Gingerbread House!!

Last night we made our gingerbread house from the kit that my parents brought us from Costco. They kiddos have been looking forward to creating it for DAYS!!! :) I spent the day baking and putting together gifts so I passed on the icing job to Jason. He did a great job!
Here was the end result.

This is what Ethan spend the night doing. He figured out how to push the button on the dinosaur and was having a great time with it! He is such a boy...loves playing ball, driving cars and playing with dinosaurs! :)

The creating! They worked well together!




Elijah had the job of decorating the tree.

Fireworks Show

Just watch...and pretend you are at the happiest place on earth. :)

Rainy Day Disney

We went to Disneyland a few weeks ago and the forecast was rain. Well, let me tell you, we got rain!!! We spent a 1/2 day there because mommy was DONE! We were all soaked-shoes, pants, jackets, everything. :) But we had a good time!!! And our friends, the Reeds were there at the same time so we got to hang out with them, too. We ate at Super Mex in Fullerton and at Schooner or Later in Long Beach. Thanks for the memories, Mickey!

Because it was stormy...it made for an iffy drive over the grapevine. Here's what we saw out our window as we drove home. We were the last group of cars to get to drive over the grapvine-they closed it as we were on the top!

Super Daddy, Jason! Can you see how wet he is?? :)

The lights were beautiful throughout the park. In case you don't know, this is It's a Small World.




Little Mr Ethan...figuring out what to do next.

O Christmas Tree

Here's our tree! We always get a Noble Fir-that's what I've had since I was little. :)

At some point in the decorating Ethan was relagated to his chair...it was just too hard to decorate the tree when he was just taking the ornaments off! :) Doesn't he look cute an innocent?




The big kids decorating.


Ethan, admiring the lights.

The finished product! Notice the bottom 1/3 is missing the ornaments? :) I was a bit nervous about Ethan taking everything off but he hasn't been too bad. The first day he took a bunch off...then the excitment wore off. And I've realized that as long as he doesn't see people touching the tree, he doesn't touch it. So we've been replacing the ornaments after he goes to bed. Last night we put presents under the tree...and so far so good!

Silly Elijah

Here's my silly big boy. Teehee. He insisted that I take a picture of him.

Alia's playdate

Alia has ben wanting her friend from school to come over to play. So this past Wednesday was the BIG DAY! :) They played in her room, had lunch and played outside. Then I had them make chocolate covered marshmellows with sprinkles! I thought this would be a fun activity for them. And it was!

My first.

A while ago I saw this rag quilt purse online and thought it was so cute! So cute that I decided to try to make one. Here she is. There is much room for improvement...but I'm pretty proud of her.

The Quayles!

We were blessed to have Faye and the kids come for a little visit with us. As always, the kids had a blast! :) We love you, Quayles!

Ethan's walking!

Here's a little video of Ethan walking. I'm super sorry that it's not the right way...but you get the point. This was taken about a week afer he started walking...it's about 2 week after that and he is booking it! He's walking so fast it's crazy! He's all over! I will try to take a video in the next few days so you can see his progress. I just love the little guy!!!!

Thanksgiving images

Elijah got to say the prayer for our Thanksgiving dinner. It brought tears to many eyes. It was super cute. :)

Great Grandma Malnu watching Alia color.




The meal.

Grammpa and Ethan!

This was our new turkey friend I made this year. Each night we all wrote something we were thankful for on a feather. We'll save him and use him next year, too. The kids loved him! :)

Walk-A-Thon

These pics are long overdue...but in early November Alia had her Walk A Thon at school. Jason and I (and Ethan) went to help out. We marked laps on their sheets and also walked a bit (and I even jogged around) with Alia. They walked for a whole 30 minutes and boy was Alia tired. She had h1n1 earlier in the week so she was already a bit week. She went 16 laps around and was so proud! With all of her donations she got some toys, brought in the most donations in her class, got a free toy..and this Friday she gets to ride a limo to Pizza Hut for lunch! Crazy girl! Thanks to all who donated money to Hurley! :)Alia and her best friend at school, Bailey.

Alia is the one on the far left in the front row.

Some pics!!!

Here are some of our amazing family pics we had taken last week!!!!!!

You can go to Jani Photography to see them bigger.

I feel so blessed to have such great pictures. I love my family!!!

Happy Halloween!

Since Ethan was pretty sick for his birthday my parents postponed their trip to see us until Halloween weekend! Yeah!! It was so fun to be with them!!

We took a trip to Costco-Ethan got stuck in between the big kids and they had fun. But it didn't last too long. I snapped a pic and thought it was blog worthy :)

This year Ethan was a puppy dog. I had a HARD time getting a picture of him in his costume...but quickly snapped this pic from underneath him. Pretty fun, eh?



And Alia was a kitty cat. She LOVED getting the nose and whiskers.

And Mr. Elijah was an astronaut!!! Too cute!

Ethan turns 1!!

Today Ethan Oscar Backlund turned ONE! I can't believe it's been a year already...and that I no longer have a baby. No more babies for us...sort of sad...but we had as much fun as we could-as little Ethan was sick with H1N1.

Here's the end of the party...Ethan eating his cake. He first just played with it, and then when he got a piece in his mouth he just kept shoving it in there! It was pretty funny.

Here's the sad face we saw for most of his b-day. He was feeling pretty bad. I made that shirt special for his 1st birthday. I thought it turned out pretty good. I know it's super easy to do, but I had never sewn anything onto a shirt before.

He saved some energy to open gifts. Alia and Elijah did pretty well just watching. :) But they were ALL OVER his toys when he was done :)

A smiley sickie face. :)

Mommy and the birthday bay!

Jani Photography

Check out this website...Jan is a new friend of mine from Alia's kindergarten class...her pics are amazing!!

Jani Photography

Inflatables!

The kids got these huge inflatables at the carnival last night...they are bigger than the kids are! We brought home a microphone, a pirate sword, a pillow, and a guitar. Silly toys.