Monday, January 11, 2010

Ready for Church

Among some of the many Christmas gifts, they each received new church clothes. Ashlie and Tyler decided to have a mini photo shoot before church :)

Christmas

We had a great Christmas this year! It was really fun to get to spend time with the girls and really talk about the true meaning of Christmas! Even Tyler was able to begin to understand a little that it was about the spirit and not the presents!

Craig was able to be home with us this year on Christmas morning, last year he had to work :( Here are a few pictures of the kids on Christmas morning.

Tyler got a train named Diesel that he has really been wanting. Then him and Dad got a remote control helicopter to share :) They've had lots of fun with that and amazingly enough it is still in working condition!

Ashlie got a puppy with her own carrying purse that barks, whines, and eats :)

Sari got an Ipod shuffle - now her cell phone battery lasts longer :)

Christmas Eve


At our house we have the tradition of the kids being able to open one present on Christmas Eve. Mom or Dad get to pick the present and for some reason it always ends up being pajamas :)

Here are a few pictures of the kids opening their Christmas Eve gifts :)


Dog Bread House aka Gingerbread House


Tyler resorted to referring to our gingerbread house as a dogbread house once again this year. Our dog's name is Ginger is what we finally figured out last year!

Once again Sari was too big to participate in the making of the gingerbread house, but Tyler and Ashlie had a blast!

We were smart and waited until Grandma was here one day to help us :)

The gingerbread house remained standing for 2 whole days despite the many little fingers constantly finding something to nibble on. And then Tyler was true to character and helped in the final cave in of the roof. That didn't stop the eating though :)

Christmas Dance Recital

These are just a couple of pictures from Ashlie's dance recital. She does tap, jazz, and ballet. For ballet they did a portion of the Nutcracker. Ashlie was thrilled because she got to be a mouse :)

Christmas Piano Recital

Both girls are still taking piano lessons and are doing great. Their instructor just raves about their progress and talent! Both are very good but Ashlie just seems to have this enthusiasm about it. If she learns all of her songs her teacher gives her before her next lesson she will turn the page and start teaching herself the next song. And she loves to sit down at the piano and just blast through all of the songs she has previously learned.

This year as one of Ashlie's practice songs she was given The Twelve Days of Christmas. She passed it off the week before the recital and Craig and I could not be more pleased! That is one of those songs and that just keeps on going! And she is supposed to play it 5x every day. When I realized she had it memorized I told her she only needed to practice it 2x each day until she passed it off. That afternoon after her lesson she came bouncing out to the car so excited!!! Her teacher asked her to play that very song as the prelude music at the recital which was still a week away! UGH!!! (After speaking with her teacher on a different matter she told me how excited Ashlie was that she could play the whole thing memorized perfectly and so she had to fit it in the recital somewhere!)

So we were able to enjoy the "Twelve Days of Christmas" for a few more days! She played it perfectly at the recital along with her other 3 pieces that were specifically chosen for the recital.

Sari also did a fabulous job. We found a new book with some extremely hard Christmas pieces and Sari did a great job. Just to brag a little, her teacher told me that Sari is probably the best student she currently has, including her own daughters :)

Making Cookies with Auntie








I decided to be brave so I invited my sister and her 3 little kids to come over and make sugar cookies :) I scrubbed the table all nice and clean and threw out the flour and they had a blast. Sari wasn't very interested until the very end, then she had a good time too! My nephew Mikey (just turned 3) lasted the longest. In fact my sister told me just the other day he was asking about cookies again!

Brooklyn waiting on her dough


Tyler smashing his lol

Ezra playing in the flour with Sari in the background

Mikey getting ready to make a tree

Ashlie


Sari finally getting into the spirit :)

Our Trip to Delta

The middle of December we had the opportunity to go to Delta, UT to visit with one of Craig's sisters and her family. Her second son, Josh, was having his mission farewell that weekend! We had soooo much fun! We had great weather to travel in and once we got there it started snowing! The kids (especially Tyler) were in heaven! I have to admit, it was quite fun for me too!

We got there Friday evening and got to go to Gail's and spend a little time visiting before we headed to the motel. It started snowing while we were on our way to the motel. The next morning we woke up to about 3 inches of snow on our car! How fun is that???

We spent the day hanging out with the family and then they took us sledding! Bummer deal I had to just sit and watch because of my foot, but the kids and Craig had a great time! They also make a snowman in the front yard!

