Skiing

We hit the slopes yesterday and enjoyed some skiing. It was the first time Josh had tried skiing and he liked it. (He liked ski school much better than going down the "big long mountain" with dad.) Jaxon usually is a snowboarder, but yesterday wanted to try skiing and he enjoyed it just as much as the snowboard. Here we are all together at the top of the slopes. It is one of the few times where one of us isn't on the ground.

Class Christmas Party

I was able to go and help Josh's class with their first grade Christmas class party. It was fun to watch him interact with the kids in his class and to watch him having fun doing all the Christmas activities.

Here he is frosting Christmas cookies with one of his friends in his class. Her name is Ella and she has a major crush on Josh. Josh is always telling me stories of how Ella is trying to kiss him.

This is the station that I helped with. It was a fun Christmas craft. Josh was way into it. You can tell he is really concentrating because his tongue is is sticking out ever so slightly. It was fun to be with Josh celebrating Christmas with his class.

Surprise!

Jeremy came home from work a few nights ago and told me he needed to talk to me but that I needed to sit down first. I was thinking something bad must have happened. Instead he told me, "I didn't mean to, but I bought a car today." I was totally shocked. He had wanted it to be a surprise but the anxiety of not telling me got the best of him and he let his surprise out. An hour later a new van was delivered to our door. The boys had no idea and boy were they excited.....that is until I told them that we would have to trade our old van for the new one. Josh jumped out of the new van and got in the old one and refused to get out:

He was crying saying how he like our old van and that he wouldn't remember our old house if we didn't have our old van. (I see no connection here, but that is what he said.) I explained to him that our old van was getting old and that there were some things that weren't working anymore and that it was time to trade it in for a new one.

Once he realized this and understood that there really were things that weren't working, he wanted to make sure that we could take all of the things out of the old van and put them in the new van. He gathered everything up (above) and joyfully put it all in the new van.

Here are the boys (old and young) in the new van. As you can see they were excited. Kayden especially wanted nothing more than to trade in the old for the new. It was such a funny night that I had to capture the moment.

School Sing-In

With the boys being at a new school this year, we have been able to enjoy the school's traditions. At Christmas time they invite the parents to school and the kids sing Christmas songs.

The first grade went first. Josh is slightly left of the center wearing a red and blue shirt. They sang "Up on the Housetop" and "Oh I Love Mrs. Santa Claus". Josh has been singing his songs all season long.

The 6th grade was next. They sang "Where Did They Hide my Presents?" and "Snowball Fight" both from a book of silly Christmas songs. McKay is smack in the middle upper right next to a really tall kid. (And I thought McKay was tall!)

The fourth grade went last and most of the parents had left so I moved up to the front. I kept trying to get Jaxon (top middle) to smile at me, but he wouldn't. So I started pulling faces at him. He then started to sing with his eyes closed so he wouldn't have to look at me. Stinker. They sang "Chocolate in my Stocking" and "Christmas Alphabet".

Kayden and I enjoyed all the Christmas music and Kayden especially enjoyed seeing his brothers at school.

Cookies For Breakfast

Here is Kayden at breakfast the other morning:

"If you don't let me have a cookie, I am going to be sad!"

Santa's Stuck In The Chimney

Josh came home from school with a cute art and writing project. It arrived to our home just in time for Christmas. It is Santa upside down in a chimney and then Josh wrote what he would do if Santa was stuck in his chimney:

Here is a zoomed in view:

Just in case you can't read it it says: "If Santa was stuck in my chimney, I would poek a stik on his but." When Jeremy and I read this, we both burst out laughing. I am pretty sure if Josh poked Santa with a stick it would land him on the naughty list!

Elf on the Shelf

This year our family adopted an Elf on the Shelf. He will to our house every Christmas season to keep an eye on us. He reports to Santa every night by flying back to the north pole. He comes back each morning and is in a different spot from the day before. We aren't aloud to touch him, or he will lose his magic. But we talk to him all the time and let him know who has been naughty and who has been nice.

We named our elf Buddy Link (it was a nice compromise). On this day, Buddy Link watched us perched on a light in our kitchen.

The next morning we found him by the fireplace reading the Christmas book that we had read the night before. We have also found him in the Christmas tree, on top of the cabinets, and in the shudders on the windows.

He will fly back to the north pole with Santa on Christmas Eve and we won't see him again until next Christmas. He has been a fun addition to our Christmas time traditions.

Dipping Chocolates

Every year, we get together with Grandma White and dip chocolates. We make our own centers and spend a whole day dipping. Everyone participates and it is a fun tradition that we all look forward to each year.

Here is McKay breaking up the big chocolate bar to getting it ready to be melted.

Boxes that are being filled with all of our homemade chocolate. Then the boxes are given out to friends and neighbors.

The kids are each given their own boxes to fill with their favorites. They get to decorate their boxes with markers and stickers. Here is Josh with his filled box.

Here is Jaxon's box. He always has to make it known to his uncle that he is a BYU fan.

Even Kayden decorated his box. We all look forward to this family tradition each year. Not to mention that our taste buds really like it too!
*What are some of your Christmas traditions??

Thanksgiving 2011

I had this great aunt--Aunt June--who was known in our family for being camera happy and was always snapping pictures whenever I saw her. I need to be more like Aunt June and remember to take my camera to family events. That being said, thank you to my dear sister for taking pictures over Thanksgiving and letting me steal them.
We had a great Thanksgiving holiday. My sister and her family came from Houston and my brother and his family came from Idaho. The boys had a great time with their cousins and I enjoyed being with my siblings and their kids. The boys and their cousins were able to go skiing and snowboarding over the break and they had a great time. We all enjoyed the food.

