Promo material

Each year we try to do the Run Run Reindeer in Ivins.  It has been on the 1st Saturday of December until last year when they changed it to the Saturday before Christmas.

Last year it was on Christmas Eve and was a lot of fun with donuts, hot chocolate and Chick-filet.  We won't be around for it this year but I still get the links to their promotional ads and their link to the Facebook page.  Guess what cover page they changed to yesterday...

Why am I so excited?  Look underneath Santa's watch on his left hand.  Right under the black shirt that is showing under his white cuff.  Recognize that cute little face?  That's COURTNEY!  This was taken a few years ago (probably 3 or 4) but that's her. Which means that the head above his watch is MINE!

We're famous! ;)  hahaha!

Lava Ridge orchestra concert

Courtney had an orchestra concert last night for the Lava Ridge Intermediate orchestra.  They did a good job.  I was able to record a few of her songs before my phone ran out of space.  Bryan got some others, but this will give you a taste of the orchestra:

(I don't know if this video is going to work or not.  It's giving me fits!)

Making ornaments

Another Christmas tradition the kids love is making glitter ornaments.  We have been doing this for quite a few years and it is so easy and fun.  You get some floor cleaning fluid (I can't remember the brand), some empty craft ornaments, and some glitter.  You pour a little bit of the floor cleaner in the ornament, swish it around, and then empty the excess.  Then you pour glitter into the ornament and shake it around (with your finger over the hole).  You dump out the excess glitter, put the top on the ornament, and VOILA!

They are fun and it's great to mix glitter to find a new combination for your ornament. 





The cleaner and glitter can make a huge mess though.

Early out

One a month the kids have an early out day so the teacher's can go to meetings.  These days drive me nuts because Ethan can't get from Success Academy to the high school in time for classes so he ends up missing his high school classes once each month.  And Courtney gets really bored when she is home early.

Last Monday was an early out so they were both home by noon.  Ethan studied for his finals and then read a book but Courtney decided to entertain herself.  I was busy working on the computer and didn't notice anything until I hear leaves rustling outside.  When I looked, I saw this:





Courtney decided to clean up leaves from our backyard.  Now, this is really impressive because that wheelbarrow she is using has a flat tire!  So she was having to push it really hard to get it anywhere.  And she spent over 45 minutes out there cleaning up leaves because she had nothing else to do.  How awesome is that?!  I was so happy and let her know how much I appreciated her doing that.

Later she came running in crying.  She had learned a valuable lesson that Bryan learned years ago...always know where the rake is.  Yup, she stepped on the rake and almost knocked herself out.  So now she has a bruise next to her eye to show for all her hard work.



I don't know if you can see the bump in the picture but it's at the end of her eyebrow close to the bottom left of the picture.

Jumping toothpicks

Somehow the subject of the jumping toothpicks came up.  Bryan tested the toothpicks to make sure they were good for jumping and then made them jump.  Ethan was amazed.  He has seen it before but Ethan really wanted to figure it out.

He took the toothpicks and tried to figure it out.  He even enlisted some friends but none of them could get the toothpicks to jump.  Bryan finally told him that if Ethan doesn't figure it out before he goes on his mission, that Bryan will teach him how to do it.

Poor kid. 

Ward Christmas party

We had the best Ward Christmas party!  As the bishop explained it, a lot of work goes into a Ward Christmas party and you get a night of socializing and listening to the Primary sing.  But it doesn't really amount to a whole lot.  So instead, they decided to simplify the food and then serve the way Christ served.

Last Saturday we had a breakfast and then we all loaded in cars and drove to the Utah Food Bank across town to do service as a ward for 1 1/2 hours.  It was awesome because they had things for everyone to do.  The little kids made Christmas cards to go with the care packages that had children while the adults sorted through donated items.

We had around 90 people there (I believe) and we got a lot of work done for them.  The Dollar Tree store has a warehouse in St. George and they send pallots of boxes over to the Utah Food Bank.  Each box was like opening pandora's box because there were so many various things in each box.  You could have pencils in with bathroom cleaner.  It was crazy.

We opened the boxes on the pallots and then sorted them into categories so they could be sent where they were needed.  They were items that, if you don't have money and are worried about buying food, you wouldn't buy for yourself.





I am hoping this will be our new Ward tradition for Christmas because it was a lot of fun and really made a difference for the Christmas season.  And...we didn't have to clean up after a huge party!

House light show

There is a house on Rachel Drive in Santa Clara that has an amazing light show for Christmas.  It would drive me nuts if I were one of their neighbors, but it's great fun to go and watch it.  On our way back from the Garden's, we decided to drive through a couple of neighborhoods with good lights and end up at the Rachel Drive house.

