I was so looking forward to Christmas break and having a little break from preparing for Seminary...But honestly it hasn't seemed like much of a break...Christmas has been fun and busy. Bill took the entire break off from work...That has helped so much..

The fun all started with..... Saturday...

The Webster Christmas party!!

Uncle Frank, My Mom, Grandma W. Aunt Bonnie

This is the party with my mom's side of the family. We always love it because we only really see these fun folks once a year. Grandma Webster always makes a Christmas tree ornament and writes another chapter of her life history.

Most of the Webster Grand kids..soo excited to get their picture taken!

Melinda,Toni, Mom, Aunt Bonnie,Miranda

These are Rosettes my grandma has made them for every Christmas party since I can remember and I am old:) Well this past year Grandma moved into assisted living (which I'm doing as soon as I'm eligible) so she passed on all the stuff to make these including a lesson and guess what? I did it! I couldn't believe they were almost as good as Grandma's!

Right after the Webster Christmas Party we headed to:

The Extended Family Leder Christmas Party...

Which is held at the Church because there are just way too many people... Grandma Leder as 9 kids 49 Grandkids and most of them are married and have kids of their own ....I can't remember the exact number but I'm pretty sure she has over 100 great grandkids and we are all still pretty close......So here are some pics of that crazy party....

Singing Carols with Nancy

Aunt Tiffany and Sophie!

Ellie, Uncle Ethan, Uncle Nate, Gracie & Sophie

Macy loves to sit on Great Grandpa's lap...she was telling him something about her fingers


Well that's a start with those two Christmas parties Christmas had official begun...

Christmas!

I'm so excited we got a new camera right before Christmas so we can actually take pictures now! Wahoo! We love Christmas bonuses! We had a great Christmas More pics and details to come!

7 Random Things.....

So I got tagged...That means on someone Else's blog they tagged me to do this(Thanks Jen!)...Write Seven Random things about myself.... ummmm....

1. I really like doing laundry...sounds crazy I know...

2. I LOVE putting on freshly laundered pj's....

3. Thursday I ate more Halloween candy than my kids did....ugh..I was sick..

4. I recently got out of a speeding ticket!!!! The only time I've ever sped in my life! :)

5. When I was growing up I told all my secrets to my stuffed Curious George and hid my money in the hole in his armpit!

6. When I was a kid we would ride our bikes to Dunkin Donuts and I always got the chocolate frosting filled donuts....yum!!

7. One of my fears is driving off a bridge into a river of water...every time I go over a bridge my stomach churns.
Okay I have to do one more......


8. I always have at least a 10lb bag of chocolate chips in my cupboard!!! no joke!

Gotta love the snort!

School, Seminary, Sophie....

Somehow we got everyone ready for the start of school....just barely...luckily I had the camera in the van already or I would have not gotten pictures of Ellie and Ty on there first day...poor Jessi she wasn't so lucky...I totally forgot on the first day and then forgot to take the fake first day of school picture on the second day (That has happen a couple years).

So now It's week 2 of school and some how we are surviving.....Especially since seminary started yesterday. It's only been 2 mornings but it's seemed like 2 weeks! But it's going as any class would. Morning at home for Bill and the kids is going alright I think , we are expecting that it will take a week or two to really get into a good morning routine.

I am really loving all the studying it takes for my seminary class. I am lucky that this week is not super busy so that I have the time to study and figure out what I'm doing. This morning I tried to explain to Sophie about seminary:

Sophie :"Mom lets play hide & seek"
Mom: I'm going to read my lesson and then we can play
Sophie "NO, right now"
Mom (I realize she doesn't have a clue what a lesson is): "Sophie before you wake up mom goes to the church and teaches a class full of big kids about the sciptures, So I need to read them so I know what to teach"
Sophie: "Are the kids big like Jessi?"
Mom:" Bigger, they go to High School"
Sophie: "Oh, They're in High School Musical 2!?"

end of summer....

Well we are into the last weeks of summer...I'm kinda sad...kinda happy...Last week and this week has been almost the only weeks of the summer that weren't crammed with activities.
This is just a few things the kids have been up to....

The kids finally convince there dad to put up the trampoline a few weeks ago.... I love it...

Ellie and Ty created a very creative "tree fort" I would call it more like littering the tree.... o well I would rather have them being "creative" than watching TV.

I found Sophie all by herself on the tramp one day playing with Jessi's bunny...They had all gone inside and gotten distracted and forgot to put the bunny away she told me "nobody's coming back" I told her they were having her babysit..... She thought that was so great.

Macy loves to snuggle with things that are white...it's so silly....she finds white article of clothes in our dirty clothes baskets and drags them all over! The other day she found in Jessi & Ellie' room a pair of ...actually clean.... panties I saw her snuggling with them, then she placed them on top her head and walked off...next time I saw her she was sitting on the couch watching cartoons with Sophie and had gotten her head through one of the leg holes and was wearing them around her neck....crack me up!!! It made me laugh so I just left them on her for hours!

I'm finally cool and figured out how to upload video!

(Only because blogger made it extremely easy now:))

So I had to share our favorite video...Sophie had just turned 3..she's now 4..and I was trying to capture her on video singing BofM Stories because she was extremely good at it for only being 3!

This is what happened.....

Fighting cord clutter

I loved this idea for cleaning up all those dangling cords so I just had to share it....He says it would only take 60 minutes to assemble but I'm thinking it would take me at least 3 hours. It's definitely on my list of things to do! So check out this idea and see what you think!

http://www.efetividade.net/2007/08/11/declutter-your-desktop-an-organizer-for-those-cables-and-gadgets-for-under-10/

We love Family!

