Year in Pictures

'Tis the Season

December is always a busy month.  Not wanting to add anything else into the mix, I made a conscious decision to postpone blogging about all of our holiday activities until after the big day.  Now that Christmas is over, I thought I would chronicle some of the fun stuff we did this month.  The kids didn’t really wear the same shirts all month long, but it sure looks like it judging from these pictures.

Gingerbread Trains:

I found some quality gingerbread trains on clearance last year.  I figured it wouldn’t matter if they were nasty and stale by the time we made them, since the kids don’t eat them anyway.  It was a fun change from our regular gingerbread houses.  Each of the kids had their own bag of frosting.  Between what she piled up on the top of the train and what she sucked out directly from the tip, Abby used up every bit of the frosting in her bag.  She perfected her technique so she was all ready to make her preschool gingerbread house a week later.

Choir Concerts

The kids did a Christmas concert at the high school with the elementary school choir.  They had good practice for the big nighttime performance by doing a couple of assemblies at the school earlier in the week.  The school assemblies became a little more memorable for Emily when the kid standing behind her threw up in the middle of the first assembly.  She had to call me to bring her new clothes.  They took the picture of the choir for the yearbook while she was in the office calling me.  She was a little disappointed about that, but I convinced her it will be a funny memory whenever she looks at her yearbook and remembers why she isn’t in the picture.

Ward Breakfast

Nate and the kids were part of the entertainment for our ward Christmas breakfast this year.  They sang “When Joseph Went to Bethlehem.”  I hadn’t taken a camera with me to record them while they were singing, but I had them jump up on the stage for a photo after the breakfast was over and then made them do private concert when we got home.  During the real thing you could pretty much only hear Nate and Elise (probably just because she was closest to the microphone).  The kids (especially Abby) were lots more bold when they were singing in our family room.

Cookie Day

Nate’s parents invited the kids over for a cookie day.  They had a good time decorating Christmas cookies and talking with Grandpa and Grandma.  They each came home with their own plate of (thickly frosted/over-decorated) cookies.

Christmas Banner

Nate brought home a big roll of leftover map paper from work.  The kids set to work making a giant Christmas banner.  It kept them busy for hours and they worked together so well (hardly ever happens).  They were all very proud of their creation.

Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree

The kids choreographed an awesome little dance number to Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.  They were hoping to perform during our family party, but they forgot about it after everyone was here.  Luckily we have a video so we can always remember it.

Family Party

We had all of my family here the Sunday before Christmas for a party.  I was silly and worried that we wouldn’t have enough food.  Really, we didn’t have enough counter space to put all the food.  Everything was so yummy.  I think I gained eight pounds in three hours.  We skipped the nativity program this year and instead each family shared a Christmas story.  It was nice.  We continued the tradition of giving each of the kids a little gift.  They got a book and a candy-filled candy cane from Holly, gloves from Lesle, a five dollar bill from Jody, and I made them each a floppy fleece hat.  I had to change up the pattern a bit when I realized that fleece only stretches in one direction (who knew?), but they turned out pretty cute.  Sarah was happy to model for me so I could get a picture.  I’m bugged that I didn’t think to take a group photo while everyone was here.  Next time.

Star Wars Advent Calendar

We splurged and got this fun calendar to add into our nightly countdown-to-Christmas routine.  The kids took turns picking a book, choosing a Christmas song, putting an ornament on our little tree, or building the mini Lego kit.  The Legos were definitely the favorite thing.  They all looked forward to the night when it was their turn.

Class Parties

I only helped with one class party this year.  I got to make 12 gingerbread houses for Elise’s class and then go and help the kids decorate them.  There were a couple of extras, so Abby got to do one too.  They both had lots of fun, but they were not impressed with the crappy, store-bought frosting.  They were expecting it to work like our quality, homemade, royal icing that sets up fast and holds like glue.  The store-bought stuff just didn’t measure up.

I took a quick picture of Elise by the Star Student bulletin board while I was there.  Once a month, one student is chosen from each grade for a little spotlight.  Elise was very excited about being chosen for December.

