Romantic Dinner for Two

For our Christmas gift this year the children gave us a coupon for a homemade dinner and a night on the town. This is a picture of the beautiful food they prepared. It was as delicious as it looks. They then treated us to the movies. We went to see Sherlock Holmes and when we came home the kitchen was immaculate!!! It was such a thoughtful sweet gift. I must admit my kids are great!!!

Family Reunion

We celebrated my parents 50th wedding anniversary during our family reunion over 4th of July weekend. I loved seeing all my siblings and their families and watch everyone have such a good time together. I am sure my parents did not realize that 50 years later there would be 104 people in their family. I feel very blessed to part of this amazing family.

Happy 50th anniversary MOM and DAD!!!!
Everyone danced at the party!!! It was the best party--being in a room celebrating with all the people you are comfortable around and love. :)

Saturday everyone wore their reunion T-shirts and enjoyed carnival games, crafts,ice blocking, soccer game, and pizza at the park!!!

Opa and Oma with all the grand kids. It was a very memorable weekend.

Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho off to Topaz Mountain we Go!!!

On Memorial Day we went on a day trip to Topaz Mountain. Everyone had a great time searching for topaz. Joseph loved using his hammer and tools to break the rocks. We all came home with topaz. Josh broke open one large rock and found some really nice ones. This is a great family activity--better in the spring and fall when it is not so hot.

Give a Day, Get a Disney Day

This is a picture of the ticket vouchers I printed off for Disneyland. Our family did the Give a Day, Get a Disney Day program. We made birthday bags for the juvenile justice Services and a quilt. The kids decorated each paper bag and put in a candy bar, drink, chips and a homemade card. We made 60 bags and Joseph tied a fleece quilt. We had a fun time doing this for family night. I was surprised at all the different opportunities for the children to serve as I browsed through the different options, I think I also found a Eagle project idea for Jake . This was a great way to serve as a family with the added perk of a free visit Disneyland.

Grandpa the next computer expert!

John's dad has been staying with us for a few weeks and I have been giving him a few lessons on using his new laptop. This makes me laugh, considering I really don't know what I am doing half the time on my computer. I showed him how to load his pictures, set him up an email account, and even created a face book account for him. His favorite thing about the computer were the bookmarks that let him go to his favorite sites. It has been fun opening the "wonders" of computers and the Internet to him.

Let it SNOW!!!!

Fun day sledding during the holiday break.

Time Capsule--New Years Day

For ten years this time capsule has sat on the top shelf in our cold storage. The kids were really excited and curious to open it on New Years day. In it was a letter each child wrote or dictated to themselves 10 years in the future. They wrote goals, things they liked/disliked,their chores, friends, and anything else they wanted their future self to know. They each also had put in a few treasures and items in it like a newspaper, beanie baby, pokeman card, shell, pictures they painted, Christmas card, pictures of each of them and other random things. We all sat around reading our letters. Then we read each of them out loud and both laughed and cried (John and I). These letters truly captured what our life was like 10 years ago.

In my letter I wrote, "I recognize that I only have a few precious years while the children are young...". This was so true, time really does go by fast.We are now out of the baby and toddler stage and have mostly teenagers. In ten years only Joseph will still be at home. For family night we are going to put together another time capsule to open up in 2020.

In another part of the letter I wrote; "Today I washed and folded 8 loads of laundry. It is a challenge for me to keep up on the house work and organizing seems like a constant activity". I guess some things never change!!

Thanksgiving

I made another video clip of the pictures we took over this Thanksgiving break to send to Johnny. It was a fun filled weekend full of complicated plans, events and traveling back and forth to cousin's houses.

Grandma also took all the girls to the nutcracker to watch 3 cousins preform. We feel so blessed and are truly grateful for our faith, health, food, friends and family. When looking at the "black" Friday deals in the newspaper, we quickly realized we didn't really need anything, that we already have everything we could want. :)

Halloween Party

Cathy had an early Halloween party. She went all out with cotton candy, donuts on a string, bobbing for apples, cookie decorating, and the famous light show. We all had a great time. It was fun to dress up early. Josh was spider-man, Joe was a pirate skeleton, and John a Hawaiian tourist.

