Merry Christmas!

Snowman and The 1st Day of Christmas

We don't have a lot of snow left, but we were able to scrape together a little snowman this afternoon.
We are trying a new thing this year to help us get in the spirit of Christmas, spend time together as a family, and especially to remember Christ during this special time of year. We are doing The 12 Days of Christmas. Each day from now until Christmas Eve we open one gift. The gift could be an object or an activity. Today was the 1st day of Christmas. We opened some hot chocolate mix. For our activity we drank hot chocolate with peppermint marshmallows, ate popcorn, and played Memory Game together. It was a lot of fun an the kids loved it. I really hope this all works out. Our evenings are always hectic, as well as our lives in general, and I'm hoping this will help us slow down a little, enjoy each other's company, and get to know our Savior better.

Jace

Today Jace hit the mail lady in the chin with a snowball. I was just telling her how it was so nice of her to lean clear out of her car to put our mail in our broken mailbox which is propped up on a snowbank. Broken mailbox due to a snowplow (a whole nother story - that was for you Tia). Jace sneaked out of the house and was throwing snowballs at my back. I told him to go inside and stop throwing snowballs. All of a sudden a snowball flew past me, into the mail car window, and right at the mail lady's chin. It scared the daylights out of her, and mortified me. I spun around and saw Jace's guilty little face. Oh, that boy. I hope the mail lady still likes us enough to lean over and put our mail in our box until we get it fixed.

Deck the halls

I love decorating for Christmas! Taking each decoration out brings back all kinds of good memories. Now that the kids are getting a little older they love finding their own special ornaments from years past. One of our traditions is for the kids to get a new ornament every year. Scott's family did it when he was growing up and I love it! We also get new ornaments when we travel...a great way to remember places we've been. All of that makes it so fun to decorate our tree every year.

Keep in mind this is a mountain tree, and a very good one at that. I've decided that ribbon may not look the greatest on a sparse mountain tree, but it works. We also have our traditional dried fruit ornaments from my college days. I used to make these new every year until I recently discovered that these ornaments keep from year to year. That made it a lot easier for me this time around.

Gage is our tree attacker this year, although it's died down a little as the days go on. Now we have presents under our tree and he loves to rip and carry those around. Nice. Thank goodness the ones he ripped are undetectable in a big brown box.

I love these three pictures of the kids taken right after we finished decorating the tree. Silly kids.

p.s. Gage tipped over a dining room chair with him on it this morning. I'm thinking Jace had something to do with it, but I can't prove it. Gage came away with a cut, fat lip and a bloody nose....but thankfully not stitches. Poor little guy.

Thanksgiving and getting a tree

I hosted a mixed family Thanksgiving this year. My parents, brother, and sister came, as well as Scott's parents, sister, and her kids. We had lots of yummy food, relaxed and visited, and the kids took sled rides behind the four wheeler. It was such a nice day and I just felt so happy and thankful for all of the good things in my life.




We went up to the mountains the Saturday after Thanksgiving to get our Christmas tree. We usually don't have to deal with too much snow, but this year there was a lot! We had fun sledding while Scott and my dad hiked around for a tree. Poor Jace and Gage quickly tired of the deep, cold snow. Luckily, the guys found a tree quickly and we headed home for a nice, warm lunch.




So excited for Christmas! I'm even almost finished with my Christmas shopping!!

Ouch!

I'll start with the visuals first...

Poor Gage has had no luck in the broken head category. This is the second head related mishap for him in 6 months (see the post from May 24). This time Katelyn tried to pick him up and he fell forward and banged his head on the edge of the window sill. He is now our first kid with stitches, and I'm hoping we don't have to ever do it again. It was horrible! Gage was so afraid, and we had to hold him down while the nurse stuck a nasty looking hooked needle through his eyebrow over and over again to sew it up. And I know it's very superficial, but I hope he comes out of this with a normal eyebrow. It wasn't the best sewing job, although it is hard to sew together a moving target. But, I guess it's not the worst thing that could have happened so we're grateful. And the best part is that Gage does not even remember what happened last night. Once in a while he'll point to his eyebrow and say 'Owie' but that's it. Poor little buddy.

Happy Halloween (finally!)

We....

...watched Katelyn's school Halloween parade and party...

...went to our ward dinner and trunk or treat...

...and trick or treated with cousins in Grandpa and Grandma Allen's neighborhood.

Whew! We had fun, but we are sure tired! I love this time of year though. So much excitement and anticipation for all of the fun holidays and activities. Hooray!

