New Year's Eve

We spent the last day of 2015 playing and getting ready for a fun New Year's Eve.  Jesse worked in the morning til about 2 pm, then joined us to finish out the year.  When I left my room that morning, this is what I found out in the hallway.  Love that sight.  

While I made some snacks for our NYE movie, the boys played with some of their new Christmas toys.  Devin finally decided he would crawl through his tunnel, not just peer through it.

We went on a walk through the neighborhood and stopped off at the park for a bit.  Devin is really starting to enjoy the park.  He's a climbing monkey, just like his brothers.  

Jared is having a lot of fun with his new skateboard.

For the first time in our New Year's Eve celebrations as a family, we wouldn't be all together.  Craig had a friend birthday party he was invited to.  It was a Murder Mystery party.  He had been assigned the part of Harry High Stakes.  He got dressed up for the part and after having our traditional Chinese food for dinner, he was off to the party for NYE with friends.  Considering next year he'll be old enough to go to stake dances for New Year's, our days of all being together are done.  He had a lot of fun at the party though.  Jesse picked him up about 12:15 am, and then they stayed up and played video games together til about 2 in the morning.  Craig slept in the next morning til after 10 am.

The rest of us finished up dinner and watched "City of Ember".  We had just finished reading the book together.  We had "puppy chow" Chex Mix and Mint Muddy Buddies that we had made along with Jesse's traditional savory Chex Mix.  After the movie, Zach set up balloons with pictures from Star Wars and they had races to see who could hit all the balloons with light sabers the fastest.  They also did it blindfolded.  

We watched some of the New Year's Eve from New York on TV for awhile.  About 10 pm we got out the sparkling cider and drank that as we watched the replay of the ball dropping in New York.  Kids went to bed about 10:30 pm.

We had a good year in 2015.  Lots of memories.  Another year is beginning, and we are excited to see what adventures await us.

Christmas 2015

From time to time, Jesse gives the boys an opportunity to go to work with him.  Branden hasn't gotten a turn yet - mostly because he was too young to handle sitting at Jesse's office for most of a day without too much attention or interruption.  But the morning of Christmas Eve turned out to be perfect since the office was pretty quiet anyway and Jesse was only working half the day.  Branden spent the morning at work with Jesse and got to go out to lunch with him before coming home.  It was a special time for him and a great way to kick off our Christmas celebrations.

After our "Bethlehem-ish" dinner, we performed the nativity.  We mostly used our nativity costumes from our ward activity earlier in the month.  But Craig put together his own Wise Man costume.  And we used a puffy white jacket for the angel.  Branden was the narrator this year.

The Angel

And King Herod

The Narrator...

After the nativity and putting Devin to bed, we played some games and had hot cocoa before sending the rest of the crew to bed.  The excitement was hard to contain, especially for Zach who couldn't get to sleep until 11:00 that night!!!  But at least that means he slept in a little since he was so tired from staying up.  They started getting up a little before 7 am and were anxious to get downstairs once we were all up and ready.

Everyone was excited to see what Santa had brought and to watch each other open gifts to one another. We got so wrapped up in gift giving, we didn't really take that many pictures. Devin received a Little People car track, stacking cups and a play tunnel. Branden received a Kendama, Pokemon cards, and a light saber.  Zach received a Lego Batman set, a light saber, and a Nerf bow and arrow set.  Jared's gifts were a Penny skateboard plus protective gear and a watch. And Craig received the game Exploding Kittens (look it up on Amazon), clothes, and some Minecraft books.  We also received some fun games and books plus a few movies on Blu-Ray.

We got Jesse the Doctor Who version of Clue and I got some new cake decorating tips.

We found a great deal on intro guitar lessons on Groupon, so got the boys an introductory guitar they can start expanding their musical abilities to guitar in addition to piano.

After a yummy breakfast of cranberry-orange rolls (instead of our traditional cinnamon rolls), Mom got a nice long nap before working on Christmas dinner. Later in the afternoon while working on some dinner prep, Craig came in the kitchen and gave Mom a hug saying, "Thanks for all the hard work you do to make good food for us."  That just about made my whole Christmas!  So nice to be appreciated.  

The day after Christmas, I took Branden to the Safari Park for a few hours in the morning.  It was cooooold!  But our passes expire at the end of the year, so we figured we better get a little more use out of them.  We went right when the park opened, which was perfect because it wasn't very crowded.  After spending a few hours there and seeing pretty much everything we wanted to, we were ready to go and it was really starting to get crowded.  It was fun to just have the two of us wander around.  Branden had me running across bridges that were "collapsing as we went" and run to touch the tiger statue or "all the tigers will eat us!"  He has quite the imagination and it was fun to play with him for the morning.

Devin Update

One more update on Devin before the end of the year.  He is 15 1/2 months as we close out 2015.  He is starting to play with toys longer at a time.  And when he's not playing with his toys, he's finding things he shouldn't be and playing with those.  :)  We have to keep chairs pushed in so he can't climb on them and get on the tables.  He loves to unload the kitchen cupboards.  He says "Mom" a lot, even when he's talking about Dad.  He takes one long nap a day - usually 2-3 hours long.  He is a great sleeper at night.  He knows when he's tired and will start waving "night night" to everyone.  

He is getting pickier about food and recognizes a treat from across the room and will come running for it.  He "talks" a lot in a language we can't understand but is cute as he changes sounds and tones trying to tell us something.  He signs "more" so we do know when he wants more of something.  

Devin loves to take baths, go outside with his brothers, and dance to music.  He is a sweet snuggler.  He loves animals.  And he is starting to make efforts to clean up when we show him to help.  He likes to close doors and cabinets, so we usually get closed on when we are changing laundry or getting things out for cooking.  He is a ton of fun and a load of mischief, and we love him.  

Dancing Devin:

When you are getting him a snack he wants, he has developed this little happy dance: