Happy New Year!

While Sharon and Seth were in town we had to have just ONE more party!

Earlier in the day, Sharon surprised me with tickets to Little Women AND babysitting for my littles (thanks Seth!)  It has been years since I've been to a movie, literally!  It was a good one too.  Sure, Sharon and I had our critiques about it, but it was very well done.  I wouldn't want to have seen it with anyone else!  Sharon is the best!

Later that evening was the official party at Mom and Dad's.  The nachos grande were amazing!  I love that we all bring toppings and have a giant buffet.  4 different kind of meat and every other topping you can imagine!  Of course we ate a few more times before midnight.  There were also card games at the table, video games on the upstairs tv, Just Dance on the downstairs tv, toys in the bedroom, and teenagers on the couch.  Nora put together a white-elephant game with various goods like spam, pickles, and ramen noodles and clearance christmas candy.  I put my kids down around 10pm, except for Dallin, who would not leave the Mario Cart and Minecraft games.  Midnight rolled around quickly and John set off a couple boxes of fireworks.  Happy New Year! 

The next morning, we said goodbye to Sharon and drove home.  They were packing up to leave the morning after that.  I still can't believe they drove across the country just for Christmas.  It's like 2,000 miles each way!  I guess their kids travel well.  Goodness.  I can't complain about the 20 minutes it takes us.  By the time we got home, it was snowing and time for naps.  It was perfect for taking down Christmas.  Out with the old an in with the new!  

Museum of Natural Curiosity

Grandma and Grandpa Hawkins got the kids the BEST Christmas present this year... fun, memories, and pizza!  They bought them new jackets (because for some reason, nobody has jackets that fit anymore) and tickets to the Children's Museum of Natural Curiosity at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi (what a mouthful.  We just called it the "kid's museum").  We scheduled it for the Monday after Christmas and got there before it opened.  The kids were so excited!  The next 3 hours were a blur.  It was pretty calm for the first 30 minutes... and then all heck broke loose and a thousand children flooded in!  We split up and took different kids to watch after, and Anna and Ellie just did what they wanted.  Anna's favorite activity was the water works.  Dallin really loved the the play bank with it's pneumatic tubes.  Drew loved the jungle climbing area.  Tommy just wandered.  I do wish I had brought snacks though.  I'm usually more prepared than this.  By 1pm were were all starving, so we headed to Pizza Pie Cafe in Highland for lunch.  The kids all got what they wanted and I loved it!  This whole day was a great idea.  I can't wait until the kids get a little older and we can go back for the afternoon.  In warmer months, the outside play area is open.  If my boys had their snow pants they would have charged the doors and played anyway!  Thanks Beverly and Lloyd for such a fantastic day!

Cabin Sledding Party

It was so wonderful to see the cabin all warm and full of life again!  It's been over a year since that awful chimney fire that shut down all cabin parties.  But now, it's about put back together.  We got there early to snow blow, stomp down the sledding hill, start a fire, and unpack boxes.  The kids went sledding in the late morning, then we had a delicious lunch of baked potatoes and chili, as well as all our leftover goodies from Christmas.  It's a great way to get rid of all the junk food:  let the teenagers eat it!

Vanessa and I got away for a xc ski up the canyon.  We didn't quite make it to the summit, but we got close.  It was getting a little deep and steep.  The way down was fun and quick.  That's what I love about back-country skiing:  a 90-minute climb and a 20-minute descent!  We ran into Bevan, Sharon, Nora, and Tom at rocky point.  By that time, they were sweating from the hike up and I was freezing from the ski down!  I booked it back to the cabin, b-lining it down the sledding hill, and crashing at the bottom.  It isn't a fulfilling xc ski without a good crash!  It justified me joining the teenagers eating all the junk food.

Christmas... Stuff

Oh, it's so magical at Christmas time!  I'm beginning to appreciate it more and more! The kids eat it all up.  December was a blur.