Pumpkins

After battling the flu (went through the whole family, one by one) we were finally able to do some pumpkins for Halloween. I at first thought that it would be fun to paint the pumpkins. Less messy, the kids could actually do it themselves, something new....well, it's not more fun. I admit that I'm a neat freak, but it was a mess! Paint everywhere! Some of it will never come off our table. Oh well, at least the kids had fun...and their pumpkins did turn out pretty cute. Oops, I just realized that I never got a finished product picture of the painted pumpkins. Tomorrow maybe. (p.s. These pumpkins were grown from our very own garden. They are not very big, but our poor little garden did produce a few things!)

A few days later we decided to carve our big pumpkins from Grandma and Grandpa. I thought that was a lot more fun and the kids liked being able to take turns deciding what each of the facial features would look like. I even roasted the pumpkin seeds afterward and they turned out yummy!

Butterfly wings

These are Katie's butterfly wings. We haven't finished the antennae yet, but thought I'd post the wings right now since I don't know when I'll get to the butterfly accessories. I used this tutorial to get me started and then tweaked a few things along the way. I like how they turned out, although they did take a while to make. If I did it again it wouldn't take nearly as long now that I know what I'm doing.

Here's the supply list...
- 4 wire hangers (two large and two smaller ones)
- duct tape (to tape the hangers together)
- 4 knee high white nylons
- needle and thread (to sew the nylons)
- hot glue
- puff paint
- glitter glue (to spread on the wings to make them sparkle)
- jewels
- flowers and ribbon
- straps (I cut apart an old sports bra and used the covered elastic for Katie's. Worked great!)

She'll be wearing all black for the complete costume.

Cheesy smile.

Back view.

Front view.

You know what the real bummer is? We were at Target yesterday and saw butterfly wings there (not nearly as cute...they were black, yellow, and orange, and no jewels) and Katie said, "Oh, let's get those!" I said, "What about your other wings that we made?" She replied, " Well, I like these." When I acted a little wounded she said, "Well, I actually like both of them." Whatever. I had fun making them anyway.

Taking a walk.

We had a great morning! Katie didn't have school today so I took the kids to the river for a walk along the trail. Katelyn rode her bike...it's nice she can do that now and keep up. We spent an hour walking, running, and stopping to look at neat things like this horse bench...


There were about ten other 'art you can sit on' benches around the greenbelt. They were so neat! Others included a fishing lure, a river with birds, a snake, and musical notes. I would have taken more pictures but our camera is about fried. We need a new one.

We also had fun watching all of the ducks and geese and talking to people along the trail. It's quite a social place at 9:00 in the morning! The weather was beautiful and we had so much fun! Hopefully we can do it a few more times before it gets too cold. Maybe we'll even bring bread to feed the birds.

Bullies and Preschool

This post really has nothing to do with bullies at preschool, thank goodness. : )

Katelyn designed a poster for a contest at school about how to stop bullies. This is what she came up with.

I thought it was pretty good. If you can't tell, the blue girl and the purple girl are fighting over a toy. The pink girl is sad they are fighting, asks them to stop, and offers a flower. I wasn't sure if she grasped the concept or not, and even though the fighting girls are smiling, I think she gets it.

Jace had his first day of preschool today. Two friends and I started a little rotating home preschool. Jace is in there with two little girls. They had a great time today, learning about weather, the letter A, and the number 1. He's looking so big!

p.s. I'm almost finished making the kids' Halloween costumes. Katie is a butterfly, Jace is a cowboy, and Gage is a cow. (Jace is very excited to have Gage as his cow.) Gage's costume is already pre-made. In fact, both Katelyn and Jace wore the same one at that age. I made Jace some chaps and a vest out of fleece and Katie's butterfly wings are made out of hangers and nylons. I'm excited with how they turned out! I have a few finishing touches left and then I'll let you all see too!

Yummy!

I made this soup tonight and just had to share. I found the recipe on a fun cooking website I found on my sister in law's blog...it's called Picky Palate. It is so delicious! I did make a few changes to make it healthier and fit our tastes better...I'll post those at the end.

Cheesy Chicken, Bacon and Rice Soup

• 3 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 3 stalks of celery, finely chopped
• 3 large carrots, finely chopped
• 1 1/2 Cups zucchini, diced
• 2 Tablespoons fresh minced garlic
• 2 Cups cooked and shredded rotisserie chicken
• 2 Cups steamed white rice
• 4 Tablespoons butter
• 1/4 Cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon fresh cracked black pepper
• 1 3/4 Cups chicken broth
• 1 Cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 Cup Smithfield Bacon, cooked and crumbled plus 1/2 Cup to garnish bowls

Instructions

Heat oil into a soup pot or dutch oven over medium heat. Saute onion, celery, carrots and zucchini for 10 minutes or until softened. Stir in garlic and cook for 1 minute then add chicken and rice. Reduce heat to low.

