January

I started a project this year, called project 365. A friend of mine introduced me to the idea and I just fell in love with the concept. I am taking a picture a day, and then journaling about it. At the end of the year, I will have an entire album of just our regular, everyday lives. It has kept my mind busy and consequently, I have been terrible at posting the same stuff to my blog. So here is a peek into our January.
On New Year's Day, a friend (and fellow Boy Scout Leader with Andy) was going shooting with his family and invited Cameron and Andy to go along. Cameron has this superhero complex as it is and shoots at everything in sight with whatever is handy. So this was likely the most exciting day of his young life! Andy said he was trigger-happy and giddy as the clip emptied. He was so excited when he got home telling me all about the cans and targets he got to shoot at!

One morning I came to check on the girls' progress in getting ready for school and found Logan in this chair "reading" to himself. It is always freezing in our house ( a result of plaster walls and no insulation). The girls' room faces east and so the morning sun shines right in their window. Logan was basking in the heat, defrosting after a freezing night!

Every so often, the winds switch direction and come from the east and straight out of the desert. It is wonderful during the winter because we go from the regular January chilly temperatures to a beautiful 75 degrees. In the middle of this month, we had a few such days. We spent quite a bit of time outside at the park and the beach.So I was freezing wearing my sweater, but the kids were in the water nonetheless! Though I remember as a kid going to Santa Cruz and not feeling the cold either as my mom was all bundled up.


The boys and I, while the girls were at school, took advantage of the wonderful warmth and spent some time at the zoo. The giraffes and elephants are the most important animals to visit.


Among my favorite things of our "faux spring" (when the winds come out of the desert) is the feel of the sun on my face and the smell of freshly cut grass. When I see this picture, the aroma of the grass is fresh and I can feel the heat of the sun on my face. It probably deosn't do the same for you, but I love this picture!



So the inauguration this month, this event of enormous historical significance, came and went without my concern. The girls came home from school explaining how they watched the inauguration at school, and a friend of mine asked if I had watched it. Nope. Emma brought this picture home from school, and I waited until she went to bed and then threw it away. I didn't hide it well enough, because the next morning she came to me in tears wanting to know why I had thrown it away. I then had to explain myself. I had to break it down to her level why I did not vote for Barak Obama. Not an easy task. After explaining one of his political views that absolutely horrified her, she understood just a little bit and I was off the hook (though not for throwing away her picture!)




After our faux spring, winter returned for a day or two and we saw some rain. Cameron has this thing he does EVERY time it rains and it cracks me up. He gets a bucket and a washcloth. He fills the bucket up in the bathroom sink and takes it outside. He then brings his bike under the roof of the back deck and meticulously washes every inch of his bike. When he is finished, he puts it up on the deck to protect it from further rain!

It is a funny thing to watch the boys grow up under the influence of 2 big sisters. The other day Logan and I were eating lunch. He demanded a drink of my water and promptly received "the look". Immediately he changed his tone of voice and asked me for a drink, though he forgot to say please. So I asked him what the magic word was. He looks straight at me, and very seriously replies, "Bibidi, Bobidi, Boo." I nearly died laughing!


Cameron comes running in the house the other day, yelling at me to come see his creature in his pond. Afraid of what I would find, I reluctantly followed. Coming outside behind him,. he turns to me and said, "Mommy, look! I built a pond just like my daddy!" Absolutely precious! He had filled his wagon with rocks and tiny plants from the pond. Then he added water. And he actually caught a little fish (the silver mark in line with his nose in his shadow) with his fishnet. It took Logan all of 5 minutes to catch the little fish in the wagon, squish it and throw it in the bushes, much to Cameron's dismay!

