Santa Fe Weekend

Allen's mom had some timeshare points that were expiring this month and she asked if we wanted to use them. Of course we jumped at the chance and booked a 2 day getaway in Santa Fe for this past weekend. We went up Thursday night and then spent Friday and Saturday playing. It was a great weekend and much needed family time as this month has been really crazy for us. The resort we stayed at was beautiful and embodied the southwestern cultural perfectly.

Friday morning we spent walking all through downtown Santa Fe. It's a really cool city with lots of unique shopping and museums and artsy sites throughout. I stayed at the resort with Emery so she could squeeze in a short nap while the kids hunted for a souvenir. They ended up in a rock/fossil shop and everyone picked something to remember our trip.

After shopping we headed to Bobcat Bite to get one of their famous Green Chile cheeseburgers. This HOLE IN THE WALL place has been featured on lots of travel/food shows and it did not disappoint. Yummiest burger ever!

After lunch we drove up to Los Alamos to go ice skating. We heard about their outdoor rink that is nestled in a little valley. It was gorgeous! Allen sat with Emery while I skated with the older kids for over 2 hours! They would have gone longer but it was getting really cold and my ankles were sore. We had a blast though and all three kids got much more comfortable on the ice.
By the end of our time the older kids were no longer using the skate helpers but they helped a lot and Addison loved using her and got pretty fast and comfortable with it.
It was very interesting to see the National Labs which were nearby and had an incredible amount of security. Made us wonder what exactly they work on in there! From there we headed off to dinner and then back to the resort to watch movies (Allen and I watched Moneyball after the kiddos went to bed and it was fantastic!)

Saturday morning we had another leisure breakfast and then drove over to the state capital to walk around. We ended up staying for a long time because there was no one there but everything was unlocked to see. There was incredible art all throughout the capital that the kids loved seeing.

In the state Senate chamber. We ended up being able to go down to the floor and walk around but I didn't want to push my luck by taking more pictures.
We headed over to the lone outlet mall in NM on our way out of town and picked up a few things and started home in the early afternoon. We stopped at a Mormon Battalion monument that is about halfway between Santa Fe and ABQ. We have seen the signs a bunch of times but never stopped before. My kids loved reading the story along with the monument and were familiar with the story since they love 17 Miracles.
It was a great weekend to be together as a family and explore our own little neck of the woods. We've been to Santa Fe before but never spent much time exploring the culture very much. Allen and I would love to make a couples weekend out of it sometime since there were a ton of fun adult-type things to do up there. We're really hoping to do some serious exploring of NM this year before we wrap up our time here and this was a great way to start off.

Big thanks to Allen's mom for the use of her timeshare!!

Carter's 9th Birthday

Carter's Birthday was on Sunday this year and the lucky guy got to spend the entire weekend celebrating. Since we had such a busy Saturday with his party we decided to take him to dinner on Friday night. Carter is breakfast LOVER so he chose to go to Cracker Barrel so he could get breakfast food. Once again he stuffed himself with adult ultimate pancake meal (4 pancakes with toppings, biscuits, 2 eggs, 2 pieces sausage, hash browns, hot chocolate and O.J) and then ate some of my food too. It is crazy how much food the kid can pack down when he wants to.

Sunday morning we got up early to have breakfast and do gifts. He chose scrambled eggs and coffee cake for breakfast. I have no idea why iPhoto keeps rotating this picture when I save it but I am tired of playing with it:
With his gifts:

Carter's only wish for his birthday this year was the Harry Potter Wii game for years 5-7 and a pair of football gloves. He also got a couple more HP movies on Blu-Ray since we are upgrading all our HP movies, a compass, a HP Lego set, some scout stuff from Allen's mom and a Tim Tebow jersey from my parents.

