Rapid City Weekend

We left home on Friday morning, and drove to Sheridan for lunch. After a quick nap, the kids were up and watching movies in the car waiting to get to the hotel! :) We got to Rapid City about the same time as my parents (with Emily, Allison & Sarah too). Checked in...and looked at the pool (with the water slide!!). The kids wanted to go swimming, but we decided to eat supper first, then come back and swim! :)

The kids went swimming 4 times (once on Friday, 2 times on Saturday and once on Sunday). I am not sure...but I think Hailey went down the water slide the most and probably 60-80 times!! She just wouldn't stop!! :) Even Ryan went down it (with Chris) and ME TOO!! It was fun! :) Here are a few pictures of swimming.

The 4 "older" kids swimming (Sarah wasn't with them) and Chris scaring Emily when she was coming down the water slide. :)


Hailey (AKA "The FISH") jumping in (the first one in the pool every time!!), and going down the slide.


Look...even I went down the slide a few times!! :)


Ryan surprised us with how much he enjoyed the water! :) By Sunday he was jumping in all by himself and swimming to the edge (all with floaties on of course). He isn't afraid to get his head under the water at all. Of course he did like the hot tub much more than the regular pool!! He was in there A LOT :)


Besides swimming, we did celebrate Christmas while we were there. The kids LOVED getting more presents of course! :) We **tried** to get a picture of all 5 of them, but Sarah and Ryan were NOT INTERESTED in that at all!! The 3 older girls did fine...I love the picture of them! :)


Presents!!! Hailey proud of her new "money" with a "P" on it (she thought for Pilcher, but really for First Premier Bank!! :) ). Sarah had to put her new shirt on right away and her new crocs too! :)


The 5 kids all got similar gifts from grandma and Papa. Ryan with his new crocs ... one side has a rainbow trout and the other side has a buck on it. :)


Funny story with Hailey and one present. She opened the box, and she posed all nice with a smile showing off her gift (the box was a box of mint candy I think). She didn't even look inside!, but sure had a nice picture and a nice smile on her face for not knowing what was in there. I told her to LOOK INSIDE! You can see she was much more excited for the real present!! :)


Saturday night we ordered pizza in for supper, and then I brought some perler bead crafts to work on. Even Becky and Brad made one!! :) The older girls had fun with it...Ryan just ate cereal and Sarah ran around! :)


Then...the unexpected! Papa won a stuffed animal from one of those crane machines for Sarah. Of course all the other kids wanted their own stuffed animal too so there was a mission! I think Brad got the next one. Okay...they should have stopped with just Sarah, but now you have 2...they would have to get 3 more!! :) I don't know the amount of money spent (50 cents for 2 tries)...but we had TONS of laughs trying to get them. Chris wouldn't give up, and finally all 5 kids had their own animals!! (we probably should have just ran down to Wal-Mart and BOUGHT 4 more! :))


As you can tell, we had a FANTASTIC time in Rapid City!! The kids all had fun, the adults had fun (thanks to "a little drink of Christmas"), and it was just nice to ALL be together!!! :) Thanks to everyone for driving and coming..........we are ready for another weekend ANYTIME they are! :)

One last picture of Papa & Ryan....too cute!!

Thanks again, Mom & Dad, for everything!!

Hailey vs. the comb

The one day the kids go to daycare....and look at what happens!! :) I walked in to pick up the kids and one teacher sees me and says "It isn't as bad as it looks." I see Hailey sitting on the counter with a red face (from crying) and a comb STUCK IN HER HAIR. Okay...that is tough not to laugh at!! :) They said that she and another little girl got 2 combs and were "playing". Hailey told me that she was trying to put a braid in her hair. Doesn't matter...her hair was in a KNOT around that comb! I took her home and attemped to get it off, but it wasn't working. Poor Hailey was crying "I don't want to go to the hotel with a comb in my hair." (we were leaving for the hotel weekend the next morning) I ended up taking her to the hairdresser and believe it or not, but she got it out without cutting a single hair! Not sure how that happened, but happy it did! :)

The before--->
And after --->

Christmas Day

MERRY CHRISTMAS (okay...I am trying here!! :))!!! Christmas Day was sure fun-filled, present-loaded, and just an all-around great day!! We started the day by waking up, going downstairs and seeing that Santa came!!


Of course, no time for breakfast...time to OPEN PRESENTS! The kids loved looking through their stockings to see what Santa brought them. Hailey actually took her time a little too! :) Ryan was very serious that the oranges at the bottom of our stockings needed to go in the fridge and the candy needed to go in the pantry!!


Hailey's favorite gifts were her Island Princess Barbie (first picture) and her new pink camera. Oh my... it was a "mini me"!! :) She was taking pictures of everything...people opening gifts, breakfast, snowmen on the walls, etc, etc, etc. I am glad Santa got her a 1 GB card for her camera!! :) Look at her in the last picture...right in there taking a picture!!


Ryan's favorite gifts were his Bronco helmet and of course his toy gun. The boy was trying to get bucks all over in the house!! :) He was sure fun to watch!!!


