Baby of Many Names

When Ryan called his good friend Boyd from the hospital to tell him Marcus had been born, he immediately nicknamed him "Big 'Cus."

The name has stuck and evolved.
From Big 'Cus, to...
'Lil Cus, to...
Custer, to...
General Custer, to...General, to...
Sir Cus-a-lot, to...

Custer-o-ni! (just to name a few)

Christmas Decorating Time

Here's Eli putting Santa on the door to ring in the holiday season.

This pic was taken compliments of our personal family photographer, Eli.

Nativity Scene

Preschool Trip to the Children's Museum

This year I joined up with 5 other women and formed a co-op preschool. We take turns teaching our 6 boys! This was a great field trip we took to the Children's Museum in downtown Phoenix. Everything in the museum is made from recycled materials. They all had a blast!
They crawled through tunnels, rode on bikes, felt different textures, shopped for groceries, and painted a house. There were even areas geared for Marcus' age.
This whole shiny wall was made with old CDs.

Thanksgiving

Isn't Thanksgiving great? It's one of the only holidays that isn't surrounded by politically correct principles! There isn't a race or religion or age group that can be offended by this holiday.

Just eat, be lazy, & be grateful!

Done!

Here are the boys with their Great-Grandma Martinsen. Eli was obviously not excited about having his picture taken. Caleb made Indian headbands and pilgrim hats for all of his cousins.

Big 'Cus is making grandpa and grandma's favorite face!
Caleb begged me and kept reminding me to make sure he got to read his Thanksgiving poem in front of everyone! (is he really my child?)
Me & my grandma Martinsen. I lived next door to her from from my 6th grade year until adulthood. I love this awesome lady!

Just relaxing with Uncle Buddy.

Caleb's Soccer Season

When the ball comes by, he really goes for it! But, I think he likes being silly with his friends even more...
Here is a shot of him putting a cone on a teammates head during the game. Pretty typical stuff. I just love that he has a sense of humor. He is such a fun kid!

I was too cheap to buy the team photos. Here's the shot I took behind the photographer's back. I was a little embarrassed, but not enough to not do it!

10 Year Anniversary Trip

We spent the weekend in Showlow while the grandparents watched our 3 crazies! It was great!
Here's Ryan getting set for our geocaching adventure. (You get GPS coordinates from a website & they lead you to hidden treasures!

Didn't make it to this cache due to the smoke and fire.

Here's our first find of the day, hidden under this log.

Here's our second find. Pretty sweet treasure hidden among the manzanita bushes.
Waiting for our grub at this swanky restaurant.

And, here are our kids' reactions when we came to pick them up! They had so much fun with the grandparents, they didn't want to leave!

Had a Family Home Evening lesson about being obedient. Ryan and I would give a scenario, then Caleb and Eli would tell us if that demonstrated obedience or not. We had a picture of a dad on the wall with a mouth that could be turned into a smile or a frown. They got to change it depending on the scenario.

After the lesson, Ryan said, "Time for bed. Go upstairs and get your pjs on." Eli started to get mad and throw a fit. Then, he stomped over to the "Daddy" on the wall, changed the mouth to a frown and yelled, "I don't want to be obedient! I won't go to bed! You guys don't tell me to go upstairs to bed!"
Wow! That was an effective lesson!