Christmas Party

Our family Christmas party this year was memorable as always!

We enjoyed tasty snacks,


marveled at Grandma's 14 foot tree,

went back for seconds,

and joked with cousins.

The highlight of the evening, of course, was the arrival of Santa Clause. Our youngest pestered him with question after question: "Where is Rudolph?" "Are you the real Santa?" "Will you bring me some Star Wars guys?"

When he was finally allowed to sit, Santa asked who wanted to sit on his lap ...see who jumped up first!

Our daughter asked Santa for a pet turtle. (Strike one)

Our oldest wanted a four-wheeler. (Strike two)

And this guy wanted a dog! (Strike three)

Aunt Cristi had the best request: Bon Jovi! But if she couldn't have him she would take a boyfriend as good as her Dad and brothers!

Grandpa has everything he wants, but the kids sure thought it was fun to see him talk to Santa.

Grandma too!

Thanks for a memorable evening, Santa!

Catching Up...Once More.

It's feast or famine as far as blogging time is concerned. Today is catch-up-the-blog-day! Yay for me!! The last little while I have spent my free time on Christmas projects (a future post). Here's a glimpse of what took place in the last few weeks:


We enjoyed a beautiful Christmas dance program. Our daughter danced to "Silent Night" and Merry Christmas, Happy Holiday."

It was a fun evening. I got to help out backstage for the first time. All I can say is, "Wow!" I had no idea all the background work that went into a performance! We had a fun time and my daughter really liked that we got to spend the evening together.

She is really excited about her dance costume this year. She paid for half of it so I think she appreciates it that much more! She will have some competitions coming up soon.

We also got to enjoy a rousing sing-along/Christmas program at the kids' school. We enjoyed songs by each grade and a very entertaining performance of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" by the faculty.

It was snowing that day...after raining for several days in a row and everyone was enjoying the "winter wonderland" that was appearing outside....little did we know that the snow would keep coming and coming....

The next day was supposed to be the last day of school before Christmas break. Our second oldest was performing in the school production of "A Christmas Carol," and the kids were looking forward to class parties. But we woke up to 20+ inches of heavy, wet snow! For the first time in over 30 years, our school district declared a snow day and canceled school. The kids were overjoyed and soon bundled up in snow gear to enjoy sledding, fort-making, and snowball fights with the whole neighborhood. We soon found out why school was closed when in a matter of 20 minutes, six cars were stuck on our street alone!! We spent hours shoveling snow, warmed up with several steaming cups of hot chocolate, and we watched a few movies!! Welcome Christmas Break!!!

Just two days later we celebrated my graying husbands 39th birthday! We woke him up with gifts and song! After work that evening, he enjoyed shooting at the club with the older boys. We tease him that he better enjoy his last year of being young!!

Read All About It!

Our cute rifle shooters are featured in an article in the daily herald today. A reporter came and shot some pictures and video highlighting the club and the boys' team that placed nationally. Here is the link: http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/article_ca66f72f-237f-59fa-8122-7b16af4a01d0.html

Check out the pictures (there's a good one of D), but don't miss out on the video that is also on the same page. The kids' coach is interviewed...she is a pretty awesome lady and a fantastic coach! Our daughter and star wars fan were also at the club shooting that night. They think they are famous since they are in the video too!!

Turns out, it's not so funny after all!

Ever since we cut down our tree on Saturday the kids have been begging to put it up and get out all the Christmas decorations. So for FHE last night we put on the Christmas music, got out the storage boxes, and brought a little Christmas cheer into our home!



The kids were excited (aka bouncing off the walls) and there was the normal arguing of who gets to do what and put which cherished ornament on the tree.

We set out the decorations and started hanging the candy canes....

a few didn't quite make it to the tree!

I handed out the ornaments while the kids put them on the tree...a side note about our tree: after seven years of cutting down our own tree in the forest and searching for the perfect one, we have learned by experience through countless hours of searching that there isn't a "perfect" tree out in the forest. In the tree farm lot, yes, but out in the forest, no. Each one has a slight imperfection whether it be a bare spot, a split trunk, or a bad side. We have found that we love it no matter what it's imperfection, simply because it is the one we picked.

The tree we picked this year (in less than 30 minutes!) is a typical forest-grown tree: one beautiful side and one very not-so-beautiful side (somewhat bare). Since we always put our tree in our bay window we have found that we can hide the imperfection towards the window and we don't ever see it: very convenient.

We gave instructions to the older ones to decorate up high so the shorter ones could decorate at their eye-level. I really didn't pay much attention to the tree...or the distribution of the ornaments until there was a big crash!



It turns out that if you have a bare spot (light side) in your tree and you put most of the ornaments on the pretty side (heavy side), your tree will become severely lopsided and the inevitable will happen...followed by many hours of cleaning up the water that spilled, re-doing the stand (turns out those pokey spikes in the bottom of the stand that get covered in pitch year after year until you can't even see them...are NECESSARY), re-situating lights, picking up ornaments, re-distributing them on the tree (taking care to not neglect the bare spot, and then comes the fun of picking out pine needles from your long shag area rug one by one.



