When Sledding Goes Wrong!

Chad took the kids sledding on Christmas Eve day....here's what they came back with! Garrett's front tooth chipped out again (3rd time) and Ellerie with a black eye! Hers doesn't look too bad because that was a day or so later! Poor Garrett....we are going to be fixing this costly tooth for the next 10 years I'm afraid! He originally chipped both of the the front teeth when he was 8 with a crash on his bike! We have to wait until after January 2nd to even get him into the dentist. I guess it's time to invest in a good mouth guard for Garrett and his many activities :)

Not A Creature Was Stirring.....except for....

LUNA

our new pet RAT!

Yeah, that's right, a pet RAT? What in the world was Santa thinking? I suppose he had Chad's permission but mine? She is pretty cute but I refuse to touch or hold her! I know, I'm a whimp but I just can't do it! Garrett stayed up with her all night on Christmas Eve after he woke up at 1:30 a.m. and discovered her. He called her Luna all day on Christmas and it just stuck! So there you have it, my kids are proud new pet owners!!! Me....not so much

Christmas Eve Tradition

We have a tradition of opening one gift on Christmas Eve and it's always pajamas! My mom did it when I was young and so I just continued the tradition! So this year, I decided to give my two oldest boys a good laugh! I found big guy size SUPERHERO jammies! It was hysterical! We took turns opening them and then the kids went and put them on. We just about died when Kaden came out in this...

Porter with "Spidey"
Ellie with "Monkey Business"
Garrett in big guy "Spidey"
Last but not least and certainly the funniest, Kaden in big guy "Batman"

We seriously laughed so hard. He was embarassed but thought it was pretty funny! It came with the mask, arm guards and faux boots! TOO FUNNY

Lights as Temple Square!

We took a trip to Temple Square to see the lights. Here are the kids while riding Trax.
It was so fun but super cold! Chads parents came for Christmas so we thought it would be fun to take them. My mom and Ross (her husband) came along too. It was really great to take the kids. They loved it.

Christmas Sunday!

I love the Sunday before Christmas. I had all the family dress to match this year! It was fun. We didn't get a family shot because I left early for choir....Oh well, the kids look great!

Eclipse!

I took the two big boys to see a Christmas concert. It was the group ECLIPSE! They were INCREDIBLE!!!! It's a 6 man accapella group and it was so entertaining! WE had such a fun night. The boys were so impressed and just loved it! We decided we are going to add this concert to our list of traditions as long as we can. Kaden also came right home and went onto their website to see when they will perform next. They are all LDS and returned missionaries! Their new CD will come out on APRIL 1st. It will be their SPIRITUAL one with hymns etc.! WE CAN HARDLY WAIT!!!! Everyone needs to go visit their website just to see how great they are~

http://eclipsesingers.com/

Group Hug!

Here's the family photo that we used for our

Christmas cards. Most of yours was a cropped

version of this! I had to post it mostly to show

everyone how tall Kaden is getting! I'm sure by next year

at this time, he will be taller than his Momma :)

It was suppose to look like a group hug but

I'm not sure about the "death grip" the boys have

on each other! tee hee hee

Rudolph Times Two!

Look at these adorable Rudolph's....

Porter and Maggie after pre-school!

Kaden's Best!

Kaden just made this apron in his CTE (otherwise known as Home Ec in our day)....It's footballs of course! He was pretty proud of it and I was impressed with his great sewing job! Yea! Maybe he can help make next years halloween costumes :) Ha ha He's been very interested in using my machine and I've found him up there sewing small things the past month or so!

Kaden also had his first Band Concert yesterday. He did a great job on the percussion and also played the triangle for one piece. It's so fun to see you kids learning and exploring new talents!

Great job Kaden!!! WE LOVE YOU!

Family Photo!

Here is the family photos we took which we were unable to use for our cards! We took a snap shot at home to use for those. They turned out pretty good. Two days after this is when Brittney colored my hair! I just thought these would be fun to share.

Prancer???

Prancer
Porter with Dora the Reindeer
This is the real Santa...look at his beard!

Saturday I took Porter and Ellerie to the Quilted Bear store where Santa and 2 of his reindeer had come for a visit. Santa brought Prancer and one of her daughters, yes, Prancer is a girl, Dora! It was so great to see their faces light up when they saw the real reindeer! Santa was great too, he was very into character and telling us all about how Dora lost her other antler playing reindeer games. She and her sister got into a fight and they both lost an antler! I told Ellerie and Porter that was a good reason not to fight with each other! ha ha ha

It was a another great event to set us into the real Christmas mood! So fun!!!!

Draper 3rd Ward Christmas Party!

Make a scrapbook!

It's official!!!!

I'm

I just might bite the head off any gingerbread boy that stands in my way! LOL

The Ward Christmas Party will be over tomorrow at this time :)

My part in decorating will be ALL DONE! Yipee...

Can you tell I've completely lost my mind over this one! I guess I'll need to repent and start therapy.....repeat after me....SIMPLIFY, SIMPLIFY, SIMPLIFY!

In all seriousness though, I have had so much fun with this GINGERBREAD theme.

I'll post photos of the cultural hall later if they turn out.

Happy Birthday Garrett!!!

Look at that sweet boy!

Always has a great big smile!

It's Garrett's 11th Birthday today! I can't believe how fast the years have flown. I don't have many baby or toddler photos of Garrett on my computer. That was way back when and I didn't have a digital camera! These were the only ones I could find that we must have scanned in. Anyways, can I just tell you the top 10 things I love about Garrett!!!

