25 Christmas loves...

#3. I love the spirit of Christmas that I learned from my parents. I'm grateful for their love the of Christmas and how it has played such a big part in my life and Michael's. Each year our house was always very decorated inside and out for Christmas. One of Michael's first Christmases with my family he was floored to see how many Christmas decorations my parents had. He wasn't used to such eleborate decorating. He has learned that this is how it is in my family. I decorated our house this year shortly after Halloween. Then over the Thanksgiving holiday I did my parents house too. Michael did the blow ups and lights outside at my parents house. He's a great husband and son in law.

25 loves of Christmas

#2. I love making Christmas crafts. Whether it's for gifts or just for the house. Tonight we're having a kid craft party. Lots of crafts and pizza too. The boys are very excited! ( I get my love of crafting from my mom! Thanks mom.)
The party was LOUD with 13 kids in the house, but we had lots and lots of fun. Except poor Talmage vomited in the middle of it. ( at least he was in the bathroom). And little Spencer got a bloody mouth from horsing around with the big kids and because of the blood he puked too. At least his was at the end of the party.
We were too busy to take alot of pictures, oh well maybe next year. And thanks to those who offered to help clean up, we got it ok.

25 Things I love about Christmas...

I started this as my status update on Facebook...but for those who aren't connected I thought I do it here too.

1. Making Christmas cookies. I love having the boys help, even if they are fighting about who does what. I love the smell it creates in the house. I love all the different kinds that you only do at this time of year. Peanut Blossoms, Snowballs, Oatmeal Crispies. YUMMY!

Talmage's Harry Potter party

We had been planning out for weeks what to do for Talmage's party. I had gone online and seen the most outrageous fun ideas for things to do at the party. Some seemed way too much for 6 year olds. Unfortunatly, as the party day appoached Talamge was sick. And wasn't getting better fast enough with his fever for me. So we postponed from a Friday night to a Wednesday night. And actually it worked out great. Lots of kids that wouldn't have been able to come that night could come on Wednesday. (keep that note to self)
We had told to kids to come dressed as their favorite Harry Potter character or muggle. I had gone online and downloaded some Harry Potter fonts to make signs for around the house. And I downloaded each of the Hogwarts house symbols, printed, cut them out, glued them to colored foam and then hung them like banners.
We had different areas for different places. Ollivander is the wand man. Talmage & I spent a couple of days making wands for the kids out of square wood dowls, that we wrapped the ends with pipe cleaners and then decorated the rest with markers and glitter glue. They turned out awesome!!
We had signs for different classes and areas like Potions, Care of Magical Creatures where we made spiders that looked like ants, the Mirror of Erised, Honeydukes Sweet Shoppe. It looked really cool.
































We dressed Garrett as Draco Malfoy. He looked perfect.



Talmage was Harry, and Ammon was Ron. Talmage wouldn't let me take his picture, but he's going to be Harry for Halloween, so I'll get him then.














The kids arrived, some dressed as wizards, some just as muggles, but they all looked great.

We had pizza, opened presents, played a wand/fortune telling game, then had cake which I made. I made a Firebolt broom. The handle was cocoa krispies, and then the end was black licorice. It turned out pretty good I think.

Talmage & Emery (aren't they cute?)










Talmage & Ally











Talmage & Josh











Talmage & Easton

Talmage & Lindsay (she wants to marry Talmage in the temple)



Talmage & Logan

















Talmage & his best friend Zane








The kids really had alot of fun. Honeydukes was probably the favorite place of the night. I had made melt aways cookies with mini chocolate chips, Funky Fudge, Chocolate dipped pretzel wands, plus we had lemon drops, pumpkin melt aways, jelly beans, and gum coins. Lindsay said it was the bet party she'd ever been too. Boy I have a lot to live up to for next year!!

Summer...First Days of School

We had a busy a summer as you can already tell. New movies came out, boys had vacations at Nana and Papa's. I got to be down there with them too. Michael & Ammon went to Washington DC. I will let him post some pictures so you can see. For the most part I think we were all glad when school started. Except Ammon missed the first 2 days of school because he had pneumonia in August for crying out loud!!
Talmage was pretty excited about his class. All his best buddies and girls are there. I was glad to see him happy!

































Ammon started the following Monday. His new teacher was someone that I had heard some negative things about her teaching style, so I did everything I could to get him switched out. The principal told me to please give it a couple of weeks. During those weeks Ammon missed more school because of being sick, really had an attitude about going back to school, was not being a happy 3rd grade kid. There seems to be so much pressure on these kids in school that they don't always get to really be kids. Needless to say, I did get the teacher that we wanted and Ammon is more than happy to go to school.































Finally, Garrett got to go his preschool class. He had been waiting and waiting happily but when the day came it took a little bit to get him on the bus. He did great and now he justs runs to the bus.

Ammon's Baptism Day

Can I just say that I made some unique invites to Ammon's baptism. You know the frames and pictures that define Family, Sister, Brothers, etc. Well Ammon's invitation defineds Baptism and Gift of the Holy Ghost. They turned out really nice I thought.
The day came together really nicely. There were 3 children from our ward, plus 2 of Ammon's best friends from other wards were being baptised the same day. Ammon got to see them get baptized too.


My handsome men Michael & Ammon in white














Ammon & Caden




Ammon & Easten


















Ammon, Caden & Easten

Ammon's Day

For Ammon's actual birthday we went to the park and played. Then we went to McDonalds and played. Then home and waited for Dad before going to Galaxy Diner for dinner. They have yummy desserts. It was a hot play filled day!!

This is the new outfit that he got from Aunt Carol.





Ammon's birthday sundae