Christmas!

This year was very quiet. We were not able to go home for Christmas so we had a quiet dinner and watched movies. The kids loved the homemade gifts from the family. We missed being around everybody this time of year. Playing games, eating good food, laughing at the ugly gifts Kizzie and Josiah think of to give eachother!


Here is a little glimpse into our Christmas Eve. Enjoy.

Ava in her beautiful Christmas Dress! She hated it. She wasn't able to crawl very well so she ended up walking and falling all day!



This was our Christmas Dinner. I made stove top roast with onions and red potatoes, Mashed potatoes, Green bean casserole with Fried onions, Gravy from the Roast, canned mandarin oranges and then as a snack for the evening Chili cheese dip. It was all really good.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. Happy New Year!

Let it Snow!!!

Here are some pictures I forgot to blog. These are from the boys first time playing in the snow here in Colorado.

I told them not to eat any of the snow because there are alot of dogs around and you never know, but they didn't listen.

Morgan loves to copy Phil. He was trying to do everything that Phil did. The only problem was that he wanted to write on Phil's prints too!



The boys in their snow suits!

Pictures with Santa

This was the first time any of the kids have seen Santa. Morgan of course went straight for the candy they had in a very accessible bucket and could care less about sitting on Santa's lap! Before Santa had a chance to ask the boys what they wanted for Christmas they has already eaten half the candy cane! The boys weren't too interested in the whole Santa thing. Ava however did not want Santa's white beard to touch her! At first she stared at it then she burst into tears and tried to get away, as you can see from the pictures.

Holiday Giveaways!!

Check out all the cool giveaways at Sherbet Blossom! Several of them are still open for entering!

Keeping Christ in Christmas!

This post is in response to a challenge on Tip Junkie. Read mine and then go to Tip Junkie to take the challenge yourself.


I try to carry on some of the traditions from my family. I make sure that my nativity set is out in plain sight. We don't glorify Santa Clause, my kids don't even know exactly who he is yet. On Christmas Eve we sing all the Christmas songs in the LDS Hymn book. On Christmas day before we open any gifts we read the story of Christ's birth out of the bible. If we were home for Christmas we would head over to Far West and stand inside the gates of the dedicated temple grounds and sing Christmas Hymns along with all our friends and family! That will be one of the things I will miss most.

I am amazed every year how Christ is taken out of Christmas. I make it a point to wish everyone a Merry CHRISTMAS, instead of Happy Holidays or some other such phrase.

May we all remember the TRUE meaning of CHRISTmas.

Our Thanksgiving trip to Missouri. We had lots of fun. So much fun we forgot to take a ton of pictures. We did get a few so here they are. Enjoy!

We got to see Rachel for the first time! She is so cute! I love her smiles!


Ava had fun with the mashed potatoes!

Derek loves Kisses!


Ava had a nice nap with Uncle Keenan!



Breakfast at Grandmas! Apparently I wasn't fast enough!

Me and my Daddy!

Part of the crowd

Emma, Jolie, Aliyah and Isobel

One of our christmas pictures.

Ava and Grandpa chillin'

Pictures I didn't get were of Mom, Sasha, Ava and I in one car and Mable and Tessa in another going shopping on Black Friday! We got up at 4am and headed down to Independence! We went to Joann's first and spent about 4 hours, most of it standing in line to get our fabric cut! Next we went to Kohl's. I am so glad I missed the mad dash there. There were all sorts of items all over the floor from people in a hurry. We got there at about 10am and we still had to stand in line atleast 1/2 an hour! I don't really remember it was all a blur! Afterwards we all went to Chili's in Liberty where we met Ann Marie Scahill for lunch. We were all zombies by then. I don't think I got to bed until around 11pm! I know, We're crazy! We had alot of fun together though.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Piano Prodigies!!

The boys love to play the piano and Ava wants to get in on the action!
Morgan loves to sing along to whatever is being played.

Another Giveaway!!

Wow! Tis the season for giveaways!!!!

Check this one out- The Giveaway

Check it out! A pre giveaway giveaway!!!

And 12 days of giveaways at Tip Junkie!

And at Skip to my lou

Phil's Latest Project

As most of you know, Phil likes to improve on electrical items with battery packs, like our home phone. Some of you have seen his hard hat that he added a light to the front and two batteries on the back. Well...here is the upgrade.



