Easter

HAPPY EASTER!

This year the Gifford family participated in the "Forget the Frock, Feed an Orphan" challenge.  The challenge was to, instead of spending a bunch of money on your Easter frocks, use that money for something that matters!  So we didn't have fancy Easter duds, just our Feed the Orphan T-shirts.  As usual (for us), we had a bit of trouble getting all almost-seven of us to look at the camera and smile at the same time (with their eyes open and their hair not in their eyes). 

We started out the morning with our Easter baskets.  Kellen's:

 Wyatt's:

 

Elliott's:

And Cade's:

I think Cade was excited about his train.  ;-)

After we dug into our baskets, we enjoyed an awesome service at Park West Cultivate - where we were encouraged to "Break Out" from the chains that bind us.  We followed that up with our annual Easter egg hunt at Sean's parents' house.  As usual, it was serious business for the big boys.

 Elliott, a.k.a. Hollywood, preferred to take things a little more slowly. 

Once she got too many eggs, she convinced her brother to schlep her basket for her.

 

Cade figured out right away the object of the game - he loved picking up the eggs and putting them in his basket!

The kids all had a great time playing with their cousins.

Sweet lovin' cousins:

 

 I have to mention a few things about our Tshirts.  I wanted matching ones for all of us, but to get a style to fit all of our various sizes was tough.  So I ordered Elliott and Cade the smallest shirts I could get which would match ours, but they were still too big.

 

 

I was REALLY nervous about this, but I took a pair of scissors to their shirts, and cut them completely apart!  I gathered up Elliott's sleeves to make them look more girly, cut down the sides, and shortened it.  Here's her finished shirt laying on top of Cade's XS (obviously before I took his apart).  Big difference!

Cade's took even more work.  The neckline was WAY too big on him, so I had to cut off the ribbing band that goes around the neck.  

I cut a smaller neck hole and made one shoulder seam, and then left the other shoulder separated so that I could attach snaps for opening and closing the neck hole. 

Then I reattached the ribbing band, attached some snaps,  cut the sleeves, sides, and bottom hem way down, and put the whole thing back together.  They fit so much better after we were done!

I hope that you had an amazing day celebrating our Risen Saviour with your family, too!

christmas

 Every year I think Christmas could never get any better, and every year I'm wrong.  Here are the six (seven!!) of us on Christmas Eve.

 We spent the evening with Sean's parents, grandmother, and Eric and Allison and their boys.  (We missed our Florida family - Sara, Warren and their kids!)  Wyatt read the Christmas story from Luke chapter 2.

Elliott and her My Twinn doll - it looks just like her!

They got matching pajamas, which made them look even more alike.

 Elliott had been saying for weeks that she wanted her mamaw to get her a Dora necklace.  (Don't ask me where that came from - she's not really even a Dora fan.)  So after searching high and low, Sean's mom found her this 10K gold one! Elliott was thrilled.

 

 I didn't take pictures of all the present-opening, but the boys got new robes, books, Wii games, a couple board games, and some iTunes and Visa gift cards. 

 Cade had fun reading Elliott's Dora book with his cousin Cohen!

 I think Cade's favorite part of the evening was changing out of his church clothes and into his jammies.  The kid is never happier than when he's naked.  Ha!

We left cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for his reindeer.  (Elliott was already in bed by this point.)

And then Santa came over night!  These pictures are from Christmas morning.

Wyatt's big gift was an iPod touch - which he was super excited about.

 And Kellen's big present was a video camera.  It's funny how, the older they are, the smaller their "big" gifts get.

Sean got the first 3 seasons of Sons of Anarchy on DVD.

 And I got a new sewing machine and serger!  I'm amassing quite a collection.  ;-)  I was so surprised, because my last present to open was just a really small, light box.  It had a piece of paper instructing me to go to another Christmas tree and open the big boxes marked "to John from Debbie" (his parents).  Sneaky little booger.  You can't really tell what my shirt says - it reads "I ate the milk and cookies."  I was feeling ironic, I guess.  ;-)  Plus I'm at the pregnancy stage where I could be pregnant or I could have just eaten too much.  Ha!

The kids and their stockings. 

Kellen, definitely the biggest Christmas fan in our house, wanted to savor his gift experience and chose to open his stocking later.  Somehow I didn't get a picture of him.  We had such a great, lazy day.  None of us got out of our jammies all day.  (A little note about our PJs... I have been using the same pattern to make Christmas pajamas for 3 years now, and it's such a fun way to see how my boys have grown.  I had to cut Kellen's from the adult pattern this year!)  We ate a HUGE breakfast, watched Christmas movies, played games, played with toys, ate a big Christmas dinner (Big Fatty's pork tenderloin - oh. so. good.) and laughed all day long!  I already can't wait til next year.

halloween in the 'brook

 In what has become an annual tradition, we spent this Halloween with some great friends trick-or-treating in Forest Brook.  (And I forgot my camera.  These were all taken with my phone - which is why I don't have any great pics.)  Same crew as last year, plus one new little shark Gifford.  I'm not sure who has more fun when we get together:  the kids or their parents.  Thank you, Schwalbs, for always being amazing hosts!