At this time of Christmas, this season when gifts are given, let us not forget that God gave His Son, and His Son gave His life, that each of us might have the gift of eternal life.

Our kick off to the Christmas Season was seeing Anna and Carson in the Live Nativity for the City. We hope you all create precious memories this Christmas~

Merry Christmas to All our Family and Friends....

Happy Birthday Anna~

All Anna wanted for her 11th Birthday was to get a manicure and pedicure with her mom :) She is growing up so fast! So I checked her out of school early and off we went to pretty our hands and feet and then did a little shopping for her party!

They turned out pretty cute!

We made invitations that looked like pizza slices for her Pizza Party with her friends! The party was so much fun! The girls decorated their own aprons and then made their own pizzas.

  It was so fun to see the creativity in some of these girls.

Anna has a great group of good friends both from our old neighborhood and our new. I am so happy for her!

Happy Birthday Anna~We are so blessed to have your light and love in our family! You are our beautiful princess...and drama queen :)

Thanksgiving 2009

The only family pic we got was taken right before we went to grandma and grandpas for dinner. And yes we had to wait until Carson finished his game! I love capturing these moments in our life!

"Our realization of what is most important in life goes hand in hand with gratitude for our blessings." Thomas S. Monson

Halloween Celebrations~

You would never guess that Halloween is not one of my favorite holidays because of all we had going on.. So bear with me...we begin with our Annual Randall Halloween Party. We have such a good time dressing up....this year I BEGGED Charissa to do another "costume theme". I thought it would be cute and fun to have my children dress up as bugs and me as the bug catcher. Madalyn already wanted to be a bumble bee and naturally Anna is our "ladybug'. So after she realized she could wear her favorite TuTu she relented! And Carson was the perfect bug...Transformer Bumblebee that is!

Here are a few of the grandkids waiting to get the party started!

We had lots of yummy, scary food!

Spent the weekend making cupcakes. The spider cupcakes were really fun to make.

Grandpa played the traditional Halloween Bingo Game with his grandchildren.

Charissa our pretty bug with her newest cousin, Preston the mummy! Such a cute costume~

 Our two bugs...Anna the Lady Bug adorned with her tutu and 

                Maddy the Bee sporting her look~And Carson as our mighty Transformer! 
                                                          Awesome Dude~

 And here is the reigning champion of the Donut Eating Contest. Warning...this is graphic :)

On Halloween Day we decorated our courtyard as a spooky graveyard! Seriously...we had so much fun and this is something I've never done before...but it turned out great and we have even better ideas to add next year! I know crazy huh? Keep in mind the pictures don't even do justice and as I tried to take some pictures the fog from the fog machine made it less visible...which was the whole idea. And the strobe light didn't show up either but this will give you an idea of what the little trick or treaters entered on Halloween night!! OOOOOO..

The bag of bones in the center even glowed in the dark. We had spooky music playing and we even had a remote control tarantula we would have crawl up their feet when they knocked on the door.

My kids want it known that it looked way cooler at night! We scattered leaves everywhere to give it a graveyard feel and had eyeballs staring at you through the windows. 

We had soo much fun~ The only disappointing part was that we had hardly any trick or treaters. So next year we want you all to come and visit!

Happy Halloween from our Haunted House to yours~

Happy Birthday Carson!

I can't believe my baby is NINE! Where has the time gone? Look at him~he is so handsome and as I look at him my heart is so full. Words don't give justice to how much I love this little man!  I remember when over nine years ago I had a very distinct impression there was one more child waiting to come to our family...it would be a boy...and he would be the last. It was a sense of urgency almost...like I had already wasted enough time. It's crazy to look back now and see the Lords hand in my life and how important it was for Carson to join our family! How blessed we all are to have his sweet and tender spirit in our home and in our lives~

For his party I copied my cousins great idea~LEGOS~ Carson has so many favorite things he likes to do and building with legos is one of them. We had fun decorating cupcakes (Thanks Am for the candies) and decorating the house in bright colors.  

