Christmas wrap-up

I am being such a big slacker about getting Christmas covered. Here is a brief breakdown and some pictures of some of the activities we did throughout the month:

Riding in a horse drawn carriage with almost our whole family to look at the Christmas lights at the Hermiston fairgrounds. My grandparents were in charge of the project and it was fabulous and fun. They put a lot of time and effort into it along with the other many volunteers, and my grandpa also received an award for his involvement and spirit of service. We fit about 18 people on that old carriage and going around some of those corners I just prayed we didn't tip over. The kids loved it and had a blast. Here are the cousins while we waited for our turn:

My mom and I took Kendle and my niece Maelin to the Mindy Gledhill concert put on by my friend Marilyn. Although it didn't receive the turnout and support it deserved, it was still awesome none the less. I could listen to Mindy sing for hours I love her voice so much. The girls loved it and so did we. She did a mixture of songs off of her regular album and then also some Christmas music. It was fun to have a girls night and listen to some great music.

Here are the girls waiting for it to start:

And afterwards at Applebee's for some dessert:

At our church Christmas party the kids had the opportunity to take a picture of Santa and let him know what they'd like for Christmas. Well, Morgan was really the only one to tell him that. Kendle opted out of the kid picture feeling like she was "too cool" for that and just wanted to go play games with her friends. I think these are pretty classic:

Always the ying and yang of each other, Cooper looks on happily as Kale fights to get away.

It's kind of become tradition that my family comes up to our house on Christmas Eve. We always take cheesy silly pictures and my sister wears her infamous Rudolph Christmas sweater. I think we all look quite festive. (And yes, Tam is pretty tall but she also has super tall boots on which is why she is towering over me.)

Tuck, Jim, me and Tam. They all make me feel so short.

This is a classic Tovey picture. We totally staged it, but our family is famous for having our eyes closed in pictures so it is quite hilarious to us. I know my friends will get a kick out of it as well.

My mom supplied the kids with some "reindeer food" so before bed on Christmas Eve they all went outside and spread it around our front yard.

Aunt Tamra was the only brave enough to accompany the kids and withstand the freezing cold.

Kale trying on grandpa's glasses:

Wanting to go home with grandma:

 

Cooper

Trying to get all the grandkids to pose for a picture:

That's a little better:

One without the twins who had reached their breaking point.

Morgan and Mo.

The Morgster

Since Morgan is obsessed with all things Star Wars, we bought the movies for Christmas. We had Star Wars marathon movie nights.

I only managed to snap a few pictures on Christmas morning. In the hustle and bustle it gets a little hard to remember to take pictures. We told the kids not to come in and wake us up before 6:30. Kendle came in to wake me up at 6:30 on the dot. No one else was awake so I decided we better let everyone sleep a little longer. Finally by about 7:15 or so I could tell Kendle was not going to be able to stand it much longer so I let her get up and help me get things ready. We turned the fireplace on, cued some Christmas music, got some cinnamon rolls in the oven and hot chocolate warming. By then, the boys had started to stir and sleepily came out to see what Santa had brought them.

Here's Kendle in front of the tree before anyone else got up:

And Morgan with his Darth Vader mask:

Yep, that's it. Pretty lame I know. Next year, I vow to do better with the pictures.

Some of the kids favorite gifts from Santa:

Kendle - ipod, light up boots, books,

Morgan - Star Wars masks, light saber, Millennium Falcon ship

Cooper and Kale - Trucks, back packs, play food and lunch boxes

For Kendle's ipod "Santa" wanted to have some fun with her so he did the old trick where you start off with a big box, that has another box inside of it, and another, and another until you get to the small box. We hid the ipod inside a pair of gloves so when she opened the last box she just stared at the gloves like really? All that for gloves? Then she felt them and realized there was something inside of them and started screaming. I thought she would catch on because I gave her little hints in her stocking with an itunes gift card and some new ear buds. It was so fun to watch.

Well, I think that wraps up most of the major parts of Christmas. Whew!



On the 1st day of Christmas

We are on the countdown to Christmas and trying to pack in lots of fun things. Last night we all jumped in the car, went and got some treats at Sonic and then went to watch the light show at Senske. I had never been to see it but had heard from lots of people that it was a fun thing to do. At first when we pulled up, we were like this is it? But then after tuning into the Christmas radio station it was synchronized with and parking across the street to watch it, we all agreed it was pretty amazing. Our kids loved watching the lights pulse and change with the music. Cooper and Kale were almost absolutely silent the whole time, except for a few excited exchanges about the pretty lights. As usual our fun time was cut short because someone had to go the bathroom........sigh..........but, it was still a very fun way to spend a Tuesday night and we got home right at bedtime.

