Blue & Gold Banquet

I don't think I've blogged about it yet, but this year Josh was asked to be a den leader in the boy scouts (starting last summer). Isaac is in his den, and they have had lots of fun doing scouts together. In February they had their Blue & Gold Banquet. Each boy and his dad was asked to make a cake for a cake contest. Josh happened to be out of town on a business trip, so I helped Isaac make a cake. We made a cub scout shirt! :) I helped with the shaping of the cake and the edges, and Isaac did most of the frosting & candy decorations. We used fruit-roll-ups for the neckerchief. It turned out pretty cute. Isaac won "Best Cub Scout Cake" in the contest.

Christmas Eve & Christmas 2010

Yikes! It's March. I need to get faster at my back-bloggin! :)

We had a great Christmas Eve this year. In some ways, I think I love Christmas Eve almost as much as Christmas. For our family, it's an entire day spent together as a family, spent close to the Savior, with many fun activities.

We started out the day by meeting Josh's sister Melissa and her family at an early matinee movie at the theater. We saw the movie "Tangled" which was really cute. We started this little tradition with them last year and it has been really fun. :)

After we got home, we had lunch, then started making our traditional cookies for Santa Clause! This year we did peanut butter blossoms. They turned out really yummy.

After that we went out and delivered some Christmas goodies to our neighbors. We made our hot fudge sauce again this year. This time Josh ended up making it while I worked on some other Christmas goodies.

After we got home from our deliveries we put together our Christmas Eve dinner. It's been our tradition the last few years to have a cheese tray with a few "exotic" cheeses (and a couple of not so exotic ones) fruit and crackers.

After dinner we all gathered near our Christmas tree. We read from the bible of the birth of Christ and discussed it with the kids. Isaac & Parker amaze me at how much they already know of the scripture stories and how much they truly understand. It's always neat to talk to them about them. As we talked about Jesus' birth, the kids got out a little nativity that we have and we sort of acted out the story. It made it really fun.

Afterward we opened our Christmas Eve gift (new pajamas!), and the kids went to bed excited for Santa to come. :)

I think it's funny because so far we've always had to wake up our kids on Christmas morning. LOL But we got them up and went downstairs to see if Santa Clause came!

The stockings were full!

And he definitely came!

We had hamsters in our Christmas tree:

Checking out the cool stuff Santa brought:

Isaac got some new Pokemon cards & a binder to

store them in. I mentioned Isaac has been on a

pineapple kick lately? He asked Santa for a pineapple

this year (LOL). Not sure if he was serious, but

Santa came through! Haha

Bryce loved his car ramp toy:

And he got his own scooter this year!

Parker's our video game boy. He got a Sonic

game for our Wii.

We pretty much just spent the day playing and being together. It was nice not having to go anywhere. For our Christmas dinner we had Shrimp, sour cream potatoes, spinach artichoke dip with veggies, a jello salad, and sparkling apple cranberry juice.

A couple of days after Christmas we made the trip to southern Utah to visit both my and Josh's parents. We stopped in Loa to visit my parents first, then headed down to St. George to visit Josh's parents. We beat the snow storms, and had a good time seeing everyone and celebrating Christmas with them.

I took picture of everyone's gifts. :) The kids always have fun looking back at these years later. Not sure if anyone else cares about looking at them though. LOL!

Josh got a food dehydrator, a campfire popcorn popper, a wheatgrass juicer,

a newspaper log maker, some five-finger shoes (not pictured) and a few other things.

Family gifts: a trampoline! (not pictured), Mario Kart &

Wheel of Fortune for Wii,

some new board games, & a couple of other things:

Bryce got a car ramp toy, a scooter, some Zhu Zhu pets

a Sing-a-ma-jig, new blocks and more:

Isaac got a binder & more Pokemon cards,

a Kung fu hamster set, a camera, an electadoodle,

the Percy Jackson book set, & more:

Parker got a Zhu Zhu pet set, a Hot Wheels set,

a Moon Dough set, an electadoodle, his Sonic game

and more:

I got way too spoiled this year! I got a Kitchenaid mixer,

a Macbook (big surprise from Josh :)), and an Emrod fishing pole:

Isaac's 8th Birthday!