He's super excited to move up to Bear Scouts and got dressed up in his new gear and wanted a picture taken. His favorite gift was randomly the compass I bought on a whim off of amazon a few months ago. I forgot I had it for him for Christmas and threw it in the birthday gift pile at the last second. He loves that thing! He loves to wear it on his scout belt along with the Leatherman my parents gave him for Christmas. Hilarious!
For dinner Carter chose to have pizza fondue and dessert fondue in lieu of cake. I had to stick the candles in the banana dippers so we could sing him happy birthday.
At 9 Carter is such a fun and interesting kid. He is definitely getting into that "tween" stage and it makes me sad but it is fun to see him growing up to be such a great person.

He loves:

- breakfast foods - especially waffles

- Manzanita Sol apple soda

- Harry Potter series (he has read books 1-6 on his own)

- Riding bikes/scooters outside with his friends

- ALL SPORTS- this is sometimes really overwhelming for us because he wants to play/try EVERYTHING and it just isn't possible. He's a natural athlete and his competitive nature makes him strive for excellence. He is especially good at football and basketball

- Scouting

- Teasing his sisters

- Playing the Wii on the weekends

- Playing on my iPhone when I let him

- BYU football

- Playing the piano - he is getting so good on the piano and it is a joy to watch him love it so much. He is always randomly sitting at the piano and playing a few songs throughout the day.

- Wearing short sleeved shirts. Who knew that my biggest clothing battles would be with my only boy about his love of weather inappropriate clothing. We discuss it every morning and I'm finally letting go

- Music - he loves to listen to his iPod and has really wide musical tastes. One night a few weeks ago I took him to run errands with me and let him choose the songs we listened to on the iPod. It was fascinating to see what he chose - some classical (Canon in D, Beethoven 5th symphony), some country (I hope you Dance), some rock (Queen, Maroon 5, White Stripes) etc. He also acts as our lyrics police and will alert me immediately if a song is inappropriate in any way

Carter remains our kid who would love to try everything. He recently asked if he could take violin and guitar lessons. He wants to play every sport and try all sorts of things. He is very brave and will try just about everything once and usually enjoys it all. He is still very, very competitive and he always has to keep that in check but he is maturing and getting better about not always winning.

Carter is still really spiritual and is always reminding us to pray for little things. If we have a problem in our family he is the first to kneel down and pray. A few weeks ago we couldn't find Addie and Allen and I were frantically looking for her. Carter knelt down and said a prayer and then found her hiding in our closet. He has set a goal to read the entire Book of Mormon this year and is working faithfully on it every day.

Carter is still doing well in school. His teacher this is struggling to keep him challenged so we are doing a lot with him at home. He gripes a bit about the extra work but it doesn't stop us from trying to keep him challenged. He is doing 4th and 5th grade math and continues to test off charts in both math and reading. We are more cognizant of the fact that we have to be careful about finding reading material that is challenging yet age appropriate. It's honestly still a big battle for us to make sure he is learning and challenged in school and it is kind of exhausting sometimes.

We sure love having Carter in our family. He always keeps things interesting and lively. He is patient with having 3 sisters and is good at helping and protecting them. We love all that he brings to our family and feel so blessed to be his parents!

Pinewood Derby

Last week the ward Cub Scout troop had the annual Pinewood Derby. Carter was so excited to improve upon last year's car performance. Last year Allen put the wrong kind of wheel lubricant on his car and it did dismally. This year, the two of them researched the heck out of Pinewood Derby strategies to maximize the speed of his car.

However, when it was time for his car's first race it bumped down the track in a really strange way. After a couple more heats, we realized there was a serious problem with his car. The leaders were kind enough to pause the races while we figured out what was going on. Upon further inspection we found that there was hot glue all over a couple of the wheels. Since we used no hot glue on his car, it was really strange. We assume that when the cars were weighed and turned in there was some one with wet glue on their car and it got onto Carter's. Crisis averted.

