A White Christmas!

Christmas Eve day little flakes started flying around. The kids ran around talking about "the snow, the snow, the snow."  I just smiled and shook my head, cynically popping any bubbles of hope, "It won't stick."  But it did!  YAY!  X-man ran out and plopped himself in the snow to make a snow angel. When he realized, it's a bit cold making angels, he stuck to throwing snow at the girls. We had a family snow fight: girls against boys. I think the girls won--mostly.

For Christmas Eve, we turned off all the lights, except for the candles we lit and the tree lights. T read in Luke 2 about the birth of our Savior. We spread out a blanket and ate our shepherds' dinner of crackers (no one really cares for pitas--they aren't like the ones in Israel anyway), beef stick, hummus, carrots, pears, persimmon, oranges, and different types of cheeses. We watched "The Nativity" and spoke quietly. Such a reverent feeling came in. It really set the tone for the night. After our meal, we drove around looking at lights. This year we just went a few streets over since we had snow!  When we came home, the kids looked for the green pickle ornament on the tree (we read about this tradition some where and it stuck). The child who finds the green pickle first, gets to open the first present. L found the pickle first this year. Family presents were passed out and we opened them all! No waiting for us!

Christmas day found that Santa had visited with a bike, an IPOD, a Leapster, some Legos and lots of other goodies. We must have behaved this year!  Once the excitement settled down, and everyone had their breakfast of candy from the stockings (what kind of mom am I?? Hey, it's Christmas!), everyone bundled up and headed out to play in the snow. We made Frosty, our tall snowman. T made a really solid base. Frosty is still there today, though a little lop-sided.

Then L made Tiny, Frosty's cousin. Tiny's nose and head kept falling off, so L would plunk them back together again.

 

Here's the snow fort L made. Don't know how much protection it offered from snow balls, but he sure had fun making it.

Happy Birthday 12 Year Old!

Twelve years ago yesterday we celebrated the birth of our very own angel.  She came to us at the beginning of our Christmas celebration and was and is a gift from God to our family. Looking back on the last dozen years we have traveled a road that has been filled with lots of happiness, surgeries, doctors, set-backs, and triumphs. Would we have it any other way?

When B was born doctors and nurses alike scurried around trying to figure out the reason the bones in her little hands, feet, and head were fused together. They found only outdated information that was less than hopeful of the life she would be able to lead. As we sorted out and adjusted to the curve in life that had been sent out way, we turned to our Father in Heaven in prayer and were comforted in so many ways. We were led to doctors that would be best for B. We had amazing family support. Grandparents, aunts, uncles all became B's very best supporters, showering her with love.

B and her daddy have always had a very special bond. She is his little B-doll.  She adores him and still runs to greet him when he comes home from work. He understands her and wants the very best for her. When the doctors ran test after test after her birth to see what was going on with her, the only thing that soothed her was her Daddy's voice. He'd talk with her, and she would calm immediately.

So tiny!!  And now so BIG!  Couldn't do this now!

Monday we went to see our very amazing doctor. He looked at the MRI and then had to re-look to make sure he was seeing things correctly. B's skull is continuing to grow amazingly well. He doesn't need to do a thing with her right now unless she's just hankering for a surgery. NO!  I was again reminded of that day 12 years ago when we were given a not-so-bright outlook. Then I remembered all the prayers that were said on B's behalf.  Yes, there IS a caring Father in Heaven who watches the little angels He sends to earth and takes care of them.  We have been blessed with one of His choicest.

To celebrate 12 year old style, B and a friend went to have a manicure. They chose a sparkly pink color and had fun sipping a soda while getting their nails done. Then yesterday, she and another friend went to see "Alvin and the Chipmunks, The Squeakuel" movie.  An hour and a half of chipmunk talk does something to one's brain, but they loved it.

The party continued with B's fav--chocolate molten cake. Yum!!  Happy B-day B! We LOVE you!!

 Here are some of those aunts and uncles that have been an amazing support to our family. C & B with their dog, Lily,  were driving through this week and stopped by to play with us. We had such a great time.

Party Time

Today was the last day of school for this year, so it was full of class Christmas parties. Here's X-man's cute and zany class of first graders.

They made ornaments, ate bunches of goodies, played games, and had fun. They also did a Reader's Theater of "The Polar Express" which we had practiced so much that even I had it memorized. Unfortunately, I put it in the back of my mind that it was being performed at the class party. We got to the party a little late and then it came to the front of my mind. We missed the performance! I felt so bummed, but X didn't seem to care at all.

The cool fifth graders played pictionary and then ate pizza. Here's A. with a couple of friends. They gave each other stuffed animals (we need a zoo for all the stuffed animals we have!). L. was happy to go to each party; he always gets bunches of food. Miss B. didn't have an official party being the big middle schooler that she is. A little sad.

We also had another picture with Santa at the annual CCA party. (No one has commented on how that man seems to be everywhere.  L. did comment about the Santa that visited story hour at the library. "He's not very Santa Claus."  Was it the crooked, cotton ball beard?  The black eye brows? Or the unconvincing "Ho, ho, ho?")  We had a great time making crafts, decorating cookies, dancing to Radio Disney, and being with each other.

