The Year Comes to an End

We went back and forth on what we were going to do for New Years. First a few of us were going to get together at someone's house, then we talked about a big party at the church, and we finally ended up at the bowling alley. We had a lot of fun together and the best part about the evening was beating Spenser at bowling - twice! I had the best games of my life with 3 strikes in a row on both games and a couple of spares too (please don't think I'm too braggy!) The thing that Spenser was most upset about was that he said, "You just get up there and throw the ball. You don't look at where you're standing or anything do you?!" He's right. I just throw it and hope for the best and tonight it worked out. I also think he didn't like the fact that I was the only wife there who beat her husband!

In action!

Spense was smiling at first...and then he was wailing!

Zach sporting his new hair loved the balls

Thomas didn't like it very much at first because Spense could only find him a fairly big and heavy ball and I think that he thought that he had to stick with that. We finally convinced him to use the lighter ball that Olivia and Abby were sharing and he did much better. Olivia just loved it and was so sad when we were done. The only problem was that she didn't throw the ball very hard and so it took a long time for her turn to be over and we ended up being one of the slowest groups there. Zach just enjoyed walking around and playing with the balls. He thought that it was fun to push them back down the shoot and watch them come back up again. He did manage to make it out onto the lane a couple of times too !



The quality of these videos isn't great since we took them on the camera, but it gives you an idea.

Olivia in action

Thomas spent a lot of time rolling on the
floor for some reason

When we were all finished we headed out to Jack in the Box for some shakes since they were the only ice cream place around that was still open. We then came home and the kids put on movies and I fell asleep before midnight as usual. Spense woke me up with a couple of minutes to go and Thomas and I came downstairs and watched them set off the fireworks from the Space Needle.

To be honest with you I am glad to see a new year begin. I felt like last year was a bad year for me. I have had some bad attitudes and haven't been the person that I really wanted to be and so am glad for the chance that I have to work on another year. As I've looked back at the some of the things we did this year I am grateful for the love of family and friends and the chances that we have to grow and change.

4 Years on

Where the last 4 years have gone I'm not too sure and we celebrated in real style. The morning started with Olivia's favorite cinnamon muffins. We then opened presents and spent the rest of the day hanging out. She was so excited about all of her presents and wanted me to tell her exactly what all of her birthday cards said. She was thrilled to announce to Thomas that she is finally 4 (although she has thought this for a few weeks now ever since the preschool celebration). She enjoyed running around the house with her new camera taking pictures of everything. The batteries didn't manage to last all that long though so I think that we'll be looking into rechargeables. I felt a little bad that we didn't really do a whole lot until Spense came home, but everyone seemed happy enough and Ryan also came over to play and that always makes Olivia happy since those boys are so nice and accomodating toward her.



After Spense got home from work we had dinner. I asked Olivia is she wanted to go out to eat, but she preferred to stay at home. I was just hoping for easy clean up! We then had cake. If her face looks a little scared below its because she has recently become scared of fire. Thomas really had to help her out with the blowing out of candles since she wouldn't get close enough to get the job done.

After cake we headed out to Chuck E Cheese. My kids always love to go there for some reason!
Thomas managed to lose his cup with $10 worth of tokens in there in the first few minutes when he put it down and left for a while. I was so mad especially since someone else just took our camcorder and kept going and around and looking in everyone's cups to see how much they had in there! We got him a few more tokens and had a good time. Before we went home we drove to Coldstone to see if they were still open for ice cream, but it was too late so the McDonald's drive in had to do! We love you dearly Olivia. You are such a great little girl and can't wait for your baking party.