We tuned our radio to their station and watched the show.  The only annoying part was that someone was parked on the wrong side of the street, right in front of us, and wouldn't turn off their headlights.  So they were shining right in our faces!  Ugh.

Anyway, here is the video of part of the show.  Just ignore all the talking.

The Garden's lights

By the Dixie rock, there is a place called the gardens. They always put up lights on the xeroscape landscape. We like walking through there and looking at all the lights and seeing what they have. This year was pretty cool.

They have some fish tanks that the kids like to look in.

We had hot chocolate and it wasn't cold so we had a lot of fun.

Temple lights

Because the temple lighting ceremony was so long we didn't stay to look around at the lights. After Courtney got out of dance one night, we picked her up and went to the temple grounds. It was cold, but we had a lot of fun walking around looking at the lights.

We always get a picture of Ethan and Courtney underneath the arch in the back of the temple.

Live Nativity at Tuacahn

Our ward was invited to participate in the live nativity at Tuacahn. Bryan had participated in the live Nativity years ago with the youth but the rest of us had never been involved in it. Ethan wasn't as thrilled as the rest of us, but he ended up having a lot of fun.

We went up to Tuacahn pretty early so that we could be taught but we had to do and then find costumes. We met with our ward in the green room and then they split us up by rules. Ethan and I were towns people, Courtney was an angel, and Bryan was the centurion soldier.

Ethan was originally asked to be a soldier and then they realize he had shorts on so he wasn't allowed to do it because they had to have long pants.







They took us out on stage and run us through our parts. Courtney got to go up on some scaffolding and being Angel. Bryan was the soldier who opened the gates for everyone to enter the town. And Ethan and I had to walk across the stage to pay our taxes and then come out later to bow before the baby Jesus. They were super easy parts.

After we did the run through a couple times we were taken back to find our own costumes. This was pretty fun.

This is Ethan being sarcastic. 😆

Our little angel:

There was a lot of waiting involved.

When it was time to do the first performance, we went to our places and waited for everything to start. It wasn't very cold, and our costumes were so big and heavy that we were able to keep warm that way.

One of the really cool things was that we got to use the tunnel to go from one side of the stage to the other. In the tunnel there are paintings from every production Tuacahn has ever done, with all the signatures of the actors that were in those plays. 

Courtney had her picture taken next to the little mermaid painting. That has significance to her because we took her there for her birthday and Prince Eric used her name to try to guess the name of Ariel.

Ethan and I had such a easy part that we just walked across the stage at the beginning, went under the tunnel back to our starting positions, and then waited until the end when we came out and melt before baby Jesus. So we had quite a bit of time to give off. Courtney ended up getting hot under her costume and took off her sweatshirt. She wanted me to hold it but I didn't want to hold it and so she gave it to Ethan. Ethan put it underneath his costume and then pretended to be a salesman selling his wares out of a trenchcoat. It was pretty funny.

Between the first and second performances we were able to go out on stage and have our pictures taken. We have a women in our ward who works as a stage manager so she came down and took the picture of the whole word. It was really neat to be there and have that fun experience.

Courtney even got to pet the goats.

ZYSO

Courtney made it onto an orchestra. She had to try out for her orchestra teacher at the intermediate school, who is one of the directors. But she was excepted to be on the orchestra and she was really excited.

They have orchestra practice every Saturday morning and after three weeks they are going to have an orchestra concert. She is very excited to be on the Zion youth Symphony orchestra. She even got a shirt.😁

Gingerbread houses

We have some Christmas traditions that we do every year. Right after Thanksgiving we had family counsel and I asked the kids what family traditions they wanted to do this year in December. I make a calendar with activities we do every day during the Christmas holiday. Orchestra concerts and work parties are taken out of the calendar so we don't have an activity is a family planned on those days but the rest of the time we have something planned to do as a family.

Some of their favorite traditions are making gingerbread houses, looking at the lights at the temple visitor center, driving around to see lights on houses, and making their own Christmas ornaments.

We made gingerbread houses one night. We always get cats that have the frosting already made and the shapes already cut out. All they have to do is put the shapes together with frosting, have a little patience, and use the candy to decorate. They're always in a hurry to get to the candy, so the houses are pretty bare. The houses are never very elaborate but they have a lot of fun making them and then destroying them.

Christmas tree

Courtney was pretty anxious to put up the Christmas tree this year. She wanted to put the star on top. We had a lot of fun going through all the ornaments and letting the kids decorate the tree. It's a long process and a lot of work but it turned out really pretty.

Fridge and dishwasher

It has been a rough month for us with appliances. Our fridge is been acting up for months and has been making weird noises, but I figured out how to get that fixed. The problem was I had to take the fridge and the freezer apart about once a week to fix it. And it was getting old. Our dishwasher wasn't working hardly at all and we were having to wash dishes by hand. That's not too bad but with our busy schedules it was a big hassle.