After all the Santa gifts, we finally had breakfast. The kids were remembering that it was Jesus' birthday, so we all sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus at the table! :) How cute is that?!?! :) After Chris and I got ready, we finally got to open the remainder of our family gifts. The kids sure didn't care since they had toys to play with!!!

Hailey had fun sorting the gifts...she wanted to READ all the tags!! It was great, but we had TONS of gifts to go through. Here they are all ready with their piles of gifts at home :


Finally it was time to go to Grandma & Papa's house!!! First thing Ryan had to do was shoot the deer in the front yard!!


Here is a picture of all the cousins (Owen, Mason, Ryan, Hailey). Actually turned out good! :) Then, Hailey got a "Baby Alive" and Ryan and Owen got guitars! Crazy, but fun!! :)


They all got late naps, woke up to have a yummy supper, and then we were off to our house again to have Tim's bday party (it was a surprise). It was a loooong day, but we had a lot of fun!!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was sure a BUSY DAY!!! We woke up at the cabin, had a yummy breakfast, then everyone went straight to Billings and to the mall. No...not for last minute shopping. Doug & Doran wanted to take all the kids to Build-A-Bear workshop to create their own animal. Of course the kids LOVED it. And, surprisingly, it wasn't even busy in that store!!

Here are 3 of the 4 kids ready to get their animals done!! And, Hailey with "Arianna" and Ryan with "Puppy Buck". The kids named their own animals (if you had any doubts :) ).


Owen with ??? (see...I shouldn't have waited to write this!!) and Mason with "Harley". We didn't get a group picture...the kids were ready to get home and NAP!


After Build-A-Bear, everyone went to their own homes and had lunch and napped. Then, we got up, quickly got dressed, and headed to Carleen & Rich's to say Hi and Merry Christmas to the Pilcher side. It was a quick visit, but still fun. Then we raced back to this side of town to get to church by 4:00! :)

After church, we came home and had supper. During supper, we were able to SEE SANTA flying above Billings. The kids always LOVE that!! Poor Ryan...he wasn't eating his supper and had to go to time out for a little bit. So, we had "Santa" come outside the front door (where Ryan was sitting) and Ryan FREAKED! He didn't want Santa to see him in time out and not eating his supper. He RAN to the table and started eating. It was so funny...he was really scared and didn't want Santa to come in. :)

After supper ... there was some playing of course! Look at Hailey and Owen...they were ROCK STARS....Hailey was singing and Owen was playing the guitar. Ryan wasn't interested in singing that night. :) Then, the kids all decided to jump on Tim. Look at Hailey...poor Tim!! :)


I did get a picture of the kids (don't they look ADORABLE??!?!) and a family picture. Chris is just too speedy to get out of his "church clothes"!! :)



Before we left to go to look at lights and then go to Clay & Marjie's for snacks, drinks and fun, the kids were able to open their ONE PRESENT on Christmas Eve. They both got a new toothbrush and toothpaste (Hailey's were both Barbie, and Ryan got a Shrek toothbrush and Cars toothpaste). They were very excited and I hope they continue to use them more regularly!! :)


After we got home (late), we had to get cookies and milk ready for Santa. Then, we always read "The Night Before Christmas" book....Ryan's favorite! It was a late night, but SO MUCH FUN!

The weekend BEFORE Christmas

Okay...sorry for not keeping up with the blog over the holidays. There was just no time, and with being off of work, the last thing I wanted to do was sit at a computer!! :) I am going to try to document a high level of our time...not sure how long this will take me! :)

Hailey, Ryan, Chris and I went to the cabin on Friday 12/21 and made it up there by 1:30 I think. We had a nice afternoon playing in the cabin, and just relaxing. Then, on Saturday 12/22, Ed, Rainya, Hailey T. and McKenna came up to go sledding, have lunch, and exchange gifts. We all had a great time having them there...but the time went too quickly. The kid of course loved the gift exchange....and just having kids there to play with too! It was a little chilly outside, but all the kids still went sledding and had a great time. We spent the night alone...watching the "Elf" movie and just being together.

All the kids ready to eat lunch!! (McKenna, Hailey T, Ryan, Hailey P) Ryan acting silly (like always)


Practicing push-ups with Daddy. They even had him doing them with each of them on his back!!!


Then on Sunday, Tim, Kendra, Owen, Mason and G/G Pilcher all came up for the day and night too. We had fun playing and relaxing again (while Tim & Chris went skiing). There was more sledding and 4 wheeler rides and even a little bday party for Tim.

The kids doing a craft on Sunday morning and one of Hailey holding Mason (she was so excited to have him there finally and getting to hold him). And, Hailey acting all goofy too!

And a little song from Hailey & Ryan. They were quite the singers this year. This is from Saturday night when they did a few songs for Chris & I. Sunday night they were singing for a good 30 minutes for everyone!! It is fun that Ryan is singing it too....since he was learning it watching Hailey practice at Sunday School. He loved to sing this song...and we encouraged it too since it was so cute and fun to watch. :)