Memories of the 2012 Year

It seems almost impossible to sum an entire Year up in a few words but we will do our BEST! Here's what everyone will remember of their time spent in 2012.

Brett-
* My wife beating breast cancer *Family trips *Holidays *Starting a metal-working hobby *Using our new fireplace for Christmas stockings *Service projects with the kids *My wife's new hairdos *Eating our only Honeycrisp apple from our tree *Working out with my wife *Shauna's visit *Monster Jam with the kids
Shay-
*visiting the Mall of America *continued keeping a blog *beating Breast Cancer *dejunking a lot of our life *getting a boob job *new and dramatic hairstyles *joining Livestrong *trying new things *using my vinyl machine *spending time with my family *losing my love handles *buying new fancy furniture for our home (finally) *getting a two button machines *being alive to see another year!
Liberty-
*Watching Merlin and Robin Hood *playing in the "Sherwood Forest"  *hanging out with me friends *going to church *visiting Minneapolis  *playing piano in Sacrament meeting for the first time *going to friends' cabins *learning violin *performed in my first orchestra concert  *love watching late night movies.
Justice-
*Playing and buying things on my DSi  *joining the Chess Club *visiting cousins in UT *playing games on the computer *hanging out with Joshua *getting a male teacher at school *wrestling with my Dad *going to the West and Cook cabins *my 9th birthday!
Victoria-
*Celebrating my birthday in Minneapolis *learning to read really good, going to the Cook's cabin *visiting UT (I wanted to stay there more!) *playing on Poptropica *drawing on white boards *learning to ride my bike *playing with friends
Glory-
*"being happy playing with each other" *swimming *going to UT *Sophie being so funny *being the Angel in the Nativity *watching Netflix *playing Webkinz and Poptropica *wearing skirts everyday *going to the Y Playstation *playing with my friends

Popping in the New Year

Back at home, we welcomed in the New Year by watching the ball drop at Times Square and sharing a few hugs and kisses! 

Of course, Brett did his traditional 100 balloons in the front room. Liberty had went to play at her friend, Katelyn's house for a bit but they joined us for the popping! It's always LOUD and messy and tons of good memories!

We finished our festivities with a little family toast to the New Year! May all your wants and wishes come true in 2013.

Who needs alcohol? The Seamons got a little WILD and crazy with just a bit of carbonation.  LOL I love the laughter and fun times we share! XOXO to my amazing family!

Crack the Case of our New Year's Eve

A kind man and a woman with a multiple of boys and a girl opened their home for a night of yumminess, mystery, games and laughter. All guests brought items to sprinkle in a "beg" and of course, treats to share. 

Who were the hosts? Who joined in the fun? What food was consumed? What games were played? What fun was had?

Children ages 4 to 18 occupied the basement with all sorts of electronics, toys, games, Legos and the Wii.
Can you guess how many ipods, iphones, DSis and Wii remotes were used at the same time?

Every party has it's pooper! Can you guess who ours was?

Did you solve the Mystery????

Thanks to the West Family for letting us hang out with you! We also enjoyed the company of the Haggard/Petersons, Neutebooms, the other Shae, and the Carrolls. Our "Tacos in a Beg" were amazing along with all sorts of cookies for dessert. We enjoyed watching the kids build Legos, being plugged in and playing on the Wii. While the Adults played "Crack the Case", Nertz (or Peanuts), Smores OR took a nap on the couch! Thanks for your friendship! Happy New Years!

Happily Ever After #42 New Year's: Look Not behind Thee

2012 has been a challenging (and at times disheartening) year for me. Not that I haven't been blessed beyond anything I deserve. But making my heart REALLY believe that is a totally different ball game. To tell you the truth, I even contemplated just dropping the remainder of these Happily Ever After posts. What good do they do for anyone anyways!? But then I came across this Mormon Message. Dang! Hate it when God is looking out for me even if I am trying to give Him the silent treatment. ;)
New Year's: Look Not Behind Thee Genesis 19:17

I Know...
what I learned from this video is so what I needed to hear! So for MY life.... here's what I learned. First is that the moral of the story is... Don't look back! I can see that I am too focused on what I left behind- longing to be there instead of here. Instead, I need to consider that the future could be better than the past. I can't go back so I might as well live forward in the best way that I can. Anybody including me can choose to leave the past behind and move forward. That's what faith is! I have to believe that what God has for me is bigger and better then what I have going on. Trust in God. Don't look back. Move on. Forgive and forget. Live for the future!
Endurance...
When you lack Hope it is because you feel like you don't have anything to rely on. But I do! It's the Savior! He made the sacrifice so that I can look forward!
Service...
* ??? Maybe that's why it was a rough week. I didn't FOCUS on being serviceable!
Gratitude....

