Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Our Sweet Little Elf

I heart Elementary School programs. What a wonderful dose of Christmas spirit! Warren was an elf for one of the songs. The elves' line for one of the songs (while pounding fists together) was "We make (pause) the toys (pause) for all the girls and boys". The audience was also treated to other traditional Christmas favorites such as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Must Be Santa, All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth, Santa Claus is Comin' to Town and many others. Can you spot Warren? I love his smile. (A little side note here. Adding to the entertainment factor of the program was the girl directly in front of Warren-our neighbor Ellie. She held the corners of her dress and swayed back and forth during every song. It was priceless! It's not every day you get to wear a fancy dress to school.)
Great job, Warren!

Friday, December 18, 2009

A New Tradition

It's funny how such a simple thing can be such an instant hit. This new tradition requires the following:

1) A chilly night
2) Blankets
3) Robes
4) Hats
5) Hot chocolate (in special disposable cups with special skinny straws)
6) A trampoline

We all bundled up and headed outside to drink hot chocolate and wish on a star (thanks, Keri for the idea). After the wishing was over, the sipping continued as I retold A Christmas Carol (I had just finished reading it for Book Club). They were surprisingly enthralled in the story. It was truly a magical night!

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

A Message from Santa

If you want your children to experience some of the magic of Christmas, visit this website: http://www.portablenorthpole.tv/

Santa sent David a special message. He beams every time he watches it. I think Santa is working on a message for the other kids, too.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Thursday, December 10, 2009

If a picture is worth a thousand words...

then this post won't be as long as it would have been if I had charged batteries in my camera on the day of the following excursion:

We went to the Provo Tabernacle last Friday night with Rob and Camille. They had a live Nativity. There was a set painted to resemble Bethlehem, and they had people acting out the scenes as the story was read from the Bible (this was all indoors). It was sweet (as in tender, not awesome) to be reminded of the reason for the season and to hear and sing the Christmas hymns. After it was over our family posed in front of the Bethlehem scene for a photo. This was when we discovered that our batteries were no good. We headed outside to see the animals. They had 2 sheep, a llama and a donkey. The kids were able to pet the animals (I was really bummed about my camera, but not as bummed as I was about to become). The llama got loose and made a run for it. He didn't make it too far. A bunch of people (including some from our group) made a human fence around him and corralled him back to the petting zoo area. After all that excitement we went to get a bite to eat (after thoroughly washing our hands). It was a night of good company, good activities and good food. (The perfect holiday outing.)

Friday, December 4, 2009

Festival of Trees (I Spy style)

Since 99% of my good ideas are borrowed, I know I borrowed this from someone (Maleen, possibly?). On our way up to Festival of Trees, the kids and I listed some things that we thought would be unlikely to see as a tree decoration. This outing was perfectly timed. Rylee was clogging, so we were able to support her, have cousins to enjoy the outing with, and have a few extra sets of hands to help with Brig. Here are some of the things on our list that we found. It was very exciting when we saw something on our I Spy list.

Pig
Football
Soccer ball and Baseball
ClownsAngel (this one was pretty much a given, but it was still exciting to find it):Spiderman:We never did find Olivia's hamburger, but we did find this tree. We counted it.We also saw something that wasn't on our list. A Josh! (my nephew)
Here are some other trees that I thought were fun:
Check out who is on the tippy top of Santa's "nice" list. He was elated! I think this more than made up for all the times my kids have browsed the personalized pencil/key chain section to find all the names except Warren.

It is always sobering to see all the photos of the people who are being honored. It tugs at my heartstrings and reminds me that each day counts. (That last sentence will make the next paragraph seem very ironic. Oh well. Here I go.) I will admit that I grew very weary of saying, "Get up off the floor" (they were tagging each other Mini Mode style), "Stop chasing each other", "Watch where you're going", "Please stop running" "Stop bugging each other" and then on the ride home, "Please be kind", "If you can't say somethin' nice, don't say nothin' at all". I was about to yell, "I'm trying to make fun memories, now will you please knock it off!" Instead, I cranked up Christmas music in the van loud enough that they couldn't hear each other's insults and I couldn't hear the arguing or the tattling. It worked, because after not too long, I turned around to see them like this: (don't worry. I was stopped at a red light with no other cars when I took these photos. The one of Brig I took as I was getting him out of the car)

Doesn't it look like they like each other? Minutes before this was taken they were both in tears.

