Christmas.. and stuff

 I have a lot to catch up on! First of all WE MOVED!! We sold our house and moved into "The" house! I love it here! Here's a few pictures of Avery from the Christmas dance performance. I didn't have my camera because it was missing for a while after the move but I snapped these with my phone because Avery was being so funny.. She hates her costume. HATES it! To the point that she wanted to  quit dance just so she wouldn't have to wear it.

 Saying goodbye to this place.. Oh happy day!

 Avery begged me to take this picture while we were shopping for new furniture.

 Grandma Clause (Grandma Sill) showed up with a surprise for Gavin.. a new puppy! He was so brokenhearted about losing Tucker that she wanted to cheer the little guy up.. With a mini Aussie named Cooper. It worked! He was so excited! The little guy is a terror! He is wild and crazy and so mean to Ellie but hopefully we will get past that. He is doing great potty training though so that's a plus.

 My new kitchen.. I want to paint it sometime soon but I am in love with this room!

 Mackenzie's room was quite the project.. She wanted chevron! It took me 7 hours just to do the grid and the taping.. 11 hours total to paint the one wall.

 Avery's room

 upstairs family room

 New paint in the upstairs family room. Dallas hates my end table.. I love it!! It now has teal and white curtains and a big grey area rug. And my electric fireplace stopped working. I am so sad!

 We've also inherited the neighbor's dog Chevy.. He loves us so much that he jumps the fence and sits on our back porch and begs to come in.. When we let him in, he just makes himself at home. I'm sure the neighbors are tired of having to come over and get him every other day. We don't mind. My kids love him!

 This was Avery's letter to Santa this year..
To satu
I wood like elsa pawers and majik chapstic and elsa stuff.
Love Avery Sill
This girl is impossible to please! Last year she wanted a deer hat with horns so she can "charge the bad guys."

Avery reached her reading goal of passing 80 AR reading tests and got her samurai! This was a goal for the school year and she did it in less than half! Good job Avery!

Gavin participated in the science fair this year and he had so much fun! They said he did a fabulous job during his interview. Good job Gavin!

 My school picture for the year. I hate that they make us get them taken. I look like a dork.

 The other day me and Avery went on a shopping date to Utah.. It was so much fun to hang out with her. Just the 2 of us. We don't get to do that very often.

 Dallas took the other 2 and went to Vernal to pick up this.. A big horned sheep that he found while working a few weeks ago. Once they finished their investigation, they let Dallas have it.. Lucky me.. I get to have this hanging on my wall sometime in the near future. Yay! (insert sarcasm)

 It's already been a month since Christmas.. Geez- Where has the time gone? We had a great Christmas, starting with our traditional pajamas and blankets on Christmas Eve.

 Dallas and I went to bed at about 12:30.. And Mackenzie woke us up at 1:00. I told her to go back to bed.. She couldn't sleep so she watched a movie in her room then woke up Gavin and the 2 of them came in at 3:00. We gave in and let them open presents.

 Gavin and Mackenzie both wanted air soft guns.. They spent all day shooting at their targets in the basement. Then they went and had an air soft war with the neighbors.. Sounds fun doesn't it? Those things hurt if they hit the bare skin! Doesn't sound like fun to me.

 Gavin got his Tucker blanket. He sleeps with it every night.

There was one big box left behind the tree.. What could it be???

Disneyland tickets! And t-shirts and autograph books, and other Disney paraphernalia. We are going in February! The week of Valentines Day and Mark and Sherin and their family are going with us. We are so excited! We are now 10 days away!

 We had our annual Anderson Christmas party and Chris and Staci came all the way from Abu Dhabi to come see us.. It was so good to see them and to hear all about their adventures. I sure love my family!

 Mackenzie turned the big 12 a few weeks ago. She has been planning her party for 6 months. I think they all had a great time!

 Black lights, bright colored hats, and clothing, glow in the dark body paint, and loads of sugar made for a pretty fun night. We had 10 girls sleep-over. It was wild and crazy and they all had fun. This is a great group of kids.. I can prove it.. One of them dialed a random number.. to see if anyone would answer. When the guy answered they decided to prank him.. Then they felt so bad that they called back and apologized lol! I love these girls!

Avery and Cooper.. He's getting big!

 One of the things I love about living here is the clear skies and watching the sun set and rise each day. And I love the big puffy white clouds in the summer and looking at the stars at night..  I can't wait until summer! However, this winter has been pretty amazing. Last week for 2 days I wore capris and sandals.. and no jacket. It was in the 50's! In january! That never happens! It's been in the 80's in San Diego so I can't wait to be there!

