Letters to Santa

Writing letters to Santa is always a big thrill for the kids each Christmas! We have always "suggested" to them that they offer Santa three ideas so that he can "choose" the one he thinks would be best and bring it on Christmas Eve. Santa has always brought one unwrapped, set-up, ready to play with present and a stocking, what a great guy! So anyway this year was no exception to our offer some suggestions idea for the kids - Santa has always been able to come through with the top requested item in the past, never had to move down the list, but this year he about had to on Savannah's list, she nearly asked for the impossible. You guessed it a Zhu Zhu hamster & their habitat! Are you serious?!? Leave to Santa to come through in a pinch, I'm sure it was an easy task for him, or not!! But nonetheless he managed it!! Santa is amazing!


Here is Audrey slipping her letter in the slot, She requested Littlest Pet Shop, I was kind of excited for her, we have every girl toy imaginable, but Littlest Pet Shop has been perhaps the one remaining hold out, now our collection of every girl toy ever invented is complete! Way to go Audrey!! Santa brought her a Littlest Pet Shop Clubhouse and 13 pets, she was so excited and then Larren and I added to the madness with one of our present to her being a Littlest Pet Shop Vet Care Center or something like that, she loved all her new little creatures and they have been a hit for all the girls!

Grace's letter is ready to go! She requested a "cram" now to the untrained in the language of the three-year old this request may be baffling, but thankfully I am up on my three-year old translation skills and can tell you she requested a pram! Not a stroller mind you, don't be confused!! She made that very clear to Santa, it had to be a pram, it is a well known fact she has a fleet of strollers, what she doesn't have is a little pram and she wanted one more than anything . . . oh and a crying baby, Santa couldn't bring both, he just brings one gift, but thank heavens for mom and dad, who made sure there was a crying baby under the tree. In fact it was hilarious she saw the pram and loved it and then noticed it was empty, she kept saying "where's my crying baby, where's my crying baby?" I think she thought she had found a way to beat the Santa one gift system by requesting kind of a 2 for 1, but Santa was not tricked! Larren though made sure the first present she opened from us was the crying baby, she was ecstatic, it was really cute!! Her Christmas could have ended right there! She loves that baby and pram!

Here is Savannah and her letter requesting the impossible dream of a Zhu Zhu hamster & habitat! (side note: now that may sound like two presents, but Santa has generally made it a rule that if one item won't really work without the other item, he has to give a set, like the Littlest Pet Shop Clubhouse needed some pets and the Zhu Zhu hamster needed a habitat in order to be played with and that would look awfully suspect if mom and dad knew to give the habitat hmmm . . . very suspicious indeed! However Grace's pram fell into the stand alone category oh and I wanted the hugs and kisses from her which I knew I would get when she saw the crying baby from mom and dad!) I tell ya Santa has a very complicated job figuring out all of this stuff! Anyway back to Savannah, when I saw her write that on her letter I just thought to myself "good luck Santa!" I was really glad we seemed to have eeked out one more year of Christmas magic with her, we will see what happens when she goes back to school in January, what friends talk about and such, but it was nice to have one more year than I bargained for! Santa is amazing I tell ya, he not only came up with one Zhu Zhu hamster but three, all of the girls put Zhu Zhu hamsters on their list, Savannah was the only one who had it on the top of her list. Once again Santa was met with the dilemma to not look suspicious, so he came up with ingenious idea to give Savannah all three and leave her a note instructing her to pick her favorite and then to give one to each of her sisters, since this looked "like a toy that would be even more fun to play with if you could all play together!" Savannah was excited to help Santa out, she picked her favorite and then gave one to Grace and Audrey! It was a neat moment for us as parents to see her giving spirit! She didn't balk at the idea even for a second, she really is a sweet girl!

Look at that cute little guy, letter in hand! He slipped in the slot all by himself! So what would a little guy want?!? Well a huge Tonka dump truck of course, is there anything more tough little boy than that! He has been pushing it all around the house, it is huge and metal and all of us have bruised shins and there are spots on the walls that have a little gouges here and there, he apparently hasn't mastered a braking system, but he sure loves it! But I tell you the first time he drove that thing into my shins, I was thinking Santa had made a terrible mistake! That thing has some horsepower or I guess you would call it "Jonaspower" geez he is a wild man! It is really cute though and looks very "I'm a tough guy" and we needed some of that around this place!

Savannah holding Jonas while he is standing on Santa's base, I realize none of the pictures show the whole mailbox, but you can tell from the red legs and boots it is a giant Santa! It used to always sit down on the green belt by the Snake River, but the last two years it has been outside the Museum of Idaho, we'll track it down wherever it goes, my kids love the tradition of dropping their letters off here!