After the wheels were fixed his car did awesome! In fact, he placed 3rd overall, which made him really happy. It qualifies him to go to the district race but I think we're going to skip it since the two cars that placed ahead of his were quite a bit faster. Carter love, love, love, loves Scouts already which makes his dad and grandpa really happy and proud. It is such a good program for a kid like Carter who is very driven, a perfectionist and very Type A. It allows him to accomplish things on his own but still have relationships with other kids at the same time.

Carter with his ribbon and trophy:

Ribbon, trophy & patches:The cars from our troop. Surprise, surprise, Carter did a BYU car (his other passion):

11 Months!

She is 11 months old! I seriously can't stand it. Yes, I say it every month but it is MY blog and I can say I'm heartbroken over this baby growing up as many times as I want to. I have had a few breakdowns in the past few weeks over her almost being one. I can't stand it. I want her to stay little forever.

Ems has been a big stinker with having her picture taken lately. She was having none of it so these aren't the pictures I was envisioning in her cute outfit I had picked out. But that is so her personality right now. Still hating the bow:
Please stop putting this thing on my head mom!!!
I relented and got some au natural shots of her, which are really sweet too! I will for sure have to have a "helper" when I take her 1 year pictures!


This month Emery has:

- added a few words to her vocabulary: ball, night-night, dog

- started to stand on her own without holding on (she doesn't even realize she's doing it)

- started getting into EVERYTHING. We've never had a baby who likes to open cupboards and drawers and pull everything out like she does. We need to do some major baby proofing

- started drinking milk. I gave her a sippy cup with milk in it last week to see how she would like it. She drank the entire thing and then cried when it was all gone. She gets so excited when she sees me get the milk out of the fridge.

- pooped in the bathtub twice. GROSS! Again, she is the first of our kids to ever do this (we are lucky in that department). We have resorted to getting her in and out of the tub as quickly as possible.

- remained the champion peek-a-boo baby. I keep forgetting to write this about her but she love PAB. Every time we lay her in bed she pulls her blanket up and down while we say boo. It cracks her up and she will play for as long as we are willing. Adorable.

- loved pulling clothes off the hangers in the closet. We are excited to get her into her own room in the next couple weeks and out of our closet!

- not gotten any teeth. She is right on track with our other kids to getting first teeth right after turning one. We can see two bottom teeth that are getting ready to poke through.

- almost cut out all nursing. We are down to once a day (at night) and I'm fairly certain we will be able to cut it out pretty easily. Totally bittersweet for me. Part of me is really ready to be done, part of me is heartbroken.

- started loving books. I can sit her with a pile of books and she will look at them for a long time. She especially loves touchy-feely books and has a bunch coming for her birthday!

- started loving to blow on things. It is so funny but she loves whistles and harmonicas and anything that will make noise when she blows on it. It cracks us up because she blows on everything to see what kind of noise it will make.

- gotten more attached to Allen and me. She hates to be put down and will cry at our feet until one of us picks her up.

She remains the star of the show in our family and is beloved by all!!

Angry Birds Birthday!

For Carter's birthday party this year he decided he wanted an Angry Birds party! This past weekend was the only time the entire month we could host his party due to other commitments and traveling. It was a terrible weekend because of a big Primary activity, his actual birthday and having to do sharing time. It was crazy but thank goodness for Pinterest for providing most of these ideas and for Allen who I could not have pulled this party off without!

Cupcakes:
These were surprisingly easy to put together on the day of the party and all the boys got a big kick out of them!

Party Decorations:
I made a bunch of these Angry Bird lanterns in different colors and hung them all over the house and outside.