For Activity Days this month, we made shrinky-dink ornaments and graham cracker houses.
For our ward party, I put together a kids activity room with games and crafts (anything that involves googly eyes, pipe cleaners, and hot glue is sure to be a hit).

We watched the local, sing-in performance of the Messiah, staring Mom, Tom, and Bentley.  There were also a few friends from Midway that played in the orchestra.  It was touching!

I helped at Anna's class party, (once again, with more googly eyes, pipe cleaners, and hot glue). 

We watched endless Christmas specials, mostly thanks to youtube:  Garfield, Muppets, Rudolph, Frosty, Sesame Street, and The Chipmunks!

Elf on the Shelf?  Yeah, we did that.  And I actually had fun with it this year, although the elf got a little lazy towards the end and was pretty easy to find.

And to top it all off, a full 8 days of no school!  Thankfully, the weather has been decent enough to shuffle them outside.  No skiing yet, but that comes eventually.  Maybe in the future, we'll even go see more shows and performances, but that involves holding still.  "Go play in the snow!"

For Christmas Eve, we headed to Mom and Dad's for an impromptu party.  I baked pizza, Tom made sushi, and we had amazing desserts of cake and leftover goodies!  The most exciting part is that it started snowing, really hard!  They had several inches in Francis and it looked promising for a white Christmas.  But as we drove back to Midway, the snow all dissipated to rain.  Bummer.

Christmas morning was amazing and beautiful!  It got cold during the night and we did get several inches of snow after all!  Bevan's boss covered him for a few hours so we could all open up presents together.  We held off Dallin as long as possible, but finally agreed to get up at 6:30am.  Sheesh!  The kids had a wonderful time with all their new stuff, they didn't notice the things that Santa did not bring them, like a guinea pig and 5 more stuffed creepers.  The snow made it all the more magical.  Once again,  "Go play in the snow!"  I needed time to clean up the mess and prep for dinner.  We hosted Beverly and Lloyd and it was a great way to end such a wonderful day!

Temple Square Lights

Maybe, one of these years, our visit to temple square to see the lights will be peaceful and magical.  Maybe my pictures will turn out focused and my new boots won't rub my feet wrong.  It wasn't all bad, the weather was decent, I got my Red Iguana burrito fix, and we only lost Dallin once.  That's a win right there!  We also need to get there earlier, see the lights first, and then go eat.  I love the new play place at city creek, but why in the world do the bathrooms have to be on the OTHER corner of the food court?!  Kids need close bathrooms!  Goodness!

In other news, the temple square lights will be tapered down when the remodeling starts next month.  Everything will look completely different!  It's supposed to take 4 years.  So, maybe in 4 years, we'll come back as a family and have a completely different experience.  I hope they'll still have the human-scale nativity.  I tried to convince Dallin that those camels were not fake and everyone was just holding really still!  I shouldn't push it with that kid.  He claimed he was only there to ride escalators and get his picture taken with a giant creeper in the Microsoft store (sorry Santa!)  It really was the highlight of his night.

THE tree

The wonderful people at the US Forest Service made it incredibly easy to get a christmas tree permit this year... almost TOO easy.  Instead of waking up at 4am, huddling in the dark outside soldier hollow for 2 hours, hoping to get a precious permit, they handed them out easily at the local gas station in Heber.  Huh.  I wonder what will happen next year when people start to catch on?

Anyway, Bevan and I took his first Monday off to go cut the tree.  We dropped the littles off at a babysitter and drove to our favorite spot up Wolf Creek Pass.  Every stinkin' year, we hike a little way in and get distracted by some promising trees off to the side, so we go explore, but always come right back to the trail, back to the same spot.  We wasted probably over an hour this year!  Oh well.  It's good exercise!  The kids were so excited about the tree.  It's the first decoration to go up for Christmas.  Now starts the long month of December.  I'm hoping to get out to more activities this season.  Our amazing town has so many fun things going on that I'm usually scared to death to take 4 little kids to, like gingerbread house and creche displays!  Maybe we'll start with something a little less delicate, like meeting Santa?