Christmas Eve

Every year for Christmas Eve we get together with my family and have a nice dinner and some sort of activity.  Our favorite things in years past have been sledding up at Aunt Vickie's, making "redneck" gingerbread houses, and especially the year that Santa came and we got to have family pictures with him.  Each year we trade houses to hold the celebration at, last year it was at my sister Vickie's in Diamond Valley, and this year it was my turn to host.    This year we went four wheeling during the afternoon at a place in Leeds called Babylon.  It is a fun place to ride bikes because of all the sand dunes, hills, and trails.  I send everyone except Cami and I because I had so much to do to get ready for the dinner that night. They had a great time and we are so grateful for their safety because they were riding crazy.  Aunt Vickie turned her four-wheeler over Taggert on the back, and we are glad neither were hurt.

This is Doug showing his stuff and catching some air over the hills. 
He has taught his kids how to ride and sometimes I just can't watch.  lol

This is Vickie and Tag's rollover.  Vickie is pushing the four wheeler up so
Taggart can climb out of under it.  Thank goodness the sand was soft, and for
heavenly protection.  We are glad they are OK.

Here is Austin watching everyone ride.  He rode the 450 on the trail, which
was harder to ride in the sand because it only has two wheels.

This is Vickie, Chet and Taggart brushing off after their scary experience.  Chet
was riding around when Vickie tipped and was there in a flash.  Doug said he had never seen
him move so fast.  Taggart wouldn't ride with Vickie anymore and rode in front of his Dad instead.  Poor guy.

This is Dalyon riding the rancher by himself.  He gets a little crazy sometimes,
but is learning how to ride.

Cody and Wyat were riding together (Cody in the front).  Both are good operators and had a lot of fun!

Later that night we had dinner, we made turkey and ham, Mom made funeral potatoes and a
jello salad, and we had green salad and homemade rolls, and of course raspberry Christmas rolls.  After dinner we all
came downstairs and did a gift exchange and opened the pajama presents.  Every year Grandma gives us ornaments
and this year she gave us all beautiful glass ornaments, the kids had their names etched on theirs.  They are so pretty!!

This is one side of the sectional full of everyone.  We really had a great time.

Me on the floor holding the ornament Doug and I were given.

Doug, Cami and Cody opening their ornaments.

The kids on the other side of the couch opening their presents from
Grandma and Grandpa. 

   On Christmas Eve it is also tradition for me to give the kids pajamas.  They expect them, and are getting used to my crazy way of thinking.  This year I did a theme of children's characters.  Austin was Elmo, Mady was Cookie Monster, Cody was Animal (the crazy drum playing character off of the Muppet's), Dalyon was Mario (from the Wii game), and Cami was Hello Kitty.  I was able to get them all a stuffed animal to match their pajamas and to go to bed with that night.  They think I'm crazy, but I think it is fun.   I didn't get slippers to match, except Dalyon and Cami's, because Austin and Cody wanted camo slippers and Mady likes slipper flip flops.  I think they liked them though. Isn't Christmas fun?  

"Hog Heaven" begins again!!

On the 17th of December we got an early delivery, not from Santa, but from the hog grower.  We were delivered nine piglets to be raised for the Dixie Livestock show.  The kids were very excited and couldn't wait to pick theirs out.  We ordered with the Swyers/Neagle family who are apart of our 4-H club.  We drew straws and each kid picked a number, which became their hog to train, groom and ready for the show in April.  This is always a very exciting time of the year and the pigs are so cute at this age. 

Here they are with numbers on them to be picked.  They are cute when they are so small!!

Dalyon is already in there brushing his pig.  He is probably the most excited!

Its Tradition!!!

Every year at this time my Mom invites all of the grand kids who live in Southern Utah over to her house for the annual Christmas cookie making and decorating party.  She usually has all the dough ready and the kids roll it out and bake their cookies, then decorate them.  I was glad that even the older kids still come around and continue the tradition with us.  She makes us dinner to eat while we are decorating our masterpieces and we all have a good time.  This year she had Mady make rice crispy treats and we made them into ornaments, and she also had the kids pull taffy, something I haven't done since I was a kid.  It really made it feel like Christmas to be together and make candy and cookies.  I love that my mom keeps these traditions alive and that she involves the Grand kids.  Last year for Christmas she made all of the kids aprons to wear and Cami remembered to bring hers, she had been saving it all year for this very special occasion. 

Cami and her apron Grandma made.  They are pulling taffy.

