Merry Christmas 2012

This Christmas will be remembered as simple and happy. This was our first year with Reed in school and it was very different being both away from family and also being really frugal with gifts. 

Our family got some new games, and the kids especially love the new wii game, skylanders giants.

Isaac got a Pogo stick, skylander character and ninjago lego set.

Abbie got a furby, an accesory, and crayola color designer.

Kaden got a ninjago lego set, an angry bird game and a skylander character. 

I was really worried about the kids getting gifts like socks, underwear and family games but, they didn't mind at all. They loved the gifts and were very thankful for what they recieved. 

Abbie loved her snowball furby and the kids had a schedule for babysitting through the entire christmas break. They even took turns who was going to have it sleep on their pillow at night. It was a favorite toy of this Christmas season. 

Brooklyn got her very own Lala Loopsie doll that she named Lucy. Now both of the girls have their la la dolls and Brooklyn plays with both dolls all the time. 

Brooklyn wanted to eat everyone's candy, she kept finding it no matter where the kids put their candy. 

The Hughes family had our name for Christmas and gave us games that Allisha and I used to play as kids. The kids opened the box and I was so excited, they wanted to know what was so fun about these games. So I told them about how we used to play games as kids. The kids were very excited to play these games.

This year (me being the bread-winner), I was able to surprise everyone with a surprise gift. Even Reed didn't know about this one. If you know my kids, you know they love playing with Nerf guns. The problem with most of them is that they are hard to use for the younger kids. They aren't strong enough to set the spring so they can shoot, so these new nerf guns come with batteries that does the hard part for the kids. They just have to pull the trigger and to make it even better, the bullets are glow-in-the-dark. So, we turned off all the lights downstairs and had a nerf war. IT WAS AWESOME!

They were SO surprised! 

Abbie was really excited that I got one for her too, since usually she has to borrow one of the boy's nerf guns. So we took Sharpie marker and they named their guns (also so they couldn't get confused as to who's was who's). The names went as follows Reed- THE DADINATOR   Isaac - The Straight Ace   Abbie- The ABBIENATOR  Kaden- The Destroyer

The boys LOVED that they got a new game! This is a game that they have only played when at a few friend's house. They were so excited with their character's and something new to play. 

The day ended with us being able to skype with family. Boy, that made me homesick. We are always with SOME family and this was really different. Modern technology made it possible for us to be there when my parents opened their gifts from all of us kids. There was two of us on two different computers being skyped in. One from Kansas  (us) and Pennsylvania (my sister's family). It made it a little better being able to join in the celebration. We missed family terribly this year and it was a really different Christmas. But, we realized how strong we are as a family and know that we can do anything when we have each other.

Merry Christmas 2012

Sky Zone (Christmas Break Activity)

We stayed in Kansas for Christmas. So we let the kids choose 2 activities they REALLY wanted to do over the Christmas break. They chose ice skating and going to sky zone, an indoor trampoline park.

They have half of the entire facility covered with trampolines, even the walls have trampolines. 

There are three other areas besides the main jumping area. There is a trick area where you jump from a trampoline into blocks of foam.

Abbie is fearless. 

Kaden loved the foam blocks. 

Isaac and Abbie also tried the dodge ball areas. There were two dodge ball courts that constantly rotated. They had a lot of fun! 

Sky Zone is Huge 

Then Isaac was off to try the basketball dunking area. 

Isaac dunking the basketball 

Brooklyn finally woke up from her nap in the stroller, just before the time was over. So, Brooklyn and I didn't get to jump but, it was still fun to watch the kids have so much fun. 

Abbie dunking the basketball 

And this is Reed showing off his mad skills. He would do some crazy tricks. He said it was really hard to get out of the block pit, it was quite the work-out. The kids were so thrilled that they got to do this activity and it made their Christmas break exciting! It was really different not being with family for the holidays but, we made the best of it and found some fun family activities to do together!

Snow Day

The last day of School before Winter Break ended up being a SNOW DAY!! The kids were excited and sad because they were going to have their parties that day! This was Brooklyns first time being in the snow this year!

Brooklyn all bundled up and ready to play

The slide was really fun for the kids all packed in snow.

Even Brooklyn was able to try the slide in the snow. The kids had a blast playing in the snow.

The slide is really fast with snow on it.

Abbie stayed out so long that we had to keep giving her new gloves that weren't wet. She went through three pairs of gloves before she finally came in from playing in the snow.

 

This was a very fun FIRST snow day!

Isaac Turns 10

My how time flies! I can't believe Isaac is 10! He is such a joy to have in our family. He is a great big brother and such a big help around the house. He is becoming such a great young man!

Abbie and Kaden loved doing the bumping presents on the head.

Isaac loved opening his presents.

He got a BeyBlade Battle Dome from the family, a table tennis from Grandma and Grandpa Tenney, a new bey blade to play with in his dome, Kung Fu Panda movie, a vintage phone bank(this kid loves money) and money from Grandma and Grandpa Millett to go into his bank.

Isaac loved reading the cards from everyone and had to pick up the confetti out of Grandma Millett's card and make the confetti fly TWICE!

The only requirement for his cake was to be chocolate with rainbow chip frosting. So, after we had taken out all the candles and cut it, I finally remembered to take a picture. We did get a video of him blowing out his candles.

We went as a family and played miniature golf and laser tag for his birthday! He loves going to family fun centers and then we got pizza for his birthday dinner(I think he has requested pizza every year! That boy LOVES cheese pizza!)

Happy Birthday Isaac!

Getting a Christmas Tree in Kansas

We finally found a Christmas Tree farm that was going to be the closest thing to how it was in Utah. No, tree permit and walking in the snow to find the perfect tree but, this was pretty good!

We got our saw and were off to find the perfect tree!

Brooklyn loved this activity. It was warm enough that we mostly wore hoodies and jackets.

The kids played hide-n-seek in the trees.

We got all the way to the end where they were getting ready to plant more trees and hadn't found the perfect one. Apparently they only grow scotch pines here in Kansas and Mom wasn't thrilled about this type of tree. She was too used to her lodge pole pines. Luckily, they had shipped some different trees in and had them in the barn.

So, we walked back to the barn and picked out our tree!

The tree farmers were SO nice and the kids got coloring books and hot chocolate.

Brooklyn hardly stands still long enough to get her picture taken, let alone looking at the camera.

The hot chocolate was yummy!

The kids walked the balance beam as the farm hands tied the tree on top of the Tahoe.

We had a great time getting our Christmas Tree.