our family a WII for Christmas. It is so funny to watch the girls try to play. I took a little video of them playing. Notice how both of them completely ignore me the entire time :)

A Very Merry Christmas!

What a very Merry Christmas we had. I hope all of yours was wonderful too! Santa definitely spoiled us this year. We spent Christmas Eve day with mom and my side of the family, Then we went to Dave's parents for the traditional Navajo Tacos. Christmas day was spent again with my family playing games and eating yummy ham! We also spent Christmas day shoveling and shoveling some more ~ I have already had enough of this white stuff :(

Here are a few candid Christmas shots: Erin and Ivy sporting their new clothes.
Oakland trying out the monkey rug that Santa brought him.

Dave was very excited to get Atlanta Braves flip flops!

Ivy was excited to get a horse ~ even though it was not a real one, bummer. She decided this one was going to be easier to take care of, no poop to clean up :)

One tradition that Dave brought to the family was using nylons instead of stockings. I think it is hilarious to see the kids trying to hold their socks up. Erin holding up her sock.

Here is Austin holding up his and Oakland's socks.

I don't know about all you gals, but this gal LOVES Hannah Montana! She got HM shoes, HM make-up, HM back pack, and a Hannah Montana barbie van! What could be better?

We had a wonderful Christmas and spent the next 3 days organizing the mess! Hope you all have a great New Year!

Christmas Cookies

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is making cookies for Santa! My kids didn't quite get the idea that we were making "Christmas" cookies, that is why EVERY cookie cutter is out! Oh well, it was fun and the cookies must have tasted great because Santa ate all that we left him :)

Gingerbread Houses

The last couple years we have made it a tradition to go to the Broadhead's house and make gingerbread (graham cracker) houses. The kids absolutely love doing this! This year was no different, we had a great time.

Here is the whole crew minus Austin and the babies.
Tyler

Ivy

Makayla and Austin

Erin and Michael

Tyler and Ivy

We went home that night with smiles on our face and a huge sugar high from all the candy we ate!

Tagged Again!

I have been tagged by Nicki :)

RULES
1. List these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

#1. I love to travel. (Who doesn't?) I have traveled to 46 of the 50 states, Mexico, and Canada. I can't wait to add more to my list.

#2. I HATE feet. (Other peoples that is, mine are just fine. Ha!)

#3. Christmas is my absolute favorite time of year. I love the decorations and the music and the festivities!

#4. I HATE Valentines day. Who knows why? I am just a Valentine Scrooge :(

#5. This may come as a shock to some.... But I am pretty OCD. For instance I have Erin and Austin make their beds in the morning and then as soon as they are off to school I have to go in and remake them because the covers aren't straight! I also can't stand it when eyebrow hairs aren't going in the same direction. (I know, pretty retarded.) Cindy calls me "Monk" because of this OCD problem :)

#6. I LOVE LOVE LOVE to drink Coke! Which has been really hard since my husband is trying to lose weight and has completely quit drinking any soda.

#7. I love to blog!

How is that for "random"? O.k. I tag Cyd, Karlenn, Tami, Angie, Letha, Amber, and Kristy!

4th Annual Cheese Party

***Warning: This post contains A LOT of pictures, Sorry!***

Nathan and Kristy Pulled off another wonderful Cheese party this year! There was tons of food, family, friends, games, and FUN. I was being pretty selfish that night and wanted to play Pounce instead of take pictures, so I gave the task to Austin and Caden. They took about 70 pictures and I could only post about 13 of them and the ones I posted aren't going to be winning any awards any time soon! I think we need to learn to keep our fingers out of the way of the lens :) However, I am grateful that they took the pictures so that Sierra and I could go from winning to losing in 15 short hands of Pounce!

Dave, Ivy, and Kristy's niece. They were comparing their foot sizes here.

Austin and Caden, Photographers extraordinaire!

Pat-a-cake any one? Maybe Sierra and I should have joined this game instead!

Finn taking aim at the Photographers extraordinaire!

Hunter, Finn, and Erin playing Hide-and-go-seek.

A quick shot of the the food table and Kristy's darling Christmas decorations!

I opted out of this game....The kids were doing back flops off the edge onto the bean bag. I wonder if Nathan and Kristy knew that this was going on?