Scooping the taffy out of the pan.  It is so hot!!!!

Kora and her friend Shalee making cowgirl cookies.

They made them anatomically correct, including the belt buckles.  lol

Here is our cookies.  Grandma had so many decorations it was hard to get
them all on the cookies! 

Doug is posing for a picture, and Mady is surprising him.  The cookie was saved in the end.

Doug and Austin decorating cookies and eating decorations, and eating cookies.

Cody's contribution to the cookie decorating.  He reminds me of his Grandpa.

Cody did perk up to pull the taffy, however.  It was a lot of fun!!

It was good to spend the afternoon with Grandma doing something we all love.  While the kids were there Doug and I finished our Christmas shopping in Cedar City.  We all love this tradition of going to Grandma's and baking with her.  Thanks Grandma Ellen!! 

Family Pictures

Every year I try to get our family together and get a family picture taken, and this year was no exception.  I began my quest in October when the leaves were turning and the weather was beautiful,  but Doug happened to go north for work and I wasn't able to get anything scheduled before he left.  I tried again when he got home at Thanksgiving time but then it was "no shave November" for Austin in honor of prostate cancer awareness month, and I refuse to pay for pictures of a hairy seventeen year old.  So, finally during the second week of December we were able to get it done.  I put my foot down and made Austin reschedule his work, made Doug not schedule any work and had everyone else clear their schedules for an afternoon after school.  Kurt Wilson does photography on the side and we had him take our pictures in front of Nancy Theobalds barn in Toquerville.  I tried to be creative, and met with resistance from child number three, but eventually we got some pictures we could use for Christmas cards and to put on the wall.   We also did Austins senior pictures since he was all cleaned up. It came together much later that I had hoped, but we finally got it accomplished! 

This is in front of Nancy's barn. The old signs look really neat, just what we like. Can you believe how tall Cody is? My three older children are all taller than I am. How did that happen?

This is better.  I like the old barn wood and sign behind us.

In this one we are standing in front of an antique tractor, but there are
so many of us that we cover it up.  We are looking into the sun, and I really
like every one's smiles.

I love this one of all our boots. 

I had everyone dress up in the favorite activity for them.  Austin is in his
FFA jacket, Cody in his football jersey, Mady in Volleyball warm ups, Cami in
her clogging costume, and Dalyon in his Karate uniform.  I love this picture!!!

Austin in his FFA jacket.  It says President 2011-2012 on the side.

This is a good one in front of his favorite vehicle type.  He loves Ford anything!

This one is my favorite of the senior pictures.  What a handsome guy! 
I can't believe he will be graduating this year! 

The album wouldn't be complete without including this shot. 
Cody had a hard time smiling in any of the pictures and Kurt told him
to give him a good one, so this is what we got.  There is always "one in
every family" and Cody is ours.  lol

Meet Gracie

Meet Gracie, our black lab mix.  We got her the day after Thanksgiving from a lady in our ward.  We think she was meant to be ours because of the pathway she took to get to our home.  Back in October on our way to football practice Cody saw a sign at Lins Grocery that there were black lab puppies for free.  He begged and begged me to go and get one and I drug my feet saying we needed to check with Doug who was moving houses to North Dakota at the time.  Doug felt like it would be OK and we went to Lins to get a dog.  When we arrived the girl with the sign was gone, and so were the puppies, which caused a lot of finger pointing at me for dragging my feet so long.  The kids forgave me and we continued on with our lives.  About six weeks later our Relief Society President Janet Campbell place an add in our Relief Society newsletter wanting to help an elderly sister in our ward give away a black lab puppy she had and couldn't keep.  I tried to ignore the add because we still were not ready to adopt a dog, we needed a fence or a kennel to keep the dog in.  During the weeks before the add Cody had called the dog pound and asked that if a black lab were to come in that they give him a call.  Janet called the pound about giving the puppy to them and they gave her our number.  It turns out that the elderly lady had picked up the dog from Lins the night we tried to and kept her inside for the six weeks after.  She had trained her to not bark and to go outside for the bathroom and had named the puppy Gracie.  Gracie, however, was just too much puppy for the elderly lady and she had to get rid of her and gave her to Janet to find her a home.  We went over to Janets and met the dog and the kids were in love with her from the start (of course), but because of the Thanksgiving holiday we couldn't take her home.  Janet was kind enough to keep her for us until we got back from Idaho on Sunday. 