We also had a little surprise yesterday. While driving home after picking up Kendle from piano lessons, my mom called me. She asked where we were and said she was at our house. She had brought us a Christmas surprise. A whole box of presents - one to be opened each day until Christmas. To say my kids were jazzed up would be an understatement. They were so excited to wake up this morning and open the present for the 1st day of Christmas! My mom labeled them all so we know which one to open each day. She is doing it for our WHOLE family. So all of my siblings are opening their gifts on the same days. It is so fun! I think it is an awesome idea. Our gift today was a box of delicious homemade fudge and candy and a Manheim Steamroller Christmas CD. The kids were stoked! They begged me to give them each a little bit of grandma's fudge before school and I even let Kendle take some in her lunch. She said all the kids in her class would be so jealous. Our family loves Manheim Steamroller as well and I know we will all enjoy listening to the music. (Riley calls it his type of Christmas music)

We are also looking forward to opening our service advent each day and doing good and thoughtful things for others this time of year. Kendle has a project at school to try and do as many random acts of kindness that they can and then they give a little speech about it in class before Christmas break. I think that is one of the most excellent things to do with grade school age children. She had lots of good ideas of things she wanted to do. We are feeling the Christmas spirit!

Not Much

We are chugging along into December and not much new to report. We got our Christmas lights hung after a huge debacle and Riley having to take a trip to Home Depot to give them a little piece of his mind, but they're up now. It's so cold, the kids don't want to spend much time outside unless it is traipsing along after Riley or watching him clean his birds from hunting. Morgan got to help him clean some last night and he thought he was pretty big stuff. He was stoked to show me some blood he got on his gloves. Gross!  Riley's planning on making a big batch of goose jerky soon. Mmm, mmm doesn't that sound good? (sarcasm)

We've had a bit of a bug going around and Kendle stayed home from school yesterday. She rarely misses school, she is such a good student and hates to miss so I knew she must be feeling pretty bad. She lounged around all day and hogged the TV and rested. My dad came up and helped me do all sorts of little repairs around the house that have been making my life miserable. I think he can fix just about anything. The kids loved having him here and following him around and watching him work. I always look at things that need to be fixed and they seem like such a big project, and he just comes up and in a few short hours makes it look easy.

Things have been relatively slow with no sports going on right now, but Riley has been working long hours so I'm still not seeing him that much. I told him the other day, he might as well be coaching right now and I might actually see him more. The winter months drive me crazy with my kids cooped up inside and the days seem really long. The twins can get pretty destructive and are always finding new ways to get in trouble. They can climb just about anything and wreak havoc wherever they go. Today I had to box up all the books in the boys room because they just pull them out every day from the book shelf and make a huge mess and I finally got fed up with picking them up multiple times a day. I hope this is a stage they will be growing out of soon.

On a good note though, they have both started to go potty. We are very excited. They just turned 2 a few weeks ago and are very interested and happy about trying to go most of the time. They still aren't talking very much which can make it much harder for them to let me know when they need to go, but I've been sitting them on there a few times a day and having good luck. I'll cross my fingers that it continues and probably try and hit it hardcore after Christmas. I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel of not having to buy diapers anymore!

Kendle was excited to sign up for a performing choir they have at her school. I was kind of surprised since she has backed off of her enthusiasm of singing in front of people a bit, but I think it will be fun and she'll enjoy it. They are doing a Christmas concert in a few weeks and might be visiting some retirement homes as well. She's also been learning new Christmas songs on the piano the last few weeks which she gets a kick out of playing for anyone that will listen.

Morgan loves preschool days. Whenever he asks if he has school that day and the answer is yes, he always gives some sort of excited exclamation. He is really improving in learning his letters and numbers and asks me all of the time to let him read letters off of books. He wants to learn addition and always asks me random addition problems. He's really improved on writing his first and last name and loves to draw (or have me draw) all sorts of interesting things that prove what a horrible and limited artist I really am. I think I go down a notch on the "my mom's awesome" scale every time I can't draw a corn combine, tractor, robot, or Star Wars character. He loves doing flips on the trampoline (and in the house -- yikes!) and does head stands and hand stands and all sorts of crazy things. He has so much energy and I'm eager for him to be able to channel that into soccer or t-ball soon.

I love this time of year and look forward to the continuing holiday festivities and spirit of the season.

