Joy School Christmas Show

Ryden's Joy School class put on a little show for Christmas. It was really cute when we saw it live, but it became hilarious when we reviewed the footage. I especially love Ryden's one-word catch ons at the end of each phrase and Aspen's game of "Peek-A-Boo" with Jordan half way through. Let me know if you laugh as hard as I did....maybe it's just because I'm their mom!

They also did a little nativity that was so sweet to watch. Ryden was a shepherd...

Kyler and Renen were innkeepers (they asked for help from the audience)


Aspen was Mary and did great. She did have a bit of trouble wrapping the child in swaddling clothes, though. But, she finally just tied him up good and moved on :) Her sweet husband just stood watching with a big grin on his face.


And Jordan was the unexpected modern day visitor who came to see the Babe in the Manger....actually he came to grab it and run away, but Mary did a good job of protecting her baby.

Aspen's Hawaiian Luau Party

Aspen's Birthday was so much fun to plan, execute and remember. Ahhh how I love when a party goes well. She wanted to have a Hawaiian Luau. Hmmm, I thought, a Hawaiian Luau in December. Sounds interesting. Well, we plastered the house with floral garland, hung flowers outside amidst the bitter cold wind, hung colorful streamers and decked out Aspen in a grass skirt and lei. Then, we gave each child a lei when they got there. We had live Hawaiian radio playing in the background. I actually felt warm in my bright pink capris and flip-flops.

Her cake was a flower and we served it with rainbow sherbet...perfect colors for a luau. The hawaiian pineapple mango juice was served with little umbrellas. It was so cute!



One of my favorite games was the limbo. It was hilarious watching some of the kids work so hard to keep their back arched while others just approached the bar and ducked under. What a riot.


Here's my favorite game of all. Keep in mind, we had 18 kids for the party. Thinking it was Christmastime and a lot of people probably wouldn't come, I let Aspen invite 16 people to her party. All but 1 came!! Add my three kids and you've got 18 kids! It was crazy. At one point, the kids were all bouncing off the walls (right after cake and ice cream, of course). Enoch announced the next game: The rock game. He talked it up to be such a fun game. Here's how you play. Everybody tries to act like a rock. Whoever looks and acts most like a rock wins! It's that simple. All the kids did a terrific job. It was so hard to pick a winner! Except, of course, for Enoch who saved the day and calmed the crowd. They played rock for a good 5 minutes before we felt guilty and decided we should go on with the party :)
On top of all that, Enoch painted hawaiian pictures on each of the kids' cheeks. And we made little sand art jars that each child got to take home. They were so cute and the kids had so much fun.

But, now for the funniest part of all. A woman from church gave me the idea to send each of the kids home with a goldfish. Perfect!! Well, after getting rejected by one pet shop who wouldn't sell goldfish for birthday parties due to animal cruelty acts, etc., Enoch finally found a store that would send him home 25 goldfish to 18 crazy kids. We had them swimming as the centerpiece during cake time. Which worked until one by one they went belly up! The kids were so worried about the fish. One by one we removed the dead ones until we had just enough to still send home with the kids. Luckily, they had already gone through the grieving stage with us so as they left with their fish, we heard some exclaim, "This fish will probably die soon so we have to have as much fun with it as we can right now!". One kid actually came back to the kitchen because his fish died by the time he got to the door. It was so sad, but so hilarious at the same time. Here we are throwing a big hawaiian luau and sending home 5 and 6 year olds with dead fish and a can of sand as their goody bag!! WOW!! We laughed 'til it hurt over that one. I guess I'm starting to see why Pet Shop #1 called it an "animal cruelty act" to send goldfish to birthday parties. Oops!

Icy Fun

What does icy driveway + large cardboard box equal?

Poor Man's Sledding. Check it out. We had such a blast with this!

Hanging Out at The Food Court

For family night, we headed up to the Food Court at the mall to play and to see the snow globes. The kids had a blast! Jordan had his first experience with being completely distracted by the opposite sex. Check it out:

And here's our entry for the new Uncle Sam recruiting posters:

Kyler's Chess Tournament

At the beginning of December, Kyler was in his first chess championship. He did a great job and had a lot of fun. He, and 2 other of his close friends, were all competing, so we had a great time together between events. The cutest moment was when he and his best friend, Hayden, played each other. Hayden hadn't won a game yet. Kyler ended up beating him, but didn't want him to feel sad, so he told him he won. Naturally, that caused confusion with the judges. When the boys ran back to find us, they were hestitant to say who won. We couldn't figure out why but left it at that. Soon, the judges came and asked the boys to come back to the competition room. Confused, we just waited until they came back. Apparently, they had each turned in a win for the game. The judges had them replay and Kyler won again. He was so sad that he won. He wanted so much for his friend to win a game. And here's the irony. Kyler hadn't won one either up to that point, but he was more interested in his friend winning than himself. He is so kindhearted that way. I love him for that.

Dinosaur Museum?!

On the way back from Arizona, we were excited when we saw a sign for a Dinosaur Museum. We could sure use the chance to stretch out our legs and the kids were so excited to see Dinosaurs. After 3-4 more signs, we got more excited. They had replicas of real dinosaurs, hands-on exhibits and much more!! It seemed too good to be true...a cool museum in the middle of nowhere? As we pulled off the exit, we knew we'd need directions. All that was there was a gas station and a dirt road leading out to nowhere. I ran in and asked about the museum. The attendants gave each other a confused look and then said, "Oh, yeah. I think we had a museum like that years ago, but it closed awhile back. They've now spread the replicas all over the place. There's 2 out front you can see". Wow!! Talk about wasted advertising space! If you're looking for a cheap billboard, I know of 4 you could probably go ahead and use. No one will notice! Still, we had fun and stretched our legs for a few seconds!

Thanksgiving in Arizona

This year for Thanksgiving, we headed to Arizona for some fun times with my sister, Cheri and her husband Braden. We used to live 3 doors down from each other in Utah, so we were so excited to spend time together again playing games, chatting and having fun. It was a blast. Between the excellent food, the incredible creativity of my sister, and the fun games, we hardly had time for anything but fun. The best part of all was all the fun times the cousins had together. Keara and Taryn were so much fun!! And, Keara successfully got potty trained while we were there!! If only I was that good with my own kids :)


While we were there, we went swimming. While our kids had a blast, Cheri and Aunt Katherine who are both local Arizonians were quite cold. We were the only ones at the pool!! Apparently, 75 degrees is way too cold in Arizona to think about swimming in a heated pool. Jordan especially loved swimming. He'd jump off the edge and swim over and over again. Check him out:

Well, we had a blast, but we soon found that even the kids got too cold after a bit. Their lips turned blue and they shivered while they hustled to the dressing room. Cheri saved the day!! She took them all into the shower and doused them in a hot shower. They just loved hanging out together enjoying the heat!

I got a kick out of Keara when I did Sunday baths while we were there. She apparently doesn't have brothers. She couldn't stop staring at poor Jordan :)
Here's a cute video of the kids in a splash fight:

Thanksgiving arrived and boy did we have the spread! Cheri made the yummiest potatoes, stuffing, turkey and jam. YUM!!! But on top of that, she and the kids had put together the cutest table settings while Enoch and I were at meetings the week before. They made napkin holders, seat covers, and turkeys for each place setting. It was so cute!!


Aspen is notorious in our family for loving the chicken legs when we have chicken. All of Thanksgiving day she begged for a leg. I'm not so sure she knew what was coming with the size of a turkey! But, she ate a bunch of it before she finally gave up.