Caroline as a Fairy Princess

Me as Princess Leah-haha--Natalie as a Bratz Doll. Her boots make her 6 ft tall. She decided she will dress up as something different for their school masquerade dance--she doesn't want to tower over everyone,

Jake as pointless. :)

Oma and Opa Wirthlin--deck out in Austrian wear.

A "cursed" Dinner

For Dinner I put a "curse" under each person's plate. Each person had to follow the directions of the curse throughout the meal. Everyone also had to try to figure out what curse each person had. The curses under our plates were:

John: spank anyone being mean

Me: flick water from your glass when someone says someone's name

Josh: answer the telephone whenever Joseph uses his hands to eat.

Natalie: Snort like a pig when anyone takes seconds

Jacob: Say "Oh My" anytime someone puts their elbows on the table

Caroline: Do a curtsey when Dad eats a shrimp.

Joseph: run around the table like a gorilla when Mom takes a drink.

This produced a lot of laughs. I realized I need to go over manners, because Jake never ceased to say "Oh My" and Josh got tired of answering the phone. John kept spanking me because I was flicking water at people. ha-ha I will have to change the curses next time. Also, it almost ended in a water fight because at the end I flick a little too much water at John who then dump the entire glass on me--Luckily most the water was gone from the table. The kids want me to surprise them with this one again.

Homemade masquerade halloween masks

This fall break a few were house bound--Natalie was recovering from pneumonia and Josh did not want to go in public with his "baby". Caroline and I went to the craft store in search of something fun to make. We came home with plaster gauze used to make masks. The gauze(looks like an ace bandage) was very easy to use--just cut and dip in warm water and lay on the face. (make sure you cover the area of face with Vaseline or you will may have an unwanted eyebrow wax.)

Jake trying to avoid me taking his picture and playing cards to pass the 15 min drying time.
Natalie wanted hers a little smaller so we drew with eyeliner on her face as a guide as we laid down the strips.

Caroline hot gluing embellishments on her mask.
Joseph painting his mask. He painted one side with glow in the dark paint and the other with black and sparkles. Jake decided to do a similar mask, but on opposite sides Joseph. They have fun going in the dark bathroom and watching half of their "face" float around. Josh wanted to make a golden eagle (their school's mascot) but I did not feel like going to the craft store again to buy brown feathers, so he ended up using feathers from the bag of feathers I already had. He formed a beak with the plaster gauze strips and then added it to his mask. This was a fun and creative project. It may bother young children because as it dries on the faces it kind of itches.

First Day of School!

Josh-Senior, Natalie-Sophomore, Jake--Freshman
Caroline--6th grade
Joseph --1st grade

School started last week with mixed reviews. After the first day of school only Joseph was still excited about school. This is the first time in 21 years I will be home alone for 6 hours. I am a little sad that the young children stage is over, but excited to finally have time to get some things accomplished that I put on the "shelf" for awhile.

Deep Cleaning

The summer's busy activities, fun trips and the kids home all day has taken it's toll on our house . I realized how messy and disorganized the house has become. So for the last week of summer we have been trying to deep clean. I told the kids to find something to clean/organized and do it. There was less complaining since they chose their own chores. Some picked cupboards to organize, others washed walls, dusted, and Jake decided to clean the top of the cabinets. It was amazing how much was accomplished with everyone working together. We still are not done and I think the kids are excited to finally start school tomorrow.

Bear Lake Family Reunion

Bear Lake Reunion Highs:

Great weather

Great company

Great food

Great fireworks

Great Napolean Dynamite tour (Josh with some of the cousins and uncles went to Preston ID to check out all the sites from the movie)

Great four wheeling--Natalie's favorite

Great Boating/tubing/swimming

Great Movie nights

Great Raspberry Shakes

Bear Lake Lows:

Caroline splitting her toe open on first morning and unable to swim the entire time (Uncle Doug glued it back together with surgical super glue)

Family stomach flu bug circulating

Not seeing the families who could not attend.

