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Wednesday, December 31, 2008

By golly, she can do it...

Now, some of you may recall last spring Cynjyn was taught how to ride her bike. She hasn't touched it since that day. (too many bruises I guess.) Well, I ran to Sam's this morning, and when I came back, look what she was doing!!

It took her awhile, but now she LOVES her bike! Good job girly girl!


Crime scene

Last night, Lawson and Sean Borla spent the night. When it got dark, Taz, Lawson and Sean went outside and created a "crime scene". They then called me outside and I had to solve the crime. The above picture was of the murderer. I deduced that he commited the murder with a hammer (good of me huh!).

One of the victims was a skateboarder (again, very observant of me huh!).
The other victim was a bike rider...now who was who??




Sean...the murderer!



Lawson...the skaterboy!


And Taz...the biker dude! Mystery solved!





It all started with a cow...





A couple of years ago, my mom and dad gave each of their children a cow and a calf for Christmas. It was an investment as my dad would farm the cows each year and sell the calves in the fall and we would get an annual check from our cow sale...the gift that keeps on giving! I had suggested to my mom that she start giving her grandkids something valuable for Christmas as opposed to the latest toy that would just get outgrown. So she actually took my advice and started giving the grandsons coins towards a coin collection. My dad is a coin collector and my grandmother was too. Mom was afraid the boys wouldn't appreciate the value of this gift. So we had a long talk with after they got their first collection about how valuable it would be in the future and they have appreciated them ever since. The first year, mom got the granddaughters collectable dolls. This year they got collectable fairies but my dad got into the "joy" of purchasing these collectables and decided to get all the grandkids a coin set. Cynjyn was very excited to finally be included in the coin collecting. A few days after Christmas with nothing better to do, they all three got out their collection and carefully put it together oohhin and awwing over the various coins. It was a fun experience for them and they all really enjoyed it. So a big thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for the collections!

Friday, December 26, 2008

Christmas day

So, I guess I'll start with the few Christmas Eve pix I took. Here's the said goodie plate with cookies and milk for Santa and 9 carrots for the reindeer. Notice Cynjyn lovely note to Santa, why can't any of my kids spell??
They place their stockings on the couch so Santa can fill them.


Taz informs me that he woke up at 4:30 am, but thankfully waited until 5:59 to pelt Cynjyn with pillows because she wouldn't wake up. They came none too quietly downstairs, so I jumped out of bed and by the time I got out there, they had already dumped their stockings and opened the presents in them from Santa! We made them wait until 7:00 to go upstairs and drag Talon and Tanner out of bed. Look how happy Taz is and how sleepy Tanner looks!

Talon came right down, but wanted us to get on with the show so he could go back to bed.




Cynjyn discovered the goodie plate with nothing but crumbs!!




The presents are opened, so now comes the time when everyone enjoys their stuff little by little amongst the chaos and piles of opened presents. Tanner and Taz are playing Star Wars Force Unleashed that Taz got from Santa.





Cynjyn is doctoring her little pet shop pets, and then moves on to creating different concotions with her Spa Factory she got from Santa.






Taz is creating Floam critters he got from Cynjyn in the family name draw exchange.



On Christmas Eve, Talon informed me that Tiffany's brother and his wife were in town and the they wanted to meet us so they were coming for Christmas dinner and could we have it around 4:00? Yes, on Christmas Eve he told me this. Luckily, I had planned the whole Turkey, MP, stuffing type dinner, but I hadn't made any desserts because we had plenty of goodies from friends and neighbors. So I decide to whip up a banana cream pie and a peanut butter ice cream pie on Christmas morning so I'd have something a little more formal to serve. It turned out fine with only one small glitch. We forgot to take our traditional "slush punch" out to thaw three hours before dinner. I was setting the table and getting the nice goblets out about 20 min. before dinner and suddenly remembered the punch. So we ran to the freezer and thawed it in the microwave and had it ready to serve by dinner. After dinner, everyone played Guitar Hero World Tour and then Tiffany wanted to play Outburst Remix. The teams were a little unfair with me, Garry and Tanner against Tiffany, Talon Casey and Jenni. We pulvarized them so we finished that and played Taboo with the boys against the girls and that was much closer. They left after that to go meet up with her cousin and Garry, Tanner, Taz and I played Tanner's game he got from Santa, Carcossone. Then the 5 of us watched Horton Hears a Who and then we all went to bed. It was a very relaxing, enjoyable day with lots of eating, visiting and playing games. Now, for that clean up I mentioned...still haven't touched anything!



