I will still call this outing a success. I know that it's normal for siblings to bicker occasionally. If we waited for our kids to be best friends to go on outings, we would be hermits. I know that they love each other, even if they don't always show it. I hope that when they grow up, they will remember happy times sprinkled in with the less than ideal.
I can't wait for the 2010 version of I Spy. I'm already working on my list...

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Holiday Cheer

I can't believe the Christmas season is in full swing! This year I am trying to give my family the gift of memories.

On Monday night, Jodi invited us down to her house for a joint Family Home Evening (Rob's family and Renae's family were there as well). Sean gave the lesson and we made graham cracker houses. The kids all had fun creating their masterpieces. Olivia went the non-traditional route and constructed a graham cracker theater (complete with reclining seats and a big screen) instead of a house. Sean and Warren were surprisingly detail oriented with their houses, and David just enjoyed being around all the sugar! Every time he spotted a new type of candy he said, "I didn't get one of those" and put it on his house. He had every single kind of candy available on his house (and did plenty of sampling).

The following images were borrowed from Jodi's blog. I didn't have my camera with me.

LivSean
Warren
David


Tanner and Eric
Michelle
Rylee (Poor Ry. She tried so hard to have a fancy roof. It was just not meant to be)
Kirsten
Kamryn
Lexi
Coleman
The Whole Gang deep in concentration:
My intention was to line up our houses once we got them home to take a photo of all of them together. Mine was the only house that made it home in one piece. Darin was busy admiring some festive lights on the way home and swerved to miss a car coming the opposite direction which caused all of the kids' houses to topple slightly. This, of course, gave them licence to begin eating their creations. Because I could see the swerving take place I was prepared and my house remains intact. Here it is in all its lonely glory:I have always wanted to have an advent calendar filled with fun memory making things to do. Jodi told me about this idea and I ran with it. It's a mini muffin tin. The squares of paper are 2 1/2 X 2 1/2 and mounted on magnets. I got a big magnet sheet at Robert's, cut it to the right size, then mounted the paper on it (It was really easy. The sheet of magnet had sticky stuff on one side, so I just had to peel the protective sheet off the magnet and put the patterned paper on top). I printed out the numbers and cut them with a circle punch, then added it to the squares with a glue stick. Each slot contains 8 M&M's: one red and one green for each child (minus Briggy of course) and a slip of paper containing an activity to do as a family. Some are outings, some are service ideas, some are very simple (less than 5 minutes). Here's a little preview of tomorrow's slot:It hangs on our wall. Each morning we take it down to reveal that day's activity (the kids take turns), then we hang it back up so little hands aren't tempted to get an advance in their M&M allotment. (This isn't my wall, by the way. I put the calendar on my hope chest to take the picture for lighting purposes.) I like that I can make adjustments as necessary based on my mood, the mood of the children and other things that come up. For example, if the kids are especially rotten I can quickly switch the paper that reads, "drink hot chocolate and wish on a star" with "go to bed with no supper and pray really hard that Santa will still come". (Just kidding. We call it dinner, not supper.)
Anyway, I am excited about it and hope it works out well for our family. It makes me even more excited about Christmas, knowing that we have lots of fun and meaningful plans for the season.

Monday, November 30, 2009

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

I Donated my Child to Science

It's happened a couple of times now. B.Y.U. Infant Development Lab uses birth records to find willing participants in various child development studies. When David was little, the study was about whether or not 6 month old babies could differentiate between a happy dog bark and an aggressive/mean dog bark. They put photos of dogs on two screens side by side, played a dog bark sound track, then watched through a hole in a black screen to see if they looked at the right dog.