*Hope
*The Gospel
* Health
* Family

Frozen Christmas Break Fun

Here's a couple of fun things we did over our FROZEN Christmas break:
POLAR BEAR PLUNGE

MOVIE @ THE NORTH POLE

ICE SKATING IN THE ARCTIC

HUNTING FOR FROZEN FOWL

Packing up Christmas but still BeHolding Him

Christmas already passed but I finally finished my own BeHold Him blocks. They turned out so fabulous! So excited to get them out next year! And maybe even use them for inspiration for other Holidays. Wahoo!

Also, I took the tree down. I put away all my fun ornaments away from my Exchanges. It was so sad to take them down but also fun to reminisce while I put them back in their correct year bag. Thanks to all my friends for participating with me all these years. What a fun way to remember everyone! Goodbye to my memories until next year! ;)

OK... one last photo just cuz she's so stinkin' cute!

Goodbye Christmas!

Breaking Dawn Part 2: Take Two

Since Amy is in town for Christmas break, it had to be done! For the last several years, whenever Amy comes into town, we make sure we go see the latest Twilight movie together. This year we had D and Terri join us!! What a way to end the Twilight saga! We loved it! Thanks Amy for spending time with me in our own little Twi-dition! You are awesome! Let's make sure we do a 10 year reunion! ;)

 {Note: We did NOT really get to hang with the cast but IF that had happened.... how awesome 

would that have been? I just forgot to take a picture but we NEEDED a picture so here ya go!}

Oh, Peter Facinelli (Carlisle) was late so here's one with him. LOL 

Christmas Craftiness

Here's some of the fun projects/gifts we made this year!
Kids helping with Christmas letters:

Note pads for friends & neighbors:

Table Runners for some close friends:

Behold Him blocks that I made with Terri:

Pulled out my Vinyl machine for Family Gifts:

Made Justice a blanket:

Liberty & Brett made Shay PJ bottoms:

The Man watching the Moon

Brett found an awesome deal on Cragislist for a Telescope for the family. Even though it was FREEZING outside, the moon was perfect so Brett got it all set up for the kid's to check it out!
Here's my Man in watching the Moon:

Friederichs' Family Film Festival

During our Smørbrød ParTay this past month, we found out a fun tradition that the Friederichs do every year for Steve's birthday. It's on the 26th so they have someone watch the girls and they spend the WHOLE day at the movies. Last year, they saw 4 movies!!! How fun is that? Well, some of the movies they were going to go see this year, we haven't seen yet so I invited Brett and myself to crash their party for a bit. Luckily for us, they let us! We joined them for the Hobbit. It was fun to be with them and to watch the show!

Here we are crashing the Friederichs Family Film Festival 2012. 

Thanks Faith & Steve for your friendship and letting us celebrate with you! Happy Birthday, Steve!

A few more Seamons Traditions

We like traditions around our house! But I didn't realize how many we actually had until I sat down to jot a note or two about them. LOL We are crazy! or maybe it's just ME! {Not thinking we're crazy but actually the CRAZY one!} Here's a few of our favorite Christmas traditions:

BREAKFAST WREATH
Every Christmas morning, we make cinnamon rolls and display them like a wreath. We finally had to start making two because we our family has grown and we eat a lot more than we used to. Yummy!











POINSETTIA and the m&m JAR
Every year, Garold sends us some cash to go buy ourselves a Poinsettia flower from him. It's my favorite flower! I love having one around for Christmas!
We always also buy a bag of m&m's to fill his homemade candy jar. We love putting it out at every December.
Yeah! Thanks Garold for thinking of us and letting us participate in your traditions from afar!













FIGI's DRAWING

We love the meats & cheeses from Figis! Several years ago, we decided to make our order from them a game. We get several catalogs every year from the Figi's company. We let everyone pick out the package that they'd like us to buy. We put a $50 limit cuz the packages can get way outrageous! We have each family member cut out the one they want and put it in a bucket. [It has to have meat and cheese in it though] Then last year's winner picks the WINNER for this year. And that's what we buy! We eat it during our Christmas break with some sparkling cider. Yummy!
A couple years ago, we also started ordering a couple more things and sending them to friends and family so they can join us in our tradition. It's a lot of fun picking out a couple people to send them to. Hope they enjoy them as much as we do!








