Christmas

Of course we start off with our Christmas Eve traditions on the real meaning of Christmas. We watched a Christmas Mission and read a story about a young girl being overly grateful for the used, but fixed up bike she received, then watched the nativity movie, then Austin read aloud Luke 2.

After that every year they open two gifts on Christmas Eve. A special ornament from mom and dad, (which were all small nativities this year) and new jammies sewn by Grandma!

They went to bed very quickly after that!

Chase liked the wrapping paper as much, or more than, the gifts!

Evan asked Uncle Mark if he would have a snowball fight with him. They started building little forts to protect themselves.

Then the forts got bigger and bigger, and the rest of the kids and dad ended up outside and 3 hours later we had a huge snow fort with furniture inside and steps going up the left and a slide going down the right.

Evan wanted a picture by himself. He is the one who started it all!

After Way too many gifts, and way too much food, it was time to take a nap with our new quilt!

Merry Christmas 2008!

Baby Pictures

I just love taking pictures of babies! They grow and change so fast! Here's some I took of Chase the last couple days.

New Years Bash!!!!

It's time for our 10th annual New Year's Eve Bash! If you are reading this, you are invited!
Usually everyone brings an appetizer and a game. If either one of those is a problem for you, just show up anyway! We play games upstairs, and of course there's Karaoke going on downstairs. And there's a movie on in the kids room as well. Our house, 7pm - ??????



See you there!

Another fun day.....

First my family must thank La Tisha for teaching me how to make Tamales! They are time consuming, but they were a big hit! My kids even wanted me to pack them in their lunches the next day!

Between the 5 of us we made about 250 tamales in 4 different varietes! That was fun and we're all hoping the La Tisha will teach us some more next month!

I had to rush off as soon as we were done to help at Ashley's Christmas party for school.Just the usual games and treats and Chase was the life of the party! All the girls couldn't wait to hold him!

When the kids came home from school, they came bearing tiding of great joy ( for them ) and bad news for mom. Most moms think 2 wks off for Christmas break is plenty long. I try not to complain that my kids get 3. This year since their new school building isn't finished, they get FOUR. 4 weeks off in the winter when they are stuck indoors.

Please send me some ideas!!!!

Then after all the fun, last night Chase went in the big tub instead of the baby tub for the first time! It took us about 5 minutes to get him to look up for a picture he was so entraced by his hands in the water!

Wednesday the kids had their choir concerts at school. Besides Christmas songs, they sang all sorts of stuff! Evan sang a Hanukah song in Yiddish!

Austin and Ashley sang songs in Arabic, Italian and Armenian!

Chase was making silly growling noises for Austin's concert and Austin couldn't stopp giggling! Though he still managed to sing.

Why am I so behind this year? I do not have most of my Christmas shopping done! And less than 2 weeks to go! Yikes!

PJ Potluck!

Every week we get together with some friends for dinner at alternating houses. Each couple brings a full course meal and thus we end up with more food to choose from than Thanksgiving! Last week as we argued over who's house to have it at, everyone said they wanted it at their own house so they could wear their pj's. So I said wear your pj's over here! And instead of deciding on a theme for dinner as usual, we though it would be fun to do a potluck, and thus the PJ Potluck was born!
We played Dance Revolution for awhile. Not a good idea after over-eating!

Chase wanted to join the fun! We got him on video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUeAh3PRJao

Long, but Good day....

Saturday started off with an 8 am meeting at our house. It was the first official committee meeting for Stage 11 community theater! It went really well. Theater just can not survive without a dedicated team of hard working volunteers! We're so excited to be a part of it!

Then we took our annual trip up to Pine Creek Pass to chop down a Christmas tree.

The kids were so sad when we left and complained the whole drive up that they wouldn't get to sled because there was no snow. But the mountains surprised us and there was just barely enough snow for some sledding! Chase even had his first time on a sled...

Then we built a fire, and had hot soup or hot dogs and hot chocolate!

All the cousins on Justin's side of the family were there.

And there had to be some snow ball fights! But I couldn't take pictures because I was holding Chase, but I did get Evan throwing one!

Here come the dads with the trees!

They were pretty tired on the way home!

It was Austin's year to put the star on the top!

Our mountain grown tree has character, and so does our ecclectic collection of sentimental orniments!


That evening we had our ward Christmas party.

Chase got to see Santa for the first time!

And Evan was just so sure that THIS was NOT the REAL Santa!

After a nice dinner and a few songs it was time to go home and GO TO BED!!! I think I was asleep before 9:30!

This was the primary kids singing their Christams song!

Bloggerism

So in honor of National Blogger month last month Heather declared that we should all try to post every day. I knew that I would fail so I made no such claim. Instead I made up a blogger conquest of my own. Get my loved ones to start a blog! Though I was unable to sway my sister (she firmly believes no one would want to read - but she is undoubtedly wrong) I was able to convert my brother and a dear friend to Bloggerism! Introducing:

Mark's Kitfox Adventures
www.markwiththefox.blogspot.com

and
Belinda's life
www.amesburygirl.blogspot.com

Welcome to the world of Blogs!