This time it was Briggy's turn. They strapped this little contraption on his head that had electrodes on it. After making sure the electrodes were placed correctly, they began the study. They showed a picture of a short (cartoon) caterpillar combined with a short beep, then a picture of a long caterpillar with a long beep. They did this a few times, then showed a picture of a duck (to neutralize the brain. Although I'm sure "neutralizing the brain" isn't a scientific term. It's just what makes sense in my brain). Then, they mixed it up by showing the short caterpillar with a long beep and the long caterpillar with the short beep. The test was to see if their 4 month old brain picked up on the change. They did this by tracking the parts of his brain that were active during the test. They (the students that perform the test) have always been so great to work with. I don't get compensated at all for the tests, but it's kind of fun to know that we've helped to move child development studies along! Who knows, maybe someday somewhere I could hear this: "In 2009 they conducted a study with 4 month old infants to see if they could detect the difference between caterpillars and beeps of varying lengths..." and I can smile and know that my kids made that possible.

Here is Briggy in all his electrode glory. It looks uncomfortable but he didn't complain at all.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Halloween Festivities

The first event on our Halloween agenda was David's preschool party. We have a few little preschool groups in our neighborhood organized by age. All the groups got together for our Halloween party. It was so much fun! We rotated through four different stations; Face painting, stories, pin the nose on the jack-o-lantern and cookie decorating. David had a great time. He decided to wear our power ranger costume from the dress up box instead of his clown costume for the party.
The eyeball:
Showing off his muscles:


His Class: (yes, he's the only boy and he doesn't mind at all. He loves all of his preschool friends)
After the party I had some errands to run. Every time we pass Chuck E Cheese while we're running errands David asks if we can go in. Normally my answer is no, but this day I was feeling generous and we went on a date to Chuck E Cheese (with Brigham in tow-it still counts, right?). I was reminded again how important quality one on one time is. He was beaming. We shared a mini pizza and salad bar and I gave him two dollars for tokens. Chuck E Cheese is much more affordable with one child.
That evening was Trunk or Treat. It was FREEZING, but always a good time. Here is one of my favorite trunks. This one came in second place. I never did make it down to see the first place trunk, but it must have been amazing.

If there would have been a "come as you are" category, our trunk would have won.
Our Clan in front of our closed trunk. Jail Bird Sean, Vampire Warren (his hair was much more slicked back and much more black earlier in the evening. The wind was blowing really hard.), Nurse Olivia, Pea Pod Brigham and clown David:

Darin and I dressed up as a couple in love (Nothing says "I love you" like twinner haircuts)

Tiffany was an amazing photographer. She even chose the paneling back drop. She insisted on some glamour shots. I was really happy with the way this one turned out:

On Halloween night we decided to go trick or treating with my brother and his kids in my parents' neighborhood. We left Darin home (he had been sick for the majority of the week. He finally went to the doctor the Monday after Halloween and found out he had pneumonia. It hasn't been a fun illness for him).
Ally wasn't feeling well (poor kid) so she couldn't come. Princess Erin and Tiger McKay joined our family down the street to Renae's house, then we went our separate ways.

(If you look closely, you can see that David decided to do his own red makeup. It was awesome)
This was one of our favorite houses. When you walked toward the driveway to the stairs, this is what you saw:

Then, as you passed, these guys popped out:
Warren and David were done a little bit before Sean and Liv, so we called Renae to ask if the three little boys could stay with her while we finished. She graciously agreed to let them stay and Liv, Sean and I went for another half hour or so. We made a quick stop at Grandma and Grandpa's house to share some of our loot with Ally, then headed down to Renae's to meet up with the boys and do the ceremonial treat sorting. I had such a fun night. My kids and I shared some great laughs. Olivia still teases me about one house. Since we were in the neighborhood where I grew up, I knew a lot of people so I chatted briefly with several of them. By the end of our journey my mouth was cold and I was apparently tired because I tried to say "Happy Halloween" and "I hope you have a good evening" all at the same time and it came out something like "I hope you hap a havvy Hallowevening". Those are the moments that bring us closer together. We went home exhausted and grateful for the extra hour of sleep we got that night (Thank you, Daylight Savings!)