MERRY CHRISTMAS!

If you're reading this, you either check in occasionally or.... Ta Dah! I got the Christmas cards sent out!!!!!! This has been a wonderful year and we just wanted to share a few snip its with you! Let's start with:

January - All I can say is we were sugar highed, spoiled, and ready for grumpy mommy to have our baby. It was a VERY cold month for the state of Georgia and in Feb. we even got snow.

February- Jonah turned 5! He has truly grown up so much. He's calmed down and is such a delight to talk with. He LOVES Lego's and Star Wars.. and loves when they are together. He loves church and loves to make the girls giggle.

March - Our sweet Mia was born on the 27th. She has been an amazing baby. Very content and happy. She's just now getting stranger anxiety, but if mom's around, she is never upset. She even deals with all the hugs and loves from 4 older siblings.

April - My mom had to leave and Brian had to go back to work. I had to figure out how to juggle 5 kids and a semi- normal life. I really missed my help leaving (thanks mom and Beth and Bob for all the help), but we slowly but surely figured it out. This also started my life of eating healthy. To date I've lost 33lbs and feel great!

May - Mollie turned 10... oh my, a whole decade. She had a Hoedown Throw Down birthday party. We cleared the furniture and danced to country music. She loves to dance and sing and sing and sing and sing.... and sing. She also loves to blog and take pictures. She is so helpful with all her younger siblings and we are truly grateful for her.

June- We went on our annual Charleston trip. It was VERY hot! but fun. We went to the water park, the beach and we all rode bikes this year. Even Jonah! Amie and Mia were pulled in the trailer and they loved having the royal treatment.

July - Another vacation month! Our cousins came down from Minnesota and we were so happy to spend girl time at Hilton Head beach and the boys down at Kennedy Space Center with a real astronaut! We spent the rest of the time swimming and playing at Grandmas house. Oh, and of course, Brian turned 37, I turned 32 and we've been married for 11 GREAT years!!

August - Back to School! The kids have truly done double time this fall with school. We were a little more relaxed with Mia being born, but boom.... Benjamin went from a 1st grade reading level to a 4th and his writing has really improved. Jonah is reading when he wants to and counts and adds EVERYTHING!, Mollie is learning long division and doing wonderfully and Amie... LOVES mommy school. We've done lots of crafts and have learned that she's an artist.

September- What a wonderful month this was. Our Benjamin chose to be baptized. He truly understands and is an amazing example to us. He even finished reading the Book of Mormon this year. Our Granny and Grandpa were also able to come for his baptism and we had a blast with them... too short, but loved having them. We took them to the boys favorite place.... Fort Pulaski.

October - Wow, seems like yesterday. We ALL dressed up like Greek gods and goddesses. We've been reading Percy Jackson and had so much fun at all of our parties. This was also the month Mom was very jealous of Brian and Benjamin... they went on a cruise... and ate and ate and ate and had such a wonderful bonding experience.

November - This month just flew by for us. We are very Thankful for all of our blessings and had a wonderful month of service. We also shared our Thanksgiving day at the Grandma and Grandpa Russell's house... and of course participated in the ultra crazy Black Friday!

December - We've had a wonderful month. We've been Christmas caroling, been secret elves, read the Forgotten Carols, enjoyed way too many treats, and of course, had a wonderful time sharing Christmas memories with each other. The kids had Santa come early and we'll be having 2 Christmas'! The kids of course have been spoiled, but I really feel we've done our best at sharing the true meaning of Christmas with them. This is also the month Amie turns 3! She is our very independent, strong willed child. We're learning how to work her and she is a delight when we do figure it out. We've learned to give her outlets through art and much to my dismay, movies. She is potty trained day and night and talks a mile a minute. She has an amazing vocabulary and we are truly thankful for her.

Which brings us to our blessings of having amazing family and friends like you. We are so thankful God has brought you into our lives. We hope you have a wonderful Christmas and want you to know you are all in our thoughts and prayers.