Luau Party

A few days after Savannah's Birthday we were finally able to get all the family together to celebrate and what's better in the dead of winter than a taste of summer so we opted for a luau! Savannah mentioned this summer it would be fun to have a summer birthday in December, she said "we should have a Hawaii party for my birthday this year!" So we did! It was a lot of fun for the kids, they were met by the birthday girl with an authentic lei (OK not authentic but still cute and fun), we played hot lava coconut, the kids did the limbo, they sampled real coconut, we had exotic Hawaiian punch complete with umbrellas and yummy cake and ice cream! It is always so much fun to have the cousins together, I am glad we all live close enough to get together often!


Here is the birthday cake! My lack of baking skills is no secret! No secret whatsoever - they are completely non-existence, but thankfully I can always count on a grocery store bakery to come through for me! It turned out very tropical and fun! And best of all I didn't have to make it! Can't beat that!


Here is the kitchen decked out for the party! The cups all had little umbrellas in them all ready for Hawaiian punch! Emily and I raided the dollar store and found a few decorations (it was off season) and a grass skirt and lei for Savannah to wear. It was seriously a crazy, decorated mess in the house between the luau stuff and the Christmas decorations already out! Still we had a taste of summer and it was delicious!


Here is the luau girl ready to host her party!


Savannah greeted everyone with a lei and welcomed them to the party! Even the boys were really good sports and accepted the "necklace!" Chandler really was on board . . . well eventually! And to add to the ambiance Audrey took it upon herself to say to every guest after they got their lei and got into the living room "welcome to paradise!" It was hilarious, kept us laughing until the very last guest arrived! She is a crack-up!

Here are the kids playing "Hot lava coconut" I bought a CD of luau music and we passed around a real coconut and when the music stopped whoever had the coconut, got to be in charge of regulating the music for the next round, I was going for a tear-free night! A success I might add! Yeah! The kids were fascinated with the real coconut, they excited to see what it would be like inside!

Limbo, limbo, limbo! So I know this is a totally modified limbo, but we did what we could! We had the kids crab walk underneath it, since we figured they could do that easier, they just couldn't let their bums touch the ground, OK we actually didn't hold fast to that rule either - remember the goal of a tear-free night?!? Once again it was a success!

Go Audrey! Go Audrey! It was such a fun night, even the little kids got into it and really had a good time!

This is how opening presents go at ANY cousin birthday party! All the kids huddle around anxiously watching the present opening! So cute how they all want to be part of the action, makes the picture taking a bit challenging but it is so fun to see the excitement and curiosity from all of them!!

The kids were so excited to see what a real coconut looked like and tasted like! Larren and Uncle Bryan tried several methods and then had success with a drill, it was quite a process, and an adventure, the kids were fascinated, look at all those kids on the counter! However, when all was said and done, the kids were sorely disappointed, not impressed with the juice or the meat! So funny, I actually love coconut, a love learned on my mission where I ate many a coconut! So needless to say, despite the kids refusal to eat it, I made sure it didn't all go to waste! Yum-O!

Make a wish Savannah! She got all of them out in one blow, so her wish will come true! Woo hoo! I know for sure my wish for an amazing daughter has come true! It was a fun party, Savannah had a wonderful time and now I have a nine year old daughter! Unbelievable!

Savannah's 9th Birthday

Savannah turned 9 on December 2nd! Wow! I have been a mom for 9 years! Where did the time go?!? She started it all! She is growing up to be such a wonderful and beautiful young lady! I just can't believe she is getting old enough to be called a young lady! She is such a sweet daughter, she is thoughtful and so helpful! She has grown up so much in the last year, her independence is almost scary to me at times, she is getting so big so fast, but I am proud with how she is handling all this new found freedom and responsibility! Her sisters look up to her and love to be around her, she plays so well with them and always makes up little games for them to all play together. She has such a caring heart and always offers comfort if someone is sad or hurt. She has been so thoughtful and helpful with Audrey's injury, she looks out for her at school and at recess to make sure her hand it ok, it is really sweet to see their bond. I really appreciate her kind heart and the way she cares for and loves others! She is a wonderfully amazing daughter and she has made the last 9 years of my life a treasure!

She got to celebrate her birthday twice this year, we made her birthday day special and fun this year and then she got to have a little party with all of our family on the weekend! Both celebrations were so much fun and a great way to mark her 9th milestone!

