Doing Fun Stuff

Playing "bowling for kids" in the gym:

Making faces:

Playing Headbands:

Playing frisbee in the park:

Playing ?:

Making more faces:

Playing piano:

Making tie-dye shirts!:

Happy New Year!

New Years Eve is kind of bust with kids that have to go to bed early because they DON'T sleep in no matter how tired they are. So, we went to Noon Year's Eve with Radio Disney at the Riverwoods, instead!

We ate treats

Played games

Saw awesome mullets

Had a count down and balloon drop at 12 noon

Played with Jordan

Got prizes from the Disney crew

and even learned dances- go Hyrum go! (He was hating it, but he won a Disney water bottle for his efforts:)

Some goals we made for the year include: Afton- grow more hair and learn to like nursery

Weston- Keep room clean and learn more reading and piano Hyrum- Get better on the piano and rollerblades Sharlee- Learn how to use my camera and hike a volcano Zach- Use the tread mill and attend the temple every week.

Christmas Parties #5

The Last Christmas Party of the Year (I promise, this is the last Christmas post!) is always Grandma B's party. I love having it after Christmas because it gives us one more chance to get together and celebrate before the season is over and school starts again. So, we eat food, sing songs, do some talents, talk about our goals for the year and enjoy visiting and laughing!

Christmas Parties #4

Playing with the Christmas Toys!

My camera:

The Roller blades:

The Scooter:

The Stroller:

The Pogo Sticks from Pa:

(Good luck getting both of them up at the same time for a picture!)

And, notice the weather? Yep, no snow. It's been in the 50's this week- in January! Very suspicious... Does that mean it's going to be snowing in June? Yikes! I'll enjoy the warm weather while it lasts, though!

Christmas Parties #3

FINALLY, it was Christmas morning!

Zach makes fun of me because I still get SO excited for Christmas... this year was no exception. I woke up almost every hour to check the clock and see if it was time to get up yet. LONGEST NIGHT EVER. But, the boys woke us up at 5:45am and it was time to party!

Hyrum got roller blades and a Transformer. (Jag got a new litter box, yay!)

Weston got Paper Jams guitar, a scooter and Warrior Zhu zhus.

Afton got a new baby and a stroller! The baby is a preemie Cabbage Patch named Nada Cora (really?) whose birthday is June 19th. She is super cute, even if her name isn't...

My big present from Zach was a brand new DSLR Sony camera. I was a little scared about touching it, a little overwhelmed about learning how to use it, but it came with classes on photography which makes it a little less scary. :)

So, the rest of the day (week, month, year) I spent playing with my camera- when I could get it away from Zach!

This picture below is using the automatic smile detector- it takes a picture on it's own as soon as it senses the subject is smiling... awesome.

Since we didn't have church until one and that is Afton's nap time, we set out early to Spanish Fork to attend Sacrament meeting with my family and then headed to Pa's house to eat brunch and open more presents...

Oh, the family piled on the couch...

This was one of my favorites:

Aunt Wendy made beanies for all the kids- the boys hat's included attachable beards. We couldn't tell if they were supposed to be lumberjacks or terrorist. What do you think?

Later that afternoon (after some needed naps and singing in our ward choir) we went to Zach's parents to open MORE presents.

Are we spoiled?

Yes, we are.

This is just SOME of the presents just for our family... Not including any of the other families.

Afton loves her new babies!

I must say, we are so blessed to have so much family around who loves us! I love Christmas time: the parties, the music, the food, the presents. But I also liked having Christmas on Sunday because it gave us a chance to really remember what Christmas is all about. I am grateful for my Savior and his willingness to come to earth to be our Example and our Redeemer!

The holiday might be over, but the parties aren't done yet...

Christmas Parties #2

The next group of parties start with Grandma's Cookie party! We get together and bringing all types of recipes, dough, sprinkles, candy and frosting and spend the morning making and decorating until we end up with THIS:

I had enough for 15 plates of goodies including sugar cookies, candy cane cookies, oreo balls, popcorn balls, rice krispy treats, divinity... yum!

When we finish with the cookies, we head over to the Heritage Nursing Home to play Christmas songs with Grandma's piano students.

Lydia was the star for any song needing an angel and star :).

And, because the boys have been taking piano from Maama, they actually got to play in the concert this year! Weston played Jolly Old St. Nicholas.

And Hyrum played Joy to the World. Hyrum and I also did a duet of We Three Kings that sounded awesome, of course. I was proud of those boys!

Next up, Christmas Eve! We headed up to Riverton for lunch with the Walker clan...

This is Afton in her party clothes- I love the candy cane sweater. :)

After lunch we did the Nativity with everyone- Afton was the resident cheetah.

As much of a hassle it is to drive so far, it is so fun to be there with all the cousins I don't see so often. Afton and Leila even got to say hi for a minute.

Eva and KJ were Mary and Joseph and baby Sam starred as the Baby Jesus in his long red underwear...

Weston made a great wise man

and Hyrum was a grumpy shepherd. Cindy and Lydia were the beautiful angels in nightgowns!

Robby and Wendy were NOT beautiful in their ugly Christmas attire singing their strange and disturbing duets...

After watching some awesome old home videos from Grandpa and Grammie, we had to pack up and head down to the Largey party. We had some pizza, listened to Grandpa West's tape and talked about praying for our family and the things they are working for in their lives. Then we opened our Christmas jammies and headed for bed- because you know what tomorrow will bring!