Christmas 2008

The kids in their Christmas Sunday clothes the Sunday before Christmas.

We had a great Christmas this year. We did the traditional bowling with Kevin and Candace on Christmas Eve morning, went to lunch and then had a very relaxing Christmas Eve evening. The kids were so excited to leave Santa his cookies and the reindeer their food that they were in bed by about 8:00. They even slept in the next morning. It was great!

We made some gingerbread houses. All along I thought I would make the gingerbread myself, but when it came right down to it, I ended up just buying the gingerbread kits. It was much easier.

The kids with their traditional pair of slippers on Christmas Eve.

We told the kids to walk out of Madi's room with their eyes closed. This is how Madi was walking. It was so funny.

Sketch really enjoyed all the noisy paper.

Apparently this was my year of fitness. I go the Wii Fit, a Fitness Ball and a walking golf cart (everything I have been wanting, but funny they all came in the same year). One funny gift was the re-gift Lynn tried getting away with. He wrapped up the camera mono pod/walking stick that his sister had given me at the Dahle Christmas party. All the while thinking that he had actually boughten it and everything. Thanks sweetie!!

Lynn finally got his dream gift - Air Hogs. Yes, he is over 30.

Everyone in the family got their own light saber. I never new I would learn so much about Star Wars. Christmas day was a lot of fun. It was so nice spending that morning as our own little family. I loved seeing the look on the kids eyes each time they opened a gift. Parker even said that we wishes it could be Christmas every day. I still think once a year is plenty. My parents came down late Christmas afternoon and we had a nice Christmas dinner and of course played rummy for the dishes. It was nice to have them here.

Free Handbag from handbagplanet.com

Thanks Katherine, for this link on your blog. Check this out everyone, you can get a free handbag!www.handbagplanet.com

Happy Birthday Indiana!!

For those of you who don't know, our son's name has now changed to Indiana Jones and must be addressed as such. Needless to say, we have a huge Indiana Jones fan right now and to top it off, he just turned 6!!! I can't believe we have a 6 year old already. It doesn't seem like it was that long ago that we had him.

We decided that this year would be a good time to let him have a real birthday party with friends and if you hadn't guessed already, the theme of the party was Indiana Jones. Parker was ecstatic to be having the party and it seemed to consume our lives for the few weeks before. Finally the day of the great event came and luckily he had school the morning of the party so at least there was something to keep his mind occupied for a little while. However, they had a little celebration in his kindergarten class and when I picked him up he was determined he was now 6 even thought his actual birthday wasn't until the next day. His teacher gave him a birthday hat and pencil and he seemed shocked that everyone kept telling him "Happy Birthday". It was really cute to see how excited he was.

While he was at school Madi and I decorated his birthday cake and by the time he got home I think Madi was more excited to tell him about than he was to see. However once he did see it he told me he just wanted to stand there and stare at it all day. Unfortunately the cake didn't hold his attention for quite that long and we finally had to set the timer for 3 and a half hours just so he would stop asking how soon his party would be.

Finally the time for the party arrived and the festivities began. To start out with, I had made some Indiana Jones bags for each child and once they arrived, they were all able to color their bags while we waited for everyone to get there.

Madi and Parker's decorated bags.

Next we went on a treasure hunt and the first step of the treasure hunt was to eat Monkey Brains. The kids all laughed and thought this was a treat and then I pulled out the brains. I had them raise their hands if they wanted to try a taste and about 4 of them did, until I actually put them on a plate and gave it to them, then they changed their minds.

I know these are rather large Monkey Brains, but you should have seen the size of the Monkey.

Next we went on a walk through our backyard and trees looking for another clue. This clue showed us that we would be chased by a rolling boulder. So they all took turns running down the hill as the boulder chased them. Joshua, Stockton, Caroline, Jason, Madi and Alex

Parker, Ewan, Madi and Annie running from the boulder.

Caroline

Caleb, Alex, Garrett and Jason

Once they escaped the rolling boulder, their next challenge was to jump over the snake pit. Parker and Madi are demonstrating below.

Luckily the snake pit was cleared by all the kids and the final stop in the treasure hunt was to dig through a pile of sawdust to find the crystal skull and other fun prizes.

Finally it was time to eat pizza and open presents and then we had dirt cups for dessert. The kids seemed to have a lot of fun and it was fun to see how excited all of them were to give their gifts. They all seemed to think that the gift they brought was the most awesome. Very cute and thank you to everyone, Parker has a great bunch of friends.