CHRISTMAS PYRAMID
Several years ago, when Grandpa Randy was here visiting for one of the kid's baptisms, we went to the big Veterans Memorial Arena Rummage Sale together. We found this German Christmas pyramid while we were there. Dad has one at his home and was way excited that we found it and that we got a DEAL! {That makes my Dad's day anytime! LOL} We bought it for $25. Online similar ones sell for $400. SCORE! The first couple years, we never used it because it wouldn't spin. Luckily, we met the Stephens who also have one. They informed us that our "bearing" was missing. I ordered one and whoala! It works like new. Hurray! This year, the Wrights hooked us up with some candles he picked up over seas on his travels. Yeah for friend connections. Isn't it beautiful?





Ironroad GUM TREE
At my Ornament Exchange one year, I had the ladies share Family tradition that they do. Haylie made and shared their Gum Tree with us. We have kept it and put it out for December. My idea is that all the kids can pick a pack every week. Cuz they LOVE gum! This year however, we got it up late so they basically pick a pack a day! Oops! Oh well! They absolutely loved it! Thanks Ironroads!
















FILLING THE MANGER
This year, Brett wanted us to spend a little more time thinking of the real Reason for the Season. He decided to have us focus on the service we do for others by Filling the Manger! The girls let him borrow one of their doll boxes. They lined it with gold paper and cut out strips to write down our service on. Every day, they would write down the nice things they had done for others. They would fan-fold their strips and place them in the manger. They did a LOT of kind things this December! It was all nice and fluffy for Jesus on Christmas morning. We even placed it under the tree with the rest of our gifts. What a great idea! Thanks Brett for being such a great example of service to our family!

We're Dreaming of a Larsen Christmas

The kids have been wanting dreaming to hang out with the Larsens for weeks now. Their dreams came true tonight since the Larsens invited us over for Christmas dinner. We had a fabulous, classic Mormon Christmas dinner of ham, funeral potatoes  twice baked potatoes, jellos, rolls and pee water (I mean... Mountain Dew). LOL Oh I forgot to mention the appetizers and the veggies. Sorry Ryan! Everything was amazing! Then for dessert, we had cheesecake, eclair cake and a beautiful layered pudding parfait. Wow!

The kids played in the girl's rooms and in the heated garage, did Xbox Kinetics games, and flew the remote control helicopters. They LOVED every minute of it! [Except when Liberty almost sprained her ankle. Oops!] The adults had a great time visiting, laughing and playing a few LOUD rounds of Pit. The whole night was a lot of fun!

I made sure we got Family pictures. Guess you know how I love family pictures! ;) It's so fun to see all the changes that happen from year to year. I love it! Thanks to the Larsens, Potters, and Ohlsons for letting us spend part of their Christmas with them! We luv you all! Merry Christmas!

Oh Christmas Tree...

After stockings, we headed upstairs for presents. We loved finally having our big tree with all the presents underneath. The lights at Christmas make Brett so happy!
The kids were way happy to hand out all the presents to everyone. For the most part, we I have the kids pick which wrapping paper they want for the year. Then we wrap ALL their gifts in that paper. It makes passing things out more like a matching game then a "read the tag" kind of thing. That's what they get for having a OCD Mother at Christmas! LOL
A fun family tradition that we have is that every year, we make a special trip to the Dollar store before Christmas. First, we walk through the store all together to point out the things we really like. Then we disperse in different directions to do a little Family Christmas shopping. Each kid gets $6 and their own basket so they can surprise all the family members with a gift from each other. At home, they secretly wrap their gifts and place them under the tree for Christmas morning. These are the gifts that we open one by one so we can oooh and aaaah over our treasures. It's fun to see how excited they get over their dollar gifts. Sure makes you realize that it's not really about how expensive the gift is.
Then we let everyone open the rest of their gifts. All of us were very excited! We got a lot of awesome things. When we were all done, the kids tried to act completely grateful BUT Brett had hid one of their "very specifically asked for" gifts without telling them. Poor Liberty had worked really hard to pay for half of it so she was putting on a good face but you could tell she was wondering what the heck was up when her Kindle was NOT in her pile of unwrapped presents. Finally Brett fessed up and told them they all had one more present to find. They had to search all upstairs to find their final gift. It actually was a really fun way to end our gift unwrapping but maybe next year, we'll tell them in advance. ;)

This is how they spent the rest of the afternoon. Oh the joys of the Technological world. LOL Thank goodness we had somewhere to go tonight so we could drag everyone away from their screens for a bit.