Isaac turned 8 on December 22nd! He had a fun day. His birthday ended up being the first day of Christmas vacation, so he got to be home all day. I should mention that the day before we got like two feet of snow and had our first ever Snow Day! We were pretty surprised because as long as I've been around I don't ever remember there being one in Utah! :)

So Isaac opened his birthday presents in the morning. He got a new Star Wars Lego set, a Crystal Growing Kit, a Penguin Pillow Pet, a new Play Doh set, and Josh gave him his first pocket knife.

Very excited about his new Lego set:

Isaac with all his birthday presents:

For his birthday dinner, Isaac chose to have cheese enchiladas. So far, I had only made chicken enchiladas that you bake in the oven (which are super yummy), but had never made cheese enchiladas. I ended up creating my own recipe, but they were pretty authentic. They turned out SO good. I'll definitely be making them again.

This year was the first year Isaac didn't ask for a decorated cake. He's been on a pineapple kick lately, so he asked for a pineapple upside-down cake...LOL. It turned out really yummy too! I loved the caramely topping!

Isaac's Birthday Party

For Isaac's 8th birthday, he wanted to have a birthday party with his friends. Since Isaac's birthday is on the 22nd, and just a few days before Christmas, we decided to have it the weekend before his birthday so more people would be able to come. He had a Pokemon birthday. I couldn't find our camera, so these pictures are cell phone pictures and not the best.

I made a Pikachu poster for "Pin the tail on Pikachu":

I was SO glad that Josh was home to help with the party!

He's a scout leader, so he's good with crowds of 8 year olds. :)

Pining tails on Pikachu:

We did a balloon popping game too.

There was something hidden in one of the balloons,

and whoever found it won a prize:

Okay, don't laugh! These are the Pikachu cupcakes that

I attempted. Haha! I wasn't able to get the right stuff

to decorate them, so these were my thrown together

version:

I don't think I ever posted it for some reason,

but this is the Pokeball cake I made for Isaac

two years ago. It turned out a lot better. LOL:

Pikachu with all his tails:

The whole party group (minus one boy):

ETA: We also did a pinata! I have no idea why I didn't get any pictures of it! The kids had fun with it though. :)

Bryce's 5th Birthday

Bryce turned 5 on December 9th! Can you believe how far this little boy has come since that teeny tiny baby in the hospital with all his wires and tubing? We're so happy and proud of all he's accomplished and with his health now.

Talking to Grandma & Grandpa C. on the phone.

He thought that was pretty cool. :)

Bryce with his birthday presents. We did presents before school,

so he had to get a tube-feed while he opened. He didn't mind though! :)

Opening presents! He thought that was too fun!

Bryce's birthday gifts. He got a GeoTrax train set (He LOVES choo-choo trains),

a Panda Pillow Pet, a MagnaDoodle type toy, and a set of Potato Heads.

Bryce playing with his train set after school. He loved it!

Bryce had a choo-choo train cake this year!

He couldn't resist taking a taste of the frosting (Yay!)!

He sure loved blowing out the candles!

Bryce even ate some cake and some dairy/soy free ice cream this year, and we had pizza for his birthday dinner which he ate a little of too. :)

Our Christmas Tree 2010

This year was our first Christmas in our new house, so we were super excited to get our Christmas tree! We weren't able to make it down to Wayne County this year to cut our tree like we usually do, so my family cut one for us and brought it up on Thanksgiving. We got a big one this year to go in our living room with the tall ceiling. The kids had lots of fun decorating it. Bryce had a lot of fun, and I think understood things a little more this year. After we were done decorating it (and the entire time the tree was up) he would point at it and say "I make!". So cute. :) He says the same thing when he brings a picture home from school that he's made. I love how his speech and communication is developing so well now. Anyway, here are a few pictures of the tree decorating!

I think I'm back

I decided to try doing the blog again. :) I had a good break which I really needed for some reason, but now I'd like to start posting again. I like that it ends up being a sort of family journal. I don't want to try catching up because it is just way to overwhelming! I'm going to start with December (last month) and hopefully keep things caught up!