Abby had her preschool party the same day.  I didn’t go, but luckily my friend took some pictures of Abby visiting with Santa.  She came home so excited that Santa had come to preschool and thrilled with her Ballgown Surprise Cinderella doll that she got from her friend Scott in the gift exchange.  She didn’t mind one little bit that Scott’s mom ignored the $3 limit.  :)

 Christmas Village

We decided to brave the cold weather and take the kids to Christmas Village.  After making a quick trip around the park to see all of the displays, we headed over to the amphitheater to watch Nate’s brother’s singing group perform.  It was a fun (but freezing!) family night.

Christmas Eve

2011 = odd year = Grandma Reatha comes for Christmas.  The kids get so excited when it is our turn for Grandma to come.  We started the fun on Christmas Eve by watching the messages that Santa sent each of the kids from Portable North Pole.  Abby was easily the most impressed.  She was wide-eyed and grinning the whole time.  Then the kids opened their new pajamas and we had our traditional movie marathon with lots of yummy treats.  I had a minor meltdown when I washed the quilts I had made for the girls and learned firsthand that it is a really bad idea to not pre-shrink the fabric before spending hours making three cute new bedspreads.  I tried to get over it, but it put a bit of damper on my Christmas Eve spirits.

Christmas

Christmas was on a Sunday this year.  As much as I love the idea of going to church on Christmas day, it complicates things a bit.  We were debating opening presents before going to church at 9am or waiting until after.  We ended up doing half and half.  We got off to a shaky start with Elise being a bit of a Dudley Dursley with her stocking (“that’s it?”) and Abby being a bad gift receiver with the extra gift that Emily had bought for her at her class’s Market Day (leaving Emily in tears).  It wasn’t a great way to start the day, but after a friendly reminder about being grateful everything was much smoother.

Santa brought the Taylor Swift Band Hero bundle for the kids.  That provided much of the day’s entertainment.  The girls loved their new bedspreads and pillows and acted like I was a crazy woman when I showed them how they were a little wonky from shrinking.  They couldn’t have cared less.  Thanks heavens they didn’t inherit my OCD.  We gave each of the kids a new bean bag, the older three each got a cool Lego set, Abby got the ultimate Disney Princess doll collection, Ben got the 5^th grade ski pass, and they all got some new clothes and various other toys and games.  As usual, their gifts to each other were a big hit.  Ben gave Abby they ladybug pillow pet that she had been begging for for months; Abby gave Ben a new Nerf gun; Emily got a Bop-It (on an incredible deal) for Elise; and Elise gave Emily a Build-a Bear kit and a paint by number.  Nate and I didn’t really exchange gifts.  He gave me a scotch tape dispenser and I gave him a sharpener for his ax.  Our real presents were new barstools for the kitchen and a new TV for our bedroom, but we had already been using them both for a month before Christmas.

Ben and Santa

We had planned on telling Ben the whole truth about Santa last year, but he was such a big believer that we just couldn’t bring ourselves to do it.  When this year rolled around, he believed just as much as ever.  Ironically, the girls have all expressed some doubts, but not Ben.  Of all of the kids, he was most sure that Santa was real (even though he already knew about both the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy).  I was torn between breaking his heart and having him be the only college freshman that still believes in St. Nick.  Finally I decided that if he brought it up, I would tell him.  If not, I would just wait another year (or three).  Luckily, out of the blue one day, he asked the big question.  I did my standard “What do you think?” reply and he said, “Just tell me.”  So, I did.  He took the initial news really well, but every little detail threw him for a loop.  “What about the stockings?  You and Dad do the stockings too?!?!”  The best part was, “You eat the cookies?!?!?”  That was almost too much for him to handle.  It was so sweet to watch his innocent little mind put two and two together for every piece of our carefully constructed Santa ruse.  It was hard for him to wrap his brain around the idea that all of it was just a show.  I gave him a big hug and made him promise not to tell his sisters.  That little promise seemed to make everything better.  He was pretty excited about knowing something that they didn’t and he did an awesome job of not blowing the secret.  He did give me and Nate lots of funny little grins and winks whenever the subject came up, but he was never so obvious that he blew our cover.  I sure love that boy!

Preschool Fieldtrips

Abby has had three fieldtrips in the last couple of months. First was a little trip to our local grocery store. The store manager was amazing with the kids and kept them well entertained while he showed them around. He had all kinds of interesting facts to share. My favorite part was seeing the chainmail glove that the meat department guys wear so they don’t cut themselves. Who knew?