Here's them enjoying some of the things that Grandparents sent for them. Thanks for thinking of us! We love and miss you all!

The Stockings were Hung...

Our traditional Christmas Snuggle, Family prayer & Smooshy picture in Mom & Dad's bed after everyone got up around 8 am. That was the deal... you can be as excited as you want Christmas Eve {and if the excitement keeps you up... so be it} BUT sleep in til 8. They did a great job! Merry Christmas morn to Mom & Dad! ;)

Now DOWN to the basement...

This was the first year that we opened Stockings downstairs so I took the chance to take a picture of the kids sitting on the stairs. Growing up, my step-Mom Edette, always had us wait on the stairs until everything was just perfect. Then they would video-tape us (a bunch of teenage girls before we "got ready" for the day. Oh joy!) coming down to check out gifts. Oh the memories that a picture can bring! ;) Thanks Dad & Edette for making Christmases magical (or maybe we were just delusional because it was so freakin' early. Not sure which actually! LOL)

Downstairs by the fire, {I've always wanted to say that. It's my lucky day!} everyone enjoyed digging into their Stockings. Except I think SANTA (Stocking are what Santa brings to this house) got carried away this year!!! Anyone missing their year's supply of candy? He delivered it here by mistake. Feel free to come pick it up anytime. We'd love to visit and return it to you! LOL

One last fun tidbit-

Every year, Santa's little helper (aka B) fancies up Victoria's American girl doll for Christmas morning and leaves a little note.
To: VICTORIA
From: SANTA
She always leaves her by Victoria's stocking. It makes Victoria's day! Man, we have some sweet kids.

Merry Christmas from our Family

Home for the Holidays

Even though plans changed at the last minute, we still really enjoyed our Christmas Eve being Home for the Holidays. We spent most for the day doing whatever we wanted but then we all got changed into our ParTay attire for the Christmas Eve festivities to begin.

First, we always have the KIDS make 7 Layer Dip for our Christmas Eve grub. They did a great job! It was delicious!

But this time we added another DIPping experience to our party as well. After my Ornament Exchange, we decided to buy a mini-Chocolate Fountain for our family. I forgot to buy chocolate and all we had downstairs was Cherry Vanilla Chocolate chips. But.... RED is my favorite color so it worked out well. The kids picked all the things we could DIP into our "Christmas chocolate". They were in heaven!

Next, it was  time for a Visit from the Wisemen. We love this tradition! The kids went to the back room and got all dressed up. Then came in bearing gifts for the family. 

Of course our gifts are always PJs. Everyone was very excited! Brett and Liberty actually made some for Mom this year! How fun is that?

We must have had some SILLY juice mixed into that chocolate fountain cuz everyone thought they were funny! Here's a collage of some of our funnyness. It includes Mom's "joke gift" [a pair of poofy red pj bottoms that B and Brett also made. They make me look HUGE! and fall off my butt when I bend over. We were laughing so hard!], the kids jumping in front of the camera every time I took a picture, and the kids pretending to be Zombies. What were we ON? Christmas spirit, perhaps? LOL

We made sure we enjoyed (or at least tried cuz the "Christmas spirit" was out of control by now), Brett's new Pipe Bells. They sound awesome if the "ding-a-lings" do their job! LOL

Every year, we read the Christmas Story from a book that Shauna made us. It has scriptures to read and songs to sing. It was very spiritual (Ha) as you can tell by the pictures. 

Last but not least, we took all the Fam downstairs to watch the Luke 2 video. What a great way to end our CHRISTmas festivities!

Our final and MUST-do Christmas Eve tradition is our Family Couch picture. We were very sad to NOT have it done on the Brotherson's couch. We did some smiley ones but for some reason (excessive Christmas spirit?) the best shot was this one. Love it! Totally goofy and full of Christmas Cheer! Nothing like being Home for the Holidays! Merry Christmas, everyone!