Mosquitoes at the house

Flat Tire at beach

Sandy Babies at Beach

Discovering suntan lotion on my camera lens

All and all a wonderful and memorable time at Bear Lake. This video is a collection of photos--I will try to put it on again in a higher quality later.

Family Home Evening--The "bummer" Soccer Game

Jake enthusiastically listening to the game as he reads his book. :)
Josh and Joseph were on the blanket playing cards as they "watched"
Natalie all ready for the second half of game.
Natalie getting plowed into and fouled.  

She fell very hard on her back and tail bone.  She was in such terrible pain that I dropped her and John at the ER for X-rays and took the rest of the family home.  I returned to the ER and 2 1/2 hours later found out that she had no broken bones but a badly bruised tail bone.  When we returned home I was happy to see the kids had cleaned the house and made cards for Natalie.  

It is very painful for her to sit, so the doctor gave her a "donut" pillow to use.  She is not very thrilled to bring this "donut" to school for the next few week, but she covered it with a cute pillow case when she left this morning.  I told her it makes a great conversation piece. :)

Christmas Vacation Fun

The day after Christmas we pack up the car and started on our 7 day trip.  On the first day we went to Salt Lake to see the lights on Temple Square.  It was freezing, but we still enjoyed walking around in the beautiful setting.  We rode the traxs system from our hotel and accidentally jumped on the wrong one on the way back and had to walk 6 blocks through the slushy snow. :( Later that night John, Josh, Jake and I had a great time at the Jazz game. The next morning we headed through a snow storm for Island park, ID.

On your Mark, Get set, Go!!!!

Well begun is half done

Aristotle

My children dread doing their Saturday chores.  In their minds they seem like insurmountable and never ending tasks. I decided to time them and give a prize to each person who finished their jobs in one hour.  All the children claimed a prize. It was eye opening for them to see that their chores really did not take as long as they thought.   I have had the same mental block with cleaning my bathroom.  I timed myself today and was able finish in 20 minutes which is good considering it is fairly large. ....Where is my prize?

Recent Passings

I was sadden when I heard the news that Elder Wirthlin had passed away.  He is my father's first cousin, but more importantly he was my father's close friend.  I looked forward to and loved his talks and the messages he gave.  He was a great spiritual leader and man.  I loved his last conference talk, "Come what may and Love it".  I also came across a great message in an old Ensign he wrote where he tells a story about "Snowman".  I will share this story with my family for our advent activity tonight.  12 hours after hearing the news about Elder Wirthlin, my father recieved a call that his brother who had been ill passed away.  Eventhough Uncle Ralph always lived far away I loved hearing stories about him from my Dad and Aunt. I also loved it when he visited and cooked up a storm.  Dad, know that we are thinking of you and our hearts are reaching out to you at this time. 

  

 Elder Wirthlin said, "One of the great comforts of the gospel of Jesus Christ is our knowledge that this earthly existence is merely a twinkle in the eye of eternity.  Whether we are at the beginning of our mortal journey or at the end, this life is merely one step--one small step."  

More pumpkin shooting

Yesterday, John took the children up the canyon to shoot the remaining pumpkins I had out for decoration. They all shot some bulls eyes and had a fun time.

Becca's BYU Football BASH

Yesterday Rebecca hosted a fun football party to watch BYU play their rivals University of Utah.  BYU flags, a BYU doormat, and other BYU paraphernalia decorated her house.  Everyone wore their blue shirts and were in good spirits during the first half.  As BYU began to turned the ball over and over again we flocked to the kitchen to be comforted by Becca's good food.  Becca made homemade krispy kreme donuts which disappeared as soon as she cooked them. Doug called dad and mom (both U of U grads)who were at the game a few times to tell them that these were evil times with U of U beating BYU.