Merry Christmas!!

We hope you all had a wonderful holiday this year!  

And, a few things I'd like to mention about this card......

1}  Trav's shirt is not purple!  But, apparently it looks that way.....also, I have been known to have some color issues from time to time.

2}  It was taken in our backyard by my lovely friend, Chessa, on 5 minutes notice.

3}  There was a whole lot of photoshop involved.....special thanks to my sister Ashley, who helped move a few people around from different photos....among other helpful edits:)

4}  We originally planned on including the family dog......but it didn't go so well.  

Here is one of many outtakes:

Anyhow, Merry Christmas to all!  And I vow to return to blogging regularly soon...

the wedding!

So, little sister Ashley got married a few weeks ago and I thought I would share a few pics from her big day.  I'd like to thank facebook for saving me the trouble of asking her to email all of these to me.....  I am so happy for my little sis and her new hubby, Matt.  I still vividly remember when she was born.  I had hoped and prayed for a little sister after enduring five brothers all in a row (and within 6 years....go Mom, I don't know how you did it)  And then came Ashley.....and two more sisters after her!  So, after watching her through the years and developing a close friendship and comraderie, I can't believe she is all grown up and married now.  She found a great guy and we were happy to welcome him to the family.  

  All the Stoker siblings, minus Whitney who is stationed in Germany with the army.....missed you Whit!

The wedding was in Salt Lake City and then we drove up to Idaho Falls for the reception the next day.  It was a fun night with lots of people since they are both from the same place. 

 Aren't they great together?  I wish my arms looked like this.......but I'm afraid no amount of Jillian Michaels will get me there.  

Now, I would like to share some of the entertainment provided by a few of my brothers while we were waiting for the photographer to start taking family pics.......lest you thought our family looked normal in the previous photos.  Just imagine this going on at a wedding reception....it was really quite entertaining and mind boggling all at once.   That's just the way we roll.

 Travis secretly wanted in but was stymied by the rules or lack thereof.....

Enjoy a little clip of the action....

playing catch-up

I have no idea what happened to the month of November.  It was a blur of packing, sewing, and shopping, as we prepared to travel out to sister #2's wedding/Thanksgiving/early gift exchange.  (there are five girls and five boys in my family so I will number them to keep track)  Then there was a week of parent teacher conferences, book fairs, and just being at the school a lot......in between a lot of basketball practices and church activities.  Trav's sister Tracy had her third little boy 8 weeks early and spent the last month and a half in the NICU.  They have been fantastic about updating their blog about his progress and we have all been praying extra hard for "baby Taylor" to get better.  Also, Trav's cousin recently lost her little boy to a rare form of cancer.  They wrote regularly about his progress here.  It is a heartbreaking story and I have been inspired by their faith and grace as they go through such a difficult time.  

After taking such a long break from blogging, it is hard to know where to start.  Both of our computers' hard drives reached max capacity a couple of weeks ago so we are in the process of getting things back on track (thank you to our wide network of tech support who have helped!)  I do have some fantastic footage from our trip out West with my family.......think 20+ people snowed into one house for a few days.  It was great.  

Since I must include some pictures in every post, I will leave you with a few of Halle from a few weeks ago.  With my older two, I was determined to have them tying their shoes and reading novels before they started kindergarten.  As our situation necessitates, my expectations have become considerably more reasonable.  I figured if she only wore slip-on shoes, then I could have a little more leeway in the shoe tying department.  Yet, this year she is in 1st grade and wanting to wear gym shoes for her P.E. class.  So after a few weeks of begging and announcing that she was the only one in the whole 1st grade who didn't know how to tie her shoes, I finally buckled down and did it.  

 Now, when you teach a 4 year old to tie their shoes, it tends to be a months long process.  At six, it is a much less frustrating experience.  I was a bit worried that her lefty status would hinder things but all it took was the mention of the "rabbit ears and the little burrow" and she was off to the races.

So, I have to recommend holding off a bit on teaching your kids things like tying their shoes.....and reading novels.  There tends to be a lot less pain involved when their brains are a little larger.  

I'll be back soon with a lot of catching up...... 

Happy Halloween

This is a picture heavy post.........mainly for the grandparents, you know?  My kids were so good to me this year when it came to costumes.  Not a character or princess in sight, and I couldn't have been happier.   

Eli went as his hero, the garbage man.  This kid just cannot get enough when it comes to waste management.  He could spend hours watching videos on youtube of trash pickup.  Seriously, type in "garbage trucks" next time you are on youtube and you can catch a glimpse of what is constantly streaming at our house. 

 The name of our trash company is "Rumpke".....had to be authentic to the region and all.

Halle and a friend have been planning on being old ladies for a while and it was fun to put her look together.  I found a housecoat and walker from Goodwill and my good friend came up with the glasses and wigs.......they were quite a hit.