The boys spent most of the time creating and building with the legos. We even had contests with prizes for the most extreme and silly creations. They seemed to have a lot of fun. I must say this was one of the easiest parties we've ever had. They are a fun group of boys...

After opening presents the boys went outside and played wall ball. 

Elder Randall...this one is for you!

Carson has been asking to get a dog for his birthday ever since we gave Duke away. So I thought it would be funny to give him a dog...on the Wii...the best kind of pet for us :) He wasn't too sure about that. Afterwords he told me he was a little disappointed it wasn't a real dog. Oops~ 

 We topped his birthday off with a family dinner at his favorite restaraunt...Applebees.

Here's to you Carson~ We love you~

FALL~

I love the trees in our yard. We moved to an area where we are surrounded by trees. I enjoy listening to the birds in the morning/night and the feel of the cool air. For so many years we lived in newer neighborhoods with hardly any trees. I do enjoy where we live~ It was beautiful to watch the leaves change color in our own yard and neighborhood. Anna waited anxiously for the day she could go out and rake up the leaves. One day last week she was out before I even got home, raking up piles of leaves....it was perfect timing because within minutes a huge gust of wind came and blew the leaves off of the trees and ground. It looked like a leaf tornado!! It was incredible! So Maddy, Carson and Anna and a few of their friends went up and down the street playing and raking up the leaves.

I was so proud of my children when the following days they helped an elderly sister in our ward rake the leaves in her yard. Many hands make light work. Good thing they enjoy this new found excitement....not sure how long that will last!

A little R and R

At the Randall Coop (Cabin)! Rest and Relaxation were the agenda for the weekend. I have been working so hard and the kids have been such great helpers as well as staying busy with their own stuff. We needed to get away for awhile. We went to the cabin with Grandma and my nephew Davis, who joined us for the night! He kept us entertained! He is so darn cute!!! I do have the CUTEST nephews for sure!!

  I didn't want us "loafing" around the entire time so I forced everyone to take a hike! We have a fun little hike we like to take when we go to the cabin.

It was a lot of fun and nice to have my mom with us this year. Especially when Madalyn was TERRIFIED by something she saw in the bushes. She swears it was a snake! My mom was there to comfort her when her own mother (myself) was insensitive and kept laughing at her!! Here good ol grandma is taking a stick to the bushes to ensure Maddy there were no snakes and she didn't need to be scared.

But seriously to my defense....it was hilarious. Maddy is the teaser in the family and when I heard her say there was a snake I thought she was teasing...until I saw her RUNNING and slipping down the trail with the fear all over her face and in her voice....I knew she wasn't teasing!!! But it caught me off guard and it made all of us laugh!! I know call me insensitive! I wish I had a picture of her face. I know even more insensitive! Little Miss "I'm not scared of anything" was scared to death for the rest of the hike. When I tried to take a group picture at the end of the hike she was still crying and not willing to smile!

At the end of the trail there is the waterfall we like to climb. The creek wasn't very full this time of year but the kids still had a good time collecting cool and interesting rocks. Grandma had no desire to climb down the rocks to the falls so she stayed and took pictures.

Notice Maddy holding tight to her stick :) She did feel more safe and brave in the rocks!

Carson finds and keeps sticks from everywhere we go so of course he would find some on our hike. I love this boy! I'm excited to work in scouts with him. He is growing up so fast. His new favorite past time in the morning (when he is up far too early) is to turn on sports center and catch me up on the latest stats. Over the weekend he had to watch and get the BYU vs.Oklahoma game stats. GO Cougars they pulled it off!! Ere go the days of having no sports or sportcenter in our home :) I enjoyed it while it lasted :) hee hee!

Overall we had a great weekend playing games, being outside, watching movies and eating WAY too much junk. Thanks Uncle Matt B for the enormous chocolate cake you left us. My children are soo much fun....I really do love spending time with them. The next R & R vacation can't come soon enough!