Here is Josh and his cousin Camron eating Thanksgiving together. Camron ate LOTS of rolls. (I just had to add that because I am the one that made the rolls.)

Here are the little cousins eating together. Somehow Grandma got stuck eating at their table. She said that she wanted it that way.

The "big people" table. McKay even made it to the grown-up table this year.

After Thanksgiving, we made candy turkeys. It has been a tradition since I was a little girl when we made candy turkeys with Grandma Culley. This year we tried something new. They turned out pretty cute. Kayden took making his candy turkey quite seriously.

One day we went to Provo Beach Resort and let the older kids walk on the ropes course while the younger kids played in a giant jungle gym. Here is Josh and Kayden having some fun with their cousin Meaghan in the jungle gym.
It was a great weekend and come Monday I was begging Jeremy to take the rest of the week off. It was a harsh reality sending the kids back to school and sending Jeremy off to work. At least I have Christmas vacation to look forward to!

Josh is 7!

I blinked my eyes and suddenly Josh turned 7. Man I can hardly believe it! It took us a week to celebrate his birthday. It started on Tuesday, his actual birthday. We opened presents first thing in the morning since Dad was going to be late teaching down at BYU.

Hooray! I am 7!

McKay gave Josh a big "bump" on the head.

Josh is always making jokes about adult diapers. I am not sure how this all started, but he will draw pictures of someone with a caption that says, "I wear adult diapers!" So this year for his birthday we decided (as a joke) to give Josh some adult diapers. The above picture is his reaction to when he first opened them.

He thought it was pretty funny. After he had a good laugh he threw them back to Jeremy and said, "No thanks. I don't need these." Needless to say, it was pretty funny. (I took them back to the store as I hope no one in our house needs them any time soon!)

Now for the real presents! Josh received his first BIG Lego set. He has been busy putting together his Lego Harry Potter Hogwarts school set the last few days.

Today we had Josh's friend birthday party. He was able to invite friends from the old neighborhood and friends from the new neighborhood. Josh wanted a BYU birthday party, so we got BYU t-shirts for Josh and his friends. Above they are all set for some fun BYU party games.

We started out with some "Jimmermania" and the boys shot hoops. They tried to make as many points as possible in thirty seconds.

Here is our winner!

After some pizza, we played another game called "Stoppin' out the Utes". The kids had red balloons tied to them and then they stomped on each others' balloons. The boy that was last to have both his balloons stomped out won.

It was a long time before we had a winner and the boys were all pooped by the time the game was over, but they loved stomping on those red balloons!

Presents! Josh getting bonked on the head by his friends.

Having a good laugh with one of his good buddies.

Josh decided he wanted chocolate chip cookies as has birthday cake. I liked that idea. Here he is waiting to blow out the candles.

I hope he made a wish! It was a great birthday party and a BYU theme was a lot of fun. The boys seemed to have had a great time and they all loved their BYU t-shirts. Josh loves his friends and loves being with them.

Happy birthday Josh! We are so thankful for you! You bring a lot peace to our family. We love your sense of humor and love how animated you are. You always make us smile and laugh. Thank you for being part of our family. We love you!

Brrrrrrr!

The holding pond for our waterfall has been freezing every night. It drains in the morning when the waterfall is turned on and the ice breaks. This day it looked really cool: (click to enlarge)

There was a tunnel of ice that the water was flowing under. It looked pretty cool.

Just as a side note, I don't like winter and I am NOT ready for the cold. Bring on the wool socks!

Am I Four Now?

First thing this morning we sang Happy Birthday to Kayden. He then asked us, "Am I four now?"

I am 4!

Jaxon and Josh agree, Kayden is 4.

We did our traditional "Heavy, heavy hang over thy poor head". Kayden wished us Legos, a family vacation and a happy family home evening.

He was very excited to rip that paper off to see what new toys he got. Here he opened a Luigi car. He also got a Phineas and Ferb toy and some Star Wars action figures.

Later this afternoon Kayden invited over some friends for a Curious George birthday party. Here are a few highlights:

The boys played with Chef Pisghetti's chocolate clay. They were able to shape it, mold it and eat it. They had a great time. Kayden and his dad made a monkey face.

Curious George is always getting into mischief like drawing on the walls. So we let loose and let the boys paint the walls in the garage. Don't worry, we put paper on the walls first. They had a great time.

All the party guests and their art work behind them. Even Josh joined in on the birthday fun.

After painting, we went on a banana hunt so we could have banana splits. Everyone found a banana and used the bananas to put smiles on their faces.

Singing Happy Birthday so Kayden could blow out the candles.

He blew them all out (with the help of one of his friends).

The party was a huge success until all the party guests left with a treat bag and Kayden didn't get one. He got mad. I learned my lesson. Have a treat bag for the birthday boy too.

Happy Birthday Kayden! We love you! You are growing up so fast. You have taught our family more than you will ever know and we so thankful that you are part of our family. You are one smart and fun kid and I love you. Happy Birthday.

To Be Twelve...

Now that McKay is 12, he is able to go to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. We took 14 family names to the temple this last weekend and McKay performed the ordinances of baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. It was wonderful to be in the temple with McKay, Jeremy and Grandpa Haacke. I was even invited into the baptismal font while McKay and Jeremy were in there. It was a great experience and one that I will remember for a life time.

Here is McKay ready to enter the temple with his recommend in hand. I am so blessed to be his mom.