It's Almost Christmas Break

Today is the last day of school and then we have two full weeks of Christmas break. The last few days I've been busy as a squirrel storing nuts for winter. I've shopped, baked, cleaned, worked out, dealt with a broken dryer, wrapped presents, put decorations back on the tree the twins keep pulling down and watched as the days until Christmas have slowly been dwindling down. I've loved having Riley home every afternoon after work and I'm dreading him starting soccer again in January.

I'm also a little annoyed today.  I'm really tired of our school not letting the kids have holiday parties. Is it the school's or the teachers? Once again, I have to watch my daughter head off to school totally dejected because no holiday cheer is to be had in her class. LAME! I had her dress up in full Christmas colors and jangly bells anyway. Ha! They can't say it's a money issue because us parents would sign up to bring treats and whatever else was needed in to the class. Also, no Christmas concerts/plays/programs. DOUBLE LAME! I have so many fun memories from my childhood of our class parties and school programs that it makes me sad for Kendle to not have any of that. I can remember being Blitzen in my kindergarten program and Mrs. Snowman in first grade. We looked forward to it every year. It is seriously unbelievable to me that things like that are becoming a thing of the past. Ok, glad I got that off my chest. :)

Riley was having his work Christmas party/meeting today and spent all day yesterday smoking the ribs for it. My fridge and kitchen have smelled like garlic for the last 24 hours and I'm glad he finally packed those babies up this morning and I can have it start smelling like Christmas again and not a BBQ joint. To him that smell is heavenly, to me it just smells like campfire.

I am so stoked because as of this morning I have lost 10 pounds since I started running in September! It has been really tough, I won't lie. I have to literally drag myself onto the treadmill some days, but it's awesome to see the hard work paying off. I know if I followed a better diet the weight would probably be coming off quicker, but hey - I like to eat yummy food. My other goal was that I wanted to be able to run an 8 minute mile by Christmas. Today I ran it in 8:15. I'm getting closer every day. Realistically, I don't know if I can run much faster on the treadmill than I'm already running before I just fly off of there. I think it's easier on a track or the road to sprint really hard. Think I can make it to my goal by Christmas? We shall see. The best part isn't just losing the weight, but I am also feeling better and having more energy and feeling strong so that is all good. My next goal is to lose another 10 pounds by the end of March. I think slowly but surely is the best way to lose weight and keep it off.

I'm excited I get to catch up with my gal pals tonight and enjoy some yummy dinner. Tomorrow night we are doing Riley's family Christmas party at his brother's just a few block's away. I think we have a fun weekend in store.

This and That Friday

Yesterday afternoon, I finally went in to Greenies and picked out my pair of TOMS shoes I won from the giveaway on Jenn's blog. These are the ones I came home with although it was a tough choice:

Aren't they so cute? They are surprisingly comfortable and the ash/grey color is one of my favorite's right now. TOMS shoes also has an amazing company goal to help provide shoes for needy children. For every pair of shoes purchased they give a pair of new shoes to a child in need. You can read  more about that here. I was so excited after bringing them home, I decided to wear them to the cookie exchange I was heading out to where I devastatingly stepped in a big puddle from the torrential downpour we had going on last night. Amazingly enough, they dried in about two seconds and without a stain or spot to be found. Yay! That's a good shoe. If you haven't been to Greenies, you should go check them out. It is a beautiful shop filled with lots and lots of cool things and more than a few bikes I would love to buy for Kendle and I.

And after the week I've had, I really needed something like a cute new pair of shoes to give me a little pick me up. Earlier in the week Riley's truck broke down on his way home from work. Luckily he made it to a safe area not far from our house because the main problem was with his front driver's side wheel/axle/bearings and it could have caused him to be in an accident. So the good part is he was safe, bad part is that it cost a lot to fix. Our Durango has been having problems too and I think I am just about fed up with automotive trouble at the moment. Don't they always say bad things happen in three's? Hopefully our third car doesn't all of a sudden start acting up because I think that will push me over the edge.

Kendle was excited they were having a "read in" day at school today. The students got to wear pajamas or comfy clothes and bring blankets, pillows, and books to read. They were also collecting can food to donate as part of the day. There could not be a more perfectly fun day if it was tailor made for Kendle. She was so excited for the opportunity to finish up a couple of books she has been reading. I think her backpack weighed about forty pounds when she left for the bus this morning. Blanket - check. Books - check. Canned food - check. Homework folder - check. Lunch and water bottle - check. Umbrella - check. She would totally be prepared for an emergency!