Cody was able to get a dog kennel from his Uncle Bret while we were in Dayton for Thanksgiving and we brought it down with us.  He had it assembled the very night we got home on Saturday and we picked up Gracie from Janet on Sunday afternoon.  She stays outside and lives in a doghouse Cody built weeks before when he was anticipation getting a dog.  She is a cutie for sure, and very much a puppy, biting and nipping and running away.  She has been good for the kids though, and a good friend for Cody.  I'm glad we adopted her. 

7th Grade Champions and Allstars

As I have posted before, Cody is our big football player in the family.  He played this year on the Hurricane Black 7th grade team as Center and defensive lineman.  Their team played and practiced hard and won the district tournament being award the 1st place championship.  Cody was also one of several selected to play on the All stars team with members of the Hurricane Black, Desert Hill and Dixie  teams.  It was a privilege to play on an elite team.  They practiced for the week and had an All Stars game on Saturday.  The other team played rougher than what is allowed for 7th grade football and several of Cody's teammates were injured, including Cody who hurt his wrist, but with some time out and some essential oils, was able to get back into the game before the end.  The weather was cold, but not windy or rainy, so it was perfect for a game at the Dixie College Stadium.  

Cody and Carsen after the All Stars game in their cool jerseys.

Cody is #66 on the line.  The other team is a combination of Pineview, Snowcanyon
and Hurricane Red.

Cody is on the line letting his wrist rest. 

7th Grade Football Champions

Cody and Carsen with their super cool trophy.
Congratulations on all your hard work! 

Christmas is about performing

I love Christmas time and everything that we get to do this time of the year.  This year is no exception.  The kids are involved in all kinds of things and this is the time of the year that we get to see them perform what they have been learning.  I also love to go to Christmas concerts and I find a lot of joy in the beautiful music of the season.  This year I got us all tickets to the Bar J Wranglers from Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  They are a Cowboy Folk/ Cowboy poetry group that comes to St. George each year.  Doug and I have seen them before, and this year I decided to take all the kids.  We all really enjoyed the performance, laughing and tapping our toes through the whole two hour performance.  The kids were raving about the experience at the end and were able to get a CD autographed by the performers, and Austin and Doug got hats autographed as well.  The kids are still reminiscing about the fun we had, and singing the cowboy Christmas songs we heard.  I hope to make it a family tradition for years to come. 

We have also been able to attend orchestra concerts that the kids are performing in.  I love Christmas music and it is even better when the kids are performing it.  Cody and the Hurricane Intermediate Orchestra performed at the Festival of Trees in Hurricane and also gave a concert at the school.  Mady's orchestra from the Middle School also performed some very beautiful pieces at the school.

The HIS orchestra concert at the festival of trees.  Cody is in the back left corner.

The girls also performed with their clogging group at the Dickens Festival that is held each year in St. George.  The festival is a very large craft show that requires everyone to dress up like characters from Charles Dickens's The Christmas Carol.  It is a fun and festive way to Christmas shop and they have two stages where groups perform and also where they perform the play "The Christmas Carol" throughout the four day festival.  Our  All American Cloggers, both Cami and Mady's groups performed on Saturday night,  and we went shopping after.  The experience was filled with the Christmas spirit that movies are made of.  Here are a few of or pictures:

Cami ready to perform on the big stage.

Mady whirling, which made the picture blurry.  I recorded their
dances by video and they won't download to this blog.  Both girls
danced beautifully!

Mady and Carsen Bjelland standing in front of one of the
Dickens Festival actors.  There were two of them.

Here is the Grim Reaper with no face and skeleton hands.  Scary looking guy.

Mady and Alisa with the Ghost of Christmas past.  Look at Mady's eyes.  Funny.

They have Father Christmas at the festival and Cami stood in line to ask him for a
horse.   This Father Christmas was so much like what I always
believed he would be like, and he is telling me that he isn't able to
bring animals to the good little girls and boys, but that he would try to bring her a
rope or a harness or something she could use with the horse. 

We had a really great time at the festival.  It really brought the spirit of Christmas into our season.  I'm so proud of our kids for all their talents. 

I'm Dreaming of a White. . .. .Thanksgiving!