My little snow babies

The local mountains (about a 15 minute drive from Andy's parents) had some snow and we thought it would be fun to take the kids up to go play. The boys had never seen snow, and the girls had only seen it once or twice. They were ridiculously excited while we were driving up the mountain, shouting at the snow! We don't see much snow where we live so we were not exactly prepared. But we improvised to prolong the time the kids would want to stay. They lasted from 30 to 45 minutes. Like the sled? Who knew rubbermaid buckets could serve such an entertaining purpose!Logan also went down the big hill on the big sled with daddy.


Briley was too chicken to go from the top of the hill by herself, but she took it from the middle and she thought it was great fun!

Ahh, my little adventurous Cameron. He was laughing the whole time! Check out his grin (not too mention his daddy's)! He played and played and then suddenly he realized his toes hurt and he was done. I guess those rainboots he begged me for don't have much insulation! But he was the last of our kids to drag himself off the mountain.

My poor little Emma. She was having fun, jumping in the snow. Her hands were cold and so she stuffed them in her pockets. Suddenly her feet slipped on the icy snow and down she went. Unfortunately, her hands were jammed her pockets and the only thing she had available to break her fall was her little face. She had a gash an inch long inside her mouth and a fat lip for a couple of days. Needless to say, she was the first that bailed and headed for the car.

The kids were all bundled up in the car with the heater on waiting for daddy to finally be done. No kids in his lap and still his grin is just as big! I was behind the camera so I didn't have a chance to go down on the sled, but I had just as much fun laughing at them playing in the snow for the first time!

More Christmas Fun

When we used to live in the same town as Andy's parents, we had an older couple that lived across the street from us. They are still in the same ward as Andy's parents and so we saw them today. It has become a bit of a Christmas tradition while we are here to go and see the Christmas village they put together. He has been collecting pieces for at least 50 years. His village takes up his entire garage and their cars are parked in the driveway during the month of December! It is so detailed and realistic. (The little guy next to Cameron is his cousin). The boys really enjoyed the village, the realistic cars and the little trains that chug along the tracks.



Another tradition at Grandmere and Papa's house is gingerbread houses. Grandmere is smart and buys a kit that comes with everything needed to put the houses together. We also decided this year that the kids needed a little help and so I frosted the houses. We then turned them loose with the candy. They had so much fun and there was no added stress that the frosting was not cooperating for them! Here are the boys:
and the girls:

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning is such a magical and exciting morning! This is what Christmas morning looks like in a house of 19 people! It's pretty crazy and takes quite some time to get through it all! Cameron woke up this morning with a 103 degree temperature and we were certain that he wasn't going to do much. But when he started opening, there was no stopping him! Logan got some blocks that are Lightening McQueen and he wanted nothing else. I had to force him to keep going!



















Emma searched under the tree for all the gifts that had her name on them and she did well finding them. Briley showed amazing restraint for a 7 year old. She passed all the presents out before she even began to open. I was impressed! I made Andy a scrapbook of our trip to Alaska last summer. He was truly surprised and touched at the effort and the quality of his book. It was fun to put it together and relive our trip! We are having a wonderful time time here with our family and we hope that you, too, are having a happy, magical Christmas!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve brought lots of entertainment. After Grandmere's yummy lasagne dinner, we had a little Christmas program with re-enacting the Christmas story. Cameron was all excited to be one of the shepherds that came to visit the baby Jesus right up until the time time came to actually play his part. He dressed up and then only wanted to play with his truck. He is very aware of when people are watching him and it makes him very uncomfortable. Logan was supposed to be Cameron's sheep and he had his fluffy fur on his back and was crawling around on his hands and knees saying "baa-baa". But when it was time to perform, he ran away behind the couch and wouldn't come out until I convinced him to at least watch! Emma wanted to be Mary and was happy that she had no speaking parts. But once again, when it was time to perform, she bailed. So Briley, our little actress, picked up the slack and did her part as well as Emma's. Briley was Samuel the Lamanite, a Book of Mormon prophet that foretold of the Savior's birth, and she was Mary. She was quite happy to play her parts, especially Mary. Her baby cousin was the baby Jesus and I think her favorite part was holding the baby! Her other couisin played Joseph.

