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Friday, December 31, 2010

Something different

We always have turkey for Christmas dinner! Always! But this year we wanted to try something different. Last year my brother in law Brian cooked a prime rib to go with the turkey. Everyone loved it. So, this year everyone here voted to try prime rib. So, we did. It was expensive, but made for a delicious dinner. But, I must admit I so hated not having turkey for leftovers the next day.
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Christmas Eve, Christmas Day

We had such a fun Christmas Eve. All the kids are getting older and so we can do some more "adult" or challenging games to make our evening fun. But first, the food. I asked everyone what was one thing they would like to have for Cmas eve dinner. Garry: lil smokies, Talon, cheese fries, Tanner, Chex Mix, Taz, grape soda, Cynjyn banana cream pie, me, spinach dip and bread. So we had all that plus a few other things~ all junk and all terrible for you, but delicious once a year!!






We ate,



ate,




and ate! We decided to take a picture of us eating all together, but Garry accidently put the timer on and it was set to take 10 pictures, so after the first one...






We all just started being silly!








We then played family Cranium. Me, Talon and Taz against Garry, Tanner and Cynjyn. My team FINALLY won!!








Opps, camera still set to take 10 in a row:)








Then, Tanner had come up with 6 Minute to Win It games. This one was the funniest. We had 6 lunch bags lined up in decending order. We had to grab them one at a time with just our feet on the floor and we couldn't use our hands. Tanner was pretty good at it for being so tall, he was limber enough to get the first few at least.





Then the funniest time of the night, Talon attempting to get the bags!



So. Not. Limber! He was in pain just from attempting to spread his legs far enough apart to get the first bag.




At one point, he told Cynjyn to stand in front of him to catch him incase he fell over, but still could not get even close to a single bag.



I could get down to the first bag, but Tanner was laughing HYSTERICALLY at me, which made me laugh, so I couldn't get my mouth on the bag!! But at least I could get down to it unlike Talon!


Taz got the last one...barely.


And Cynjyn had no problems getting all 6 of them.






And Garry got at least three, but his back was tweeked the rest of the night and the next morning for his effort!

Here's a collage of the rest of our games: Getting an egg across the floor with a box, flipping spoons into a cup, laying pencils across the top of our hands and flipping them into the air and grabbing them starting with 1 going up to 12, and stacking up to 7 ding dongs on our forheads one at a time. Boy did we get a lot of laughs out of this part of our evening.


We then played Mormon Mouthful and MadGab!


We had our gift exchange which was fun because for the first time, everyone bought their own gift to bring $10.00 or less and so I only knew what I'd brought!! Taz got three cans of silly string, so he, Cynj and Talon had a SS fight afterwards.


Then we settled down for a story.

Talon read us "I Believe In Santa". He read it because one year in seminary, his teacher, Sister Burr tried to read it to the class, but she was crying hysterically and couldn't get the words out. Talon asked her if he could read it for her, and she said yes. So it is now Talon's story to read.


The next morning, Cynjyn was the first one up at 6:30 and she and I enjoyed a little quiet time on the couch just talking and watching her open her gifts from Santa. She had written him a letter this year and actually mailed it in our mailbox and had asked for suspenders, black and gray vests and some boy barbies. Much to her surprise and delight, this is actually what she got from Santa. She couldn't believe that he'd actually got her letter!!
Christmas was scaled down this year as we are going on another cruise in a month. So everyone only got three gifts from us and then whatever else they had gotten from friends, relatives and siblings. Here is Taz with his before stash!
Cynjyn,



Tanner,

Talon and Tiffany. Talon was being a grump because it was 7:00 am.

And Garry and I.



Here is the t-shirt quilt I made for Talon . I'd started in September and finished Dec. 23!! He was very pleased with it, so that made me happy. It is all his t-shirts from high school football and volleyball!

Taz and his bike.

Cynjyn in an outfit from Tiffany.


We had a wonderful Christmas!
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Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Oops, forgot!

I forgot to blog our ward Christmas party. It was the same day as Sadies. Taz was a good nephite, Garry was the narrator/dad and Cynjyn was the daughter. Basically, the dad was telling his daughter the Christmas story, but the version starting with Samuel the Lamanite. So, they had the Cmas in America on one side of the gym floor and the Bible version on the stage. It was really good. Here is the cast. Garry was the only adult in the cast. Mostly the teenagers did the B of M version and the primary aged kids did the Bible version.

Here is Taz with his fellow Nephites.



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Saturday, December 25, 2010

Merry Christmas

For your viewing pleasure, a little Christmas Cheer. Merry Christmas!



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Thursday, December 23, 2010

December

School was out last Friday. The advanced band was performing all morning, so Taz had to wear his uniform to school. They could wear a santa hat if they wanted, so Taz looked very festive for the day. Cynjyn woke up and wanted to look festive too. She grabbed one of Tanner's shirst and belted it and looked like an elf ready to help out for the day!!

On Saturday, we had a kidnap breakfast where we kidnapped the YW and brought them to Linda's house straight from their beds, in PJ's! I made these Hershey Bar snowmen for them!


I made these for the women I serve with. (Same as Cynjyn's teacher gift)




Linda had two tables all decorated and while the leaders and advisor's were gathering up the YW, I stayed at Linda's and made the pancakes. We had cinnamon rolls, a sausage roll, pancakes, german pancakes, homemade syrup, fruit, bacon and sausage. They were all surprised and loved it. After breakfast, we played zoo and visited. It was a fun morning and a fun way to start Christmas vacation.




That night, Garry and I went to Jabowaakeez. They are a dance crew on the strip. Talon got us tickets for Christmas. They were interesting and the show was good. Some parts were really funny and I loved when they performed to Bohemian Rhapsody, Kiss the Girl and a Coldplay song.







It started at 9:30 and got over at 11. Thanks Talon for a fun evening for Christmas!!







We stared out our no school vacation with my homemade cracked wheat pancakes, a sure sign there is no school for awhile! We had leftover strawberry and blueberry toppings from YW.







I spent a day assembling and finishing our "friends" gifts.




This is what they got.


I spent yesterday wrapping Christmas presents. Here is my wrapping station. Cynjyn volunteered to model.


I can't believe it's already Christmas Eve!! It has come so quickly!! Talon has to work til 3, but Garry has the day off! The sun is shining and it's going to be a glorious day!!!

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