10. His cute freckles!

9. His great BIG smile!

8. His kind and tender heart!

7. His great creativity!

6. His awesome musical abilities!

5. His testimony!

4. His willingness to always be of help!

3. His many talents; sports, music, art!

2. His love of babies! (takes right after Mom)

1. His love for his family!

I am so grateful to have such a kind hearted boy in my life! He is super creative and such a great artist! He is always helping someone whether it be at home, school or where ever else he may be. He is definitely a "teacher's pet"....since pre-school all of his teachers have told me what a great student he is to have in class. They will go on and on about how he is SO helpful to them and to other classmates. He's very social and has lots of friends. Garrett has been blessed with a specail gift in music. He hears something and can go right to the piano and pick it out! It's amazing! He also loves to sing, especially in the shower and he's really good at it! Garrett loves babies and is always picking one up.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GARRETT!!!

We love you!

I HAVE BROWN HAIR!!!

Look....Brittney did my hair...it's brown!

It's definitely a change but I think it's growing on me and I like it.

The perks of having a built in hair dresser! Thanks Britt!!!

Gingerbread Theme!

Okay everyone! I was asked to be in charge of the decorating/theme for the Ward Christmas Party...what in the world! So I've been thinking and brainstorming for a few weeks now. Our party is on Wednesday night....did I mention I can hardly wait for Thursday! ha ha ha

Anyways, I'll post photos if it turns out! I have it pictured perfect in my mind but you all know how dangerous that can be! I still need to read and re-read any of the talks given by the apostles about "SIMPLIFYING!!!!" I guess that is one of my biggest weaknesses! But what's a girl to do when she lives and loves to create?

Wish me luck!

Winter Wonderland!!!

This is the great sight we woke up to on Saturday morning! It was so fun! I guess we'll see how long it seems fun. Right now we are all excited and anxious to play in the snow!

Brittney's Toaster covered with snow!

Front yard...

Porter knee deep in the snow!


Garrett

"Don't you throw that at me!"

Looking across the street!

Beauty and the Beast!

Last week we had a very Special delivery!!! No, not the stork, but almost as fun...

Look who showed up at my house today....an early Christmas present arrived! A brand new digital piano!!! Yeah...we're saying goodbye to the beast (1840 old upright grand) that we bought for $500 early in our marriage and welcoming the BEAUTY the Yamaha Clavinova! It's awesome....we've had fun tinkering with it the past few days. The kids have loved the built in Kareoke feature. They're singing all sorts of Christmas songs. It's been a hoot.

Many of you were fortunate enough (LOL) to see the Beast. It was huge and weighed a ton. We took it with us from Logan, UT to Arizona, to Kansas and back to Arizona. It's been through the ringer and so have we moving it place to place.

So long beast......Hello Beauty!

We expect great things from the boys now with no excuse of the piano being "out of tune" etc. etc. !!!

My Four Cute Elves!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9578648827

I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus!

Just the other day Porter tells me,

"Mom, I'm trying to be like Jesus"

I said "How is that?"

He said very casually like it was no big deal.... "Like helping people up on big rocks and stuff like that!"

I wonder what picture he recently saw in Primary?

It was PRICELESS!!!! Thank you Primary for introducing another great gospel art piece to my 4 year old Sunbeam!

Meet Claire!

This is Claire, Ellerie's baby! Yes, it is a doll. I have a great story to tell....So Ellerie came to me last week and said, "Tomorrow is Claire's birthday so I'm throwing her a party"...she proceeded to make and hand out party invitations to the whole family! We were to be at the party from 2-3 on Thursday afternoon. The theme was "A Ducky Party" (baby ducks). At this point I was thinking it was no big deal and that it would be fun to just see what she came up with. Little did I know at that time what we were in for. Ellerie went ALL OUT! She planned games and activities, asked me to help her bake cupcakes and even begged me to take her to the dollar store to buy Claire some gifts. And can you believe I fell for it! I completely gave in and even bought her a bib myself and wrapped it up!

So Thursday comes and she is up bright and early decorating the house for this party. You would have thought it was a real child's birthday the way she carried on! (so cute) The party starts and of course I had to give Kaden and Garrett "the look" (which means bluntly, "you'd better play along with this and not make Ellerie cry). We all show up minus Chad of course because he is at work. She starts the party by having a coloring contest ( see photo #1 below --they are hard to read but so cute!).

These photos represent our "stations" and we had to do everything or we couldn't frost a cupcake! (harsh) We all sat and colored hand drawn duck picture and then Ellerie was the judge and chose the best one! She won of course! tee hee Next we played "Duck, Duck, Goose!" that was great in the family room even! Then we watched as "Claire" opened her gifts. (NO JOKE) Ellerie actually made the doll hand somehow rip the paper. By this point I was almost hysterical that we were all just indulging in this! After opening presents, we were finally able to frost a cupcake and sing Happy Birthday to Claire! What a great party hostess Ellerie is! Who would have thought! Is that so funny or what? Has anyone else's daughters done something similar to this and asked the whole family to participate?

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS MY FRIENDS!!!

Garrett's Pee Wee team took the Championship! Wow!! How exciting is that. It was such a great game too. 14-13 Alta. We played against East. Garrett had some great tackles and then right when there was 2 minutes left in the game, Garrett picked up the fumble and ran the ball about 33 yards, 1-2 yards short of a touch down to end the game! It was AWESOME!!! We were extatic! The coach was so proud of these boys and all they have accomplished, he rented a bus to take them to and from the game. What a great season! We're so proud of you GARRETT!!!