The Big Night of Little Sleep

This year at the Halloween Carnival we won a free nights stay at the Cotton Tree Inn in Pocatello. So on the day after Christmas we reserved a family suite and met Ben and Kelly there.

We spent the afternoon and evening playing in the pool. Cody had brought his nerf football and Ben and the two boys threw it back and forth until it literally fell apart and we had to throw it away. 

We went back to our room and hung out while Ben and Kelly went and got pizza and cards. You can imagine that with 9 people in one hotel room, no one got very much sleep.

It was a pretty laid back trip but we had a great time nonetheless.

Our Christmas

 This years Christmas was a very cozy little one for us. We stayed home together kept a pretty low profile. Cody let us know in no uncertain terms that he knew about Santa Claus and wanted to be part of Christmas Eve. So while I was finishing dinner, Cody was in charge of running the string through the house for our annual gift hunt.

 The girls had to follow and wind the string up. Cody was pretty proud of all the places that he thought to put it.

 This years grand prize were envelopes containing gift certificates for a family vacation to Newport Beach during spring break. They get to fly in an airplane and see the ocean.

 I think for the most part, the gift was a hit.

We opened our other gifts on Christmas morning, then went to church in Garden City to hear our good friends, the Kearls, speak in church. After church we lounged around and Matt took a nap so he could work the night shift.And thus ended our Christmas.
The End :)

Holly Jolly Christmas Party

This year has been full of Christmas parties. We have had our ward party, the DUP party, our company party, and a couples party so far. The kids are older now and so this year we decided to plan a party for them. We named it the Holly Jolly Christmas party and planned it for Thursday, December 15. The kids made their invitations for 1 or 2 friends to come have a sleepover party while Matt was on graveyards. 

Britnee, Cody, and their friends, Anna and Brendan, played lots of games.  We ate lots of food including pizza, homemade hot cocoa, lil' smokies, and muddy buddies.

Jaycee invited Shawnee and another friend that couldn't come. They spent most of their time in Jaycee's room playing on the computer. They even took practice tests for their upcoming driver's ed course. (Yikes!)

They watched the Christmas movie "Elf", and played even more games. I gave up and went to bed sometime between 10 and 11 but from what I heard the next morning, there was not a lot of sleep going on.

I think our Holly Jolly Christmas party ended up being a success. The kids had a lot of fun. This might just become a tradition for us.

Awesome Birthday Weekend

This weekend was just awesome! It started on Friday with us going to see the lights on Temple Square. We went with the Young Women and Young Men of our ward. We went and saw the Joseph Smith movie, then walked around and looked at the lights.
We drove home that night but then got up early to drive back to Logan for our family pictures. It turned out to be a beautiful day and I was pretty happy with our pictures.  After that we went to the Ellen Eccles theater and watched the Voice Male concert, which we all enjoyed.
We were all famished by the time we left there, so we went and had ribs at Texas Roadhouse. We drove back home just in time to drop off the kids and head over to the adult session of Stake Conference with our speaker, H. David Burton.
It turned out to quite a weekend. The weather was good, we all had fun, and that is the best birthday present I could've asked for.

Cody's Wolf Badge

 Cody has been working really hard in Scouts and tonight he was able to earn his Wolf badge at Pack Meeting. They gave him his award and a pin for his mom.

 They also learned about respect. For the activity, they had to team up and take turns eating pudding with forks that were tied together.

 Gabe and Cody won the contest and didn't even get any pudding on themselves.
We're so proud of Cody and how hard he's been working this year as a Wolf Scout!

Minion Turk

Britnee has quite an imagination. In her writing class at school, they had an assignment to create a turkey and tell a story to go with it. Brit got her inspiration from one of her favorite movies, Despicable Me. This is Minion Turk and the story that brought him to life.