Surrounded and Uplifted

I've been reading about amazing Captain Moroni in the Book of Mormon. It was said of him, "if all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto ^aMoroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever." Alma 53:2  Wow! What a man! What would it have been to know him?  Then I got to thinking. Hey, wait a second!  I am surrounded by women who are right up there with Moroni in my book. They are stalwart and noble, humble and strong, talented and steadfast, quietly going about doing good whether it be cleaning up a messy child, cleaning a dirty sink, teaching a child, sending a "thinking of you" email, being an example of cheerfulness, sticking with sticky situations, and on and on.  I am so truly blessed to rub shoulders with so many women who quietly go about doing what needs to be done without the glamour, glitz, or recognition of the world. They are my mom, my sister, my friends--new and old, my sisters-in-laws, my mom-in-laws, my teachers, my leaders, my aunts. They are YOU!  Thank you for blessing my life with your goodness.

All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth!

Santa Claus is Coming to Town!

We had our ward (church congregation) Christmas party this weekend.  The program had a nice variety of jolly Christmas songs and uplifting Christmas carols, though X. didn't care about jolly or uplifting; he was all about the man in red and white coming. He wanted to make sure and get in his request for Christmas!

The Storm of '09!

The news always seems to need to name storms and make it all dramatic. It always makes me laugh, especially here where snow is a novelty.  A few inches of the white stuff has the news anchors doing news flashes every few minutes about "The Blizzard" or "The Storm of '09!"  Anyway, we woke up to white stuff falling from the sky. Since we don't have it much, I let the kids go out and play for a little bit before school. L. was so excited, "Let's make snow things and throw them at each other!" Yes, I taught him that we call those "snow things" snow balls, and then he had no problem chucking them at his sisters.  Snow lingo. 

X. has the start of a snow ball.

Now here's a snow ball!

Yay for snow!

Thanksgiving is for...Family!

My parents came out for Thanksgiving week.  We played hard and had fun.  Some of the things we did:

play Twister,

go on a hike and picnic,

make a ginger bread house,

have a movie night, go on a date!!! (T & I), go to Cabelas (kids and grandparents), go on a temple date!!! (T& I AGAIN!), play games, play Wii, watch football (Dad and T), eat yummy food together, AND just be together!!

Sail Away, Sail Away, Sail Away

For Activity Days the girls went sailing on their leader's sailboat. Since one leader couldn't go, I was asked to help out. Sure thing!  What fun!  It was a perfect afternoon. The girls loved it, and even dipped their feet in the water. I was a little afraid they might end up dipping a lot more when the boat leaned with the wind.  I was told that if one of the girls fell in an adult would get to jump in the cold water to keep her company while the boat turned around to rescue the fallen folks. Luckily, no one fell in. We stayed out until the sun set. It was so peaceful and beautiful.

The Thankful Game

Every November, we play the "Thankful Game." We put up paper and every night each of us lists something we are thankful for. We can't repeat what has been said before. By the end of the month we have quite a list. The little folks LOVE this game. They wait in eager anticipation of it. I never knew when we started it that it would become such a family tradition.



...It all started
when T graduated from BYU, and we could no longer live in nice, affordable student housing. We were waiting for some job opportunities to occur, thinking they'd happen within a short period of time. Since we only needed an apartment for a short while in the area (or so we thought) we needed a short term lease. And thus the place I cursed affectionately called "The Brown Hut" came into our life. Cinder block walls, grimy cupboards, spiders--lots of them, discolored carpet (if you didn't wear shoes everywhere your feet would be black--really) were just a few of the perks that came with this place. As the "short while" turned into a longer while, I began to get a little grumpy and so "The Thankful Game" came into being.  So instead of the dirty carpets I was thankful I didn't need to vacuum much (ever) as it didn't really "clean" anything. Instead of cursing cinder block walls we thankfully taped anything we wanted up, and it didn't hurt the walls. The girls rode their bikes inside--you'd never know with the carpet. We went on wonderful walks. We didn't have t.v, so we read and played games.  I spent more time playing with my family and no time cleaning. Blessings, blessings everywhere! Did I ever think that such a fun family tradition would come out of a-not-so-fun circumstance? Probably not, but blessings are everywhere. I just had to open my eyes.

THE BROWN HUT--NOW

My sis-in-law went past "The Brown Hut" this Fall. It's boarded up and no longer inhabited.

Zoo Fun

Today L. and I went to the zoo. What fun we had together! He was SO excited about all the animals. He wanted to find each and every animal in every exhibit (even the birds which I find not as exciting). He wanted to find their name sign to make sure he knew their name and what they looked like. He was so excited to tell his brother and sisters that he went to ALL the zoo. Before we even left he was making plans to return. It was a perfect day for it. I love my buddy!

O.k., this underline stuff is driving me crazy! Why is it doing this??????

L. LOVES birds. He was able to lure 3 parakeets onto his little seed stick.

He was so still and quiet!

Self-portrait of L and I on the train.