It seams that Thanksgiving came quickly this year.  I had so many things I wanted to do during November to get ready for the holidays and when I got to work on Monday the 21, after a week of birthdays, it hit me that the upcoming Thursday was the beginning of the holidays, and that November was nearly over, and that I didn't get anything done that I was hoping to do.  I think the time went by so fast because Doug was gone and I had every moment full of kids and homework and sports events and everything else that takes up a parents' time.  It is hard to believe Doug was gone for six weeks, because it just all flew by. I was excited for Thanksgiving because we were going to meet him in Dayton and spend the holiday weekend with his family. The kids were really excited too because they LOVE to visit their grandparents, and Grandpa informed us that they got around 9 inches of snow the weekend before that was still mostly there. 

Wednesday morning we loaded up Dougs pickup and headed north.  We decided to take the truck so that we could take all the snow gear, sleds, and whatever else we needed to have a great time.  We left around nine am and began our seven hour journey.  I drove most of the way because Austin had a lot of homework to do as well as his Sterling Scholar portfolio to finish before Monday.   We had a good day traveling, watching movies, working on the portfolio, and stopping every two hours for Mady to go to the bathroom.  About three o'clock we stopped in Farr West, which is north of Ogden, for a late lunch and fuel, and to visit our favorite store, Smith And Edwards.  It is a store that has everything for not much money, and we can always find something we can't live without.  This time Cami got a new winter coat and gloves (her other coat was two sizes too small), a few Christmas presents, and of course a treat or two for the rest of the journey.  Austin drove the last hour and a half because I had a bad cold and wasn't feeling very good.  I'm really glad he can drive and is a good driver.  The kids and I had a really great time traveling together.  Arriving at Grandpa's was very exciting because we got to see Doug after six weeks.  Cami was the most excited and ran into the house to latch herself onto him, she had the hardest time while he was gone.  It was so good to be together as a family again, and Grandpa was right!  There was still enough snow to play in.  Here are some pictures of our weekend.

I was so glad to see Doug!  I had to make up for six weeks of
not kissing him.  lol

Dalyon racing down the hills in the calf pasture.  He stayed outside
and played as much as I would let him.  Fun!

Austin on Grandpa's snowmobile.  They drug each other
around on an old hood from a car.  There was just enough snow
to run the snowmobile.  Yeah!

Cod is going to pull Austin around on the hood now.  This is
old fashioned "redneck" fun.   I wonder if the hood is from a ford?
I would imagine that if it is Grandpa's, it is a ford hood.  lol

Cody and his pal Logan.  Logan loved hanging out with him.

Cody sliding down the hill in the calf pasture.  They had so much
fun!

Cami and her cousins got into the fun too.  I thought they would come
back in after only a few minutes, but they stayed outside for most of the day!

Cody was the first to dish up.  Dinner was ready by 11:30 so we decided
to let the kids eat first.  Cody wanted to eat with the adults until he found out he had to
wait, so he decided to eat with the kids. His favorite part of the meal is
the sweet potatoes Grandma makes.   Funny guy.

The living room was full of guys watching a football game, waiting for
the kids to get their food.  In the back is Cody and Logan,  Addie and Lilly,
Bracken, and Chandler on the right, and Uncle Brett on the left.

Kids are seated and eating.  Grandma always makes the best
thanksgiving dinner.  The kids always look forward to her slush and sprite,
and I love her stuffing.  Everything always tastes so good at
Grandma's house. 

Here is some of the family waiting to dish up.  On the right is Todd and Twila, on the
left is Kerry and Olivia, Bracken and Dawson in line and Katie in the way back
dishing up a child.  We definitely filled Grandma and Grandpa's house. 

Doug and Grandpa watching all the commotion before dinner.

We had a really great time.  On Friday I talked Doug into taking me on one of my favorite dates with him and we went out to breakfast and did some Christmas shopping.  We went to breakfast first and missed the black Friday crowd then went shopping.  While we were in Shopko we ran into an old roommate of mine from Ricks, Laurie Nelson Edwards, and had a really fun reunion.  I haven't seen her for fourteen years, since her wedding and I was so grateful to see her again.  She lives in Springville, Utah and was visiting her Father-in-Law in Logan for the holiday.  We had a very relaxing Friday, watching TV and eating and resting.  Doug and I went to a viewing of a classmate of mine, Brady Durrant, that night.  Brady passed away unexpectedly from pneumonia the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.  I was sad, but was cheered by seeing Preston's Festival of Lights and fireworks that night.   We loaded everyone up again on Saturday morning and took our time coming home.  The weather was good for our drive and we got home late Saturday night. Doug came home with us and will be here taking care of his other business during December, then will possibly go back to Montana/Idaho/North Dakota in January.   It was a nice weekend to be together as a family.