Her birthday started out with breakfast in bed! She is so funny she requested toaster strudel for breakfast! I was all prepared to get up early and prepare something elaborate, but she wanted something so simple - we did not have it on hand, so her daddy made a midnight run to the grocery store, but we didn't have to set the alarm any earlier! How thoughtful of her! It was fun to wake her up with her little sisters singing "Happy Birthday" to her at the top of their lungs!

Before she left for school she opened the present Audrey, Grace, and Jonas bought her. It was an Anastasia DVD she really wanted! She was so excited and then she headed off to school with treats in hand for her classmates!

For her birthday dinner she wanted to go our to dinner with just Larren and I and I guess I can understand that - being the oldest and having 3 younger siblings it is nice to have some alone time with your parents once and awhile! Heaven knows I can feel her pain being an oldest child myself, I tried to lose those dang tag-alongs once and a while too! Ha ha ha! She chose Red Robin and it was such a fun evening for the three of us! She is so bright and has so much to talk about, Larren and I both really enjoyed having dinner with her!

The best part for her in going to a restaurant, is being sung to by the employees, now I would rather die, but she ate it up! She would have been so disappointed if they hadn't actually! They brought her out a sundae too! It was a really fun evening!

When we got home from dinner she opened her other presents. Larren and I gave her a little video camera for her to make her own movies, she was so excited! She's been making fun little movies of her sisters and her bedroom and she even videoed her birthday party. It has been a fun little present for all of her creative energy!

We also gave her a new Sunday outfit, the outfit looks so pretty on her, but I can't believe how grown up she looks in it!

He knows if you've been bad or good

So the day after Christmas Magic my mom and Emily came over to see our house all decorated and Emily was talking Santa business with the kids and at one point asks, "do you know what Santa brings to naughty kids?" And Audrey shouts at the top of her lungs, so proud mind you that she knows the answer . . . "no presents and coleslaw!!!" We all burst out laughing and she has no idea what she said that was so funny, but it was hilarious. It has now become the new family catch phrase, we keep giving out warnings if you don't be good Santa will bring no presents but lots & lots of coleslaw! She is too funny! That statement will live on in infamy in the family for many many Christmases to come!

Christmas Magic

Every year we go out the day after Thanksgiving and get our Christmas tree! It is such a fun way to kick off the Christmas season. Then in the dark of night Larren and I preform Christmas magic! Oh wow how intriguing!! Let me tell the back story. For several years Larren and I have attempted to decorate the tree and house for Christmas with toddler/child mania running around! This is how it usually goes - Larren hauls up all 17 Christmas bins (yes that is an accurate number), then we open and shut open and shut until we find the tree decorations, then Larren starts putting on the lights. The girls get bored rather quickly and lids start coming off, things start getting pulled out, and chaos becomes us in a remarkably short amount of time! By then end of the night usually only half the house is done and both Larren and I are exasperated, the kids are exasperated and no one had any fun at all! So a few years ago we decided that was no way to kick off the season, so we started Christmas Magic (AKA mom and dad's sanity magic!) We bring the tree up and put it in the living room and then all the kids go off to bed. And Larren and I get to work! We decorate the tree, the kitchen, hang garland, wreaths and stockings, unpack Christmas dishes - everything! In one night!! It is crazy busy and usually a really late night but Christmas music and hot chocolate help! This year because Savannah was 8 almost 9, we decided to let her stay up an be part of Christmas Magic! It was so fun to spend time with her, as each of the kids get older we'll add them to Christmas Magic and eventually we won't have anyone left to surprise in the morning, but for now it is a lot of fun!

The "magic" part of Christmas magic is that Larren and I get up really early and make a surprise Christmas breakfast, then we get the kids up and they come out into the living room with wide eyes as they see the tree and house all decorated. We have the lights on the tree, Christmas music playing and a yummy breakfast! They love it! We love it - it keeps us sane and I love the looks of wonder and surprise on little faces! So here is our Christmas Magic!!

Grace spies a tree she likes! Will it be the one?!?

Jonas wandering among the evergreens! He was way into this tree hunting stuff! He was so cute as he walked up and down the rows!

Savannah and Audrey find one they love! Next project was to convince Grace this was the one! Kind of hard to hold your ground when both sisters come at you, so Grace agreed to look at their selection - and she liked their choice even better than her own! Yeah they all agreed! They chose an absolutely beautiful tree!

Here are all four of them in front of our tree!

Savannah watching them load our tree onto the roof of the van! I added this picture too, because she is just pretty! What a cute little profile!

Here are the other kiddos watching the loading process! They were transfixed, so cute what fascinates kids!

