The big day in December

I forgot to post our Christmas Eve dinner so I'll start with that.  I had asked everyone a few days earlier if they could pick one thing to have what would it be.  Talon said Cheese fries, Tanner said a cheese ball, Cynjyn said mozzerella sticks, Taz said sliders (so did I ) and Garry said onion rings.  So that is what we had.  I added some lil smokies and waffle fries and we called it unhealthy, um I mean dinner.

I am famous for being the first one up on Christmas day.  Which is apparently ironic because I'm the oldest in my family.  But I was always the first one up!  After discussing the night before that we would all sleep in and we decided that anytime after 8am was fine, I was side awake at 7am.  So I came out to the family room so I could let Garry sleep.  Here I am waiting and wondering?!

Taz came down at 7:30 and opened his fuzzy socks  he got in his stocking along with all the delicious goodies Santa hand picked for each individual child.  Taz got dried fruit, Candy Crush fruit snacks and an XXL bag of peanut M & M's.  He really is happy in this picture. 

By 8am he'd had enough even Sparky could console him, so he went in the living room and played the piano as loud as he could. 

It worked.  Cynjyn was the next to come down.  She got chocolate and Twix and Cheetos and make up in her stocking.

Tanner was greeted by Sparky and even had a smile on his face.(that's rare for him and it being so early in the morning.)  He got a stuffed raccoon and almond clusters and shortbread cookies and pretzels and Reisens and crispy pops.

Talon was the last to arrive and he got triscuts and canned cheese, sweet onion chips, terriyaki jerky, candy crush fruit snacks and chocolate covered cherries. 

Taz was pleasantly suprised this year.  He didn't think he was getting anything because of his letterman's jacket, but he did get a few things.  A new pro series Kendama, camoflauge sweats outfit, a Dwight Schrute bobble head and a Dwight Shrute poster and a Schrute beet farms shirt.  He also got some DVD's and a few video games.  Talon got him a Tom Brady jersey! The kids draw names and they drew each other and so Talon wrapped a deck of cards because that was one thing Taz had requested and when Taz opened it it said go look in the pantry for your real gift.  He loved it!

Tanner and Cynjyn scored in the clothes department this year.  Tanner's list was shirts, jackets and leather gloves.  He got shirts, leather gloves and a leather jacket.  Cynjyn's list was over sized sweaters, skinny jeans long cardigans, combat boots and crop tops.  She got all of them, but this was her favorite outfit.  Her four favorite gifts were her One Direction perfume, The Marauder's map from Harry Potter and a Love Potion necklace from Harry Potter and a shirt that says "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good"  a quote from HP. 

Santa brought us a ping pong table this year. And boy was it a chore to put together!! It took all morning.  Everyone started out helping.

Talon and Garry did a lot of the initial work.

Cynjyn sat downstairs amongst the mess taking pictures of her favorite things.

Talon took a break.  He got a netty pot and netty salts and netty oil and I crocheted him a beard beannie as a joke which he ended up being excited about.  He is getting a Playstation 4 for Christmas/birthday combined, but you just can't find them in the stores, so he's getting it as soon as we can find one.

Tanner stepped in, Taz took a break

But we finally got it up and played all day, all week, still playing!

Cynjyn got hair extensions and braided her hair really cute.

I tried out the curly ones.

We had a little snafu with our dinner.  We were having prime rib and according to the website Garry looked on it would only take 1 1/2 hours to cook the size we got, so we started it at 4:30.  Apparently it was frozen in the middle by the bone, so it ended up taking way way longer.  Finally at 8:45 pm we ate dinner.  In the mean time, we played PIT and 31 even Cynjyn played and we ate some cheese and crackers and oh yea, Talon hacked my phone and took these to entertain himself!

But the dinner was good, we had prime rib, red roasted potatoes, yams, roasted asparagus, and broccoli salad.  Delicious and a very merry way to end a very merry day.

A Merry Time was had by All!

We had a great Christmas Eve this year. Mikel joined us and we divided up into teams.  Since that made an uneven amount of people, I was the photographer.  I'd come up with all the games anyway, so here is our fun and competitive Christmas Eve.  The first job was to divide into teams.  We put everyone in a bowl and drew.  It just so happened to be Talon, Tanner and Taz versus Garry, Cynjyn and Mikel.  The first game was Wreath hang.  As a team they had to get three ornaments and hang them on a string only using their face.  I forgot I was the photographer since it was the first game, so I had T and C pose.  Each game had to be done in 60 seconds.

Game 2:  Chubby Santa.  (like Chubby bunny, but they have to say Chubby Santa after they add a marshmallow to their mouth.)  We only had the ones that thought they could get the most in go first.  Garry and Talon tied, so the runner ups had to go.

We did a game we called backdrop fun where one person from each team tied a clipboard to their waist and the two other teammates had to bounce big marshmallow's off it into a bowl.  You're supposed to use ping pong balls, but we didn't have enough.

We played the chocolate bar game which is a tradition.  You roll the die and whomever gets a 6 has to put on the hat and gloves and scarf and open and start eating the chocolate.  You don't get very far though because once that 6 is rolled the next person grabs it off you!

Do or die was next.  You had to hold a popsicle stick in your mouth and balance 6 die on it and make it hold for 3 seconds. Taz was the only victor.