Love, The Russell Family

Sneak Peak of Family Photos

So, Christmas Presents this year are going to be picture based so I didn't want to share these, but these are also for our Christmas card... which I hope to actually get out (you don't even want to know how many 100's of pictures I have in boxes just waiting to be sent with the yearly I'll get to sending it out Christmas card) If you want a card, email me your address. :)

We had so much fun.... ok, I had so much fun... ok, maybe it was a little ok a lot stressful. My children were angels, well most of them. At least the naked one finally put Back on a dress after pulling her cute pig tales out of her hair. But, bribing with chocolate brownies worked.... and I think we only got a little on the clothes. YEAH. It's done. And I love them. I'll post the rest as the month ends. Did I tell you I did them.... yes, I'm too cheap to have someone else do them... so setting the timer and running is why I look so peppy Oh, and if anyone knows if I can get my glasses to not be sunglasses in a picture... let me know. Didn't think about that one.

FIRST DIGITAL PAGE

So, I have been dabbling in Digital Scrapbooking. I've done a few, but not really. Well, I participated in an online speedscrapping event. They give you directions one step at a time and you have to interpret them and make your layout. It was pretty easy... until I had to figure out how to change the pixels, save and upload it... .ahh, but I did it. Then I noticed typos in the writing... I'll get to that. Right now, I'm just amazed I did it. I wonder if it gets easier... it still seems time consuming. I wonder if it will be something I take up.

More Halloween Pictures

Yeah! It's over. AHhhhhhh relief. I love this time of year, but it's nonstop... so one thing down and next I have a RS Activity and then a breather for a little bit. The pictures are from a party at Brian's work. I liked my Medusa costume better here and Jonah decided to be Perseus instead of Percy Jackson... he just wanted the armor from the dollar store.

Happy Halloween!

We had our Trunk-or-Treat last night. For the first time ever, we ALL dressed up. We were Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Jonah was Percy Jackson with a backpack with a lightening bolt sticking out and holding shoes with wings. I was Medusa, Brian Zeus, Benjamin Poseidon, Mollie Aphrodite, Amie and Mia were cupids/cherubs. We all had a great time! I need to get better pictures of Benjamin and Jonah and Brian and I when we dress up again.

Turpentine 5K

Guess what?! Mollie and I ran our very first 5K! I really can't believe we did it! I've been wanting to do one forever, but then it got hot and then I hadn't trained and excuses excuses. So, Mollie reminded me of this one and I told her we weren't ready. She insisted we could do it. So the thursday before the race we "practiced". I just wanted to make sure I could kind of do it before I wasted my money. Well, we did. Took 54 minutes, but we did it. Mollie had a hard time (more on that in a minute), but we decided to do it. Mollie convinced her friend and her dad to do it with us to. So we were on. Saturday we were so excited... up early and everything. Ready, Set, go..... we were off. And man, Mollie was off. I kept telling her to be careful because we've never gone that fast before, but she wanted to keep up with her friend and her dad. I was left behind. It was kind of tough with all the hills, but so fun. It went right by our house and my kids and husband were cheering me on. They told me Mollie was 5 min ahead. I got to a point and they told me it was only 3/4 mile left. What?! I can do this. I saw Mollie up ahead and encouraged her to keep going (she got left behind her friend too). When I got to the end. YEAH!!! I got 39 min 58 seconds. and Mollie.... who had had a hard time with her mom, got 35 min. I ws so proud of her. I realize to you who may have done this before, 40 min is a slower of time, but for me, who couldn't even run 6 months ago, and had never ran more that 2 miles in her LIFE (well, I'm sure I've done enough bleacher running to equal that... but that was another life) I am happy with me. Now I can see how this can be addicting. I told Mollie we could get matching shirts and we both need new running shoes. But yeah! Anyways, here's the pics.

Wish time would slow down.....

It seems like when we hit September.... life flies by. My baby (well, my second baby) was baptized at the beginning of this month and we were so lucky to have both sets of his grandparents here as well as his Aunt. My parents stayed for a few days and we had a blast (not sure they enjoyed the DAYS worth of traveling, but we were thankful they came.) Benjamin was so excited for his baptism and had been talking about it constantly and even the morning of woke up talking about it. He is an amazing example to me and to our family.

After everyone left I had a pampered chef party and was in charge of our church's Relief Society service project... whew... I am just about to relax, but no, had to craft all day yesterday for our next RS activity for some samples and such. It's fun, but I need to be better about organizing my time. Here are some pictures to hold you over.