Next on the schedule was a trip to the fire station. Abby was totally engrossed with everything that the firemen taught her and was excited to tell me all about it again on the way home. She even gave a fire safety lesson the next time she was in charge of Family Home Evening. Her favorite part of the trip was that she got to keep the cool plastic firefighter hat they gave her.


The last fieldtrip of the year was to go to Kangaroo Zoo, a new bounce house place in town. Our other kids had won free passes for participating in Reflections, so we took the whole family a couple of weeks earlier. I tried to persuade Abby that since she had already gone with her brother and sisters that she didn’t really need to go with her preschool class. She wasn’t convinced. I wasn’t as enthusiastic about a second trip, so I opted to stay home and sent Abby with a friend. She had a fabulous time playing with her preschool buddies for a couple of hours. Since I wasn’t there I didn’t get any pictures, but here is one that we took a couple of weeks before. (Claudy, Korbin, and Maddie joined us when we took the kids making it loads more fun for everyone.)

A Very Blustery Day

At the beginning of the school year the PTA sent home a note saying that we were supposed to send an emergency kit to the school for each of our kids. There was a whole list of items . . . bottled water, a flashlight, hand warmers, a mylar blanket, canned food, etc. Nate and I complied, but we mocked the idea a bit. We live two minutes away from the school (15 minutes if we walk). We thought it was lame to put together kits that our kids would never need to use. If there was ever an emergency, we could be to the school to pick them up before they really needed to bust into a survival kit. It turns out that they might not have been completely useless after all. We had a crazy windy day on Thursday (gusts of 100 mph) and the power was out at school for about 4 hours. Since Emily’s classroom doesn’t have any windows, her teacher had the kids get the flashlights out of their emergency kits so they could keep working. Emily was glad she had one (even though the batteries died after a couple of hours). I thought about going and picking the kids up early, but I figured it would be a fun memory for them to be at school during a blackout. I’m glad I followed my instincts. When I picked them up after school, they couldn’t stop talking about how much fun they had. Most kids left early, so they got down to 6-10 kids in each of their classes. Emily said that she just kept thinking “Please don’t come and get us Mom. This is too much fun.” Holly pointed out later that their teachers were thinking, “Moms, come and get your kids! This is not so much fun.” :)

We looked at a bunch of photos on KSL.com that night of all the damage throughout the state. There were some crazy pictures. We were glad that the worst thing that happened at our house was the Christmas tree on our front porch blew over and we lost one of the branches. After seeing how bad some people got hit, I felt very blessed (and glad that we had taken apart our trampoline the week before; it wouldn’t have fared so well).

Future Party Planner

You can always tell when Elise sets the table at our house because there are place cards (even though we sit in the same seats at every meal) and the napkins are wrapped around the silverware and decorated with stickers for whatever holiday is next on the calendar. This week she went the extra mile and wrote each of us a personalized message inside our little name tags. I sure love that girl!

Thanksgiving 2011

Thanksgiving break didn’t go exactly as planned at our house. We had a stomach bug make its way through each of our kids. Abby started the fun at 1:00 a.m. on Friday, Emily and Elise took their turns over the weekend, and Ben waited until Monday night to start throwing up. We were reminded that Emily should win a trophy for being the best sick kid ever. She doesn’t whine or complain and she pretty much takes care of herself. She is a dove. Her body definitely had the worst reaction to this little illness. I felt awful for her, but at the same time was glad it was her and not one of our higher maintenance kids. We kept pointing out to the other kids how good she was, hoping they would follow suit. We’ll keep working on that.

We did manage to have some fun before sickness struck and during the brief intermissions between the kids taking their turns with it. Here are some of the good parts of our weekend:

Cousin time. I took the kids with me Wednesday morning to get my hair cut and colored. Ben hung out with Jacob and played Transformers on the PS3 for a couple of hours (one of the highlights of his vacation) and the girls went with me so they could get their hair trimmed. Rachel and Bryton came along for the ride, making it loads more fun for my girls to hang out for an hour waiting for their mom.

Going to Surf-n-Swim. We had a gift certificate to Surf-n-Swim that was about to expire so we decided to make Wednesday a fun family day and use it up. Nate got off work early and we took the kids to lunch at Burger King and then hit the pool. We had a great time swimming and the kids watched a couple of racquetball matches while we ate nachos from the concession stand. They have never seen anyone play racquetball before and they thought it was super cool. As we were walking to the car, all of the lights came on in the park across the street from the pool. I think the city was just doing a trial run for their Christmas light show, but we took advantage of the good timing and made a couple of loops around the park to see the displays. It was an unexpected bonus for our trip.



Watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with Ben. Ben finished the book months ago and has been begging to watch the movie ever since. We put the girls to bed early on Wednesday and watched with him. It was some good parent/son bonding time.

Winterizing the yard. The weather was warm enough (upper 40s) to head outside and do a few jobs that we had been putting off. We took down the trampoline, mowed the lawn, raked the leaves, and cleared the garden. Not so much fun, but it is good to finally have it done.

Thanksgiving dinner. We had a nice time visiting with Nate’s brothers and their wives and the kids had fun playing with their cousins. It was a good day.

Shopping. We got our year’s supply of free toothpaste and toothbrushes from Walgreens, braved the Black Friday madness at JoAnns, and scored a quality deal on a new TV on Amazon (which turned into a big customer service headache due to some technical issues with their website, but it all worked out in the end).

Decorating for Christmas. We took advantage of a six hour window of no one puking to get the house ready for the holidays. I love that the kids can do a majority of the work these days. In spite of my control freak issues in other areas, I am perfectly content to let them just have at it when it comes to Christmas decorations.

Movie marathons. Since we didn’t really leave the house for three days, we got in lots of movie time. We watched Back to the Future (edited for language) and 17 Miracles as a family and the kids got their fill of Curious George and Harry Potter.

Watching The Amazing Race. For the last couple of months Jody and Sarah have been joining us for Sunday dinner and then we watch The Amazing Race together. It has been a fun new tradition and we look forward to it every week. Sarah saved the day this week when she came walking through the door carrying a barf bucket about 30 seconds before Elise needed to use it. It was funny how perfect her timing was. We love that little girl (even more for saving us the effort of shampooing the movie room carpet).

Mission Accomplished

Ever since Emily won a trophy for her reflections entry last year, Ben and Elise have wanted one of their own. The reflections program is supposed to be about getting in touch with your artistic side, and developing your talents, and blah, blah, blah, but really they were just in it for the trophies. Quite frankly, so was I. I know that kids need to learn that sometimes you win and sometimes you lose and life isn’t fair and all that jazz. However, one downside of having kids so close together in age is that a lot of the time they are competing against each other. We’ve had quite a bit of sibling rivalry in this house over the past few months, and I wasn’t looking forward hearing all about how “I never win” and “she wins everything.” Fortunately, I didn’t have to. The stars aligned and all three kids came home happy with their cool new trophies. Phew.


The theme this year was “Diversity Means . . .”. Ben spent all summer taking pictures of different kinds of clouds and made a collage of his favorites. He got some cool photos on our trip, and he even got a shot of a funnel cloud from our backyard. His collage turned out great and he was pretty sure it would win. It didn’t. Luckily, he decided to throw together a literature entry a couple of days before the projects were due. It did win. He wrote about diverse ecosystems. I’m glad he found a way to put some of his random Planet Earth knowledge to good use.



Emily entered for literature, photography, and for visual arts. Her drawing was by far her best project and the one that earned her a trophy. She went with a biodiversity theme. She spent lots of time getting it just right and the finished product was very nice. I loved how she patterned each of the letters after one of the animals/plants. I wasn’t so sure that she would win. There are always lots of entries for visual arts and now that she is in third grade, she is in the division with older kids. I was proud of her for holding her own with the big kids.




Elise really wanted to win a trophy, but she only wanted to do two projects. Nate helped her set up a tripod and she took a bunch of pictures of Abby making different faces. Her project turned out really cute, but it wasn’t a winner. I had heard that no one ever enters the music category, so I told her that maybe she should make up a song. She hasn’t taken piano lessons yet and doesn’t have any real skill, but she sat down at the piano and composed a little song on a 3x5 card (with her own unique musical notation). Going with the diversity theme, she played it through once slow and low and once high and fast. It wasn’t good. I was just banking on her being the only one to enter. I was a little worried when I found out that three kids entered the music category in her age division this year. She lucked out and scored a trophy anyway. Ironically, only one girl entered a literature project. She could have written anything and won. Live and learn.