We had a hard time finding things for the goodie bags for this party, which was very surprising considering how popular this game is. I found the mini notebooks at Wal-Mart and ordered these fun keychains off of Amazon.
There were 12 different bird and pig characters that came in the keychain package and the boys loved swapping them to get their favorites.
We had two activities. First, we made a bunch of these pig boxes to use as targets for the boys. Allen bought a water balloon launcher and we filled up an insane number of water balloons before the party. (picture us dragging the hose into the house and hooking it up to the washing machine water outlet and filling up balloons for hours in the middle of the night....the things we do for our kiddos!)
The boys went to the park down the street and had a blast launch balloons at the pigs.
Carter and his friends:
After the water ballooning we had a food break. We had a nacho bar that the boys LOVED (seriously, this will be my go-to boy party food from now on!) We had a bunch of toppings and let everyone go to town. After nachos we had cupcakes and ice-cream.

After the food we had the boys hit pig pinatas. We made one for each boy and they had the BEST time whacking the heck out of the things. We just had a bunch of candy for them to take home inside each piñata. The green bags are the pinatas and the red bags are the goodie bags.

Carter was spoiled rotten by his friends and they had a great time together. I have no idea what happens between ages 7 and 9 but his friends have really grown up nicely. His 7th birthday party was WILD but a couple years later all those boys have really mellowed and were really pleasant and fun to be around!

Of course, I'm insanely relieved to be done with another birthday party. I'm glad I get a slight reprieve before the craziness of the February birthdays begin!

Read in 2011

2011 was a great reading year for me. I loved so many of the books I read. For the 2nd year in a row I didn't read as much as normal. However, I think this is my new normal though since I can't imagine I'll find more time for reading this year than I did last. My plate is pretty full so I'm happy to get in what I can.

I did my list just like last year. Bolded titles are the books I read for my book club. Titles with * after it are my favorite reads of the year. I like books for different reasons. Some because the story was excellent. Some because of the way they made me think or from what I learned. Some because the writing itself was moving and beautiful.

And then there were none
Eve's Daughters*
I capture the Castle
The Giver*
Nefertiti
Heretic Queen
Prep
The Forgotten Garden*
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks*
Zeitoun*
The Measure of a Lady
Room*
House at Riverton
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother*
The Graveyard Book
The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes
The Thirteenth Tale
Cutting for Stone*
Unbroken*
Cleopatra's Daughter
Winter Garden
The Art of Racing in the Rain
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand*
The Distant Hours*
Madame Tussaud*
Flowers for Algernon
Two Kisses for Maddie*
Bossy Pants
Skeletons at the Feast
The true and amazing adventures of the Hunt sisters
Beyonder's
Blink
Mistborn
Pope Joan*
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
The Fall
Saving CeeCee Honeycutt
Gathering Blue*
Messenger*
Still Alice*

Christmas 2011

I was really hoping my new iMac (!!!!) would be here this week so I could do all my Christmas blogging on it but it won't be here until late next week. By next week even I won't care about Christmas pictures anymore so I figure I should get the blog updated NOW.

I got a wild idea to make my kids some cute Christmas shirts. I don't know why I do this to myself and I'd like to say I'll never tackle a bunch of projects during the month of December again, but we all know better by now. I was up until the wee hours of the morning finishing these for my girls to wear to their class parties. They turned out C-U-T-E though!

Carter clearly did not want a Rudolph shirt so I found him a fun Grinch shirt instead.


Having my parents and brother here for Christmas was super fun. We were busy with a lot of things but took a lot of time to just be together. Before Christmas we had to finish off some of our traditons. We decorated a gingerbread house with my mom. I bought a different kit this year and ended up having to hot glue the pieces together which was a huge pain. It stayed together really well though. My little girls ate the candy while the rest of us decorated.

I was bound and determined to be done with all our projects and stuff (delivering neighbor gifts, wrapping, grocery shopping, etc) before Christmas Eve Day so we could enjoy the day together. We baked and decorated cookies in the morning, went to a movie in the afternoon and had a delicious Mexican fiesta for dinner (enchiladas, tamales, chile rellenos, flan). After dinner we had a fun Christmas concert that my kids worked hard on preparing for all month. We let the kids each open a gift before tucking them into bed.

