The end of a long day.

Rustin and Elijah didn't last too long after we got loaded into the car. Skiing was part of their birthday with mom and dad, with 2 other kids it was so nice to just focus and have fun with them. Back to the good old days when it was just the 4 of us.

Dad and Rustin

Brooke and Rustin at the end of a long day of skiing. He made it down the mountain without falling and went on a very small jump. We really wanted him to just gain the confidence to know that he can do it.

Rustin at Pomerelle

This is Rustin going down Milk run. He really did awesome. He loved going on the lift and picked it up pretty fast.

His instructor said he didn't have as much control, he just wanted to go fast, total opposite of Elijah.

Elijah on the bunny slope.

Elijah did really well with control and going slow.

He figured it out and went down Milk run a couple of times. But by 2:30 around the time he figured out how to ski, he was tired of skiing, so we hung out in the lodge for a little while. Good job sweetie!

Rustin and Elijah with their instructor.

Skiing up in Idaho.

Rustin, Elijah and mom right before their first ski lesson.

Snow days.

A lot of the neighbors made it outside to play in the snow after Christmas to escape cabin fever. Rustin and Haily (our neigbor) were the last survivors of the cold weather. The kids worked on little coves shoveled and dug tunnels.

The last of seeing the Christmas tree.

Every year I get so sad to take the Christmas tree down. The lights, the magic and the spirit of Christmas are quieted until the next year. The kids are sad and I miss watering the dang thing to keep it hydrated. Some where out in the mountains of Idaho grows next years perfect Christmas tree that brings back the magic and excitement of the Christmas spirit. The Christmas tree is now down along with all the other Christmas stuff and life is back to normal. The threat of, "You better be good or I call Santa on the cell phone." no longer carries as much value as it did a few weeks ago. Hopefully this year we will make more of an effort to serve neighbors, loved ones and perfectly perfect strangers, to really celebrate Christ's birth and his life here on earth. That I believe is the greatest gift we can give to Christ.

This was Easton after Christmas breakfast. Opening presents wore him out.

Pluck-it bread.

Pluck-it bread another Christmas tradition. Brooke grew up having this for part of their Christmas breakfast tradition. It's pluck it bread a.k.a. monkey bread, sticky buns or pull aparts. Whatever you call it, it is soooooo yummy and soooooo sugary. I can only eat about one or two and then the sugar kicks in and I'm done.

This was a gift from Brooke's mom and dad, this is the story that goes along with it. It made all his brother's and sisters ball their heads off.

Dear Kids, Merry Christmas-2009
I rather suspect that you have all looked at the small, brown fold up chair that is usually near the piano in our living rooom. I even suppose that most of you have sat on that chair at one point or another in your life. Some of you may have wondered how that chair came to be in our home and where it came from. I may have told you this before, but here is the full story. When I was little, we used to travel to see my grandparents in Lovell, Wyo. Since we lived in Belgrade, Montana, and a freeway hadn't even been an idea, yet, travel to and from those two towns was no short drive. Today, that drive takes about 3.5 hours. When I was little, about 55 mph was as fast as you could safely go and it took 5 or 6 hours and maybe more, depending on weather conditions. Needless to say, when we went to Lovell, we stayed for a few days before turning around to head back to Montana. I should admit at this point that I was considered by most everyone to be a rather busy little boy. I don't think trouble was my name but trouble and I were well acquainted. I didn't have a Grandpa Lowe, since he had passed away before I was born so Grandpa Johnson spent a lot of time and worked pretty hard to keep me away from my dad's right boot. Grandpa Johnson had a nick-name for all his grandchildren which he gave them at the time he first laid eyes on them after they were born. I was born in early September and I was only weeks old when he came to visit. I don't recall what all the other grandkids nick-names were, but he named me 'Tuffy' which he called me until he passed away. As I said earlier, going to Lovell meant going to Grandpa Johnson's house to see what trees I could climb or what other mischief would find me. Out in the back of their house was a small garage/shop. There were not many tools there but there were a couple of hammers. Boys and hammers just naturally seem to go together. Somewhere, he had acquired a couple of kegs of bent nails. He probably got them with me in mind since it seemed to me like he and I were the only ones who worked on them. I remember staightening nails for hours, it seemed. When you are young, things seem longer than they are. Anyway, he would say "Come out to the shop with me, Tuffy." He would dump a bunch of nails out on a a little table and we stayed until they were all straightened, sorted and put in the right bucket. We worked on those nails on a round block of wood that set on the floor. As I was only six or seven or so at the time, he found a chair for me to sit on while we worked. It is that chair that sets next to our piano.
This little chair that I am giving you was built by me using my old chair as a pattern. My chair carried a lifetime guarantee which expired the same time Grandpa Johnson did. Your chair carries the same guarantee.

Christmas morning.

They all got money machines from Grandma and Grandpa Gallien.
This present was hilarious, the whole morning all the boys kept saying we know what that is, we know what that is and yes it was a ball.

Easton loved it, thanks Aunt Daisy. Something fun we did this year was a gift exchange with the kids. We put name's in a "hat", and they all picked somepone's name. Rustin had Easton, Elijah had Rustin, Cooper had Elijah and Easton had Cooper. Brooke and I took them one at a time to go pick something out for whoever they had I took over Easton's gift. Cooper was really funny as all the kids were talking Cooper just said, "I just hope Easton gives me something really awesome." too funny. It really was fun, the kids each picked something that they thought the other would like and wrapped it and tagged it themselves. So when the person they had was ready to unwrap the gift given it made it more exciting. The test this year was teaching them to keep a secret. And they did for a few weeks they didn't say a word about what anyone gave to anyone. We payed for the gifts this year, next year we told them that they would have to pay for the gift to make it even more meaningful that's where Grandma and Grandpa Gallien's gift come in handy.