Let's take it home! Off we go!
Ta da!! Here is the end result the girls walked out to see the tree all done complete with "brown paper packages tied up with string!" Definitely one of my favorite things!! It was fun creating Christmas Magic for the kids I loved the looks on their faces when they walked into the living room!

So here is Christmas Magic breakfast, I made Christmas tree French toast! Now I know you are thinking looking at this amazing creation - certainly she must have some sort of advanced culinary training - shockingly I do not! I just stole the idea from some random person on the Internet, who I don't think had any culinary training either. Not that any of that matters because my children think I am amazingly talented so you know what - I went with their assessment! I walked around all day feeling like a top chef! ha ha! Anyway back to reality! I decorated it with M&M ornaments, red and green sprinkles, a sausage link for the trunk and lots of whipped cream! The girls loved it! (we've made snowman pancakes in the past so this year the tree was kind of fun) It is such a fun tradition for our family! I look forward to lots more Christmas magic!

Look at those cute faces, bed head an all, they were so excited! Dig in girls to some delicious Christmas Magic! Such a fun morning! I love it as much as the kids!

And finally here is our deliciously sticky boy! Even Jonas loved his first real experience with Christmas Magic!

Thanksgiving

Before I start into Thanksgiving Day I just have to share a sweet little story about Audrey. The day before Thanksgiving I was running some errands and I had all the kids as the girls were out of school. Savannah suggested playing a little Thanksgiving game that we sometimes play around the Thanksgiving table, A-Z thanks it's called. We go around starting with A and listing something we are thankful that begins with that letter. So Savannah started, and we started going around the van in turn. Completely randomly we arrived at H on Audrey's turn and her answer brought me to tears right there in the van, she said, "I am thankful for my hand!" It hit me that this has been a really big deal in her little life too, and I really admired her gratitude and realization of what a blessing it is that she has healed as well as she has and that she is continuing to make progress. What a sweet tender heart she has and I am thankful for her hand too and for an amazing doctor that could put it back together so well!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving, we actually had Thanksgiving at my mom's church building as there are so many of us and we need the room to spread out. It was a really fun day though! One of the first things the kids did was go on a walk around the river (my mom's building is right across the street from the Snake River) to gather twigs, pine cone, leaves etc. so they could make name cards for the Thanksgiving table. Here is a sampling of their little name cards, they turned out so cute!

They used the left over leaves, twigs and pine cones to decorate along the tables. It was a really pretty table, thanks to all the kids hard work.

Of course these two would be sitting right next to each other! No surprise there!

Our day was spent playing games, playing with the kids, racing turkeys, in our fun turkey game, preparing food and eating food! It was just fun! Being at the church we had no TV for football, which may have been a little disappointing for the guys, but instead of disappearing to the basement to watch TV, they helped out in the kitchen, played basketball with the kids and we played some serious 6-handed pinochle! It was a great day! We were sad that Brent and Laura and Mike, Lisa, Kaylee and Lydia were missing, they were together down in Utah though. It was a wonderful day!

Aunt Emily and Grandma prepared a treasure hunt for the grandkids to do after dinner, they loved it and being that we were in a huge church there was lots of distance between clues, so much fun for the kids! Here is Savannah reading one of the clues to the cousins Kendrik and Ashlyn are looking on!

Here is my nephew, Chandler with his "treasure" it was quite a loot bag! Thanks Grandma and Auntie Em!Ashlyhn and Savannah are showing off their treasures! So much good stuff in there. One of the things in the bags were glow sticks, Ashlyn and Savannah prepared a dance in the pitch black gym twirling and waving the glow sticks, they did their little dance to the song "Fireflies" by Owl City, it was seriously adorable! We all went into the gym and turned out all the lights and watched the performance, cute cute girls! How fun to grow up with cousins, I love that they get to spend so much time together.

Here is what Emily is thankful for this Thanksgiving! Her little guy Ronan! She is such an awesome mom, Ronie is lucky to have her and he is seriously such an adorable little guy! Love that Jonas has him to grow up with!

Well that's it for Thanksgiving this year, just want to add a few thankfuls of my own, in addition to being so thankful for Audrey's hand, I am thankful for a wonderful supportive hubby, who works hard does so much for the kids and I! I am thankful for 4 AMAZING kids, they bring true joy to my life! I am so grateful to live near my family and that I get the chance to spend a lot of time with them! I am thankful for my testimony, my home, Larren's job, Larren's family, a great ward, fabulous friends and the list could go on and on, but most of all I am thankful for a chance each year to really pause and take stock in our blessings and focus on being thankful!