6x CR123 Lithium-ion Batteries connected in series-parallel to have a total of 8.0 volts

Nice and Bright The lights consist of (2) 3/4 copper plumbing caps bolted together, (4) remote control car tie rods to hold it up, and (2) 100 lumen output Cree Q4 LED's bolted into the copper caps. To top it all off, light is aimed with a pair of 8 degree optics The wire was supplied by a junk computer power supply(thanks Jonah)

Another Great PhilCo Product

Red Rocks Park - Morrison, Co

Red Rocks park is where the Red Bull Soap Box race was held. We tried to get in and weren't able to so we decided to go back on the 1st. There is an amphitheater there that has so many stairs my legs were starting to shake when we got to the top! There were a ton of people there working out and there was even a maternity exercise class! It looks like a great place to work out. I had to carry Ava and her umbrella stroller up most of the way. The boys had fun trying to copy the people exercising!

This shallow cave was on the side of the road heading up to the visitor's center. The boys loved it but were covered in red dirt when we got back in the van!

We drove through this tunnel to get to the visitor's center.

Here we are at the top of the "Heart of the Rock" Theater. The Beatles played here at the beginning of their world tour!

Derek refused to come out of the top of the cave. Phil had to go up there and get him.

Of course I have to put a picture of me in here for posterity.

These are the seats at the theater. They are about 3 feet wide. I don't know ho many people can fit in there but from the pictures it looks like a ton.

Ava was really tired of being in her stroller. This one of the only moments she wasn't trying to squirm out of her belt.

Pictures of the park. we weren't able to go walk around very much because a bunch of the park is closed off for restoration during the winter.

Overall we had a fun time walking around.

Success Story!

I took the kids grocery shopping today! All by myself! On a holiday! I got one of those carts with the two seats in front. There were minor tantrums as we passed the candy and toy aisles but other than that all went well. Ava even fell asleep sitting up! I dressed her in a cute little duck costume. She got a little scared when a woman dressed up as a witch tried to talk to her. I definately got a workout pushing that humongous cart around with a very heavy load.

How do I love thee, let me count the ways.....

Each week in Relief Society the Presidency picks a sister to spotlight. This week it was me! Phil of course is really good at keeping secrets from me so I didn't know until they said my name! He wrote it all by himself so here is what he said:

1. Selissa Mae Aitchison
2. Born in Seattle Washington and grew up all around Seattle
3. Was in public school until about 4th grade and was homeschooled for the rest of the duration until she got her GED. She didn’t serve a full-time mission unless you consider "being a mom" a full time mission. She currently has a small career crocheting baby items like hats, booties, ponchos, and (if you wait about 3 months) blessing gowns.
4. Married on August 7th of 2004 to her long time love of 1 year. Selissa couldn't refuse it when her future husband had finally asked her out after taking 2 weeks to get up the courage to actually do so. She also couldn’t refuse me asking her to marry me in the cemetery at the Winter Quarters Temple. We now have 3 wonderful children: Morgan (3 years old and has enough energy to power half of Denver), Derek (turns 2 on the 25th and is a very sweet, cuddly little boy), and Ava (8 months old and, no matter what mommy tells you, is daddys little girl).
5. dislikes: Phil not doing his chores. Likes: watching Heroes on Monday night. Hobbies: filet crocheting, crocheting, sewing, and loving her kids.
6. Ask her to say "bag" and you will see. It must be a Washington thing.

So he loves me! All the sisters had a good laugh and I turned bright red!

Red bull Soap Box Race!

Well, Derek's 2nd birthday was yesterday and we decided to go to the Red Bull Soap box Races that were being held about 30 minutes from here. We ended up leaving a little later than we wanted but thought we had plenty of time to get there before they started. As we got closer to the exit we noticed a really long line of cars. We got in the line about 1/2 a mile from the exit. It took us 45 minutes to get from there to where we needed to park! We got all the kids out got Ava in her stroller everything was ready and then we noticed that a ton of people and cars were leaving! A lady there stopped and told us that the park the races were being held in was filled to capacity and they weren't letting anymore people in! We were very upset! If we had left when we planned we would have been able to get in! That was Derek's birthday!

Happy Birthday Derek!

Rocky Mountain National Park

We went here the same day we went on the Denver trolley. We took alot of pictures so it took me a while to choose the pictures I wanted to show.

As soon as we drove into the park we noticed a ton of cars parked on the side of the road. We couldn't see what everyone was looking at because of all the cars. We finally found an empty spot and this is what we saw.



I took a picture of this tree. I thought it looked really neat, all crooked like that.

We went on a really good day. There wasn't too much sun. It was perfect. Lots of pretty scenery.

Lots of color!

Phil took the boys as close as they could get to the falls. They loved it.

Here are my boys!

Phil wanted to try and take this road. Apparently you needed to give yourself an hour to go 9 miles. Luckily the road was closed already.

We had lots of fun!