Ice Skating!

One of my favorite things to do before Christmas is go ICESKATING! It is one of those things that reminds me of my childhood. Growing up me and my sister Brittany took Iceskating lessons at Cottonwood Heights. So this year was even funner for me because that is where we went to iceskate. The only downside to the evening was that I didn't actually get to Iceskate. Since my back is just now finally getting better I have to be really picky on what I will risk injuries doing, for the next little while until it is totally healed. So me and Cam and Jamison hung out in the balcony playing around!

My sister Britto and her husband ( the bums in the picture!!
and her three boys came!



The last couple of years madison has come, and she is getting Really good!! Ali loves playing with her cousin Madi!! Me and Fro!!

My sister Britt is soooooooo excited!!



These little guys were my dates for the night!! We had a lot of fun running wild in the balcony, sticking their fingers in the power sockets, and dropping pretzels wherever they could!! I Love them!!


Fro was SOOOO patient with Ali, because this was the position I saw both of them in for the first half of skating!! Then she started getting the hang of it!!



Brittany and Steve and their two boys skating!! Noah was Excellent and after skating wanted a pair of skates for Christmas.



Fro and Ali-- Fro said she had a couple of good falls, but always got back up and skated. They suprised me and skated for over an hour and then some!!



My sisters Brooke and Britto, and Reed and madison! Everyone had a great time, and I am glad that it has become a Christmas time tradition!!

Christmas Auction

One family tradition we do in our family is the family "AUCTION".
this started YEARS ago- at least 12 or so years ago. Every family brings 2 good items, and 2 Not so good items (white elephant, or anything creative). We wrap everything so we have no idea what is good, or bad. Then we play games as couples/families to earn "auction money" to buy these gifts. It has always been fun and very interesting to see what we end up buying for 5,000!! This year however my little sister Britto wanted to make it even more interesting and have us MAKE two of our gifts. So they had to be homemade!! That really put a twist on things, and really brought out the creative side in SOME of us!!



My dad ended up making this GLASS, magnetic, filled with Candy CLOCK!! Brooke was the Lucky lady to purchase this beauty!! It will be a family Heirloom for years to come!Other great gifts included a whack it doll my mom created for when your having a bad day, as well as these crazy magnets she glued together. Brittany and Steve made some amazing artwork, one of which we inherited called the "potatoe field"- it is awesome and displayed so high in my kitchen I can't get it down!!


Another long standing tradition is called "Mug Mania"! It is a game all the kids, and CAMILLE since she is the new comer played. Every kid brings a mug filled with whatever they want. My mom reads a christmas story that has lots of words with right and left in it. As the word right is said you pass it right. As left is said you pass it left! It is always entertaining especially when half of the kids don't know thier right or lefts, which makes for perfect CHAOS!! It is fun and the kids love thier Christmas Mugs!!


And of course, what is the Holidays without family and FOOD!! And lots of it!!

Christmas Festivities 2009

A tradition for the last 3-4 years has been to go all the way to the Provo Mall to see Santa because they have a TRAIN to ride!! So this year again, we made the trip! Cam especially liked the train and did NOT want to get off- or leave!!

All the cousins waiting patiently to get in to see Santa!

The three girls!

Every year we have loved Provo mall because the Santa is friendly and so are all the employees. They always let us do group pictures and ask santa all kinds of questions. This year however, they were RUDE!! yep I said it SANTA WAS RUDE!! I could not believe his ATTITUDE! They would not let us take more than ONE picture and we couldn't have one kid in two pictures because they were already in one, and bla bla bla!! My sister tried to get one of the girls talking to Santa and she was yelled at and told she already got one. It was ridiculous!! but we made sure the kids knew he wasn't the real santa only a "helper" santa!!

911 EMERGENCY

Always on the Move- this little guy!!
I have to mention an incident that happened last week. Cam loves to play with my phone and it usually keeps him busy for at least 5 minutes. So he had my phone and I jumped in the shower. I heard it ringing and figured it was just Fro calling me back. As I dried off and listened to my message I was really suprised to hear," Hello this is 911 emergency, I am returning a call we got from this number. I am trying to verify if there is an emergency at this number. Please call me back."
I quickly called the number they gave me back and told them that my little one year old accidentally called them. I apologized and had to verify who I was and where I lived for about 5 minutes. After that was all cleared up me and Ali couldn't believe he managed to dial 911. I realized I had to have Ali to school and headed out the door. As I pushed the garage door opener I saw a cop car pull up to my house. Oh no- I thought- what now!! The cop came up to me and asked if everything at our residence was fine. I again explained what had happened and apologized. He told me that no matter what they have to follow up on EVERY call the really verify everything is fine! He said I would be suprised at how many people call and call back when they are being threatened to call back and say they are fine and they really are not. I was pretty impressed!! I was more embarrassed though as he watched me load my kids in the car and wait to verify that I was fine!! Thank goodness for police officers who do a good job!! Cam is now off limits to the phones!