Christmas morning was different since we had to work church into the morning. The adults got up early and got completely ready before we woke the kids up at about 7:15 (we have yet to have an early Christmas morning). We got everyone downstairs and opened stockings and had breakfast. The kids got these funny googly eyes in their stockings and Emery was completely fascinated by them.

Before we headed off to church. I wish you could see the girls dresses better because they were so cute this year!

After 9:00 a.m. church we all came home and climbed back into jammies and opened presents. I hardly took any pictures of the gift opening this year and regret it a bit but I loved just being in the moment with my family instead.

I got these HUGE Bubba mugs for Allen and Steve kind of as a joke but they love them. Years ago we got some huge mugs at Lagoon during a family reunion that everyone in my extended family loves. They need to be replaced so I got these for the boys. So funny!

My parents, Allen and I worked very hard and late into several nights building beds for the girls’ American Girl dolls. Allen and my dad built and painted the beds (using this plan from the amazing Ana White site:Doll Farmhouse Bed ), my mom did all the fabric cutting and I did all the sewing. We wouldn’t have been able to pull it off with my parents helping out. The girls love, love, love their beds and have played with them constantly. We made a bed to give Emery eventually but I haven’t made bedding for it yet. (Again with the insane projects!)

Makenna was my only child who wanted a picture with her gifts. Santa brought her an electric scooter (huge, huge hit) and we got her a GoGo puppy, sewing kit, school play kit, movies, AG bed/bedding and stocking stuffers. Allen’s mom got all the girls BYU cheerleading outfits and my parents took the girls to Build-A-Bear a few days after Christmas. Her sibs picked out yet another baby doll for her.

Carter got an electric scooter, Nerf Gun Dart tag set, BYU jersey, LEGO idea book, Harry Potter movies, watch, and stocking stuffers. My parents gave him a leatherman and Gma Frost gave him a BYU shirt and hat. His sisters picked out a Battleship game for him.

Addison got a Bitty Twin from Santa and we gave her a GoGo puppy (after she fought with Makenna over hers we returned a gift and got her her own), Cinderella castle alarm clock, magnetic doll kit, AG doll bed, movies and stocking stuffers. The kids picked out some princess Polly pockets for her.

Emery got a Bitty Twin from Santa, a ball popper from us along with some clothes and books. Our kids were quite concerned about the lack of gifts for E but it is so hard on the 4th child to find anything we don’t already have. The kids gave her a fun light up/talking ball thing that she loves!

As a family we got a Blu-Ray player and a bunch of new movies.
We spent the rest of the day playing with toys, snacking on yummy treats and watching movies. After a yummy ham dinner we acted out the nativity

In the days following Christmas we ventured to the mall to go to Build-A-Bear. Addison chose a cupcake bear that she dressed in a Rapunzel dress (of course). Makenna chose a monkey that she dressed in a sparkly ball gown. My girls loved the experience and keep begging to go again!

We also spent an entire afternoon making homemade ravioli. All my life my mom has made ravioli during the holidays. It is a recipe that has been passed down for many generations and is a huge treat for us. My kids also had fun helping and I think this is the year for me to get my own ravioli supplies. It’s so fun to share a generations-old tradition with my kids!

We put together our "Christmas Carol" puzzle that my family has been doing since 1978. I've blogged about this puzzle before but can't find the post for the life of me. My parents bought this puzzle in 1978 and we have done it every year since. We love this puzzle and it holds one of the most fond sets of memories of my childhood. I love all that it represents - tradition, love, family, the holidays. A few years ago my little brother scoured eBay and was able to find each of the kids the exact puzzle we had growing up. AWESOME! So now my little family does the puzzle each year and so do each of my siblings families (one might say we are a bit obsessed with this puzzle!)

We spent an afternoon bowling together where my mom and I tore it up!

We had a fabulous and BUSY holiday season. It was wonderful to have my family in town and to make so many fun memories together! Until next year!