New Years Eve 2015

This morning, we cleaned the house, then we rented skis, then we went up the canyon to our friends' cabin. The kids watched movies, played games like Catch Phrase and Telestrations (such a fun game!) So many good friends for the kids and for the parents. 

Telestrations is such a fun game, we need to get that one. It's the telephone game with a pictionary element added to it, it can get pretty hilarious. Owen is cute. Taking a nap in our room

And the men and boys played lots o foosball. The joy of victory, the pain of defeat.

The humiliation of being foosed.

Good times, Corey is fun to watch, he's pretty intense (I think he hams is up a bit for effect, or to distract his opponents.

Girls playing a bit on the other table. 

And after lots of games and food and visiting, it was 11:30, time to get ready to ring in the new year!

All the cheering and tooting of horns woke up Owen. So we put a party hat on him. Do you think he'd ready to take on the new year? Yep, with his binky and bib, he's ready for anything! haha, I loved him, he is so cute.

He's the cutest!!

I officially joined the polar bear club this year by taking half a lap around the cabin barefoot in the snow. It was COLD, negative 7 according to the temperatures on some of the kids' smart phones. Last year it was 2 degrees, and in the picture they were all sitting rather calmly on the snow. This time we were all dying. Yeah, I think it was in the negative. Took a while for our feet to feel normal again. 

Corey said he caught a cold just watching us. We had a great time with our friends and enjoy this New Year's Eve tradition up here with all of them. Good bye 2015!!! Looking forward to 2016!

Costa Rica Reunion 2

We had a few more Costa Rica visitors in honor of our 5 year reunion! Kristy surprised me on facebook with a message that they would be in Utah after Christmas and wanted to come say hi. The kids were really looking forward to it, and today was the day and we got to see our long lost friends the Stouts! The kids all played games at the table being silly playing "Hat game, hat game, I can do the hat game, can you?" We had black beans and pico de gallo in honor of Costa Rica and our friend Shirley who taught me how to make it, plus pretzels, yogurt, apples and clementines. 

Some of our memories from Costa Rica with the Stouts:
Pool play day
papaya smoothie
beach day 1
beach day 2
Beach day 3 morning
Beach day 3 afternoon
As I was looking through old posts, I was trying to see if this was recorded, but it is only briefly mentioned here - so now it will be... I will always remember Kristy cause she was in her first trimester in Costa Rica as was I, and she had been spotting a lot, and I started to bleed more than a pregnant woman should as well. I was 10 weeks pregnant (this was after Lily, before Sophi) when I miscarried while we were at the beach with them. We were out on the shore when I started bleeding heavily all over, so I went into their house and knew I wasn't pregnant anymore. So yeah, I'll always remember and love Kristy for being my emotional support during that miscarriage. And the boys will always remember playing at the beach with Kailey and Tia. Fun in the sun in Costa Rica, now 5 year later it was fun in the snow.

They went out to play after dinner - poor Owen (their boy, not my baby) was out there in shorts! We finally found some pants to try and protect his poor legs that are used to nice California weather.

They went sledding over at the tree farm for a bit too.

It's bitter cold temperatures outside right now though.

They were going to visit us and then go down to see the lights at temple square. We asked if we could join them cause we hadn't been down to see the lights yet. But then we took a vote from all the kids who seemed to be having a lot of fun outside, and they voted to stay, so then they just stayed - kids kept playing and freezing outside, we stayed inside and visited. It was nice to see them, Corey and Zach had a nice business visit. Good times, we are going to try and go pay them a visit this summer! Yay!

Countdown

I think I'm going to take down the tree today. I've taken down some of the Christmas decor and just kept up "winter" things. One of the Christmas things that I shall be storing soon is this countdown board that we had kept by the kids' rooms this month. Christmas 2015 is over, is it too late to start thinking of next year?

Yeah! Only 361 days! Walmart's "53 days" countdown that I shook my head at ain't got nothin' on these kids!

Creative Artists

Today, as we cleaned up the girls' room, I picked up a piece of lined paper with a drawing on it. i had to look twice. Melodie drew it, it's an octopus! Isn't she creative?

She also made these little trees for some of her siblings for Christmas. 

And let us not forget the binkin mustache she made out of sculpty clay for Owen!!

(He is the CUTEST thing EVER!!)

Melodie is such a crafty lady, she's my kind of girl. Runs in the family apparently. Ethan made the "Y" picture here for Wesley and also gave him the rainbow one he made at school ~

...which inspired Wesley, and then he made the dragon today.

Fun stuff, I love seeing things they make. Things like this I love and I keep. I throw away most of the coloring books once those are all drawn in and discarded. I keep some of the little drawings the toddlers do that show their progress cause those things are just precious to see. Natalie is drawing a lot lately - She's a studious art student! She likes to go deep with just one drawing instrument. Here is her Lalaloopsy pencil drawing. Abi probably did the other side of the page. Natalie was getting in the way of Lily and Sophi's doll game, so I knew she's take the bait and leave them alone when I said "Natalie! Want to go color?" Yay! Color!

Even opening Christmas presents can't compete with coloring. On Christmas over at Corey's parent's house, Natalie was focused like a laser in the art zone while all the other grandkids opened gifts from Grandma in the front room. Natalie, do you want to go open a present? Nope, not interested at all.

I do keep the elementary school journals, those are great. But most of the school papers and homework assignments that they do at school, unless they reflect something about my kids' individual personalities or lives, are thrown in the trash as soon as they come home in the folder. Can you imagine how much of a school papers collection we'd have if I didn't toss them? (yikes!)

Snow Day

The kids spent most of the day assembling legos and playing with new toys. I put together a bookshelf for the girls room. We spent most of the day inside, I was glad when they decided to take a break and went outside to play in the snow.

Beautiful cold clear sky, loved the view of the mountains!

The lot next to our home - looks like Narnia. Hyrum and Wes were working hard digging a cave.

Hyrum is on the right there, Wesley is in the cave. They decided to try to hide it by closing the cave entrance. You know, to protect it from notice so it won't get destroyed by any careless or cruel passer-bys.

They found a perfect door! It was funny seeing them try to carry this big block of hardened snow and ice.

Mel spent her time attempting to make a sledding hill from our porch to the sidewalk.

 Say cheese

A cold and beautiful evening watching the winter sun set.

Christmas Day

I turned over a new leaf. No more piles of candy in the Christmas stockings. This year - juice! Naked for the children and Odwalla for Corey.

Will update with words later.