What a great weekend we had. After a 24 hour delay Morgan, Bill's youngest brother, got home from his mission in the Dominican Republic. He was suppose to get home on Wednesday at 6:30 but do to some unforeseen difficulties we finally welcomed him home at 11:00pm on Thursday night! How great it was to have the whole family together again (minus Josh until Friday night) Morgan got to see Grandpa & Grandma for the first time after being baptized!

It actually does say "Welcome Home Elder Leder!"

Grandpa "Babysitting"

Morgan surrounded by girls already....to bad they're your nieces!

The rest of the weekend was filled with lots of family activities including "Nacho night" Eating Nachos and watching Nacho Libre! Family pictures on Saturday morning and then Saturday night we all went to Temple...what a great thing for Bill & Pam to have all their kids in the temple at one time!! We finished up the weekend with Morgan's homecoming talk in Woodburn and then of course dinner at the Farm!!!
We are so glad that Morgan made it home safe and sound and...... that the weekend is over :)!

Momsense

I wish I could memorize this song! Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlY8STkhopc

Hole in ....2!!!!!!

We had so much fun tonight . The whole family went to the mall and Jessi got her ears pierced! Jessi did great even though she said it hurt this was her biggest reaction.

Her new ears look so pretty!

Humbled

At a time in my life when the responsibilities of mothering five kids makes me feel like I am just treading water and not making much progress and then other times it can feel like I'm almost drowning......

I got a really weird answer to my prayers..... Lately I have been praying a lot for a way to do it all better... to be a better person, better mother, and a way to better understand my children's needs...My prayers I thought were a plea to be able to simplify and focus more on just my family....but then

....I was called (appointed) to be an early morning seminary teacher! What! ?I don't think that was exactly what I was thinking of... Do I need to rephrase my prayers?

But after much thought & prayer I know this is what I need to do at this time..What a great opportunity to teach & learn from the youth & teach & study the gospel of Jesus Christ.

If this doesn't force me to be more organized, simplified and spiritual I don't know what would.

The Lord answers our prayers...just not always in the way we expect.

WaHoo!! VONTANA!

My brother Von proposed to Tana!! He asked her a week ago at Silver Creek Falls, the day after we got home from Elk Lake! We had been bugging him all week about when? when? when? I've been holding out for a picture of them with a ring but I've given up so I'm posted some of there Elk Lake shots!



They will be getting married November 17 in the Portland Temple!

We are glad that Tana said yes even after spending a week in the rough with our family!

Congratulation Von &Tana! We are soooo excited!

ELK LAKE!!!

Why do we go to a place with no running water, stinky outhouses, no cell service, lots of bugs, rain.....because it's a tradition...our favorite in fact..... ELK LAKE! Why is it our favorite you ask? Here are just a few reasons!


The Lake!
.....

.The Trees!
The blueberries for my Pancake!

"Grandpa Camp"
.........The Hammock!

Homemade Ice cream & Root beer!

... Bill taking his turn cranking the Ice cream
.....Toni making the root beer...yes we had Root beer floats!

Hiking! Really only 2miles this year!

This year everyone packed a sack lunch and hiked to the end of the Lake...This is where all the logs stack up and is really fun to play on....But then it started...rain...and didn't stop for what seemed like days!...yes it dared to RAIN on our camp trip!

So Even with all the rain we had a great time... we just broke out the rain gear...


Uncle Von ready to go swimming...

Ty and Sophie trying to stay dry by the fire!


This year we had a few bonus events.....

1.We finally took care of Von's "camping hair!

2.Who's that special guy in the red shirt?I don't know but he swam out and got the island for us?
3.Leder's preformed @ skit night!



4. Von almost needing to be taken out by lifeflight after a Rock climbing incident....Remember Von...buy a helmet... (Tana was sick of waiting for him to give her a "rock"and so she threw one at him instead! ;)


5. We had LOTS of time just sitting by the fire...does Jessi, Leah,Ellie look excited or what!


6. Dori & Bill took a decent camping picture! (a miracle)

We are so glad we had almost all our family was there!

Frank,Annie & Micki drove from UT .

Von& Tana(Vontana their celebrity name)Came from D.C!

Wygants barely made it from Eugene and again we like to say the LEDERS Beat them!!!! (if only by 10 minutes!)

cousins!

Macy!

We just hope next year more than just the rain gets to play on "the island"!

Until next year!

Proposal on the Beach!

Due to being in charge of our ward campout and then camping in the deep forest for a week this story has been a little delayed!

It all started on Friday July 6th...Josh took Sheri out for dinner....While they were driving around trying to find some place to eat Bevin & Angela, Bill &I ,& Bill Sr. went down to the beach and buried a bottle with a message in it....for Sheri's eyes only!

Then we all hid out of view of the unsuspecting Sheri...We waited and waited and waited and waited while they hung out on the beach(eating their DQ). When the beach was all clear Josh took Sheri on a innocent walk and just happened to see a bottle partially buried in the sand! :)
After reading the message in the bottle Josh got down on one knee and proposed!!!!

This is the view from the hole...really all 5 of us were in a hole! The guy behind them just showed up as soon as it all took place!!! We were so ticked he is in the pictures!



After giving them a few minutes we rushed them like paporazzi and made them pose for us! It was so exciting! Then from the beach we took pictures on our phones and sent them to all the rest of the siblings! Tiffany, Ethan& Mom back at the beach house, Keros in Denver and even Morgan in Dominican Republic!

They are getting Married on Sept 22!

We are so excited to have Sheri (& her sweet little girls) in our family!!!!!