Happy Birthday Britto!!

Monday was my LITTLE sisters 27th birthday!! I just had to take a minute to comment on how much I love my little sister. We refer to her as the "pure" one in the family because she is the one who always brings us back to the good things in life! Her nickname growing up was BJ- and my mom always told us it stood for brings joy, and that is so true. Ever since we were little she is always the first to apalogize for anything, make things better, and always have something nice to say. She very RARELY can be found saying anything hurtful or negative! She is the great mom to THREE boys that are very close in age and I am always amazed at how she handles all the craziness, but she does. I love that she gets to live so close because she is truly a best friend to have and so Loving not only to me but my kids!! I love ya britto and am so grateful Heavenly FAther has blessed my life by putting you in it!! Happy Birthday!!

It is definately the holidays when my kids faces look like this!!
They have been loving all the holiday goodies, and more importantly
getting so excited for Christmas. Cam is still to young to know
what exactly is going on, but he knows there is a lot of excitement
and a Lot of GOOD food!

Winter fun

Despite getting my epidural cortizone injection last week- we have been pretty busy having some holiday fun!! I left sunday for a short time and came back to this chinese snowman fro and Ali built that is as tall as fro!


Ali has been doing really well with her breathing treatments and Asthma that she has got to play outside a lot more this year and she has been loving it!!

Cam is loving it too!!

One day the girl cousins happened to all come over and we spent some time building a smaller scale snowman!!We used licorice for the lips and they thought that was great!

We of course did snow angels!

For our Derrick side family party we made gingerbread houses with all of Fros' brothers and sister. Ali got to design the whole thing and she made a U of U symbol on it just to tick off her cousin Jackson who is a huge Y fan! Cam just enjoyed all the Free CANDY he could grab!

Our gingerbread house!

We have a family rule that we don't drive through the Thanksgiving point lights until it snows. So the idea this year was to pile into the back of our Tacoma and drink Hot chocolate while seeing the lights. On the first night it snowed we piled in and realized it was 9 degrees so we opted to stay in the car!

Cam driving us through the lights! He was like a little chinese man as he pointed to all the lights he would say oobbeigkial wowwiyae and other phrases we couldn't understand. But what we could tell was he really liked all the lights.

Cam just having some fun in the snow!

Ruby

My little sister Brittany went on a trip to Disneyland over Thanksgiving so she asked us if we would watch her puppy Ruby. Well we were trying to decide if we maybe wanted to get one for Christmas, so we thought it would be perfect to see if having a dog is something we wanted. So Ruby came over and it was a big event. The main rule we were given by my sister was to not let her go on the carpet. She isn't allowed at her house and she didn't want her getting out of that habit. So Ali took great care of her and wouldn't leave her side all day. At one point she finally said, "Mom can you come over and sit by Ruby while I go to the bathroom?" I explained that she didn't need to be watched every second. we just needed to make sure she didn't go on the carpet or furniture. It was hilarious because Ali got so stressed out every time little Ruby set foot on the carpet. She would start screaming "NO RUBY off the carpet!" I thought it was hysterical. Finally I told her Ruby would learn we just had to be firm with her. Well as the week went on Ruby got a little smellier and smellier as Ali put it. She said,"Mom I would pet her more if she didn't stink! It was a great learning week for us and every two seconds I turned around to catch Cam drinking out of the water bowl and sneaking dog food!

Ruby quickly became very fond of the "spoiled " life we were giving her because I would go down stairs and came to find out she was loving life on our outtoman!- sorry Britto! I would say - Pillow Ruby- that is where she napped- and immediately Cam would run over and lay his head down on her pillow- it was so funny!
We loved her and loved watching the kids be with her. By the end of the week I asked Ali if she still wanted a dog, and she said, "No thank You!"
So we had a great learning opportunity that worked out good for us!!
Thanks for the loaner puppy britt!

When did this happen?

the other day I had one of those "when did this happen! When did my baby get so big" moments. I looked over to see Cam plopped down in the hall way reading a book, and trying to say what he was seeing. I of course could only understand the mumbled words but It hit me that he is getting big way to fast!!

Cam came out of my closet wearing my shoes- as he sometimes does, and then it became a fun game for Ali to try on the tallest shoes I had. They both thought it was so funny and began chasing each other in my shoes!

The boots were so High on Ali but she loved running in them!