Caroline, Jason, Caleb, Ewan, Stockton, Parker, Madi, Annie, Garrett, Alex and Joshua

Saturday was Parker's actual burthday and becuase of the weather seemed to be a little uneventful. Lynn took him to breakfast and then Lynn worked on the driveway and I took the kids grocery shopping. We were going to go golfing because that is what Parker wanted to do, but the weather didn't seem to cooperate long enough so we decided to go golfing another day and then Burke and Amie came over that night with their kids to have dinner.

We gave Parker a couple sets of Indiana Jones Legos, some books and he got a Rocket Bubble Gum machine from Madi. He woke up crying at 5:30 AM on the day of his birthday and I went running into his room to see what was wrong. He said "I can't sleep, I try to sleep and then I just keep waking up because I want to play with my Legos and I can't stop thinking about them." Christmas is going to be a lot of fun this year. Sunday was finally the last day of his whole birthday celebration. Karen and Kim and Kevin and Candace all came over and we had dinner, cake and ice cream over at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Here he is with all of the gifts he received for his birthday, including the hat he got from kindergarten. His birthday was a lot of fun and I can't believe how much he has enjoyed building with the Legos. One day he spent about 3 hours straight building and he only quit because we said we were going on a walk.

Gotta Love The Office!!

I absolutely love watching The Office and here is a link to a video of some of my favorite clips. I have been laughing outloud to myself. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7PHL4HXm1o

Inspirational Thought

I recently read the book "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch and as some of you know, I wasn't too impressed or as impressed as I thought I would be with Randy's message in that book. I didn't find it as awe-inspiring as I had hoped it would be. Then I recently received an e-mail from a friend with this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snAjZ8mfoYw and the message struck me like a ton of bricks that this is the so called "inspiration" I was looking for. It is a powerful message and one I should probably listen to every morning. And maybe you won't find it as awe-inspiring as I did, maybe it was just something I needed to hear, but I thought I would share it with all of you anyway and let you be the judge. Enjoy! It is by Elder F. Enzio Busche of the Quorum of the Seventy given at a BYU Devotional on May 14, 1996. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snAjZ8mfoYw

April 2008

April seemed to be a pretty quiet month for us. The LDS General Conference was during the first weekend and Lynn's family was all here for that weekend so the cousins had a lot of fun playing together. Grandma Peggy also had the annual Easter Egg Hunt for the family on Saturday. The kids each had a fun time looking for their color of egg and got spoiled by Grandma and Grandpa. Following the kids egg hunt, Grandpa hid eggs for the adult in the backyard. It is really sad how child-like we all become when searching for Easter eggs. Thanks for the fun Easter Egg hunt Grandma and Grandpa!

Parker and Madi patiently waiting for the egg hunt to begin. And the race is on....

And finally the prizes! Lynn and Madi trying to get her kite to fly.

Madi was still involved with tumbling throughout this whole month and had a lot of fun playing with her buddies, Porter, Lexi and Annie while she was there. We also had our first day with Madi staying dry all day!!! We were so excited and called Grandma Mullen and everything, however it only lasted for 2 days and we are still working on trying to get her potty trained now. Here I thought I could have potty training figured out after one child. hah, hah!! I really think Madi was sent to us just to prove me wrong on everything I thought I had figured out as a parent. We are so glad she is a part of our family.

On the 16th, Madi and I went to lunch with Kris, Audrey and Claire. All of the boys were at school so we went to lunch and did a little shopping. It was a lot of fun to visit with Kris and at one point Madi was trying to get my attention while I was talking with Kris. She finally got so frustrated with me that she grabbed my chin and said "Mom, look at me!" I don't remember what she needed to tell me, but it was just so cute how determined she was to get my attention.

Parker started outdoor soccer for the first time this month. It was a cold and stormy experience, but all-in-all I think he had a lot of fun. He had games every Tuesday and Saturday and was supposed to have practice every Thursday, however it seemed to rain or snow almost every Thursday so they only ended up having 2 or 3 practices. One funny moment that happened at one of the practices was when Parker's team was sitting in a circle trying to decide on a team name. All of the kids were mentioning names like "The Tigers", "Ninjas" and other tough sounding names. Then Lynn said they asked Parker what team name he wanted to have and he said as proud as ever, "The Blueberries!". Surprisingly, the team didn't choose that name, however we all got a good chuckle.