By midnight our tree was restored to it's previous beauty...although it is still lopsided (notice how the stand appears off-center). We step by it lightly and anyone who dares touch it is threatened with their life!! I always laughed at the AFV episodes with the (obviously) challenged people who knock over, fall into, or stupidly stare and scream as their tree falls over. Turns out, it's really not that funny!

Our Tree-Cutting Adventure

It has been seven years since that November day that changed so much in our family. This time of year brings lots of memories, both good and bad, but we have found that the best way to make it through this time of year is: TOGETHER!




The way we have chosen to spend that anniversary every year is to head out to Vernon and go Christmas tree hunting!! Every year we experience a different adventure, each one memorable in it's own way.

On the way there, in our little caravan of vehicles we talk about the past years' adventures: the year of the cougar tracks, the year that we almost slid off the mountain, the warm year, the year of the blizzard, and we wonder what will make this year memorable ....

This year will be remembered for several reasons, but I will remember this year as the year Grandma came!! Grandma hates to be cold!!! She loves to make soup! The combination of these two facts usually means that Grandma stays home making several kinds of yummy (and I mean knock-down delicious) warm soup to greet the cold tree-cutters upon arriving home. But this year an afternoon recital changed things up a bit and she joined us in the cold...and the mud!

This year will also be the year of the mud. An earlier snowstorm followed by some warmer weather left our tree-cutting area a big, muddy mess. This was the kind of mud that sticks inches thick to the soles of boots. Luckily there was still some snow for us to walk through to help de-mud our weighted-down boots!

It was also the year of Hudson, Brad, and Alison!! They bundled up and joined in the muddy fun.

It will also be remembered as the year of Samson and Delilah! Grandma and Grandpa's two little shih tzu's came along for the first time. Our daughter enjoyed their company.

There were many aspects of our trip this year that were identical to past years: foremost being the consumption of several dozen doughnuts and many cups of hot chocolate;

Some father/son advice-giving! Even if it is posed and scripted!!

Some sibling bonding always adds to the afternoon fun!

A little father/daughter teasing thrown into the mix...

and some cute cousins who started out so clean and innocent looking...you should have seen them! They started off their fun with a snowball fight and then moved onto a funner game of a mud fight! They enjoyed every second of the muddy fun, but clean-up was a challenge!

We enjoyed Grandpa's four-wheelers! There is something about wheelin' in the mud!

This will also be the year of the tree incident. While scary and unfortunate, I had to mention it because we feel so blessed that those involved were protected and that the serious damage was limited to the wheeler/tree and the riders were spared any serious injury!

We enjoyed many laughs,

and we even found a pretty decent Christmas tree!

In no time at all we had it cut down and ready to take home.

We had a fabulous day and many adventures. Our Christmas tree is sitting in our garage right now ( I like to give the unwanted wildlife a sudden eviction notice and a day to vacate our tree), but we plan on decorating it tomorrow night for family night. We can hardly wait!

A Full Pantry

This year after the deer hunt things happened just like they always do: measuring the antlers, picture-taking, unloading, laundry, etc. It seems like it always takes at least 2-3 days to recover from such a big ordeal. The boys missed six days of school and even though they had finished all the school work they missed prior to the trip, they still had tests to make up and a few assignments to finish.

What happened differently this year was what we did with the venison. Usually we cut up the backstraps for steaks and then make jerky out of the rest of the meat. This year we tried something new (to us). Our next door neighbors always bottle their game meat and they let us try some awhile ago. It was amazingly good!! We decided that this would be a wiser, more practical use of the venison and decided to give it a try. It was A LOT of work that kept me busy for three straight days, but now we have a pantry filled with 40 quarts of ready-to-use venison. We have already tried it in three different dishes and it is just amazing how versatile and convenient it is to have on hand! (And you would never know it was venison!)

Full Bellies and Full Hearts

Thanksgiving this year did not disappoint. It never does!! We spent a wonderful day with our family eating great food and feeling abundantly blessed.

We had the kids spend some time in the morning writing down a list of what they were thankful for...we may or may not have bribed them with $1 for the best/longest list. However, what started out as a competition ended up being fairly reflective as we sat down and read everyone's list. (The longest list had 187 points!) We are very blessed and have so much to be thankful for! Even if some of those blessings include toilet paper and deodorant...I think the kids were trying to be funny, but when they really thought about it...those "silly" items were still very real blessings!

When we arrived at Grandma and Grandpa's house we joined in the bustling of getting everything plated, situated, and warmed up.

We really enjoyed seeing our St. George cousins who braved the cold and weather to join in the fun!

The table settings were beautiful as always...with name tags, pictures, and decor.




We had the kids eat a late breakfast to help them last until 2:00, but the delicious smells really got us hungry!

But it was worth the wait!

Dad's pineapple ham...

Aunt Cristi's butterhorns...

Grandma's moist turkey!

It was definitely tasty!!

Later that evening after we had digested a little we sat around for some good laughs,

a little joking around,

and a lot of yummy pies. A great end to a fun day!