Tyler, a Victorious Season

Tyler was SO excited when he made it on the Junior High basketball team.  They just finished up their season this week UNDEFEATED!!!!!  It was a pretty awesome season!  Tyler made lots of baskets and improved his aggressiveness.  These pictures don't do Tyler justice -- I'm finding indoor lighting with fast moving kids is not my forte with our current lenses.

 

 Way to be awesome Tyler!!!!  Tyler is passionate about this game just like his Daddy!

Bragging Rights

Moms are allowed to brag, right?!! I'm beaming with joy right now as Alex aced the Compass exam today giving him the opportunity to get into college as a high school Junior (next year) in the Running Start program (WA state pays for your associates while a high school student). He was nervous this morning when I took him down to the community college testing center and I made him chant "you is kind, you is smart, you is important." Birch's dad taught me the power of positive self talk. No matter what Alex decides to do next year he is tops in my book!

 Handsome Alex July 2013

Little Angels

Seems like each day this week we have had a Christmas concert for one of the kids at school.  My favorite would have to be Chloe's kindergarten concert.  The little kids sung like angels and were full of Christmas cheer.

 Super excited to perform!

 My favorite song was "Up on the house top."

Not camera shy!

Chloe's bedtime prayer tonight:

Dear Heavenly Father,

Please bless me to not say "liar" anymore. I have a great mom. Bless me to not say "disgusting" anymore. In the name of Jesus Christ Amen.

This is in response to coming to the dinner table tonight and seeing a delicious dinner and responding, "this meal looks disgusting." She was told tonight if she said the meals I make are "disgusting" that she would automatically get no dessert (which is a big deal around here right now with our daily advent scripture/treat).  Not sure what the deal is about saying "liar."

Greedy??

As a child I did not believe in Santa Claus.  It was something that my parents felt was important in order to truly know the real meaning of why we celebrate Christmas.  When I married Birch I entered a whole new world of magic at Christmas time.  In 1998, I heard a wonderful talk by James E. Faust where he described the qualities of Santa as, "a joyous individual who is interested in making others happy — who is childlike, simple, humble, sincere, forgiving and giving."  President Faust went on to say, "we can all reach out like Santa Claus and spread happiness to those around us."  Since hearing this talk and having children of my own I have come to a better understanding of Santa and his magic.

We recently had our church Christmas breakfast and one of Santa's special helpers was able to come and visit with each of the kids. 

Chloe in Santa heaven.

So this is where I start to wonder a bit about greed - this is Chloe's BOOK of ideas that she cut, pasted, and mailed to Santa last week.  Again, not growing up believing in Santa I wonder if he appreciated options??

Coop has quite the list himself of gift ideas for Santa.  He was pleased to share them all with Santa.

Nate is the sweetest of them all.  What does he want most for Christmas? -- a trip to Utah to see his best buddy Chase Cox.  Just in case that doesn't work out he's given Santa several other options to choose from.

Alysee was acting as a mother's helper for two little girls that were frightened of Santa.

So greedy or not??  I kind of laugh when I think of our family motto, "An attitude of gratitude" and then check out these mile long lists.  Good thing Santa loves to spread happiness!!

Let It RIP

Growing up if you ever heard the phrase shouted "Let it RIP!!!!" it was probably one of my brothers running into my shared room to "rip one."  Around here that phrase has a different meaning.  Cooper and Nate are in LOVE with Beyblades.  The boys have gone in spurts of playing with their Beyblades and we are definitely into one of those phases right now. 

 The other evening I came home from a meeting to find this going on in my living room.  I mean SWEET costumes!

 The boys were going to the cartoon motif and I think they did a pretty good job.

 Hours of crazy tournaments!

  LET IT RIP!!!

Christmas Is In The Air

December really is a magical month!  I got a killer deal on our beautiful Christmas tree on Black Friday ($20 Noble Fir) and so the kids were all begging to decorate as soon as we put away the turkey and gravy.  With Birch deep diving in tithing settlements we did some of the decorating of the house without him but saved the tree for our Monday night family activity. 