Em was torn between going as a gangster/rapper or a hippie.  I think she chose wisely as the only grillz I could find for her teeth said "PIMP" across the front........highly inappropriate for an 8-year-old girl, I think.  Her only exposure to gangster-rappers is from Oliver on Hannah Montana......so I don't think she really knew what she was talking about which is just fine by me. 

 At the last minute, Jordan decided to go as Tupac........remember him?  He wouldn't allow any other photos due to some serious gang rivalries going on in our area.  

Okay okay, I am only kidding.  He really just went as "army guy" but the resemblance is uncanny, no?  (And, to my local friends who have daughters that go to school with Jordan.  He does not appreciate any references to photos of him on this blog and so can you refrain from sharing with said daughters so I may continue to include him in my posting??  Thanks:)

Hope you all had a great time!  We are down to one bucket of candy that will be finding another good home shortly....Happy Halloween!

I did it!

So, I have been running regularly since college and have done a bunch of 5/10k races for fun.  I have always wanted to challenge myself and do something a little longer but just never felt like I had it in me to run for longer than an hour at a time.  Somehow, back in August I was feeling more ambitious than usual and decided to see if there were any upcoming races nearby.  My great and amazing friend, Sina, has several of these under her belt and she found one that was on a Saturday in Cincinnati......which is quite an anomaly.  We signed up and planned out our training schedules for the next 8 weeks....see mine below.  

The X marks are for the sessions I did and the scribbled squares are the ones that didn't happen.  Things were going great for the first few weeks but after my 9 mile long run I was super sore.  I didn't think much of it until the next week when no amount of stretching would help.  I did something to my right quad/knee that sent lighting-bolt pains up my leg with every step.  Aaaaaaah!  I have never actually had a sports injury and it was so frustrating to deal with....I suppose I now have a smidge of sympathy for athletes who play hurt (not that I consider myself an "athlete" by any means at all....far from it actually)

These things became my best friends and I even went and got some actual therapy to try to help my leg......it was quite thrilling actually since I spent many years treating people in these situations and this was my first time as a patient.  (I even secretly adjusted the e-stim levels when the tech wasn't looking......yes, I am a nerd)  Anyhow, they tried this Active Release Technique (ART) which was very interesting and probably quite helpful if you aren't planning on going out the next day to test your limits.  

I ended up missing my 11 and 12 mile training runs to try and let my leg recover a bit.  I was super nervous by the time the race came around.....and hoping that I wouldn't embarrass myself by collapsing halfway into the thing.  Lucky for me to have a great (true) friend who hung with me and didn't leave my side even though she could have easily finished at least 20 minutes faster.  Seriously.....there at the end we were passed by several elderly ladies, a pregnant woman, a man pushing a wheelchair, and many others who appeared to be in less than stellar physical condition.  It was embarrassing but also quite funny looking back now.  Our families waited patiently for us at the finish line and it was so great to see them there cheering us on.  

The original pace/goal was under 2 hours and due to my last few miles of hobbling, we finally came in at 2:19......the only bright spot for me is that I have plenty of room for improvement!  

(and, I feel like wearing this sticker for the next month.....)

 I can't tell you how good it felt to put that last X on my paper......Yeah!

sleepy time

How Eli is spending the two hours he is supposed to be in the church nursery every Sunday.  

Pretty amazing, since he hasn't taken a nap at home for weeks........

two less teeth

Miss Halle f-i-n-a-l-l-y got a visit from the tooth fairy.  After months of wiggling, she lost her first two teeth a few days apart.  It was a very exciting time.  She left lengthy notes under her pillow and was rewarded with $2 a tooth and the water she left next to her bed changed to pink the first night and green for the second visit.   I'm not gonna lie, I am having a hard time letting her grow up.....

too much Disney channel??

.....saw this when I was looking through Emma's homework from last week.  I think I will take it as a sign that she needs to cut back on her Hannah Montana/Wizards of Waverly Place viewings:)

a boy and his gun

I will let you draw your own conclusions on this one, you can call me for the full story if you haven't heard it yet.......it's a doozy.

Merry Clinch-mas!!

I admit, my husband's baseball obsession drives me nuts sometimes .  He has followed this team for too many years to count.....and I don't even want to add up the hours and money spent on games, autographs, and team paraphanelia.  The Reds have had a lot of good and bad years and I completely cede to my fair weather-fan status but Travis (and now, Jordan) have been waiting for this day for a very long time.  

Even I got chills watching this footage from last night's game.......what a way to clinch the division!

You better believe they didn't miss this game.  Travis is seriously the Forrest Gump of sporting events......he has found a way to be at just about every noteworthy game over the last 10 years.

High-fiving all the cars in the parking garage at midnight after the game.  Funny, I am perfectly content to watch all this footage from the comfort of my own home but the boys wouldn't miss being there in person for the world.

Go Reds!!