I am starting to feel the crunch of the holiday check list piling up on me. I want to try and wrap as many presents as I can today. I still have a box full of crafts to finish. I need to clean my house, but really I just want to hire someone else to come do it for me. I need to put the ornaments and ribbon back on the Christmas tree that the twins keep wildly and gleefully pulling off. I need to start planning some Christmas food and shop for stocking stuffers. Aren't stockings the most fun part of Christmas? I think so, and I love to find neat things to stuff in there for my family. Hopefully this weekend I can cross lots of to-do's off my list.

Well, the twins are waking up and doing the "I'm hungry and mad and you better come get me right now cry" so I better hop to it!

December Surprise

Today along with some new makeup and the new Pottery Barn catalog with all the beautiful Christmas ideas inside, I received one more piece of happy mail. Our family tickets came for the Harry Potter Exhibition at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle.

When I saw this was coming to Seattle as it's final stop in the tour, I knew this would be just the type of thing that my family would love to go experience. Riley and I thought it would be a fun surprise for the kids and sort of a reward to all of us for getting through soccer season. It will be so neat to look at many of the authentic costumes and props that will be featured, and do some of the interactive hands on activities as well.

We are huge HP fans in this family. We can't wait to see the new movie coming out and then go to the exhibit a few weeks later to top it off. I'm so excited to take the kids for a little family day trip and have a fun time. I hope we can keep it a secret until then. They really put up with a lot and are really just troopers with all the long hours their dad is away. They deserve it! Can't wait! (ok, really I think Riley and I will be more excited than anyone) Is it bad for a 30 year old woman to wish she lived at Hogwarts?

Just one more reason December can't come fast enough.

Fun in December

Here are some pictures of the kiddies I've been meaning to post.

*This first one was from last Friday night. Kendle wanted to watch the movie "Annie", so we spread out some blankets, popped some popcorn, and turned it into a fun time. Little did we know that not only did the Morgster want some popcorn too, but that he would proceed to eat two big helpings and watch almost the entire movie - enthralled. He sat with Kendle on the floor and didn't budge unless it was to get more popcorn. There was no fighting or crying. It was a magic moment.

*The next picture was from our ward party on Saturday night where they took pictures with Santa. Morgan was not too thrilled with the idea of sitting on his lap. He kept doing the "fish face" with his lips for some reason. Kendle however loved the opportunity to get one last chance to tell him what she wanted for Christmas.

*Last night was Morgan's first time out in the snow. He didn't know what to think of it, and didn't really want to touch it. He just kept saying "Wow, wow, wow". Riley was shoveling the walkways and Morgan thought that was pretty interesting stuff.

*Later we had a little FHE about the Christmas story and sang the Nativity song. The children participated and took turns holding the baby. They really enjoyed themselves.

I'm so thankful for all of the fun memories we're making together!

Thanksgiving 2008

Our Thanksgiving was very good this year. My grandparents on my mothers side came from Idaho to stay with my parents and it was good to visit with them as we don't get to see them very often. It was just a very relaxing holiday, not a lot of fuss and work. I am glad to say I did not eat myself into oblivion like Thanksgiving's past, but did enjoy my fair share of pie and stuffing. My mom sent me home with my own container of stuffing and that didn't last very long! I'm so thankful for my parents and all they do, especially around the holidays. I can't believe I took my camera with me and didn't take one picture.

The day after Thanksgiving my mom and I did some shopping and although I scored the tv armoire I wanted (it was fate), it was too crazy to shop for much else. We tried to go to Michael's and it was insanely packed so we left. I cannot stand crowds and being packed into small spaces. I do not need anything that bad. I always think about how I would get out if there was an emergency. So we left, came back to our place, and had a little impromptu party with some other family members that were in town. We ate some pizza, had leftover pie, did lots of visiting, and made some cute Christmas crafts. That night after everyone left, Riley and I put the armoire together and managed to not kill each other in the process. Except for one of the doors hanging slightly crooked, I would say it was a success.

Now that it is December 1st, I can officially start getting in the mood for Christmas. We put up our tree on Saturday, and I have boxes of Christmas decorations waiting to be unpacked in my living room. Kendle is dying to help decorate the tree, but I wanted to look around for a few new things to put on it first. At least since it is pre-lit, (yep we rock the fake tree) we can enjoy the glow of the lights in the mean time. It always makes everything seem a shade cozier. The Christmas movies have started on television, and I'm looking forward to some family time relaxing in front of the fire. This time of year I just want to hole up inside my home until it's warm again.

Hope you all had a great holiday weekend.