Olivia always loves to ride the pony


She spent most of her money on this simulator ride

Playing air hockey with the boys

Christmas Day

Thomas stayed true to his promise of not going downstairs before the rest of us, and we actually didn't get woken up at the crack of dawn since they got off to bed too late last night. Maybe we'll try that again next year. Everyone seemed pretty happy with the things that Santa had left for them. Thomas got his much desired Millennium Falcon ship, Olivia added to her Thomas the Train set and Zach got a basketball hoop. He dunked the ball in the net as soon as his feet hit the floor. I was so happy that he seemed to instinctively know that the gift was for him, but even better yet that he had actually liked it. I thought that we were onto a real winner with the old hoop and then he didn't show much interest in it at all for the rest of the day!


The presents from under the tree were opened and stockings were emptied.Fruit and cereal boxes were retrieved and then we managed to get the kids to eat their breakfast before the main event of the day began - playing! Everyone seemed happy with the things that they got. Thomas did manage to get himself into a bit of trouble during present opening though when he was just ripping the wrapping off everything as fast as he could. We told him that he needed to slow down and take turns. Gone was his speech about the only thing he really wanted for Christmas was to spend time with his family. The sentiment was lovely, but not all together true it didn't appear. I guess I will just have to rethink things again next year. I am constantly trying to think of ways to make Christmas more meaningful and focus on the giving rather than receiving and on what we should really be thinking about. We'll see if I ever manage that one.

Here's a bit of video that might only be interesting to the grandparents!

Spense seemed to spend the entire day talking on the phone to family members. I just said a quick "hello" to my crew earlier in the day and that was that. I guess that's just the beauty of only having 1 sibling who currently lives with mum and dad!

Pouring in the eggs is always her favorite part

Since she has a thing for making cupcakes I knew it would be a hit

Olivia sported her new apron when she helped Spense make the sponge for the trifle, and she kept it on for the rest of the day. Dinner was pretty laid back. We had roast beef, but tried to scale back on too many of the trimmings. I just felt like I spent too much time cooking in the kitchen last year and not enough time with everyone else, making a meal that only Spense and I ate. At least we did have Zach this year who seems to eat pretty much anything and Mike, Spenser's friend from college, also came by. He's out here making a movie right now and doesn't have anyone in town so we didn't want him to be alone. Olivia enjoyed toasting with the fancy glasses. We had many a toast to "Christmas Day!"

I decided that I would make an effort with the table
this year since I usually just focus on the menu and
am then sad that the table looks naff.

Place setting complete with traditional British cracker
Mike thought that it was bizarre to pull something
that contained a hat to wear at dinner.

Since there were so many of us I thought everyone
should know where they needed to sit!
These were actually a lot cuter in my head
than they turned out to be!

After clean up and a couple of games of checkers and Cariboo we were all pooped and headed off to bed grateful for the time we had spent together and for the things we had received.

Olivia loved her Olivia the pig.

Christmas Eve

We went back and forth as to whether or not to invite anyone over for Christmas Eve, but decided that we probably still had a few bugs around that we didn't want to expose anyone else too. Spense went out early in the day to pick up the food. It took much longer than I expected. I think that the many phone calls that he makes with questions and just wandering around the store browsing really make a difference. When he got back I left to find a few last things. The roads were still pretty awful, but there were lots of people out. I guess that everyone figured that it was crunch time and they finally had to get out there.

The year before last we decided to have a fondue on Christmas Eve and we enjoyed it so much we thought that we would make a thing out of it. I love that the preparation and clean up are relatively simple and so you get more time to focus on being together. As I cut up cheese, bread, and meat the kids and Spenser went through the closets finding costumes for the nativity later that evening. It ended up that the Star Wars halloween costumes really turned out to be a good purchase. Who would have thought that Luke Skywalker could be turned into Joseph with the simple addition of a towel?!

Stirring the cheese

Getting the cheese onto the bread is serious business

Zach loved the skewers. We didn't think that it was terribly
safe, but after trying several alternatives resulted in high pitched
screaming we finally broke down and he did just fine.

Olivia wouldn't even try the cheese. She just stuck the bread
on the end of her skewer, which made her happy enough.

Everyone loved the chocolate fountain. I think
that I had the best face! There were some
chocolate covered shirts when we were all done.