Tyler had a blast playing at Aunt Gails. She has 5 boys, and they LoVe Tyler :) There were trains, balls, Nerf Guns (which everyone had a blast playing with), helicopters and anything else you could possibly imagine in a house full of boys!

We had sooo much fun and were quite sad to be leaving! However, Josh is serving his mission next door to where we live :) How fun is that??? If he goes to the most northern part of his misison he will be about 20 minutes away from where we live! So we're hoping we might be able to get in a visit once or twice.
This is Tyler sitting with Jeremy and Jordan (you can see Jace off to the far left)

Every night when we would get back to the motel it would only take Tyler seconds before he was crashed out snoring! They wore him out :)

Candy Cane Lane Parade

It is a long standing tradition in our family that on the Monday night after Thanksgiving we go to the Christmas Parade on Main St. My parents took me every year as a child and we've carried on the tradition with our kids! Tyler enjoyed the parade tremendously. The girls just like going because we eat out at a restaurant somewhere on Main St. and we ALWAYS have hot chocolate :)

Tyler Dresses Himself

Tyler is very much the baby of the family still. At this age both of my girls would completely dress themselves. And Tyler has the knowledge of how to do it, and on days that he is stubborn and needs to show his independence he can do most of it on his own. Uusally, though, we still help him get dressed. One Sunday Tyler came home from church and decided he wanted to get changed by himself. This is what he came downstairs wearing. Just a note to remember, it was December and was quite chilly outside and the rest of us were wearing sweats and long sleeves :)


The front is funny enough - he found this shirt at a yard sale a few months ago with my mom. And the shorts are from the summer before and are much too short for those skinny legs lol!


But the back is where the real story comes out. He had the shorts on inside out and backwards :) I attempted to help him get them on right but he refused. He liked them just the way they were. And so they stayed that way for the rest of the day :)

Veteran's Day Parade



On Veteran's Day Sari was invited by her Riding Instructor to ride in the Veteran's Day Parade. Sari was very excited and a little nervous. This was her very first experience riding in public like that and especially to be in a parade. She did a great job and had a lot of fun. She also came home very tired because the parade was about 3 hours long :)

Wedding Rings & Garbage Disposals

I am a little slow in my blogging these days but I am going to attempt to get us all caught up! Of course my cake blog is completely current :)

The beginning of October I was working on a cake that required fondant (a rolled dough that is frosting). When I am working with my fondant I always take my rings off otherwise I get fondant in all of the little grooves and it is a pain to try to clean. I had taken my ring off and laid it up on the counter. After I was done with the cake I was cleaning up the kitchen. I was standing in front of the sink with the garbage disposal on remembered I hadn't put my ring back on yet. I grabbed my ring and went to put it on my finger, but my hands were all wet and it just slipped right out of my hand and went straight down the disposal! AHHHHH!!!! I screamed and cried, then cried and screamed! I had the disposal turned off within just a couple of seconds. I stuck my hand down the drain and felt around and much to my delight I felt my ring. I pulled it up full of hope and then saw my ring. Despair set in! My ring was a mess! I have 3 bands all sautered together and they were each all bent in different directions. I was missing two of the smaller diamonds and the whole band was all cut up and scratched! Craig was working and I didn't have the heart to call him and tell him. So I sat there just looking at my ring all afternoon, crying!

Luckily when we purchased each of the pieces of my ring we also purchased the lifetime warranty. I read it thoroughly and the only catch I could find was "Under normal wear & tear". I don't think garbage disposals are included under normal wear and tear. Still I had to hope so off I went to the jewelry store. These are pictures of my ring the day I handed it over. Kind of blurry but I think you can still tell how badly the ring was damaged. Everyone working at the jewelry store had to come look at it because they had never seen a ring so badly damaged.



After a couple of false alarms and several phone calls, I was able to pick my ring up almost 3 months later. I was simply amazed! It looked like a brand new ring! I was so sad though because when I went to get it, I put it on and it fell right off my finger, it was too big! So I had to send it back in for another 2 weeks to have it resized!

Alas, I have my ring back and it has hardly left my finger. I was decided though that when I am taking it off I will put it upstairs on my ring holder and not try to put it on over sinks or other areas that could cause damaged! Here are the after pictures :)