Brooke was so excited about his weed wacker, he tried to weed wack our carpet. His Santa gift was a celebration of me not having to take care of the yard, so he can edge, weed wack and blow the grass away, he can do it with his new tools. I'll help with the weeding for fun.

You know, we exchanged fun gifts but some of the best one's were hand made and from the heart. The Chair that Grandpa Al made in his shop was awesome. The pillow cases that Grandma Gallien made for the boys was awesome and my blog book that showed up Christmas eve day that I had made through the blurb company. It showed up while Brooke was outside in the back, so I put it in the back of all the Christmas presents to kind of hide it. He knew right what it was Christmas morning. We didn't think it would show up until after Christmas. Handmade things were the best by far.

Easton was loving Noah.

Easton was just cuddling Noah that morning! It was really fun to have him join us for this very special day. He had some new news for us. He is getting married on July 3rd in the Nauvoo temple, his fiance was in Wisconsin with her family.

Stockings and Santa gifts.

It was a great Christmas. Rustin wanted a bike and hot wheels set fr0m Santa. Elijah got a bike, hot wheels set and an umbrella of all things (that's what he asked Santa for of all things). Cooper really has had his eye on this pleasant jungle car set for about 2 months and only asked Santa for it 3 or 4 times. Easton got a fun ball popper toy. They were soon done with their stockings and ready to bring on what was under the tree!

Christmas morning.

Christmas morning. Another family tradition, we make all the kids come in together for Christmas morning to see what they got from Santa. They all helped Easton along to the front room. So Cooper wanted these Buzz light year jammies for Christmas, they are really green, but he wanted them and was super excited when he opened his gift.

Christmas eve, preping the turkey.

This is Brooke preping the Turkey to have it all ready for Christmas dinner. Yes that is a very large syringe that he used to inject the marinade. After he injected the turkey he put a dry rub on it, the next day he deep fried it. The turkey tasted awesome!
I thought I was going to bed early Christmas Eve night cause all the wrapping was done, think again, I made some pies and pluck-it bread for the next day, who wants to spend all Christmas day cooking? While I cooked I watched the movie, A Christmas story on TBS from about 12:30 to 3a.m. they just played it over and over and no matter how many times you watch it, its still just as funny as if you watched it for the first time. "you'll poke your eye out." never gets old. I didn't mind staying up late, it just made Christmas last a little bit longer.

The first Christmas gift of the season.

So this is a Christmas tradition that my family and Brooke's family have had ever since we were young. The kids are allowed to open one gift on Christmas Eve. No surprise, mom and dad picked which gift they got to open and surprise, surprise it's always a pair of jamies. One year they'll catch on that every year the night before Christmas chances are the gift is a pair of jamies. It really was a fond memory growing up, the night before Christmas all the excitement building up and we got to open one gift, a nice pair of warm comfy jamies. When Elijah put them on after we got home he said, "Mom I like these jamies, they are so comfy." Mission accomplished.

The look on Coop's face was priceless. He said, "These are the jamies I asked for, for Christmas".

Christmas Eve.

We spent Christmas Eve at Aunt Daisy's house in Orem. We had our traditional soup, bread bowls and salad. The kids all frosted Cookies for Santa and watched a movie while the adults played board games. We topped the evening with reading Luke chapter 12 from the Bible, the story of Christ's birth. It really was a fun night, Noah was able to come on over and spend the Christmas weekend with us, we loved it. This was a picture of some of the kids frosting their cookies, Riley didn't want to be in the picture so he darted out of the room.
Elijah was talking with Brooke that day and Elijah said, "Dad, I know when Jesus's real birthday is.". Brooke-- "When.".
Elijah -- "April 6th."
Brooke-- "How do you know?"
Elijah-- "I just knowed." He must have remembered from a primary lesson, he has a better memory than his mom.

Brooke's ornament balls.

Okay, normally I don't blog dumb stuff like this but these balls turned out to be the topic of conversation just about every time we pulled up to the house. Just about everyone that came over he had to talk about the big christmas balls haning outside, I am sure Jenny our neighbor will be glad when we take them down. Brooke saw these at target and thought it would be fun to hang them out on the house. He put them up and they looked great after that when ever we would drive down the road he would remind all of us how nobody has his balls hanging outside their house. About a week before Christmas we were noticing one night how many Christmas house lights were turned on our street, so we decided to take a drive and look at all the pretty lights and then it happened... Someone else had his balls! Oh it was priceless the look on his face when he saw someone else with his balls, I laughed pretty hard. They had some big ones and some smaller ones hanging in their porch. I had to tell him that they got the idea from him to try to lighten the blow. Then a few days later he was driving to a friends house in Alpine and saw another house with them. Now everyone has "his" balls hanging outside their house (The ornament balls are really supposed to be for indoor use I guess.). By now he has gotten over it, until next year when everyone has his balls hanging out side their homes. Oh, it felt like a taste of a Griswald Christmas for sure.

Neighbor gifts.

It's making me hungry blogging this. This is what I do for neighbor gifts. Braided bread. It's easier than making tons of candy or cookies and it's tasty. Let's just say I made a lot. We had to taste a loaf, just to make sure there wasn't too much salt, wink, wink =)

"Gingerbread" houses.

Cooper made this icecream cone, Christmas tree at pre-school. Santa was waiting for him when he arrived at pre-school that day.

Rustin decorating his, gram cracker house, there was tons and tons of candy and he wasn't putting hardly any on, that's a shocker. He loves surgar!

Elijah had fun too.