Zach really got into it.

The nativity was fun. Olivia really got into caring for the baby Jesus, which was a huge improvement on last year when Thomas had to keep telling her off for not treating him properly. Our shepherd didn't seem to be too bothered by the good news, but it was so nice to see them all participating. The performance of our one wise man was outstanding and of course the angel was exquisite!

Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus

The entire cast.



Here is a short excerpt from our nativity.

After opening the traditional one gift of pj's we suddenly realized how late it had got. We quickly scooped up some pre-made cookie dough for Santa (no homemade stuff for our guy this year!), poured a glass of milk, sprinkled the reindeer food, hung the stockings, and got off to bed. Thomas was warned that if he woke up before anyone else he was not allowed to go downstairs alone. Unfortunately, he has had some discussion with us to whether or not Santa is real. A lot of hos friends already have been telling him that he's not (sad!). I think that we were convincing, but maybe only for this year I'm not sure. Oh, the lost innocence!

Reindeer food. Thomas was a little concerned
that there was glitter in it. He didn't think
that it would be good for their systems, but my
explanation was enough.

Stockings. Next year we will maybe have
a proper mantle. We've only been waiting a year!

Santa's cookies

Santa got a special plate this year.

After assembling a few little things we finally made it to bed, but not before Spense had set up a barricade at the top of the stairs.

Shake your tail feather

I was looking through some of the home videos tonight and saw this one that I had had Spenser shrink for me and then I must have forgotten to post it. I think that the video pretty much speaks for itself. My main concern is that I can't put it on the blog because Spense has included me in the video. Shake it baby!

I can be wrong

Everything was quiet this morning and I naturally thought that something was wrong. Why couldn't I hear Thomas relentlessly teasing his sister? What trouble were those kids getting up to? Then I walked into Olivia's room and found this...


Thomas was reading Olivia's favorite Froggy book to her. Shame on me for thinking the worst!

And there's more...

After Spense got home from work today he took the kids outside and snapped a few shots so that we will always be able to remember this wonderful week of snow! I laugh now when I look back at my post about how we justified the kids playing in the snow on Sunday because it doesn't snow much here when we ended up getting almost 2 feet.

Thomas has really had enough of it though.There are only so many times that you want to sled and so many times that you want to get wet and cold. I think that he's also realizing the limitations that the snow puts on travel. He asked if he could have friends over today and I said that I didn't think that too many people would want to drive in this. The roads in the area really are awful. They have hardly moved any of the snow and you're bumping around all over the place giving yourself whiplash whenever you go out. My biggest fear has just been sliding into someone because I hit the ice wrong. I sure have been glad to have been driving around in my SUV and not Spenser's little car (although we still love her!) So all in all - NO MORE SNOW!

The play set has had about as much use this week as it did in
the summer. They love sliding down into the snow.

They also love to pretend that they are
climbing Mount Everest I think.

Some of the icicles that we found on the play set.

We finally decided to take Zach out into the snow since he's been
standing at the window all week watching whenever the kids are out.
I couldn't find any better shoes for him so his feet got a little cold...

...which he really didn't seem to like!

In his defense though I took him to the Dr's today because he
has had goopy eyes that are stuck shut in the morning and a
horrible cold. I also discovered that he has a double ear infection,
so that's why we are now out playing in the snow!

Still falling...

The snow continues to fall and I decided today that I couldn't lie in bed any longer. The laundry was really starting to pile up and I had visions of the power going out and me having to wash clothes in the bath tub. Tonight Spense shoveled the driveway (again) and built up some little forts for Thomas and Ryan to use for snowball fights. It may look beautiful, but believe you me its not all that great when you can't go anywhere. The Stake Presidency even decided to cancel church tomorrow because they don't want people out on the icy and very snowy roads. I tell you snow is nice for a few days and then it starts to get old. Even the kids are starting to get bored of playing in it!