Playing Catchup

Talon finally got his birthday cake. Luckily it was an ice cream cake from DQ, so it lasted until Thursday!

My counselors and I made Christmas gifts for our primary teachers. We had quite the assembly line going and started at 9:00am and finished by 1:00pm!!

Toni had a similar version on a clear window block with vinyl "believe", but to keep the cost down, we did wood and Andrea cut out the "believe" with her cricut and we modge podged the letters on. We were all really pleased with how they turned out.


Cynjyn wanted to dress up for church the Sunday before Christmas, so she put on her baptism dress and did her hair and wore a pair of my sprakly earrings. She was quite pleased with how she looked.


No pictures, but fun memories

We had a low-key, but fun Christmas Eve. Garry had to work, but got off early and was home a little before 4. The kids and I were watching "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". Our suburban had been in the shop for two days because it didn't pass our annual smog test, so we ran to pick that up before they closed. Talon and Tiffany were delivering last minute gifts. Talon got back at 5;30 and we started our festivities. We had our usual snack type foods for dinner: Potstickers, little smokies, chips and dip, cheese ball and crackers, soda, etc. Then we played some games. I had bought a bunch of little items, about 14 (things like candy, magic tricks, silly putty, stress balls etc.) and laid them all out on the table. We each had a grocery bag and a die. We took turns rolling our die and when we got a 6 we got to take something from the table and put it in the bag. As soon as everything was gone, we continued rolling the dice for 5 min. and everytime we got a six, we could steal something from someone if we could remember who had it and what it was. I had bought a bunch of things at the $1.00 store, several magic tricks, so that kept everyone busy for awhile trying them out after the game was over. Then we had a family relay. We always like doing them for FHE activities, so we made one up to do on Christmas Eve. Talon, Taz and I against Tanner, Garry and Cynjyn. This is what we had to do. We had to line up and pass the lifesaver to our teammate with a toothpick in our mouth, then back to up the line. Then the first two people in line (Talon and Taz for us, Garry and Cynjyn for them) had to "wheelbarrow" the littlest ones to the stairs. Then they ran up the stairs to Taz and Cynj's room and had to print their full name on a piece of paper, grab a stress ball and bring it down to the next in line who in turn had to run up and sign the paper with the stress ball and bring it to the last in line. Well, Garry and Talon were the last leg and it was hilarious how they were keeping each other there until Tanner and I returned to even out that last leg. They were pulling, pushing and shoving all the way up the stairs and down. It was a fight to the finish and I'm happy to report no one was seriously hurt while playing this game. I don't even remember who won as we were all collapsed on the couch laughing hysterically by the end of the relay. After that, we played the chocolate bar, dice, gloves, hat and scarf game and then 5 of us went in the jacuzzi while Talon wrapped Tiffany's presents. (Tiffany's cousin was in town, so she was out with her.) After we got out of the jacuzzi, we read "I do Believe in Santa" and then Taz, Tanner and Cynjyn got Santa's goodie plate together and by then it was 10:00pm and everyone scurried off to bed! It was a great night for us all. Well, my camera dock somehow got unplugged, so later I'll post some pictures of Christmas day. Now, I'm off to attempt to clean up the aftermath, or maybe I'll just curl up with a good book...um, that seems to be calling me!! Enjoy your day everyone!

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Saturday, December 20, 2008

School is coming to a close!

The end of the week was a busy one for the kids. Tanner had his band concert Tuesday night.
Cynjyn's class did a little performance of the Littlest Christmas Tree. She was the main character, the littlest tree and so that was fun to go to a watch. I'll spare you the 8 + minute video of the performance, only a mom and dad who love their daughter would watch that.

Here is the littlest Christmas Tree.


