More Utah Fun!

Since all my family was in Utah for Christmas and my Mom’s wedding, our week was filled with fun events and activities. The kids played with cousins every day and even got to have a sleepover with their cousins Caylee and Emily. They had a great time and can’t wait to do it again.

They went sledding

Apparently Jason got spooked when his cousin ran him down and the hill was a little too steep for our little guy so Justin and Jason didn't get to do much sledding, but the girls had a blast.

Jason doin’ a little bum-sledding

Sunday morning we attended church with my nephew who recently turned twelve and was receiving the priesthood (link). Justin was asked to perform the ordination and we were grateful to be there for his special day. It was a neat experience.

My Mom made up a fun activity for Jason – well, it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. He enjoyed being whirled around in Grandma’s office chair until he and the chair toppled over.

During the week we put together two 1000 piece puzzles that my Grandparents had. The kids pitched in when we had just a few pieces left. Doing puzzles is something my family always did during Christmas break when we were kids.

One evening we got together with a few of my friends from high school. It was fun to see everyone's kids and catch-up on each others lives.

We haven't changed that much in 15 years have we?

A Wedding

Last Tuesday my Mom married Val Kesler

Aren't they a cute couple?

After the short ceremony we enjoyed visiting with friends and family over a delicious BBQ lunch. Many of my Mom's sisters were able to attend as well as my Grandma Ikhaml.

All of the grandkids were wearing new clothes for family pictures, but we weren't taking pictures until after lunch... it was a little worrisome (BBQ w/light colored clothing), but I think we made it without any clothing disasters.

This was Jason's first time wearing a white shirt and tie. Even though his tie was way too long I think he looked adorable.

Congratulations Mom! We are so happy for you!

Ogden City Lights

Last Monday we upheld our family tradition of attending the Ogden City lights with some of our crazy family.

There are tons of little houses throughout the park decorated and sponsored by various organizations in the community.

Jason enjoyed riding on Uncle Lee's shoulders the whole evening.

Even though we were all freezing afterward we kept with tradition and went to Farr's Ice Cream afterward for dessert.

Yummy!

Christmas Morning

Our Christmas morning was very relaxing. Justin and I got up around 8 am to find that Abigail had been up since 6 am reading her new books from Grandma while she waited for everyone else to wake up. Carly was up around 7:30. While we waited for Jason to wake up, I made a breakfast omelet I've wanted to make for several months. It was delicious and Justin liked it so much that he says it's our new Christmas breakfast tradition. My Mom thought it was pure torture to make the girls wait for Jason to wake up, but they were incredibly patient. At 9:30 we finally decided to wake Jason up so we could start opening presents.

Definitely one of my favorite parts of Christmas is watching the kids discover all the little things Santa put in their stockings. I love to see how excited they get over new socks and underwear, lifesavers, and even the orange at the bottom… all the same things I remember Santa bringing me when I was a kid.

Abigail was baffled at the flat package under the tree. When she opened it she was thrilled to discover a music book and a certificate to finally begin piano lessons. She’s been waiting a long time for this… now we need to find ourselves a piano.

Christmas Eve with the Hipwell's

It seemed like we had just settled into seats on the airplane when the pilot announced that we were flying over Boise. How sweet it is to eat breakfast at home and arrive at Grandma's house nearly 1000 miles away by lunch.

We had a few hours before the family came over for our Christmas Eve celebrations so the girls and I made cookies for Santa.

My family has a Christmas Eve tradition of gathering together for my Mom's homemade clam chowder (she even makes a clam-free batch for me). Then we reenact the story of Christ's birth from Luke. Abigail wanted to be a wise man with her cousins Brynn and Emily. Carly opted to sit out and watch the production from the comforts of Grandma’s lap.

After the play my Mom had a white elephant gift exchange with the grandchildren. Everyone was excited for the fun to begin.

