January 2013

Ok, since I'm so behind I'm going to hit the high points of the next few months so that I can get caught up.

 Way back in December Jerry was able to go on a field trip with Hayden to a Purdue Women's basketball game.

 In January Jerry started back into his 7th of 8 modules of school.  Getting so close!  By this point his senioritis was getting pretty serious.  He was very ready to be done, but still put in the time and effort that was needed for school.

 Jerry and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary on January 17th!  !0 years has really flown by so quickly.  I am so lucky to be married to such an amazing guy.  He makes me laugh every day.  He makes me a better person.  He is wonderful.  Our friends, the Mangum's watched our kids and we went to Indianapolis for the day.  It was fun to get away and have some alone time together.  Happy 10 Years Jerry!

Three days later was Jerry's birthday.  We had a fun little family party.

 The cake doesn't look like much, but it was a delicious Reeces Peanut butter ice cream cake.

 Hayden was so excited to be able to go into scouts once he turned 8.  This was the pack mtg they had in January.  It was an Islander theme.  They got to paint their faces and do the dances and all.  (Yes, I know there is a proper name for the Tongan "dance" that is much more masculine than "Dance")

Not sure if the video worked, but if it did, it is Luke being his silly self.  He is a little actor.  He runs across the room and purposely falls on the floor, and is super dramatic about it.  Sorry about the sideways filming.

Happy New Year!! 2013

 A few days after Christmas we drove to New Jersey to spend New Years with my sister, Ruth Ann.  The kids just love getting together with their cousins.  And we, of course, love getting together with my sister and her husband.  We played lots of games, watched lots of scary movies (That's kind of a fun thing we do with them) and we ate lots and lots of yummy food.
On Saturday (two days before New Year's Eve) we went in to New York city with Jake and Ruth Ann for the day.  Some day I think it would be very fun to go to Times Square on New Year's Eve...maybe.  Didn't want to even attempt it this year though.  Maybe once our kids are grown:)
It was such a fun day.  We went to Macy's.  All 7 floors of Macy's.  We went to Guy Fierri's new restaurant.

 They had all the Christmas shops set up, so we did a lot of window shopping.  SO FUN!

 One of my bucket list things is to go ice skating at Rockefeller Center.  (This wasn't Rockefeller - that ice was way too crowded) I was tempted to go skating, but no one else wanted to and I wasn't about to have them just sit and wait for me to go skate.  So this time I just did a dorky pose and pretended to skate.

 Next we walked over to Rockefeller Center and saw THE Christmas tree.  BEAUTIFUL!  It was HUGE!  It was so awesome to be there.  We went to the NBC store and just had such a good time shopping and hanging out.  Next we went to Ruby Tuesday's and got some Hot Chocolate. On our way walking back to the subway we saw a huge crowd.  Naturally we had to see what was going on.  Ryan Seacrest was there filming something - I'm sure it was a spot for the Rockin' New Year's Eve special.  Pretty cool to see it.

Mr. Ryan Seacrest:)  Seacrest.... Out!

 We took the subway over to Hoboken where we parked the car.  Jake and Ruth Ann took us to this little park that looked over to the city.  It was beautiful!  It was so quiet, the snow was gently falling.  Great way to end a great day.

We had a fun party at Jake and Ruth Ann's house on New Year's Eve.  We watched movies and played games.  The kids were up WAY late and loved every minute of it.  On New Year's Day we got out of the house and went on a great walk on the trail into town.  We walked to a cafe and got some hot chocolate.  Rebecca decided she wanted to stay home and play with her cousins instead of coming in the cold.  That's why she isn't in the pictures.  

Such a fun trip!  Here's to a great New Year!  (Now that it is 1/2 over as I'm finally getting to writing this)

Merry Christmas!!! 2012

We had such a wonderful Christmas!  (I know, I know - It's about time I get caught up:)) On Christmas Eve we added one thing to our regular traditions.  This year when we read the nativity from the scriptures, the kids acted it out.  It was really neat to see.  So neat, that we did it twice because Sydney wanted to be Mary too.  

The we watched Mr. Kruger's Christmas.  One of my very favorite of our Christmas Eve traditions.  Then the kids went outside to sprinkle their reindeer food.

After some dessert we wondered why we hadn't heard from Alonzo Snodgrass yet.  He brings us presents every Christmas Eve and we really didn't want him to forget us this year.  I remembered a few times when I was young that we just started looking for his presents after dessert.  We decided to give it a try.  It wasn't long before we found his presents in the girls' closet.  He was super sneaky this year.  We don't know when he put them there, but he managed to sneak them in without us hearing him at all.

We opened our presents from Alonzo, and also our pajama/slippers gift.  The kids quickly got dressed in their Christmas pajamas.

This year the girls got to host the Christmas Eve sleep over in their room.  They really wanted Luke to stay in there all night.  He stayed for a little bit, but once he started stealing all their candy they decided they didn't really want him to sleep in there.

They left cookies and also some fruit for Santa.  They left some very sweet notes and pictures too.

CHRISTMAS MORNING!!!

He came!  He came!  Santa came and spoiled us good.  Jerry and I really wanted to make Christmas day last as long as possible.  We didn't want to make it a race to open all the presents as fast as we could.  We spent about an hour opening presents.  Then we decided to take a little break because each of the kids had a big toy they wanted to play with.  So we paused for a few hours and made our traditional huge Christmas morning breakfast.  We ate and just spent some time putting together some of the toys.  The kids went outside to jump on their new pogo sticks, and Sydney rode her scooter.  

The kids' good friend, Hannah from next door got a pogo stick too.  She saw them outside pogo sticking (is that a word?)  So she came over for a bit and they played outside.  Then we reminded the kids that there were still some more presents to open.  We finished opening the presents and just enjoyed being together as a family.  It truly was such a great day.  After dinner we were reading a note that our special Elf on the Shelf left us.  On the back he left a hint that implied that there might be a special present from him somewhere.  The kids searched the house and found a family gift that our Elf, Kris left us.

The day after Christmas we got our our White Christmas.  It was a HUGE snow storm.  I guess if it can't come on Christmas, the day after is fine right?  Luke LOVED it - until his hands felt the cold, wet snow.  Then he wasn't such a fan.