Here are the few pictures of Pounce.... Once again, no awards for the junior photography category :)

Thanks again Nathan and Kristy for a wonderful party. Can't wait for next year!

Music

So I finally figured out how to put a playlist on my blog (I know I am kind of slow.) However, now you can't hear the music to my video clip below! If you want to see the cute video, go down to my playlist and pause the music so you can hear the music in my video. (Make sense?)

Merry Christmas from the Gifford Elfs

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Oakland's baby blessing

We blessed Oakland today. It turned out to be a really nice day. After church, everyone came over to our house for dinner.... It was like a 2nd Thanksgiving! We had about 25 of our family members there to share this special day.

Here is Oakland in his blessing outfit. Dave hated the outfit! But he hates all blessing outfits. He thinks they are girly and slippery making it hard to hold the baby in the circle. Personally, I thought he looked quite handsome :)
My Dad started a tradition with his grandchildren.... When they are blessed he gave them their first gun. Since my dad died, Randy has carried on the tradition. For those of you that didn't know my dad.... He LOVED guns. He had me get my first membership to the gun range when I was about 12 years old. We went often to shoot my 22 pistol and rifle :) I remember when my dad, Randy, and I took Sierra for the first time to the shooting range...... She kept asking "At half time can I go look at my targets." She must have done a lot of football watching with Grandpa also! Oakland can't wait to try out his new gun.

What a difference 8 weeks makes!

Angie had her baby last night. He was 2 weeks early. He weighed 6 pounds 7 ounces! Oakland looked monsterous beside him. My little baby is not so little anymore! Pretty soon the two cousins will be running around and playing together instead of just laying side by side! Angie is going to be mad that I posted a picture of her baby before she had a chance to. SHHH don't tell :)

Family Pictures

Well it is that time of year that I venture out and do the unthinkable.... Family Pictures! It went pretty smooth this year. I was proud of all my kiddos for cooperating so well, even Oakland!

Oh Christmas Tree....

Well, I have finally put away the Halloween decorations, have forgotten about the Thanksgiving decorations, and got out the Christmas decorations. My favorite holiday is Christmas, and one of the things I like best about Christmas is the decorations.

Last night we put up our tree. I always pull out the ornaments and tell the kids the story behind each one, then I let them hang the ornaments on the tree. As you can see they hung all the ornaments on the front of the tree and all bunched in the middle. Dave was worried I wouldn't get a picture of it before the tree fell over! Some branches had 6 or 7 ornaments on it :) I had to wait until after the kids were asleep to "redecorate" the tree.

Another thing I love about Christmas decorating is pulling out all of my Nativity sets. Dave and I decided when we first got married that we would collect nativity's. We got our first one in Acapulco on our honeymoon. We now have 20 different nativity's! This is our newest one! I hope all of you are getting excited about the upcoming season~ I know I sure am!

Thanksgiving Festivities

We had Thanksgiving at our house this year! What a party it was. We had 25 people for dinner and 30 for the pie party.... and enough food to feed 60! Here are some random pictures from the party.

Here is my cousin David.... The very talented photographer... taking a picture of the very untalented me!
This picture is very blurry, but I just wanted to show you how behind I am.... here it is Thanksgiving and you can see that I still have my Halloween decorations up!

Ivy decided she was cousin Don's shadow and followed him everywhere. Don was so patient and kind with her, Thank you Don! I love that he didn't even care that she had chocolate pie all over her face.

Don and his shadow playing catch.

Don telling his shadow and Erin a story.

Don and his shadow playing Dominoes.

Our family LOVES to play Dominoes. I think Kristy said it best... She said she couldn't wait to come to Thanksgiving because she needed to get her Dominoes fix! Here is the WINNER'S table. (We had 2 tables, the winner table and the loser table. After every round the 2 losers from the winner table would move down to the loser table and the 2 winners from the loser table moved up to the winners table.)

This is the LOSERS table! Notice which table I am at! I did make it to the winner's table a couple of times!

Grandma enjoyed sitting in her lazy boy watching everyone at the party. She finally got to hold Oakland (this doesn't happen very often seeing as he is very colicy and she can't hold him very well when he is screaming and fidgeting.)

I am so glad that everyone could come over for Thanksgiving. I like nothing better than a big get together. Thanks for the great party!