Oh Christmas tree was super hard.  They had to stack cups starting with 8 on the bottom and then unstack them in one minute.  No one did it, but Tanner and Cynjyn  both went about a second over.  At first we were only letting them use one hand but that was way too hard.

We had a pie eating contest and whomever finished first added 6 points to their team score second 5 and so on. 

I got the individual pies at Wal Mart and they took them out of the box, but they couldn't use their hands after that.

Messy faces abound!

Rudolph was a fun game. I made an 8 inch ribbon and glued a pompom to the end.  Everyone had to put Vaseline on their nose and see how many times they could make the pompom stick in a minute.  Tanner and Cynjyn got smart and pulled most of the string into their mouth and C ended up getting 44!  You could only use your hands to get the pompom off your nose. 

Wreath toss was where you had a minute to get as many marshmallows through a wreath and into a bowl.  You could use the door as a backstop and bounce it off there into the bowl.  Garry had made the holder out of PVC pipe and we used it for the ornament and wreath game.  We ended the night with our gift exchange and it was the first year everyone brought their own gift.  I usually end up buying them all, so that was really nice. 

And of course, we had to end the night with some photobooth fun! 

Merry Christmas Eve everyone!

Once upon a December

It seems like I blink my eyes and a new month is upon us. December came quite quickly and that's o.k. because it is such a wonderful time of year.  Cynjyn started off our month with her dance recital.  She is the only one in her class and every class did a Christmas dance, so she had a solo and went last.  She was a little worried about going out in front of everyone alone, but she did an amazing job and has such talent.  Like last year, it was in her teacher's garage and we all just put up camp chairs in her driveway and watched.

She got her annual birthday dolls from Grandma for her bday.  She is giving her a collection of dolls from around the world and she was beyond thrilled to get her favorite...BRITISH!!

I had my annual recital a little late this year because the singles ward had their ward Christmas party on the 9th, so I ended up having mine on the 16th.  Garry and I prepped all day the day before making goodies for it.  We had everything packed and organized and ready to go Sunday night!

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Taz designed his letterman's jacket online and ordered it in November.  It arrived the 16th, but we needed to find someone to sew his patches from school on.  So Garry quickly handstitched his letters on so he could wear it to school one day before break.  They stitching didn't last and the letter's were coming off, so he only wore it one day that week, but he loved it and that was his major present so he was convinced he wasn't getting anything else for Christmas.

On Instagram a friend of our posted that you could stand an egg on end on Winter Solstice, so we all decided that we needed to try it out.  Talon was the first to get it to work.  We spent a good half hour doing it and Garry had gone out with the elders and brought them to our house for dinner, so we had the three of them trying and they all got it to work too!  It was cheap intertainment for the evening!

Tanner arrived in town on the 19th.  I was able to take the day off  and pick him up.  We have played games almost everyday since he arrived.  We got a new one from Rob and Jodi that I'd requested and we played that a lot.  Agricola, it's pretty fun!

On Friday, we tracked down a lady in our ward who makes costumes for shows on the strip and has a warehouse with a bunch of heavy duty machines that she uses and asked her if she'd sew on Taz's patches.   She works at night, so Tanner went with me to her warehouse,  She wasn't there and we waited about 20 min and then came home and then she texted that she was on her way, so he went with me later and it took her about an hour to sew on his three patches.  I was so glad I didn't attempt it and it was so nice of her to do it for us.  Thanks for keeping me company Tanner!

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Random pix:  Taz playing with a slinky he got at the YM/YW gift exchange.

Tanner walked in the door from the airport, put his stuff in his room and went right to the piano!  He loves it so and I'm sure he missed it.  This next semester he is taking a piano class so he'll get some playing in.

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Taz is watching more and more dogs.  He watched Jack, the Oh's dog for the second time while they went to Disneyland the 17-21.  Jack is his favorite dog!

We had a busy week the week of my recital.  We started off with that on Monday, then I had to play the piano at  my school's choir recital at 6:00.  Taz went with me to support me and then we ran to Cynjyn's jazz band and advanced band concert at 7:30.  She really did a great job in jazz band and rocked that base line!  Wednesday I had book club and Thursday was Taz's band concert.  It was a very musical week.

Cynjyn curled my hair for church Sunday, I love having a personal hairdresser!  The Primary kids sang two songs with the choir for our ward Christmas program on the 22, so I had to look good from the back!

Cynjyn was so happy Tanner's is home and they bonded on the floor??

Taz is also watching Sparky this week from the 24th till Sunday.  That used to be Tanner's job so he is rebonding with Sparky.

Someone gave us a White Chirstmas.  We blame Taz's friends!

Garry and I reserved Game of Thrones season 1 from the library and watched some episodes while we wrapped presents this year.  We got them mostly done in one afternoon!

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Sunday night at midnight, a few of us gals went to the GVR cafe to try their cheap breakfast.  We'd talked about it at book club and Andrea wanted to go that night, but it was already 1 am and most of us had to work the next day.  So, Jen texted us Sunday evening and got a little group together to try it out.  Most of us had the $3.99 breakfast which was two eggs, two bacon, two toast and hashbrowns.  It was pretty good and we ate and visited until 2am!

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The Witt's delivered us some rootbeer deer on Christmas Eve and they were so cute.  Tanner chose the one that had blue glassed just like the glasses he was wearing and claimed it his twin deer!

And that's December!