Bryan and I decided that we needed to do something about this. So we spent Saturday morning driving around to all the different appliance stores trying to figure out what we wanted. I have done some research ahead of time so I knew what we were looking for and what features we wanted, but we needed to compare prices. And each store that we went to we found things that we liked and I took pictures of their prices so that we could compare them. 

We finally ended up at Boulevard home furnishings in St. George and found the same appliances that we liked at other stores. They price match so all we had to do was show them the cheapest price we had found it at elsewhere and they were able to get us our fridge and dishwasher at those prices.

The fridge was going to be delivered first and then it would be followed by the dishwasher than next Wednesday. We were pretty excited.

The Monday after Thanksgiving the men came and hauled away our old fridge and left a new one.

Then on Wednesday a man came and delivered the dishwasher and took away the old one.

The dishwasher works so well and the fridge is so quiet!

Temple lighting

We had never been to the St. George Temple lighting ceremony so we decided to try doing that this year. It was on the evening of Bryan's birthday, so after dinner we got ready to go.

There were quite a few people there but not as many as I expected. The missionaries from the visitor center were singing carols for everyone as we waited for the speaker to show up. After a while we figured out that the speaker was late, so the missionaries kept seeing Christmas carols over and over again while we waited for him to show up. 

After about 15 minutes of carols, the speaker showed up and they had an opening song and an opening prayer and then the speaker spoke to us. He said it would be a short talk because of the time, but it ended up being about 20 minutes long. 

I had thought it would be a half an hour total, so we were all pretty tired. But it was nice to be there and we've had the experience once.

Ethan didn't come with us because he had a young men's activity. At first I thought he would be able to come with us and we would be finished by the time he had to go, but I'm really glad he didn't come because he would've had to miss his activity because the lighting ceremony went so long.

Bryan was pretty tired.

I think she was begging for a treat or something at this point.

Bryan's birthday

Bryan had a fun birthday, I think. After he painted Courtney's room, he had his birthday dinner of grilled chicken, wild rice, and corn. Then he got to open presents. He got some clipin pedalss for his mountain bike that go with some shoes that Ethan had been given a while ago that didn't fit him. And he was pretty happy about that. Courtney gave him a pretty card and a present. And it was a fun dinner.

We later had scones instead of a birthday cake.

Painting...again

Bryan spent his birthday morning painting Courtney's room again. She had the wall that was painted pink that she wanted to paint blue. We have compromised and found a light gray color that I thought would be very pretty on her wall and would go with her new bedspread. She wanted to get a blue color. But we finally decided on one was gray and Bryan started painting.

Courtney helped him out quite a bit and cleaned up her room and got things ready. Then she even helped paint the walls. It was a lot of fun for her.

When we painted the wall the last time we used a different brand of paint and it took a lot of paint to cover the wall. This time we went back to our tried and true Behr paint and it didn't take much paint and it looked great.

After everything was painted, dried and Courtney stuff was moved back in the room, we realized it looks blue. But in the right light it looks light gray. So I guess we both got what we wanted. 😄

Bryan told her it's going to be years before we repaint the room again.

Art Projects

Ethan is in Art 1010 (art appreciation).  The course requires him to take 4 tests and do 2 art projects.  He took the tests first so he had 2 art projects to complete.

His teacher doesn't give them much advanced notice (only about 4 days) so it's kind of crazy.  The project has to take 7 hours.  Along with creating art, Ethan had to have pictures taken of each step which he would use to make a PowerPoint presentation.  He also had to write a 500-word essay explaining his process and how the art he created fits into the teacher's expectations.

The first project was given to them on Halloween (Tuesday) and it was due Thursday morning.  It was kind of crazy.  Ethan was asked to create a 4-panel drawing/painting showing the 4 stages of love.  But they were asked to do it with a modern twist.

Ethan decided to draw panels showing Facebook and the 4 stages of falling in love using Facebook.  The first panel was "The Search," the second panel was "The Chat," the third panel was "The Post," and the fourth panel was of "The Status Change."

He did really well and earned full points for the project.  It was crazy busy for him to get it done in 2 days, especially when one was Halloween night!

The second project was a sculpture that he had to make beautiful and take pictures of.  He then had to change the sculpture into something either tacky, ugly, etc.

He was given this one on a Friday and it was due Tuesday, so he had more time to take care of it.  We went to Michael's and bought some sculpting clay and he started to make a man.

He decided to sculpt a man who was dressed nicely and then change him to be dressed in crazy colors.  It turned out great.  He hasn't received a grade yet on this one but it wasn't as crazy as the last one.

He needed pictures of himself buying stuff.

The nice looking man he sculpted:

The tacky guy: