Opryland Hotel lights

It's a big thing here in Nashville to go and check out the lights at the Opryland Hotel (or Aubreyland hotel if your talking to Aubrey; that's what she calls it). They had huge lit up trees and lights everywhere. They had small hot air balloons floating around and a gorgeous nativity outside. It was fun! Aubrey even got to send Santa an e-mail and he sent one back. Too cute!

Campbell Tradition

I am just trying to pass on some traditions from the Campbell side. Eli and Aubrey, anytime the heat turns on they run over to the heater and stand on it or lay on it or sit on it. Yep, they are campbell's too. I remember all of us Campbell kids racing each other to the heaters.

Jaxon Decided to be a pirate today I guess. Aargh! He is also sporting a baby hat. I am surprised it still fits.

AHHHHHHHHHHH!

WARNING: FOR THOSE WITH WEAK STOMACHS YOU MIGHT NOT WANT TO PROCEED TO THE PICTURES. HEHE
It started out as a normal day. Nothing to major happening except we were packing and cleaning up getting ready for our trip. I even got to take a nap. (big mistake) When the boys started pounding on the door to their room and yelling, "Mom" I knew it was time to let them out. Aubrey went up and opened the door for them. Eli was the first to appear and to my surprise (well not really he does it all the time) he had no clothes on including no diaper. The next child of mine, Jaxon, came down a minute later. Jaxon too was sporting no diaper but he did have a shirt on, which deserves at least a little bit of praise. I changed their diapers and then looked at Eli's hand and saw that there was poop on it. Oh No! I ran upstairs to find this.

Poop on the wall

writing on the dresser and walls (good thing it was crayon)

Poop on Jaxons picture frame, on the carpet and on the vaporizor. Missed the blanket though.

Poop all over the dresser.

Okay most of the time snow days are great, but next time the school cancels school because of a little snow I am going to protest. This is what happens when they do it. I know Eli started it because he is the one that always takes off his diaper, Jaxon just usually takes off his pants. There was poop all over the wall, all over the dresser, all over the carpet, on Jaxon Picture frame, on the bed, and everywhere else you can think of. Oh, and they found a crayon somewhere. I cleaned their room earlier and didn't see a crayon. So either I can't clean very well or they were stashing it somewhere. I will go with the second choice to make me feel better. I just started to cry. I called James, "Can't you come home?"

I know people say , "this too shall pass, " or " you're going to miss the days when your kids are young." I am perfectly content though with these type of things passing on by and not even stopping and also I will miss some things but this stuff I won't miss. Yuck! I apologize if I grossed anybody out or made anybody glad they don't have kids. Kids are great but today was a nightmare. Hehe

Let it snow!

We were shocked to look outside at about 5 p.m. and see huge snowflakes and snow already on the ground. Of course Eli dug right in and started eating what he could find. Jaxon tried it too but ended up eating dirt along with it. Aubrey made a snow angel with what little snow we had.

Of Course Nashville freaks out when there is snow so school was cancelled for Friday. We had to scramble to find gloves. Who know where our winter stuff was. We found a few things that would help but Eli wouldn't wear any. We ended the snow party with a snowball fight with dad when he got home and with Eli freezing but not wanting to go inside. He kept saying "NO,NO" His new favorite word. I think that is all of my kids favorite word. Oh well, what can you do.

I give up!

Okay, so we were supposed to be getting a family picture done. Aubrey was sad because she didn't want to be in the middle. The boys would never look at the camera and every time we got a decent picture there would be snot all over little noses. I give up. Tasha, when we get to your house we need your help to get a family picture. James looks hot though. Maybe next time. hehe

The tree must come down

James can't get over the fact that whenever we go to a Campbell event there is always some project that needs to be done. Most of the time though it is not dangerous. This time, however was another story. A 60 foot tree was the target and it had to come down. Margene was so scared she wouldn't even watch at all. I think a lot of prayers were being said by the wives of these crazy gentlemen. We thought for sure one side was going to hit either the house or the playhouse. One side landed in front of the playhouse exactly where they wanted. The other half landed behind the playhouse, totally opposite of the desired landing site. All is good. Nobody got hurt and now there is plenty of firewood to go around. We really got nervous, at one point when Josh told us to get everyone in the basement just in case. Always an adventure! Hilarious!

Yes, Turkey!

Yes, it's chow time! My kids are already digging in. They take after their mom. We had such a great time at Josh and Margene's. They are great hosts. Thanks everyone for such a great time.

The girls went shopping the day after for some deals. We found more than our budgets allowed. We even spent 1 1/2 hrs. at Target waiting to pay. Come to find out we were in the wrong line. oops! It was lots of fun though!

James went with the guys to look at electronics. He called and asked what our credit limit was. I thought he was serious but he was just joking. I, however, know someday he is going to bring home a big flat screen tv, but it won't be this year.

We played games and chatted. Josh swept the board on Apples to Apples. What a guy! We had an awesome time and I don't think we saw Aubrey for more than 1 hr. the whole time.

Thanksgiving

Turkey bowl time. The boys got up and went to play football. Paramedics were on standby.j/k James did get really sore though but he is ready for more. Bro. Wood, the kids and I went over to see the end of it. I ended up just watching the kids play on the playground. So Sweet!!!

Cousins are great. McKaylee and Naomi just hovered over Jaxon most of the time. It was nice. Maybe we will move closer to them so I can have babysitters. hehe In the picture where Aubrey is not looking she told me, with her beautiful upside down smile, "Don't get me in it, mom!" She meant it too. Oh well, it will be picture to show for years to come. There's Eli still loving the swing.

Trip to Josh's

The trip to Josh's was slow. It took us 4 1/2 hours to get there, and it usually takes us just over 3 hours. Eli hung out the whole time but I thought it was funny to look back and see Aubrey and Jaxon zonked out. Jaxon's blanket was on his head instead of on his lap. Now that's the way to travel. I was jealous! Hehe

I love Christmas!

Since we were going to be at Josh and Margene's the day after Thanksgiving we decided to put up our tree the day before so we could come home to a nice Christmasy home. Aubrey and Jaxon got into the christmas spirit. Although I think Jaxon was removing the ornaments. j/k Eli wasn't interested so I found him over dressing up his dinosaur. He is placing a doll hat on the dinosaur in the picture. I think Aubrey has a little too much influence in this house. :) We are excited about Christmas and about trying to come to Denver and Utah to try to see a lot of our family. Pray that we make it on the flights because we are flying standby. Hope to see y'all soon!

Crafts

Aubrey loves to do crafts but she wonders why I don't get excited about her doing paint crafts. Here is a picture to give me justification for being hesitant. She decided while painting something for thanksgiving she would mix all the colors together and paint her hands instead. Yep, I can hear you all in agreement that pulling out paints is a scary undertaking!

Twilight

So is anybody else into the Twilight books? I love them and was excited about the movie coming out. I called James asking him if he would like to go see it with me. As much as he loves me he told me no. I made the mistake of trying to read some of it to him and he gagged on the romantic parts. In other words if I was going to go then I would have to find a friend to go with me. I started calling around and found out that down in Cool Springs someone from the Stake had reserved a theatre for 500 people and it was going to be at 10 p.m. but only 6 bucks. I decided that would be fun to do so I called Timber and a couple others and asked if they were going or would like to go with me. Timber was a good sport and came with me. It even snowed a little on the way there. We stood in line for awhile but finally made it in. It was pretty much about 6 of us from Church (married, us old folks) and the rest were teenagers or the majority was teenagers. It was hilarious! Anytime Edward came out they would squeal and cheer. We couldn't help but laugh. It makes you think what things you did as a teenager. Did I act like that? was the question of the night. It was fun. Thanks Ladies for letting me go with you.

Sam's Club

Aubrey and I love to go to Sam's Club. Especially on the weekend when there are a lot of samples. She is the only one that usually gets the privilege of going with me. However, one day after registering the van we went to Sam's with Jaxon as well. As we were walking in Aubrey was already explaining to Jaxon how things work. She then asked him if he wanted "some examples" to eat. She told him "examples are very yummy and you will love them." I didn't have the heart to correct her yet. So now when we go to Sam's we go there for "examples." :)

Recovering

We have been trying to get sickness out of our house for the past month. From the flu to colds to sore throats. We are finally feeling a million times better but obviously we are still recovering and needing some extra sleep.

Jaxon loves to try on new hats and loves his coat so we had to take a picture of him with Aubrey's helmet on backwards.

James is getting Old

Eli loves his Pizza, can you tell? He is into hugs lately and when we went to pick him up from school the other day because he was sick he walked over to Aubrey and gave her a hug. Now she is always trying to get one from him. It is so sweet!

The big 29! He has already threatened me to not throw a huge party for next year. We'll see what happens. We celebrated a couple days early. It ended up making the day more relaxing. A party is not a party without pizza! James got some great gifts. He got new speakers for the computer and a new game called "Civilization." He also got a mouse pad with pictures of his kids on it for work. We had ice cream that night but then we had brownies for his real birthday on monday. The kids and I went to his work and decorated his car. Haha We love our James!

pumpkin cookies

We had some friends over for the day. Sarah and Everett Boughton came over while their mom went out for her birthday. We love having visitors and we even tried to make some pumpkin cookies. Aubrey wanted to stir and I usually let her so I handed the bowl to her. She was playing around while she was stirring (showing off is more like it) and ended up dumping the whole bowl onto the carpet. That is why there is a picture of orange carpet. The picture doesn't do it justice. It was ORANGE! I didn't have any carpet cleaner so we were going to walk to target but it started to rain on us. When Bishop Boughton came to pick up his kids he brought his carpet cleaner and cleaned the carpet. It looks much better. Thanks Bishop! I like orange but I wasn't ready to go back to the 70's carpet look.

After Halloween sales

So, we got lucky and made it to some of the Target and Walmart after halloween sales and Aubrey found a pink wig this week and fell in love with it. She even tried to wear it to the mall one day and I was going to let her but then she took it off and said, "I better not wear it, everyone will laugh at me." She says that a lot about her clothing lately if it isn't just right. I don't know where she got it from. She loves to dress up but she also gets tired of new things fast. That's my teenager for you!:)

Jaxon's Birthday

Jaxon's 2 now. Time flies and we are already getting questions about when another one is coming. Not anytime soon! We love this stage of independence; well as much as you can enjoy the word, "No," and the phrase, "I do it" or the word "Mine!" Or even the screams of protest when they are removed from a situation. I didn't think fighting amongst siblings would start so young but Jaxon has a mean right hook.

We started off having a curious george party; thus the masks but then we had a pinata that had shrek on it. We also had power Ranger balloons and spiderman candy. We were all over the map with this party but all of those things are Jaxon's favorite. He got a bike, buzz lightyear (which Eli tried to snatch the very second Jaxon opened it), some beautiful cards (thanks Great Grandma, and Grandma), some great phone calls, and lots of candy (his favorite thing). When you ask him "how old are you?," he holds up all five fingers and says "two." We'll work on counting the fingers later. Happy Birthday, Jaxon!

He loves his bike and I think it is because it has a million buttons on it. For a few days that was what we'd hear while napping or doing any other thing. Quiet toys are the goal for Christmas. I wonder if we could pull it off! We'll See!

New House

Look at our beautiful home! We love it already. The kids are always wanting to go out in the cul-de-sac even when it is freezing outside. The kitchen is double the size at our apartment. We could use some visitors though so come on over.

Halloween

Trick or Treat! We went around the new neighborhood. Not a lot of people were answering so the kids got a lot of candy from those that were answering. I guess a lot of people to parties and trunk or treats more now. We started off with James and Eli and made it to 3 houses before Eli threw a big fit so I continued on with Jaxon and Aubrey. Aubrey would say trick or treat and Jaxon would hold up his bag. It was fun. Aubrey even did her own makeup. (she even put on mascara by herself) Happy Halloween!