watching old home videos

and I noticed we mostly take videos on birthdays and christmas. My daddy o gave me the best Christmas gift ever! He had taken a bunch of our old family videos and my sisters videos and all of OUR videos and put them on one external hard drive thingy. So we have one place to save our movies and we can watch them all at home.

So Danny and the kids and I have been relaxing away our Sunday watching videos we took when Addie was a tiny baby. It's amazing how seeing your child on video is so much more real than my hazy crazy memory.
I'm hoping I'm like Brother Harmon in our ward. Danny is his home teaching companion and he is this amazing woodworker. He has a huge shop and he has helped Danny build my christmas gift of built in bookcases by the fireplace. He is this tiny old man and as sweet as can be. He has absolutely no short term memory though. But he has a very vivid long term memory. He will tell Danny all these stories about how he met his wife and took her to disney land on their first date, and how he had a huge workshop at his old house, and how he started building things because during some war they were rationing everything. I'm hoping as I get older the details of my life start to come back as vividly.
We went and visited him 2 nights before Christmas as he was watching "This Old House" and he welcomed us in and showed us all his wooden cars and trucks and birds he's built and then I played his old organ, from a book of folk American songs, that was sitting in his living room which he says he plays just for himself. He had a huge grandfather clock sitting behind him. On his fireplace mantel was a picture of him and his wife, and his son, who was his wife's son that he raised as his only child. As we talked he told us the story of when his wife died. And he cried....and we sat with him. The girls wiggled and marveled at the carved blue jays and cardinals. Then we had to go, and said goodbye, and he walked us out....

Today at church as Eva sat on my lap and squirmed and chatted, she stood up on my lap and looked to the very back of the church and said really loud...."HI BROTHER HARMON!" and waved.

I didn't have a camera but I hope I always remember that little moment in his home.

home baked christmas pics

This week has been relaxed with no school and lots of family time. I'm looking forward to all the Christmas events coming and want to wish all my sweet sweet loves the bestest, merriest happiest, loveliest christmas EVER!

whats goin down at da dotsons

playing with friends
gum drop garland of death

daddy taking eva out for the evening and she felt very very special
bread and cookie baking
tree trimmed!!!

fire crackling.....

i gotta new camera but I don't got pictures

sixteen miles on the erie canal....

a horrible elementary school song stuck in my head!

I've been feeling better. A couple of weeks ago pregnancy hormones were waging WAR on my body and I was crying like almost everyday.

I got through that. Now I'm just a little sappy and emotional but I do have things I really want to complain about....

technology: Why do we use a virtual homeschool when I seriously have a hatred of technology. Addie keeps wanting to get on these little class sessions with other kids and every time I go to do it I have some huge technical difficulty. She always has the saddest look on her face while I grumble and mess with the microphone and break into a sweat.

Also my cell phone which was a FREE phone handed down from Steph started leaking battery acid everywhere and our cordless phone needs a new battery too. So I've been disconnected from telephones for like 4 days. People are always saying "I CAN NEVER GET A HOLD OF YOU!" I tell them to just come over and knock on my door because there is probably some reason I'm not answering my phone.......like I'm trapped with children crawling all over me, or I'm not home, or my phones are all exploding with toxic gas. There is a really good reason I promise.

Besides my technology complaints here is some more things I'd like to do away with.....

1. Twilight(yes I'm a hater)

2. the christmas shoes song (it's just wrong)

3. the christmas song about some guy running into his high school girlfriend in the grocery store (it has nothing to do with christmas except for the very end when they play like aud lang syne)

4. inflatable christmas decor (my children LOVE those with a passion and every time we see one ask why we can't get some in our yard)

things I need more of:

1. gum drop garland that is pre strung

2. snuggling and reading stories by our christmas tree

3. someone to do all the rest of the shopping and wrapping for me
( I am officially the worst present wrapper in the world! oh wait...danny is worst I'm second worst)

love you all!

thanksgiving

here is the entire Larson Family, thanksgiving was delayed because of plagues of pink eye, strep throat, swine flu and who knows what else. We still managed to get together and celebrate a couple of days late. hooray!
decorating our christmas tree...and here is the best news...I got to retire my kodak easyshare and let it rest in peace as the designated kids camera and we got a new Sony I dunno what's it called...but it's a huge improvent. My christmas is now complete!
I just liked the raspberries on this yummy concoction Rachel made....
Here are the two cutest nephews in the world! Except for Dane of course...
our humongously long thanksgiving table! I'm so glad Rachel has a huge house to have family get togethers in.....we usually host a family event about 2 times a year and we all are eating on folding chairs and the floor!
Eva's brown eyes are chocolicious!
Oliver again! I need to put some pics of the rest of my neices and nephews on here. We had a good time but it flew by, we celebrated two birthdays, watched Nathan Terry prance around in glow in the dark footy jammies, and ate ate ate until we could eat no more. I'm on the celery, fat free ranch, and lettuce diet until I have this baby! I swear I'm going to break 200 this time. ACCCCCCKKKK!

some recentish pictures

the day we found out we were having a male child.....I ate the meatiest breakfast EVER and eva colored her nose red for the celebration
Stephanie and Everett...sorry for my strange flash!
Child Labor numero 1: Addie frantically sewing on her sewing machine
Nathan's lookin' FIIIIIINE


the last of the fall flowers..........................
Child labor 2: Our pizza parlor...if you order a pizza from us you will get child labor but they are mastering the art of crust making. the secret ingredient is Eva's flyaway hairs..yummy.

thanksgiving again

Hey family peeps

I'm really very hungry for the biggest thanksgiving feast ever. So I'm gearing up for some seriously intense thanksgiving delights.

MOM: I want your rolls like right now. And I want mashed potatoes and stuffing.

RACHEL: I want your jello with raspberries and blueberries in it.

Stephanie: I want some huge crazy pumpkin pie dessert thingy with crunchy stuff on top or something like that.

ME: I want my broccoli salad.

KATRINA: I know you can't bring a single thing because you are working that night...I just want your cute little pregnant bod there so I can look even HUGER and FATTER as I wolf down mounds of food.

Every one else is pretty much off the hook. I know Mark will whip up some special "man food" probably and who knows what Dad will sneak in his pockets for all the kids.

I just want you all to know to please me you have to do your part. And I know you will do your part because you DO NOT want to see my wrath. GOt it?