Melt butter into a large saucepan over medium heat. Slowly whisk in flour, salt and pepper. Slowly whisk in chicken broth until thick and creamy, nearly to a boil. Stir in shredded cheddar until melted then pour into chicken and vegetable mixture. Add 1 Cup crumbled bacon, stir then season according to taste then simmer on low until ready to serve. Garnish each bowl with a few pinches of additional crumbled bacon.

8 servings

Changes:
- Used half of the olive oil to saute the veggies.
- Used extra veggies.
- Used a third of the garlic...and still tasting it!
- Used 3 T butter instead of 4. I'll bet you could even get away with 2.
- I had to add about 1 to 1 1/2 cups milk at the end because the soup was so thick.

We ate this with French bread and everyone liked it except for Gage...he's a little picky. Hope you enjoy!

We have....

...been to the Eastern Idaho State Fair...

...enjoyed some time outside during the last few days of summer...

...celebrated Scott's 30th birthday...

...gone to the zoo...

...rode the train and played at Harvest Fest...

...and much, much more! Where the time goes, I don't know. Life is crazy, but we are hanging in there. I hope to have some good news on potty training soon. (Hopefully I won't have pulled all my hair out by then. This one is a doozy.)

Katie's first day of Kindergarten!

Katelyn had her first day on Kindergarten today! It actually wasn't too sad for either of us. I came to school with her and stayed the entire 45 minutes we were there. We put away her school supplies, met her teacher, and did a little scavenger hunt/tour around the classroom. It was fun to see where she'll be spending the next year learning and making new friends. I think tomorrow will be a little different when I drop her off and have to leave, but I know she'll run in without looking back and will have a great time.

The kids before school.

Waiting to go inside.
At her desk. So excited!

Camping

We were only able to squeeze in one camping trip this summer, but it was a fun one! We went with all of my family and spent the weekend roughing it. It was kind of overcast and chilly most of the time, but we were still able to have fun. It was actually nice to not having blazing hot weather. We only wished for the sun when it was time to play in the water, but that's okay. The kids, of course, had a blast and loved being able to spend all day playing outside. It was a great camp site with lots of trails and hills to climb on, and a creek nearby with sand to dig in. We ate lots of yummy food and relaxed a lot. Scott, my brother, and the other brothers-in-law even went on a big hike to a mountain lake. I'd say it was a successful camping trip.

The kids and their cousin, Dallas. This was the great sandy spot by the creek. Too bad it was too cold to go in and play, but they managed to have fun making sand castles and throwing rocks and sticks into the water.
We took a four wheeler trip up a trail. It was a beautiful view!

Hanging out with Uncle Matt.

What's better than eating breakfast outside next to a warm campfire. (This was the first morning. I had French braided her hair into four braids to see how curly it would end up.)

This is how curly it ended up.

Gage and Aunt Emily. This was after a long night of Gage not sleeping. Luckily, he did much better the second night.

Is summer already almost over?

Blogging has really been the last thing on my to do list lately, but I thought I should give an update on what we've been doing for those who do visit this blog. Instead of writing paragraphs upon paragraphs that no one would end up reading, I'll give just give you a list (and some pictures) of what we've been up to...

- We watched the Blue Angels perform (from a distance). It was amazing, even from far away!

- Scott and I went on a little vacation with the other adults in his family to Park City. It was our first trip without kids EVER! We had so much fun shopping, golfing, eating out, riding the Alpine slide and the coaster (which I highly recommend), and just relaxing! We missed the kids, but It's great to have a few mornings where you don't have to get up if you don't want to.

- When we got back we had a reunion with all of his family - including kids. All of them get along so well and had a great time.

- We did the summer reading program at the library and the kids enjoyed all of the fun prizes they earned.

- We took family pictures. Gage made this face in all of the very best pictures. Oh well, I guess it shows his personality. He's always making some kind of funny face.

- I was able to do a few things with some old high school friends. The kids and I also got together with friends from Denver. So much fun to see everyone!

- Birthday parties, zoo, the park, playing in the yard, visiting family, long walks with friends...aaahhh, so much fun.

Is summer already almost over? School for Katie starts soon. I am ready, but I'm not. She is very ready. I know it will be fun, but now time will really fly. I'm not sure if I'm ready for that. But ready or not, here it comes.