Life On the Funny Farm

 It is now December! Can you believe it?? I can't! Where has the year gone? I thought i'd better get caught up on a few things.. This blog included.. Me and the kids went to Lagoon during the last weekend of Frightmares. It was so fun to just spend the day with my 3 kids. The weather was perfect!! We had so much fun and I have some pictures to prove it:)

 Mackenzie looks creepy in this picture!

 Haha! They went trick or treating and at this stop in order to get their treat, they had to dance with the workers.. Gavin decided he didn't really want a treat.

Look at that handsome boy! I love that smile!

 Avery was so so excited to meet Maleficent.

 Shelley dropped Trey and Shelby off so they could hang out with us for the last few hours. Avery was so brave and went on the big roller coasters with me and she was terrified of the clowns so she was being really brave in this picture.. Even in my old age I still love going to Lagoon!

 Of course we carved pumpkins for Halloween!

 Gavin carved 2!

I went to the kid's costume parade at their school and Elsa was wearing vampire teeth!

 And Gavin was getting bullied by a girl haha!

 I feel bad I didn't get a picture of Mackenzie in her cute costume.. She was a rodeo clown. She wore the costume to school and to the Halloween dance at her school and she looked so cute but then on Halloween she refused to wear it.. She threw on a vampire cape and called it good.

 I had good intentions for Thanksgiving.. I packed my big camera and this is the only picture I took..  We had a great Thanksgiving and ate way too much food!

 The rest of our Thanksgiving break was a little rough.. okay, a lot rough.  First of all.. We were supposed to move this weekend then close on our new house next week .. We found out that it could be up to 2 months before we will be able to close which means we won't be moving this weekend.. Apparently the people who are selling their house so that they can buy this other house so that those people can buy my house, have an issue with their title and it may take some time to get it sorted out. Then we find out that the people buying our house are coming up short on closing costs so the only way they can buy our house is if we give them $3,000 for their closing costs on top of the $5,500 we have to pay when we close on our new house.. and we aren't making a dime off of the house we are selling. Then Gavin's dog got sick.. We noticed Saturday night that he was just really lethargic, and moving very slowly.. We brought him in the house and watched him for about an hour and it was obvious there was something wrong so we called the vet and he met us at the clinic. He said it looked like Tucker had ingested rat poison. We don't know where he got it but the vet thought that with treatment he would be okay. He said the treatment would cost between $600 and $800 and we said that if he was confident he would be okay, to go for it.. Yesterday morning the vet called and said that Tucker had died during the night.. He said after we left, he did an x-ray and his lungs were filling with blood. He drained his lungs and used the blood to do a transfusion and also gave him platelets to help the blood clot and started the vitamin K treatments to counteract the poison. He said he left at midnight and Tucker was resting peacefully but when he came back in the morning, he found he had died. So we have a dead dog, a $600 vet bill, and some very devastated kids.. Especially Gavin. This dog was his very best friend and he is lost without him. Tucker has always been by Gavin's side Gavin loves him more than anything.. Gavin doesn't have a lot of friends outside of school so he has really depended on Tucker. He has cried and cried.. Last night I held him as he cried himself to sleep and it was heartbreaking. Hearing him say his prayers and begging for comfort and praying for the dog about killed me. He cries, then I cry because I hate seeing him in so much pain. Anyhow, after the vet called we picked Tucker up and decided to go bury him at our favorite camping spot. We didn't make it. We got stuck in the snow and then had to drive down the mountain in reverse because we couldn't turn around. We ended up burying him at a spot where Dallas and Gavin like to go hunting. Rest in peace Tuckie! He really was the best dog i've ever known. 

 A while after we got home from burying the dog, Dallas got a call From his best friend's wife, telling him that his best friend Scott Evans had died that morning so Dallas is devastated too. Yesterday was a really hard day for all of us.. I am so emotionally drained. We all are. Then this morning we wake up and Avery starts throwing up and I called about 20 people but couldn't find a sub.. I finally found someone who could come in at 10:00 so I went to work until 10 and Dallas stayed home until I could get back.. At first I saw this as just another problem to add to the week, especially since I've got to take Thursday off too for the funeral but I think it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I laid with Avery on the couch and we watched Christmas movies and drank orange juice.. It was just what I needed after such an emotional weekend. I really hope things will turn around and we can have some good things happen for us. We've had enough frustration and heartache to last us a while. I'm starting to look forward to a new year!