Christmas Caroling

I know it is after Christmas, but I want to document this fun event. This fall, my brothers bought a bus for the engine to put in one of the farm trucks. Before they tore it out, the went around and picked up the family and drove to town and got ice cream cones. I thought it was so cool and I was sad I had missed that hill-billy red-neck family adventure. Well, lucky for me and my family, they hadn't had time to tear the engine out. We used the bus to take the Schulthies Family and a few friends Christmas caroling on December 11, 2010 and deliver goodie plates. It was so much fun. I can honestly say, this was the highlight of Christmas this year. It was something that really got me in the mood for Christmas and it was so nice to sing carols for other with my humongous family. The families that came were, Vaughn and Barabara, Weston's family, Stoney's Family, us, Grandma Joan, Van and Susan, Teniele's family, Tammy's family, Brandon's family, and a few friends. Some of the families joined us after being sung to and got on the bus to finish with us. Nice that we could all travel in one vehicle. Merry Christmas!

(an attempt to try and photograph us all)

Merry Christmas

Happy Birthday Howie

Howie turned 6 today! We threw him a viking style How to Train Your Dragon Birthday Party and it was a lot of fun. I made hats for all the kids out of poster board and foam. Then we had Howie unwrap a present which was the movie. We kept the party pretty simple, watching the movie, having hot dogs and cake and presents.

All the little vikings!

However, my favorite part of his party was making the dragon cake and viking helmet cupcakes. The cake was really easier to make than it looks, really. I got the idea from Family Fun. The cupcakes were an idea I had seen on the internet, but didn't want the hassle of making gum paste horns, so I simplified and used cashews.Howie got some pretty neat presents including some How to Train Your Dragon gear, and some pretty cool nutcrackers (Howie love them and we started to collect them three years ago).

Howie was most excited about this:

He has been asking for a Nintendo DS for a year and a half now. Lots of his friends and cousins have them and he thinks they are pretty cool. Well, mom and dad think they are cool, but not very cool on the pocketbook. There was no way we could afford one so we recycled a very old toy of Tommy's, one that we haven't seen in a very long while, his Sega Game Gear. Tommy used his paper route money in middle school to buy this bad boy brand new back in the day (1990's). When Howie opened it, he exclaimed: "a DS!" I am sure that some kid somewhere will crush him and tell him it isn't a DS, but for now, our little guys is one happy camper.

Happy Birthday to our sweet boy, um....I mean, our dragon slaying viking. Can't believe you are already 6! We love you so much. Please stop growing up so fast.

Christmas Shopping with Grandpa Schulthies

Livy and Howie wanted to give gifts to each other. We had planned to go family shopping on Saturday. Then Tommy got called into work. I needed another warm body to help me accomplish the secretive shopping the kids needed. So after asking around, I was able to get my dad to come with me and help me. We drove to town, enjoyed lunch at Applebee's and then got to work at Target. I had livy and grandpa had howie. They were a handful, tired and napless. I really thought they were going to drive my dad nuts. However, dad said he enjoyed going with us. It was kind of special event since my dad doesn't do stuff like this. A nice memory for my kids.

SNOW

This post makes me positively giddy! It has been a while since I have lived in a place to experience so much snow. This post is for the benefit of my friends and family in St. George. Even growing up here, it seemed the older I got, the less snow we received. We had a major storm December 1st that dumped about 15 inches on the ground. Nyssa had its first snow day in years, school was canceled and Tommy's work also participated in the snow day. It was crazy fun. It somewhat melted and then last Sunday, 12-19-10 we got a LOT of snow in just a few hours (3-4 hours). The flakes were super huge. I actually remembered to take photos of the second storm. We love the snow and Livy can't stop eating it, she is in heaven and usually has snow in the her hands, munching away.

So, for my warmer friends......Merry Christmas:

Winter Wonderland Style.

Reindeer Cupcakes...won't you guide my sleigh tonight!

We had a really fun time making these Reindeer cupcakes from Disney's Family Fun magazine. We decided they should all be Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeers. We had a few substitutions as you can see from our photo and Family Fun's example. We couldn't find the Nilla Wafers Minis to save our life. So we used Ritz bite sized sandwich crackers and took out the filling, which still worked okay.