After the little program was finished and the kids learned a little bit about the true meaning of Christmas, they got to open one gift. Inside their gifts, they found their new Christmas jammies.
They all went downstairs to change into their new Christmas jammies and suddenly there was this great stomping. They all looked at each with grins on their faces and bolted for the stairs. Who should appear? But Santa of course! He brought them candy canes and their stockings, and then he had to go about the rest of his evening. Briley, Emma and Cameron were happy to see Santa, but Logan was tired and done with pictures and Santa and would go no where near him.














The boys discovered Papa's remote controlled train. This has certainly been a highlight of their visit!

family portraits

It's that time of year when I dress my family into coordinating outfits and force them to smile for an hour while someone takes our portraits. As my skills have increased and my desire for more natural looking portraits, I have abandoned photography studios in favor of the great out doors. I am not yet talented enough (or my kids old enough) to use a tripod for our family photos, so a good friend ours took them for us. She did a wonderful job and we had some really great photos turn out. These are a couple of my favorites

So I have neglected our blog lately. I tend to get a little ambitious this time of year with making gifts and baking. We have also had the plague at our house since Thanksgiving. Cameron got sick first and kindly shared with Briley, who generously shared with me. Emma was next, and it appeared as though Andy and Logan would escape unscathed. It was not to be. Logan was next coming down with a fever a couple of days ago. He was doing well yesterday and I thought we were done. But alas, round 2 has struck. Sir Cameron has come down with a fever again. Poor kid...

I need rainboots, Mom!

We had some pretty crazy weather here last week. The predictions of the weathermen actually came about and it rained for nearly 2 days straight. Some of you may think this is no big deal, but it is here!

The culvert is in the canyon behind our backyard and in usually dry. I have seen some water in it after other rains, but never this full.

I love this kind of weather. I grew up with rainy winters and often stomped in puddles as a kid. When I was frozen through I thawed out in a hot bath. My reaction has changed over the years. Now I want to curl up under my super warm blanket with a cup of hot cocoa and watch the rain, the unpredictability of the patterns created by the water,



the reflections in the drops,

and how the colors change as everything becomes saturated.


Because I wanted the boys to stay inside given the recent plague, naturally the boys wanted to play in the rain
(when I say boys, I mean all three!)
Because serious rains are so infrequent, my kids are not prepared. Cameron wanted so much to play in the rain and it seemed silly to send him out in sock and shoes because they would take forever to dry. So he went out in his crocs. The puddles were deep in the backyard and after maybe 5 minutes, he was soaked up to his knees. After an hour of playing in the puddles he finally dragged himself in, shivering, begging for a hot bath! And rainboots.

So I went to my favorite store that carries everything to find their supply of rainboots completely wiped out. I found a cart of returns that an employee was putting back on the shelves. All the shoes are tied together with elastic loops and all those loops were tangled together. It took some serious hunting but I finally came up with 4 pairs of boots in just the right sizes!

Where do I begin?

This time of year brings around so many fun things at school. I was in one of the kids classrooms nearly everyday last week. There were gingerbread houses,

cookie decorating,

(this, by the way, is exactly the reason that each of the kids got their own cup of frosting and plate of decorating treats!)

Polar Express day,
which Emma's teacher did an incredible job making it as real as she could. The kids were given their golden ticket the day before so when they came to school, the teacher punched their tickets and sent them to their seats. This was also on pajama day, so the kids were dressed in their pajamas as they entered the train.
Once inside the "train", they sat in their seats (which had been rearranged from table groups to the long table) and were served hot cocoa and candy canes while the teacher, dressed as the conductor, read Polar Express. It was adorable. Emma was absolutely enthralled in the story, as were the other kids.

and holiday parties.
(it was pajama day at school in case you are wondering why she is wearing her bathrobe in her classroom!)


Oh, and I forgot candy cane day...
(Briley was a peppermint candy cane, while Emma was a chocolate one)