This was the first gift exchange my girls have participated in so it took a few turns for them to catch on to the whole “stealing gifts” idea. Abigail scored $10 along with her goodies and in the end Carly was lucky to walk away with a Zu Zu pet. There was also a gift exchange for the adults. I scored one of the sentimental gifts - a picture album from my Grandma Ikhaml with all the pictures our family has sent her throughout the years.

Then it was on to gifts from Grandma. All the kids got books and the girls got new Webkinz which they really, really wanted. Jason received a set of cars from the movie Cars – which he of course played with the rest of the evening.

Christmas with the Fletchers

Since we were spending Christmas in Utah this year, we celebrated Christmas a few days early with the Fletcher Family.

Grandma and Grandpa sure do spoil their grandkids

Grandma even fills stockings for the kids

Carly was thrilled when she opened the gigantic craft kit from Grandma & Grandpa

Each of the grandkids had one final gift they opened at the same time… pillow pets. Check out the damage after an evening of opening gifts.

"Nutcracker"... again

Starring: Carly as a sugar-plum fairy

Saturday afternoon we attended Carly’s first dance recital. She started dance last month with two of her friends and has really enjoyed it. The girls looked adorable all dressed up in their ballet costumes before the performance and nobody seemed at all nervous.


It was a fun show to watch, especially some of the youngest little dancers. Carly did a fantastic job and was a beautiful ballerina.


Below is Carly’s ballet debut as a sugar-plum fairy in the Nutcracker. She’s the last (fourth) dancer in a pink tutu to enter the stage from the left)

Resemblance

Have you ever been told you looked like someone famous? Until recently I hadn’t, then a few weeks ago someone told me that I looked just like the actress from the movie Casper – she prefaced that by saying I “must get that all the time.” When I didn’t know who she was talking about she explained that Casper was a popular movie when she was a kid (I don’t think she realized there’s nearly a decade age difference between us). Anyhow, she told me the actress was “beautiful” so I took it as a compliment.

While the following my seem completely unrelated, stay with me…

Over the several months I’ve been playing around with the idea of cutting bangs. Due to a larger than average forehead, I’ve had bangs most of my life. In fact I’ve had bangs that have warranted the nickname “poodle bangs”. While that nickname sounds cruel now, I don’t think it was meant badly… big bangs were the style.

Me and a side shot of my “poodle bangs” - 7th Grade Recognition Night

I’ve been bangless now for about five years and I love having less hair to style and maintain. However, as my face (along with the rest of my body) is getting rounder and rounder these days I thought cutting bangs just might be the trick I needed.

So back to Casper… several days after I learned I had a famous face I remembered that conversation and out of curiosity googled “actress Casper movie” – and wouldn’t you know it… one of the very first results read, “What is the actresses name from Casper with the big forehead?” Seriously! I took it as a sign and made the big move yesterday.

"Nutcracker"

Starring: Abigail as a sugar-plum fairy

Tonight we attended Abigail’s school performance of the Nutcracker. Below is part of her performance as a sugar-plum fairy (she starts on the left in a purple tutu). Abigail also had a short narrator part.

After the sugar-plum dance Abigail had a quick wardrobe change into this cute Chinese costume.

“The Colors of Christmas”

Starring: Carly (and a few other fellow kindergarteners)

Tonight was Carly’s first-ever school program. The kindergartners spent just under a half hour singing various Christmas songs – this is one of my favorites. I love her stern little face.

What’s Happening

We’re still plenty busy here with lots of fun performances and programs to look forward to in the next few days. I woke up yesterday morning just looking for an excuse to stay home and get some things done so when Jason woke up too late for me to make my yoga class (and with a running nose and cough) – that was all I needed. To me it seemed like just a normal cold, but Jason felt that the only way he would pull through was to watch several Curious George episodes throughout the day. He’s still not feeling well today, but instead of wanting to watch TV he just wants to sleep and rest. The poor guy slept on the couch all morning, has only eaten a few crackers, and is now back asleep for his nap. While I was certainly productive yesterday, today has been more about taking care of my little guy. The only perk of having a sick baby is more cuddle time for Mom.

