Twas the Sunday Before Christmas....

Halfway there....

The excitement is building at our house.....I love watching the excitement of the children as they countdown the days. We have multiple Advent Calendars going and Mitchell and Makenzie are certainly having fun with them.

We baked the traditional Santa cookies this week. I think the kids have more fun decorating the cookies than they do eating them. I think I have more fun eating them than making them (thanks to my malfunctioning Kitchenaid Mixer) , so I guess you could say it all balances out.



Happy Holidays!

Sydnee turns 3!

We celebrated Sydnee's third birthday a couple of weeks ago. She had been telling people for month's that she was going to be 3 in September. Whenever I would ask her what she wanted for her birthday she would talk about having a cake with candles. I decided to try and create her a fun cake........" a pretty pink princess castle for a pretty princess" (yes, I am an amateur cake decorator, but Sydnee thought it was the best castle cake ever). She enjoyed celebrating her birthday with Uncle Dean and Aunt Paula and Grandma Dorothy and Papa Gene.

Sydnee gave me a present a couple weeks before her birthday.....she became the first of my children to be potty trained before their 3rd birthday!!!! Hooray!!!! Here she is showing off her potty trained prizes.

Back to School!

Last Wednesday Benjamin started 7th Grade. Makenzie started her 4th grade year last Thursday.
And today Mitchell went to his first day of Kindergarten. He has been counting down the days since we met his teacher at back to school night last Wednesday.

What an emotional year......I have been having anxiety over Ben going to Jr. High since registration last spring...but after 2 trips to the Jr. High to practice locker opening and finding his classes, I felt a little better about sending him. I think it also helped that he let me walk him to the bus stop on his first day (I did start walking back home before it got to his stop...so he wouldn't get teased). In three more years we will have another big year with Ben starting High School, Makenzie starting Jr. High and Sydnee starting Kindergarten. I don't want to get ahead of myself though...I can't believe how fast my kids are growing up.....and I don't want to miss a single moment.

Catching up.....again......with a gigantic run-on post.

School started this last week and it just didn't feel right to post the back to school photo's until I posted the rest of the summer happenings.

This summer seemed to go faster than any other summer before it. I spent the first couple week's of August in total denial that school was fast approaching. Now that I can deny it no longer....I will pay tribute to the summer of 2009.

When Mitchell turned 5 back in January we told him we would get him a "big boy bike" when the weather got warm. The first few days after we got his bike he would go out and ride right after he finished his breakfast. He is also very good about wearing his helmet whenever he rides his bike. We may have been slow getting his a bike, but we had to make sure he got good use out of his styling trike.

In late July..Matt's sister Sherry and her family came for their annual summer visit. We enjoyed family dinners complete with "Rock Band" entertainment .......


An evening at Bridal Veil Falls.... where Sydnee had fun posing for the camera.

and Ben had fun sabotaging his parents photo's......
Ben, Kenzie and Mitchell enjoyed climbing to heights that made their mom uncomfortable...
All around good cousin fun......
We ended our evening in the canyon with a marshmallow roast.

Fun with the Johnson family ended on the 24th of July at a after movie dinner and firework show complete with glow bracelets.

We went on a hike to Donut Falls with my sister, Paula and her husband Dean. It was a beautiful day. Matt was hesitant to agree to this activity worrying that the little kids would want to be carried the whole way up the trail and back. Sydnee and Mitchell proved to be champion hikers, we were so proud of them.

We had a fun summer, the majority of which was spent at home with anywhere from 1-9 neighborhood children coming and going. Farewell to the lazy days of summer 2009.

Introducing......

Matt's mom got a new lense for her camera, so yesterday we had a photo shoot session at her house. After sorting through about 250 pictures......these are the new pictures for the stairway wall.......I'm not pleased with Ben's or Sydnee's but I'll roll with it until I decide to do another photo shoot (or until I enlist the talents of my neighbor Jill) to do a photo shoot for us.

This is the picture that we are replacing for Sydnee, she has changed a lot......

I finally filled in the blanks....

Since my legs were angry from running this morning, I spent a good portion of my day today updating my blog. I had been waiting to get some photos from my in-law's camera so I could finish the Disneyland and school graduation posts. So if you still come around to read my sporadically updated blog, you are in for a treat today :).