Madi enjoyed her treats while watching from the side line. Watch out for the Blueberries! Thank goodness for those oranges.

During each game, Parker really liked to follow the ball and just circle around it, but didn't really like to get into the middle of the action too much. It was really fun watching and we all had some good laughs at all the little comments made. At one point Parker's coach told him it was his turn to sit out during the quarter and with great enthusiasm, Parker's response was "Awesome!"

Parker and all of the Southwest Street boys - Caleb, Stewart and Sam.

This month was filled with a lot of fun activities. We had a few nice days and we tried to make it to the park as much as possible. We also went to the Cache Valley Fun Park with Keely (Ewan, Jude, and Silvie) and Alyson (Joshua and Paisley), Ikea with Grandma Dahle and Jannis, swimming as a family at Mt. Crest, lots of soccer games, piano lessons, a missionary Primary Activity for Parker (and Lynn got to help with a Paraguayan booth), Baby Animal Days, lunch and playing at the Dinosaur Park in Ogden with Carley and Catherine, first golf game with Val and Lannis for the season, and Kindergarten Club.

I was able to get pictures at a few of these activities as you will see below.

Baby Animal Days:

Every year during the Baby Animal Days we are usually up in Idaho Steelhead Fishing, however this year we didn't make it up fishing, because the weather we never quite good enough to make the fishing worth the drive. So lucky for us we made it to Baby Animal Days for the fist time and even luckier, we got to go with Julie's pre-school class so we didn't have to deal with all of the people and craziness. The kids had a lot of fun. Madi really got into touching the different animals and Parker enjoyed observing from a distance.

Madi holding her first bird. She was anxious to jump right in.

Parker a little unsure of this whole activity. However I think he really enjoyed himself, because he still talks about it whenever we pass the farm.

Madi enjoyed petting all of the animals except she wasn't too interested in the bunnies.

Here are all the kids listening to the instructor about the pony. More proof of Parker feeling more comfortable being one step behind.

Dinosaur Park:

Catherine and Carley are my good friends from high school and we always try to get together a few times a year. It seems to be getting more difficult the older our kids get, but we did find a day to meet in Ogden and let the kids have some fun with the dinosaurs. We walked through the indoor museum first, they had a lot of really neat exhibits, however they didn't seem to keep the kids entertained for too long. Parker's favorite part was the mammoth skeleton. Madi did really well while we were inside the museum, but once we got outside she was very nervous. They had great reproductions of the dinosaurs outside in the trees and bushes and had speakers throughout the trails with noises of dinosaurs. Apparently the noises were too realistic and Madi kept saying she was "too scaredy" and "go home". We finally made our way to the playground equipment and once she got busy playing the noise of the dinosaurs faded out and she was finally happy again.

Parker admiring his favorite display: The Mammoth.

Parker, Carson, Madi, Adam and Alivia (in the bottom corner).

But then again Parker is also a huge fan of the T-Rex - Look out Parker it's going to get ya'!

Thank goodness for the swings. We finally got a smile out of Madi.

Giddy'up!

These mural boards always make me laugh. Madi's fit perfectly.

Kindergarten Club:

Kindergarten Club was an activity put on by the school district for all of the upcoming Kindergarten children and their parents. Lynn had a Young Men's activity so Parker and I headed over to the school while Grandma and Grandpa watched Madi. At the school, they gave us a nice packet of activities to work on with Parker, sang some songs and introduced the kids to the kindergarten teachers and the principal. It was a great first introduction, even though Parker was a little unsure of the songs and loudness of it all. It will be interesting to see how he does once school starts.

Below are some of my favorite pictures taken during the month of April:

My two super-heroes. They even went to the store dressed like this.

Lynn hung up our swing downstairs and the kids absolutely love it. For about 2 weeks after it was put up, all I heard from Madi was "Mom, com'ear a secnd". And of course she needed a push or two.

One of Madi's favorite thing to do is ride the backhoe with her dad. Making pizza with the Johnson kids. Porter, Garrett, Parker, Lexi and Madi. Notice their interesting shapes and amazingly enough, they actually ate them and liked them.

When Madi wants a nap, she really wants one. Give her a blanket and her thumb and she can go to sleep about anywhere.

Little miss independent.