Merry Christmas!

Another new milestone....first loose tooth!

*******WARNING******

This post is somewhat graphic. If you have a weak constitution, do not proceed. We think it is kind of cool, hence, why we posted it.

Howie lost his first tooth on Sunday (12-19-10). It was loose for a week and he played with it lots. Then he got really nervous that it would hurt to come out and bleed, so he stopped playing with it and didn't want it to come out anymore. But, nature took its course and it came out. He didn't even know or tell us that a tooth had grown up behind his teeth. He needs tooth right next to it to come out too so that the permanent tooth behind them both (which is as tall as the rest) can have enough room. I foresee braces in this kid's future.

he's been working it so much, it is now taller than the other teeth

Nasty little tricks our contortionist son can do with his tooth.

FINALLY! It is out!

If you look closely, you can see the permanent tooth in the back is almost full grown. So sad, a parent's costly nightmare, Braces.

Howie with his cousin Jaynee. She is six months older than him, but they both lost their first tooth at the same time. Jaynee lost hers the previous Saturday.

Bountiful Baskets this week!

So after unpacking and the recent move, I have missed my bountiful baskets and picked up one today. The closest pickup to me is in Middleton, ID, but I am working on opening a site for us in Nyssa, OR. But, here was the spread: head of leaf lettuce, an eggplant, two bunches of green onions, two bulbs of garlic, two oro blanco grapefruits (a new variety for me!), 9 pears, 6 bananas, 6 fuji apples, a pkg of blackberries (for helping and volunteering I choose an additional pack of blackberries as my treat), 2 jumbo yams, a package of grape tomatoes, a pineapple, 4 green peppers, and two Kabocha squash. That kind of squash is new for me, but google says it substitutes well for sweet potatoes or yam recipes. Should be fun to try, but I'm just glad we got some fruits and veggies for the kiddos again. Love Bountiful Baskets.

Visit with Santa!

The kids were very excited to see Santa. How lucky for us, he made an appearance at our church party. Livy was going to ask him for a phone. Howie wanted a Disney Cars monster truck wrestling ring. Howie jumped right up there. He looks so big there on Santa's lap, growing up too fast. Livy got scared and wouldn't go to him so we went to the back of the line and gave her time to think about him, look at him, and see if she wanted to tell him about that phone she wanted. She finally felt like he was okay enough to sit on his lap. She was very cute with him and just talked and talked.

My sister Sheree and her three kids were able to sit with Santa also!

Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving Recap

Went to Katelynn's Birthday Party. It was too cold to be outside liked planned, so we changed venue last minute to McDonald's play place. It was perfect! I made her a My Little Pony Cake for her birthday, but I didn't get any pics. Christine, you will have to put some on your blog so Ican get copies of them. Thanks!

I didn't get pics of dinner, but started taking some afterwards. Funny, Howie spent most of the time playing his cousin's Nintendo DS.

Enjoying cake and pie for desert.

See? I told you.

Julie helped get this present for Grandpa Clyde. An apron that all the grandkids signed. It says, "Grandpa is great! He makes us chocolate cake."

Any for some reason, this little girl picked Steve to be her pal this weekend. She was always around him, sat on his lap for dinner, and could be found next to him. He was so cute with her that I had to take this pic of these buddies.

I guess she just wanted to hang out with/ON people, sorry Keith. She is a cuddle bug.

I don't know why, but I was able to get a pick of Chyrrel's kids, Steph, Tiff, Emil and Alex. They were all in one place at one time, so I took the pic.

Congrats to Emil and Kelsey, the newly engaged couple, getting married end of January.

Pleaseeeeeeeee

Found Olivia this morning begging for a drink from the fridge. Yes, I feed my child. This was just after breakfast, apparently she hadn't had enough and wanted more orange juice, but isn't big enough to get the fridge open. She was bent over so far it made me smile. She is still in her pj's and the hat was to keep her hair out of her face while she eats her cereal. Funny funny girl.