A Night In Bethlehem

The same day as our train ride was the ward Christmas Party. We had to dress biblically and go around to the town shops to get our food. We had chicken pitas and an assortment of fruits and vegetables and cookies. We had to pay taxes (a non perishable food item) to get into town and then we were given a money bag to purchase our needs for the night. We ate on blankets on the floor and they had a big well in the middle where we could get bottled water. We ate to the sounds of crickets and farm animals and when everyone was about done eating, the program started. Mary and Joseph wandered through town looking for a place to stay, but of course, all the inn's were full. They ended up on stage reinacting the Christmas Story. I was the piano player and Taz was a shepherd.


Cynjyn brought her friend from down the street Alexa and Becca ended up in one of our "costumes" and came to the party with her family, but came home with us.




Don't we look authentic?


The three shepherds. Talon and Tiffany even came and we had gotten out our dress up garb for them, but then they showed up in street clothes, so we refused to take their picture because they hadn't gotten into the spirit of it all!!



All Aboard

We got tickets for the Boulder City Santa Train for December 13. Tanner opted to sleep in lua of seeing Santa, so it was just the four of us. It was a super windy day that day. My friend Andrea had prebought the tickets for us, so we just showed up around 9:30 and stood in a huge line. We came to find out that the line was to buy tickets for the 12:00 train. So we finally got in the right line and waited to board.



Cynjyn with the ticket.



Waiting patiently to board.






Waiting patiently for the train to take off and Santa to come. We were in the very back car of the train and so we had the icky seating, but Santa and Mrs. Claus started in the back car and so Cynjyn and Taz were one of the first to meet them.

What a jolly picture! After meeting Santa, we got to just sit back and enjoy the view.

Yes, this is the lovely view. Isn't Vegas so pretty!:(Taz know that one of Tanner's top 10 fears in life is going over bridges, so he took a view of the road beneath us as we went over the bridge.
When we returned to the depot, we did a little picture snapping in Santa's sleigh and they had a mailbox that took the kids letters directly to the North Pole. Luckily we knew this so Taz and Cynjyn had their letters written and ready to go.


It was a fun morning.









Back to life


Now that things have calmed down after our snow adventure, here are some other things I've been meaning to blog. Most of you know I teach preschool two days a week. I have 12 kids and I really enjoy it. But the best part of the year so far was the "pink eye" I got from someone??

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Videos



Brace Yourself

So, you've heard by now that LV got snow! On my way to preschool at 9:45, there were little, sporadic flurries. At 12 when preschool was over it started snowing harder. It was a slushy rainy snow. When I came home at about 1:30 from Toni's this is how it looked. Talon and Cynjyn were loving it at this point.







Taz had gone to Lawson's after preschool. Talon told me I HAD to pick Tanner up from school early because this was a once in a lifetime event for Vegas and Tanner shouldn't be sitting in class. So Cynj and I went to get Tanner and then we took Taz some snow gear. I got a picture of him and Tanner in front of Borla's and then Taz stayed there the rest of the day. Luckily, my good friend Linda assures me she took plenty of pictures of Taz!!





Cynjyn and Talon were having snowball fights and making monster snowballs off the snow on the cars. My back has the bruises to confirm this!


Talon made a little snowman on his car.





Tanner had an arsenal of snowballs he made to "welcome" dad home!







This is our yard! Early in the day too, it got much more snow.






Garry took this picture about 4:30 pm.









This one too.









Cynjyn actually had activity days even though Talon and Tanner's volleyball was cancelled because the rec centers closed, so I took her to the Robinson's house for caroling and picked up Taz on my way back. He decided to make a snowman. It turned out adorable. This was about 7:00 pm.










I picked up Cynjyn at 8:00pm and this is our tree in the front yard with a big broken branch.









This is the road in front of our house at 8:00pm when I stopped taking pictures for the night. School is closed today. The kids are so excited. The snow is melting fast now though and will likely be gone by the end of the day. We found out at 10 last night that schools were closed today and Talon immediatly said, "Does that mean work is cancelled too?" He wishes!!
I'm going to post some video later just because I know my family likes to see it. It was a beautiful day for us here in Vegas!