 We have a TON of ornaments.  I grew up getting at least one ornament every year from my parents and/or Grandma and now have all of those ornaments plus we have carried on the same tradition with our kids and give them a special ornament each year too.

 Good thing we got a plump tree as we need lots of sturdy branches to fit on all of those ornaments.

 Chloe was so excited when she found her cinnamon star ornament that she made last year at preschool.  It still even smelled good!  Wondering about the glasses?   Chloe has been wearing them since I popped out the lenses for my Halloween costume.  If she ever really needs them at least we know she'll look really cute.

 Alysee was rockin' out all night!

 Chloe has been busy making all sorts of advent countdowns and lists of cut-up pictures from magazines of what she is hoping to get for Christmas this year.

 Birch and I found this note taped to our bedroom door recently.  Perhaps my threat of "Santa knows if you are being naughty" is really sinking in to Chloe's mind. 

On that same night I was tucking Chloe in bed and her bedtime prayer went something like this:  "Dear Heavenly Father, Please bless that I'll be good for the rest of my life.  And that I will not laugh during prayer [meanwhile she is laughing like a hyena].  And that next time I'll close my eyes during prayer.  Amen"

 I'm not a super crafty gal but when I saw this idea of making a garland out of felt balls I thought it was something I could handle.  I ordered the balls from a woman in Nepal and then just strung them up. 

 Super easy and it turned out cute!

In Primary two weeks ago, I was in charge of sharing time and invited six prophets who foretold of Christ's birth to come visit the children and share where in the scriptures they spoke of Christ's birth.  It was really a memorable experience.  Birch was an excellent Abinadi (even though the picture is of poor quality -- he wears a great platinum blond wig).

We've been doing a scripture advent calendar each night (along with a treat) and it has been a great reminder of all the things that lead up to Christ's birth.  I love that this time of the year it is easy to make room for Christ, though it is a reminder to me that there should always be room for Christ in my heart and life. 

Gobble, Gobble...

Relaxing...not sure I have ever used that word in association with Thanksgiving.  This year was wonderful as we stayed home and hosted Emi and Ryan's family and my baby brother Luke.  Luke just had surgery on his nose (for like sixth time) and still made the long drive from Provo to Spokane and then came down with the Andersens.  What a treat to spend the weekend with everyone!

Ryan eating his traditional celery filled with this nasty cheese stuff that he loves (actually I tried it this year and it wasn't as bad as I thought).

One of the things that made Thanksgiving so stress-free as that we took the easy way on a few dishes, like our Rhodes rolls.  They were delicious!

Chloe loved making our oreo cookie turkeys.  During dinner we had a great time using our conversation coasters and learned lots of fun stuff about each other.

I must not lie this apple pie was AMAZING!

Game of spoons

Three peas on a pod

Love this little girl!

We all had such a great time hanging out with Uncle Lukey!  He's an orig and such a sweet guy.  I miss his back massages already!

Luke is super talented and is great at making music.  After some instructions Coop was off creating his own music.

Nate was all about football all weekend!

Lots of this went on throughout the weekend.  The boys all played in a pretty intense pool tournament.

Hum...gotta love our special Ryan!!

Gonna miss this guy when he graduates this spring and moves to Japan to further his art career.

Aunti Emi and Mila

Sage and Chloe were quite the play-dough creators.

And with each pool tournament there must be consequence for the losers.  Alex and Tyler had to wear their socks over their pants all Sunday when they were not participating in their priesthood duties. 

Since Birch has responsibilities all Sunday his consequence had to be different than the rest of the guys.  Poor guy.

So the trick to a stress-free Thanksgiving...make whatever you can ahead of time, take the easy way our on some stuff (Rhodes rolls and Costco pumpkin pie), split up the meal with another family (thanks Andersens!!), and eat at noon so you don't spend all day starving or snacking.

I feel blessed!!!