Grace turns 12!

After getting the Christmas tree, we rounded up some cousins and went to the Logan Fun Park for some birthday fun, starting with some Laser Tag.

Vinny's signature "mad face."

The kids had a great time and worked up an appetite and Grace chose the Olive Garden for her birthday dinner, so Garreth and I put on our big boy pants and took eight.... that's right, EIGHT kids out to dinner. By ourselves.

It actually wasn't too bad and only one couple sitting by us asked to be moved, so I count that as a success. It totally reaffirmed my desire to have eight kids. Garreth still isn't convinced.

After dinner, we went back to Preston for the Festival of Lights parade.

This year the city ran out of money and decided to cut the festival, but my mom rallied a committee and resurrected it. It was awesome, and we are so proud of her! Easton and Liam got to ride with her in the razor pulling the rodeo float.

The whole, cold gang.

Then it was back to Nana and Papa's house for more celebrating with cake, ice cream, and presents. I had Grace pose with her cake and it slid right off it's platter to the floor! Luckily it landed frosting-up, so we dug into it anyway!

Liam gave her Just Dance 3, which came in very handy at her very first friend sleepover a few weeks later:

On Saturday, we went south to visit Nanny Flo and met up with Davy and Rachel's family in Ogden. The kids climbed on the climbing walls, then Grace got to do something very special for her birthday - indoor skydiving!

I love this picture of her nervous little face!

She did awesome and had so much fun!

We are so glad Grace is in our family. I don't know how I would cope without another woman around! She is so caring and helpful and fun to be around, and I love the gorgeous young woman she is turning into. We love her so much!

Thanksgiving Weekend

We spent Thanksgiving in Preston this year, with a huge, yummy dinner hosted by my grandparents. (Too busy stuffing my face to take pictures, I guess!) Grace's 12th birthday fell the day after Thanksgiving and there was much celebrating to be done... more on that later. First we had to make our annual trek to the mountains to find the perfect Christmas tree.

The birthday girl herself.

Excited boys loading up the four-wheelers.

At Birch Creek.

It just doesn't feel right until someone gets stuck. I think this time was caused by a small Ratchford boy who shall go unnamed standing in the road and making the truck lose momentum.

The weather was not great; strong, cold wind and snowing off and on. Having five cold kids really lowered our standards tree-wise. We pretty much just chopped down the first one we saw.

Doesn't look too bad here.

But, oh, when we got home and brought it in!

I don't know if these photos do it justice, but this is the worst tree we've ever had! It was so ugly that I felt the need to explain it to everybody who stepped foot in our house. The bottom branches were thick and bushy, which should have meant that we could hang lots of ornaments on them, except that we now have a rambunctious two-year-old in the house. The upper branches were thin and skimpy and all sloped down, so no ornaments could be hung there either. So we pretty much had about ten ornaments on the whole tree. Plus with five kids and a big dog, the lights were constantly getting knocked off. It was just not a pretty sight. We will always lovingly remember 2011 as the year of the Charlie Brown tree, and I guess we loved it just the same.

Here she is after Christmas morning:

Poor girl. Usually I wait until after New Years to take down the tree, and it always makes me emotional. Not this year. It's just two days after Christmas and she's already gone. RIP.

Zuzu, Basketball, and Other Festivities

Grace began her life as a thespian with a perfect little community production of a 1940's live radio play of "It's a Wonderful Life." When she auditioned and I heard the premise of the play, I just couldn't figure out how they could keep it interesting, but I guess that's why I'm not in the theater business. Because, boy, was it awesome. It was such a fun way to tell a very familiar story, and I was so impressed by the level of talent in little ol' Rock Springs.

It was in a small theater downtown in the Elks Lodge and it was so popular, they had to turn people away every night. They even added a 5th performance to accommodate everyone who wanted to see it. Grace had such a positive experience and not a lick of stage fright. (Those Ratchford genes!) She was a natural, and we are so excited to see what other acting opportunities come her way!

Grace played a young actress who did the voices of Peter Bailey, Zuzu, and young Mary.

So adorable!

There were only three kids in the performance, and they were all so great.

Grace and the lady who played the older Mary Bailey.

My mom and dad drove all the way over to support Grace and it meant so much to all of us to have them there.

We are so proud of our girl!

In other news, Declan has had fun making awesome things in preschool.

And the boys and I braved the frigid cold to hit the downtown Christmas parade, while Garreth and Grace were at one of her performances.

Hot chocolate was necessary to warm us up afterwards.

Just a little gratuitous male nudity.

Liam wrapped up a great season of basketball with the Timberwolves. They only won two of their games, but had a great time playing, and Liam really grew as a player.

We went to a Turkey Zumba party at the boys' school and Liam won the drawing for a big turkey, which we cooked up for Christmas dinner. I hear it was delicious.

Catching Up

The weekend before Thanksgiving, I flew to Seattle to spend the weekend with my best friend Susan. We stayed in a hotel downtown and spent hours walking around one of the best cities in this world. We talked, shopped, ate good food that we didn't have to cook, tried to sleep in, saw the new Twilight movie, sipped many cups of Starbucks peppermint hot chocolate, walked around Pike Market, laughed, drank in all the beauty of a big bustling city at holiday time, and had a wonderful, relaxing time.

And what a timely trip it turned out to be for me.

Because just two days after I got home, this little guy joined our family:

Meet Vinny.

He is two and a half, and a very sweet little guy who will probably be with us several months. Even though he came to our home two days before Thanksgiving, it has been a fairly smooth transition. He is an only child who seems to love the chaos of a big family with lots of kids to play with. He has some anger issues that we are working on and that seem to be getting better the longer he's with us. Declan had a hard time at first adjusting to not being the baby in the house anymore, but even that is getting better and better each day, and now those two are little buddies. It has been good to get back into fostering, and we sure are happy this handsome little man is with us.