Day 366

aka Day 365 + 1

12/31/12

A scene from our very little New Year's Eve party.  We played a few games, had a resolution themed family night, ate some snacks and did a fake countdown at 7pm (it's midnight somewhere).  The kids told me they were tired after that.  :)  Happy New Year Everyone!!

Day 365

 12/30/12

Helping Matthew with his marble works.  It's not as straight forward as you think to get all the pieces in there.  I took a page from my engineering background to build it and then another when I took a picture in case he wanted me to recreate it in the future.  Documentation.  Important.

Day 364

12/29/12

Anna has a favorite sweater.  Unfortunately it's my sweater.   My cashmere sweater.  Anna thinks it is fuzzy, soft and wonderful and wants to wear it all the time.  Sometimes she goes to find it in the night when she feels cold and I find her wrapped up inside of it in the morning.  And if I'm wearing it she wants to snuggle up with me.  I tried hiding the sweater from her for a while, but today she found my hiding place and came out wearing the beloved sweater.  Time to find a new hiding place.

Day 363

12/28/12

Johnny takes an important phone call from Daddy.

Day 362

12/27/12

Sleeping Johnny

I liked how he had his hands folded.

Day 361

12/26/12

Johnny tries out one of his Christmas presents, a ride-on-Bullseye horse.

He's a little too young for it now, but everyone had fun sitting on Bullseye.

Day 360

12/25/12

Merry Christmas!

We had some very excited children at our house on Christmas morning...

...and a few who didn't know what was going on.

Day 359

12/24/12

A scene from our Christmas Eve program

Some people were happier than others.

See more pictures HERE.

Day 358

12/23/12

Grant often has to do just what Matthew does.

Day 357

 12/22/12

A life sized nativity scene at the Denver temple.

It was cold!!

Day 356

12/21/12

We assembled and decorated our gingerbread house today.  We made the house from scratch (well my mom did) using these cool gingerbread house cookie cutters.  We only made one house this year, but next year I might try for more.  We'll see.

Day 355

12/20/12

Christmas vacation is in full swing and Grandpa Keeler is here!  He helped the kids make popsicle stick Christmas trees.

Day 354

12/19/12

Today would have been the last day of school before winter break for Matthew and Anna, but it snowed big and blustery and school was canceled.  Matthew was sorry to miss his party, so we had a little party at home, using some of the leftover things from Anna's party.  It was fun.  I was also glad Anna's class had the party a day earlier 'cause I would have been upset if I had done all that work only to have the party cancel.  It all worked out!

Day 353

 

12/18/12

Anna's preschool winter party.

It went great!  I organized and ran it, with the help of many volunteers of course.  The party was awesome and I'm glad it's over.  :)

Day 352

12/17/12

Prep for Anna's Christmas party tomorrow, which I somehow volunteered to run!  I don't know why I did that.  One of our activities is going to be decorating gingerbread cookies.

Day 351

 

12/16/12

Black out.  Our power went out tonight for about thirty minutes.  The kids were a little scared 'cause it was dark.  Luckily it came back on pretty quickly.

Day 350

12/15/12

Grant likes to take his clothes off.  When we won't let him, he'll pull one arm out through the neck hole of his shirt in protest. He does this a lot.  Take that clothes.

Day 349

12/14/12

Pioneer Woman's Turkey Tetrazzini   Sooo good!!

If you need a recipe for leftover turkey next year this one is good.  And it doesn't use condensed cream of mushroom soup.

Day 348

12/13/12

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

You never think when you are little that you are going to grow up to crave things like roasted Brussels sprouts, but these things are GOOD!!

Day 347

12/12/12

Johnny, now 4 months old, is trying out the exersaucer.

He sort of liked it.

I also tried to explain to Anna that today she is 4 years, 4 months and 4 days old.

She was unimpressed.

Day 346

 12/11/12

Anna and I had a toenail painting party.

I painted hers, so she REALLY wanted to help me paint mine.

We took turns.  Can you tell which ones Anna did?

Day 345

12/10/12

Matthew and Anna play Top It.

Anna is winning here.

Read more about it HERE.

Day 344

12/9/12

Our first snow of substance this season.

See more pics HERE.

Day 343

12/8/12

One Wise Man and one Herald Angel

Tonight was our church Christmas party in which the kids were a part of the nativity program

Read more about it HERE.

Day 342

12/7/12

We got our Christmas tree and decorated it today.

Read more about it HERE.

Day 341

12/6/12

Grant fought taking his nap today.  After many unsuccessful attempts by me and my mom, he finally just fell asleep on the couch upright.

Day 340

12/5/12

We got a special delivery for my parents, a special Christmas tree.

The kids loved checking it out.

Thank you Aunt Janet!!

Day 339

12/4/12

Decorating the house for Christmas
Can you spot our Elf on the Shelf (his name is Charlie)?

Day 338

12/3/12

Matthew with his Lego Advent calendar.  He has been having so much fun with it.

Day 337

12/2/12

John getting sleepy

Day 336

12/1/12

Doing some Christmas shopping in Old Colorado City

Day 335

11/30/12

Visited the Christmas Creche exhibit at our church tonight.

See more pics HERE.

Day 334

11/29/12

Made my favorite Greek pasta salad

Day 333

11/28/12
John letting his legs air out.  It must have been warm that afternoon.

Day 332

11/27/12

Haircut Day.  The three older kids got haircuts and lollipops today.

It sort of went ok.

See more haircut pics HERE.

Day 331

11/26/12

Our Family Night lesson was about keeping the Sabbath Day holy.

Somehow this is what we were left with at the end.

Some days family night lessons go better than others.

Day 330

11/25/12

Happy John!

He only has about four warm sleepers that fit, which he wears all the time and we wash constantly.

He probably goes through three a day.

Day 329

11/24/12

Making sugar cookies

Day 328

11/23/12

Thanksgiving is over...so that means it's open season in Christmas.  

Hoooray!  See more family pics HERE.

Day 327

11/22/12

Thanksgiving Day

We had a nice Thanksgiving despite some pie drama.

Read more about our day HERE.

Day 326

11/21/12

Thanksgiving Prep

The kids check out some chopped onions, with the proper eye protection.

Day 325

11/20/12

Grant just wants the toy the big kids have...no matter what it is.

He wasn't too happy to share the stage/limelight/special microphone with Anna here.

We're working on that sharing thing.

Day 324

11/19/12

One of Anna's amazing works of art.

This one represents me falling down on the treadmill, which happened today.  I scraped my knee and arm up, but was otherwise ok.  I run on the treadmill a lot and have done so for years...and never fallen down before.  First time for everything.  I am the big tree in this picture. :) Also there is a storm and a house falling on a person in the picture.  This was while reading/listening to the Wizard of Oz with the kids.  I can see the influences in Anna's art work.  :)

Day 323

 

11/18/12

John looking nice for church.  Already his pants are too short?!?

Day 322

11/17/12

Matthew having screen time.

He is highly motivated to help me clean if he can earn some time on the ipod.

Day 321

11/16/12

Pizza and Pops day at Matthew's school

I stood in for pop, but Matthew made him a nice picture anyway.

See more about his pizza and pops day HERE.

Day 320

11/15/12

Grant puts out the vibe.  He was talking to John, but lost interest when the camera came out.  :)

Day 319

 11/14/12

John having some floor time.  Sometimes he just needs to stretch out a bit.

Day 318

11/13/12

Pack Meeting

Here's a blurry picture from our chaotic pack meeting tonight. 
Each den dressed someone up as a turkey.  It was fun, but could have gone better.  Bla!

Day 317

11/12/12

Johnny checks things out while Anna and Grandma talk.