End the year...with a LAUGH

I'm winding down...ready to wrap up the year.

My mother sent me home with a box of old pictures and I came up with a New Years project...(I'm choosing to forget about this years projects that I never started or finished). I'm ready to BOOK my BLOG (the only reason for blogging right??) And ready to post ONE resolution for next year. Just ONE (I aim high.)

So without further adieu...I leave you with one of the images I uncovered...it was just too priceless not to post...even if I am setting myself up for serious ridicule. I wanted to make sure that this image makes it in the 2009 megablog book...(and to all of you from my past who are with me still...be afraid...be VERY afraid - friends and family members.)

Which is worse the HAIR (Tia) or the GLASSES (Me)

Santa Baby

Ella is 6 months old. And I'm totally biased, but I think she is STINKIN' cute. And no...none of my other children have this many pictures and yes...I'm probably going to give them all a complex, but I feel like I'm making up for all the times when i coulda...shoulda...woulda...

She has a new name and a new sound to go along with her new name..."Screaming Eagle" (or is it a Hawk that screeches??) either way...its a piercing loud sound...and its not a cry...just a noise/scream.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! Time to go and drum up some "magic".

*p.s. Lynda-this totally counts as part of your Christmas present! :)

Christmas Card { J.O.Y.}

Probably one of the BEST things about this crazy psychotic time of year (forgive me, but I've been doing laundry all day today, so that I can pack all day tomorrow... And cleaning my house just so that it can be trashed again on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning) deep breath in....deep breath out....ahh much better.

So one of the things that brings me the MOST JOY EVER are Holiday Cards. Now don't freak out because I used the word "Holiday" instead of Christmas - I truly push the "reason for the season", its just that I love getting the random Thanksgiving card too :) I love seeing and reading about what everyone has been up to and seeing what has been "worthy" to make it onto the Holiday card that year (Side note - 2 unknown pregnancies were announced in cards this year...interesting :) I love it when people walk in my house and immediately head to the card door and start browsing through - I do it myself at other people's homes. I thought I was so good this year buying a "Christmas Card" Door Hanger, but it was filled to the gills, so I'm gonna have to start taping them to the door.

I think I'm going to have to hold a contest of some sort, for the BEST/Most Creative card of the year (if only to get all you Holiday card scrooges/"takers NOT givers" to actually send one out). You know who you are...perhaps a Holiday Photo Session??? hmmm I'll start thinking about it. Matt is my un-official judge (as in he's who I try to make laugh when he walks by the cards, and when I dream up our card idea for the year...Tia you did a real good job this year, real good...he's still laughing - and of course all Holdsworth Photography cards wouldn't be allowed - it would be too hard to pick! ha!)

The bacon card is the winner this year...Matt walked by the door and then turned around grabbed it and started laughing. Very clever Rabid...very clever...you've stepped it up a few notches, we're gonna have to work extra hard here next year :)

If you didn't get a Christmas card, then here is a condensed portion...if you got a different one (yes I send out long versions to family and short versions to friends - really only my grandma needs that much information :) then here's a peek at the long one... enJOY!

NOBLE family Christmas Party

We were able to get together with my fathers' side of the family this week. I wish that I had taken more pictures so that Ella could see where she gets her beautiful looks :) My dad's youngest sister Karol, looks so much like her! We shared a quick lunch with my grandfather (David B. - and yes...the image is totally unedited - sometimes I like to go au-nautral) and then headed over to the Wright House (yes - we have family in HIGH places baby :) for our family party - hosted by my dad's middle sister Peggy Wright (get it? the Wright House?) My aunt Peggy made my children sing a ridiculous song and kept the good musical act for her family!

Oh...and my other aunt Vicky - made her apple dumplings. They were so wonderful I almost started to cry...I remember driving to Mesa and getting to her house late at night and walking in (at 10 or 11pm) and there was a massive pot of hot apple dumplings waiting for us. I vowed right then and there to aspire to be like Vicky....feeding and feeding the random people who wander in. Vicky is like Martha Stewart's twin sister - I went a few years ago and took her entire recipe binder and just started photocopying and copying and copying. She's the best ever in the kitchen.

Doing the MOST Good.

Every year I try to think of some off-the-wall way to serve/help/de-materialize Christmas. (Last year we caroled to some elderlies on Christmas Day - went over like a lead balloon with my fam). This year, our Bishop thought of one for me. My husband was luckily out of town with Indy - so Laina, Ella and I went and rang the BELL by ourselves. We loved doing it. We loved talking with people as they walked by. Laina and I were a 2 man act...she was dancing around the bucket and ringing her bell and we were belting out as many Christmas songs as we could think of - and we coulda cared less who put money in and who didn't (just for the record they handed her tons of cash :). We were shameless and embarrassed our family for generations to come.


I started to worry as we drove away though...what if I just showed her how easy it is to stand on a corner and beg for cash????! I should've thrown Ella's carseat out there and taken some of it home with us! (Oh my poor husband! The embarrassment!)



Katy (of Katydids :) and her kids....they sang a LOT better than us.

And Bishop Brett - out peddaling his kids to drum up some cash :)

Gingerbread - Year of the Mother - Part 12

You thought I forgot. You thought I wouldn't make it the entire year. Come to think of it, this might have been the only New Years Resolution that I followed through on :) Now, don't be confused when you see Matt building the Gingerbread house. I BOUGHT the stuff AND I took all the kids, by myself, to the gingerbread display at the Prescott Resort, so there. I did it.

Dancing (& singing) Queen

Laina had a busy week last week...which is so interesting since its my life's mission to NOT overschedule children, they get one musical and one athletic activity - and even then its too much! Anyway, she had a little singing performance at the Pioner Home, and a dance recital - her first dance recital. Matt and I went Saturday night (I was a stage mom on Friday night - which I thought was an awesome idea, until I was off-stage with Ella on one hip and McLaren grabbing one leg, except when he let go to see the dancers and dance along. But I was able to take a semi-closeup, with one hand :) Back to Matt and I...we went to the Saturday performance and I thought Matt was gonna lose it (I told him it gets better when its HIS daughter dancing and not random 12 year olds) - he had to determine how much Laina liked dance, so the first thing he asks her as we walk to the car was "Laina - would you say that dance is your favorite thing? " "Would you say you look forward to it more than anything in the world?" "Would you say that you want to dance forever and ever??" Her reply to every question was a resounding "yes". And with that, Matt's fate was sealed - I vote that he be stage mom next time.

Oh! and before I get the "doobie rag" comments...they're dwarfs, from Snow White's Night before Christmas.

Polar Express

Finally. We made it on the Polar Express.

Finally. I finished editing the bazillion images I took :)

Thank you to Grandpa Wade for making it happen...for those of you who don't know about the Polar Express, here's a quick run-down:

-Some genius businessman turned a one-horse town in Williams, AZ into a mecca for people to throng to for the Polar Express "experience". Pure Genius. You get to board the train in your pajamas, drink really tasty hot chocolate and eat cookies. Read along to the Polar Express. Visit the North Pole (you go through a time warp tunnel - see, genius I tell you :) AND get a personal visit from the man in red himself, and he hands you a bell. Loved every minute of it. We even ran into old friends (Chadwicks) from Yuma! (and Indy got to play in the snow - he's obsessed with it).

A proud mother of boys that can entertain themselves...

A proud wife of a husband that can go in public dressed like this...

See Sheri - I told you my REAR - END was bigger!! :)