Here’s a few things we’ve been up to lately:

Last Friday Justin took the day off so he could help Carly make a gingerbread house in her kindergarten class. Carly was very excited to have her Dad spend part of the afternoon with her and really enjoyed all the extra candy she got to bring home.

When Justin got home, we decided to surprise the girls by moving their bed into the playroom so we can start getting Jason’s big boy room ready. They went to their cousin’s house right after school so they didn’t discover the switch until they were getting ready for bed… from all their excitement you’d think it was already Christmas morning.

Saturday Justin and the kids went swimming at the YMCA while I ran errands. Over the past month or so they’ve gone swimming at least four times and they all love it.

Our little water boy loves to jump into the pool and Justin just stands there while Jason surfaces and makes his way over to Justin. It’s a little unnerving for me to watch, but Jason does an amazing job.

Snowflake Lane

(click on image if you can't read text)

* Some of you may know I’m sort of a paper freak so only using the 6 or so papers the class provided was much to limiting so I found some cuter paper and revamped my earlier pages.

December

I am loving this month! Our calendar is full of fun festive activities and the class I’m doing is helping me stay focused on what is really important to me and my family. I’m taking more pictures and enjoying the opportunity to reflect on past memories and the memories we are making now.

Friday night Justin and I went to Seattle with two other couples to see the Christmas Carol. The play was wonderfully done and we had a great dinner at Benihana’s before the show. I asked Justin to take a picture of our dining experience with our old camera and I swear the guy can not for the life of him get a picture in focus, but it’s all I have.

Santa Clause

Yesterday morning we visited Santa at our neighborhood community center.

Abigail asked for a Nintendo DS (the same thing she requested last year and our family received from Grandma and Grandpa Fletcher, but now she wants another DS so she can play against Carly).

Carly also asked for the same thing as last year… that’s right, Icebreakers - $1.97, I think Santa may be able to handle this one

Jason’s reaction to Santa was much improved this year

He didn’t ask for a single thing, but was happy to accept a candy cane from Santa

Trip to the zoo

Although it’s been really cold this week, we’ve had very little rain and we’ve had sunshine everyday so we decided to take advantage of the nice weather and go to the zoo yesterday after we ran a few errands. We only had about an hour, but we were able to see a lot. Jason is at the perfect age for the zoo. Just watching his reaction to seeing real live animals was awesome.

Friday at speech therapy, Jason impressed his therapist by saying “rilla” for gorilla so that was the first thing he wanted see at the zoo.

As soon as we were done with the gorillas, Jason was ready to move onto the elephants. This is his sign for “elephant”.


We saw several other animals on our way to the elephants including a tiger that kept growling – I know you’re thinking “so what, big deal, a growling tiger”, but seriously it was cool. The hippos were our last stop.

Not very often that you see a hippo up and walking around – do you see his two buddies in the water?

Last night Justin and I had yet another date – this time a Christmas party with the Stake Presidency and the Stake Relief Society Presidency (one of Justin’s high council assignments is over the RS thus explaining our being asked to rub shoulders with the big wigs.) It was actually a fun group of people and we had a great time.

The First

Recently I came across a free online photoshop/scrapbooking class centered around the holidays. When the class started, I quickly realized it wasn’t just a one day thing. It would actually be an everyday thing. The first assignment was to come up with a way to display prompt pages for each day of December.

Here’s mine:

Project 1 complete!

On each day this month there is a prompt for writing, photographing, doing, and making and then another prompt about a specific memory. Sounds overwhelming, right? Just wait, there’s more. After you get all that writing, doing, making, and photographing done you’re supposed to put those components together on a digital scrapbook page. I’ve decided to take on the challenge. I may not do every prompt every day, but this month is jam packed with events and moments I want to remember and this will help me accomplish that.

While I don’t plan on posting all the journaling, etc… for every day, I thought I’d share my very first-ever digital scrapbooking page. Being the complete novice that I am, I used the suggested layout and only the paper and accents provided – simple and easy. Only 30 more to go!