Beauty is...Awards and Braces

Miss A. entered the annual Reflections contest put on by the school PTA. She drew a picture that went with the theme "Beauty is..." and she won the Award of Excellence for her drawing! Now her drawing will go on to the district level. She loves to draw and does an amazing job. Way to go, little A!

I have a picture of her picture on my phone, but I can't figure out how to get it off.

On another note, Beauty is...braces! Our very own beautiful B got some on a few of her chompers yesterday. She was all excited about them until they started hurting. Now--not so excited.

Too Much Candy causes Tooth Loss!

We've all heard, been told, or now do the telling ourselves, "If you eat all that candy, your teeth will fall out!" This came true in our family this past weekend--on Halloween no less. X. started complaining at dinner that his tooth hurt too much to eat because it was so loose. We wiggled it and such enough, it wiggled back. X. begged to lose the tooth, so T. got out the pliers and gave the little tooth a tug. Out it came. We teased X. that we sure hoped it wasn't his "sweet tooth" he'd lost, or he wouldn't want to eat any soon-to-be-gotten Halloween candy. We assured him, Mom and Dad would be glad to eat it for him. Now we have our own little Jack-O-Lantern, grinning his toothless smile.

Our Jack-o-Lanterns.

Hope your Halloween was fun and SCARY!

Halloween a little Early!

Our ward had the annual chili cook-off and trunk-or-treat this weekend. We didn't enter any award-winning chili in the cook-off, but T is planning on learning the chili cooking trade and sloppin' some down for a show-down next year. Watch out! Have the water handy (and the TUMS), because I think he likes it spicy!

Since our ward split, our ward has gotten tiny or tweeeeny as L. likes to say, so we only took up a little bit of the church parking lot. The kids got outfitted and went from trunk to trunk begging for candy. They're good lil' beggars, because they came home with oodles of the sweet stuff, and it's not even Halloween! Well, I guess we'll have to implement the Mom & Dad tax to help deplete the candy supply. I'm so glad we had the trunk or treat the weekend before Halloween. Now the kiddos can wear their costumes twice and go around our neighborhood too! Hope our teeth don't fall out with all the candy.

Pumpkin Patch Between Bouts of Sickness

Here is L. See L. smile. See L. NOT be sick. Yay!

See L. run. See L. run through the maze! Again. And again. And again.

Chugga chugga choo-choo! All aboard!

L and I went with some friends to the Pumpkin Patch last week. It was a much needed time out after X. and L. had been sick for the past two weeks (each taking a week at a time--see, we take turns at our house! Even when it comes to sickness.). L. loved running around with his buddies. He tried a bigger maze with his friend C, but the smaller one was more their size. L's friends really were with him, just not in these pictures. Taking pictures of little active boys is quite a feat--it takes lightning reflexes to capture their cuteness before they're running to something new.

Now we're back in the sickness realm. B. was sick the beginning of the week, and now poor L. is sick again. We're headed to the dr. later today. I've a sneaky suspicion he has strep. I never knew I'd get to wear the nurse's hat so often in my life as a mother!

Family Fun and Conference

L. got to go on a little train ride and picnic for his friend's b-day. He loved the train ride, he loved being with his friend, and he loved eating the blue frosting on his cupcake! Can you tell??

The kiddos had a half day of school Friday, so we went to a city park to play and have a picnic for dinner. We had such fun being outside together. Better yet--there were no dirty dishes to clean up!

Then this weekend was the General Conference broadcast both Saturday and Sunday. I was SO looking forward to this; I really needed to have my spiritual batteries recharged and they were. I'm so thankful that in this uncertain time, my loving Heavenly Father has given us prophets and apostles, scriptures and prayer, and testimony and truth. There was a feeling of love, joy, and peace in our home as we listened. The kiddos didn't have to listen the whole time, but they chose to be near us the whole time. X. just smiled and said he liked it.

Field Trip Time

A. had her first field trip of the year to a nature place. I always like going on field trips, because I get to see my little folks in a different place with their friends. She and her class had to run some tests to see if the pond was a healthy or polluted pond. She is running a "turbidity" test to see how cloudy the water is.

Then they had to catch critters to see how healthy the water was. Some creatures can only live in non-polluted water while others thrive in pollution. A. caught a bunch of minnows.

Then they took their critters (the invertebrates) and looked at them under microscopes. It's amazing how many creatures there are in this world which are so unique in their design. It is awe-inspiring that our Creator has planned and designed everything so amazingly, even down to the smallest bug!

Cranial Facial Awareness Month and Picnic

It's September and that's Cranial Facial Awareness Month. Did you know that? Now you do! You can check out C.C.A.'s website (www.ccakids.org) for more on the month, if you want. We had a picnic with a few other families in the area who also have children with cranial facial challenges. The park also had an amusement park, so of course the little folks wanted to try some of the rides. The boys were right at home flying around the galaxy in their "Star Blaster."

B. LOVED the tilt-a-whirl! No one else had the stomach for it. We'd see her spin and spin and spin. I watched closely to make sure she didn't turn green, but all I saw was a huge grin.

And Miss A. was the champion on the Dragon-Coaster!

Wheeeeeewww Whooooo!