4th of July

We went to Grandma Dorothy's and Papa Gene's house for a delicious 4th of July Barbecue. Sydnee had the time of her life serving everyone all the water they could ever drink. She even warmed up to Jake when he offered some swinging by the arms fun. It was a wonderful afternoon.

The remainder of the day was spent busily preparing Benjamin for his 1st week long scout camp.

The day ended with the fireworks from Thanksgiving Point viewed from the convenience of our own front yard!

In Grandma's Garden

A few weeks ago we went over to Grandma Dorothy's house for a "photo shoot" in her beautiful yard.

Oreo's and milk were enjoyed as well.
And Makenzie scored a ride in Grandpa's car!

Lapoint/Vernal fun

We went to Vernal for a few days. The kids had fun catching the kittens. Playing with 2nd cousin Shawnie. Swinging. Snacking. Coloring/painting/playing with play dough, having ice cream for lunch. Basically getting spoiled rotten by Grandma Huber. When I told Matt that Sydnee had been saying "no, Grandma do it" he laughed and said she finally found someone nicer than her mom.
We enjoyed some quality time in the car :).

Acted like tourists and took the kids to the Dinosaur Museum.

Where we had fun making scary poses in front of the dinosaur statues.

and playing with dinosaurs puzzles.

A highlight for me was meeting my newest grand-nephew "Tucker".

and finding some rocks for my flower garden while we were exploring in the "bad lands".

It is always so nice to go "home" for a visit. My mom spoils us with 3 home cooked meals a day and a pantry full of snacks and a freezer full of ice cream treats.

The results of our recent trip to Lapoint

We now have a kitten. I have been trying to figure out why, why, why, I let this happen. My mom has a lot of farm cats. We have been dodging this situation successfully for quite some time since the kittens have been wild. The most recent batch of kittens were brought around sooner giving my mom a chance to keep them tamer, resulting in her successfully sending one home to our house. She wanted to send 2, at least we kept that out of the realm of possibilities.

Our children are very happy (except for Mitchell, he remains quite indifferent to the situation since he was scratched by one of the kittens at my mom's house). Maybe Mitchell is more like me, satisfied to live a pet free life.

Lagoon

We took the kids to Stake Lagoon Day. Seeing how much fun Mitchell and Sydnee had made the over-priced activity worth it.
I was with the little ones most of the time so those are the only pictures I have to document the day. The rest of the family was there, they were just off riding the bigger thrill rides that I am content to miss out on.

Sydnee loved riding the rides, as soon as one was done she would ask "can I ride another ride?"

In the following video clip she is in the dragon that ends up on the right hand side when the ride stops, notice she climbs right out of her seat belt before the operator comes to unlock her seat belt. Freaky!

Disneyland

We started the summer off with a bang this year by taking a family vacation to Disneyland!

We invited the Furniss Grandparents to join us and were thrilled that they agreed! It made our whirlwind 2-day visit a lot of fun.
We had fun riding rides & seeing shows,

Posing for pictures and enjoying the unique atmosphere of Disneyland.

We had a wonderful time and began missing it as soon as we left, though I don't think my tired feet could have taken another day.

A perfect way to welcome summer.

Mitchell's Disneyland Adventure

Our friends told us how much their little boy liked the Jedi Training show when they went to Disneyland. When I had shown Mitchell their video footage of the show and asked him if he would want to be one of the kids chosen to help out, he said "NO". He changed his mind once we went to see the show. I had dressed him in his Star Wars shirt hoping to draw attention to him and it helped to have Matt hold him up in the air. We were pleased with the outcome.

Each kid who was chosen got a turn to fight Darth Vader or Darth Maul. Mitchell was in Darth Vader's line and also got to take on two storm troopers as a bonus.

More Disneyland pictures to follow!

Beach

The evening we arrived in California we took the kids to the beach to get out their "riding in the car all day long wiggles". We didn't dress to get soaked but that didn't stop the kids. By the time we left they were soaked and sandy.
The next day we headed to the beach again. The day started out very overcast and misty but Benjamin couldn't wait to get back to the Ocean. We basically had the beach to ourselves that cloudy Monday morning.

I love, love, love, the Ocean. Sand castles, sea shells, waves, surfers. We probably won't go to Disneyland next summer, but I think we will definitely try to get back to the beach!