 Minion Turk and the New Tradition

There was a man named Gur. He lived in a big house, he had minions one of them had deformed and he had become a turkey. His name was Minion Turk and this Thanksgiving was his first, he did not know what happens on Thanksgiving. Turk was looking through some boxes for Gur’s mom. He came upon an old recipe book that looked like it had never been used before so he decided that he would surprise his master with a Thanksgiving dinner. He did not know why his master never told him before.
    First, he did a quick study of the book. The book said you needed lots of special food for a Thanksgiving feast. To start you need some mashed potatoes, so Turk found some potatoes and he mashed them up real good. Then he read that said you need some gravy to go on the mashed potatoes, so Turk made some gravy. Minion Turk kept reading. The book said you needed soup, so he made soup. You need stuffing, so he made stuffing . Then the book said that he needed some vegetables, both corn and carrots. So he steamed some corn and carrots. The book also said that he needed some cranberries so he picked and sugared some cranberries. The book said that no Thanksgiving was ever complete without pie so he made some blueberry pie, some raspberry pie, and some pumpkin pie.
His meal was almost ready. So he went looking for a taste tester. He found a fellow minion, the other minion said,’‘Not on your life.’‘ The other minion thought it was poison then he said and bake a leg. He pulled an all-nighter to get it all done he was pooped. He stood back and admired the work he did he thought he did an out of this world job. He was over his head in food for how much food he made he thought that was just enough.
    Last, he looked though the cook book and he saw that he had missed something and that one thing was a turkey. He laughed and looked again and said, “ that can’t be right.” Then he remembered that he was a turkey he was so scared. He ran into his bedroom and cried and cried. Then Gur walked in and said, “are you all right?” And Turk said that he was trying to make a Thanks giving dinner that was missing one thing, me. He started to cry all over again, he would not stop. Then Gur said that we do not do Thanks giving. Then Minion Turk said, “ah nuts  “ then Gur said “but we can’t just let all this food go to waste, we could eat hot dogs instead.”  So they started a new Thanksgiving tradition. And every one was happy.

THE END

Thanksgiving

 Thanksgiving this year was spent wih our McMullin family. We all met up a Brady's house and had a wonderful weekend.

 Jaycee and Britnee learned how to make Parker House Rolls in Young Women a few weeks ago so Jaycee made our Thanksgiving rolls.

 As always, Grandma Jo made us a yummy, traditional dinner. Tamarie brought inredients to make some fun table decorations. The kids took a lot of pride in making these cute little creations.

 Jo, Tamarie, Jaycee, and I got up at 3:30 on Friday morning to go Christmas shopping. It was pretty hairy but I look forward to spending time with these die hards every Black Friday. The guys spent their time fixing trucks and shooting guns.

We had to come home on Friday because Matt had to work the weekend but I'm so grateful that we got to spend time with family and share the holiday.

State Fair Corn Dogs

 Okay, so they wouldn't win any blue ribbons, but Sunday we sure had fun experimenting with the great, new recipe that I found in Pinterest for State Fair Corn Dogs.

This was our first attempt. It wasn't very pretty but after some trial and error we got the oil right and tried dipping both hot dogs and string cheese in the batter. I'm pretty sure these aren't healthy on any level, but worked great for something fun on a Sunday afternoon.

Halloween Mayhem

This Halloween was full of mayhem, and we loved every minute of it. It started off with our annual witches party. It's getting so big that we're running out of room but I love dressing up and visiting with all my friends.

We went to the Paris Elementary Carnival where this year, instead of buying tickets for the kids, we put our names in the raffle. We won golf balls, a gallon of hot cocoa mix, and a free nights stay at  hotel in Pocatello. Jaycee and I also took our turns in the kitchen helping serve dinner.

We all went to our wards trunk or treat at the church. All we had were our cell phones so Matt took a few pictures of the kids. They don't do justice to how cute they looked in their costumes. Even Jaycee, who swore she was too old to dress up, walked around and got a little candy. 

Monday night we went over to Garden City to their big Halloween celebration. We ate chili dogs for dinner and then the kids rode in a wagon and jumped in the bounce houses.
I totally dropped the ball on getting good pictures of everything but we did have a great Halloween.

Creepcakes

 This year for Halloween we decided to try making "creepcakes" to give to our neighbors. Jaycee got up and made the cupcakes and everybody pitched in to make them creepy.

 

 By the time we were all finished, the kids had created some pretty scary creepcakes. Brit, Cody, and Brit's friend, Skylee, were so proud of their creations that they had second thoughts about giving them away.

We all had a fun time making these and sharing the spirit of Death Day. It may just have to become a tradition.

Annual Cattle Haul

 This last Saturday Jaycee and Britnee went with the Young Women to fly in Bro. Motta's plane. Matt,Cody, and I spent the morning hauling calves to the stockyards. It was a beautiful day that started off a bit chilly but warmed up pretty quick. 

 We took three horse trailers full of calves over. When we got there and started sorting, some of the calves pushed the gate and escaped. We ended up chasing one through a couple of fields and across the highway. It was quite a little rodeo there for a minute, but thanks to Matt's quick thinking, we rescued the cow and returned him to the fold.

When the calves were safely onto the semi truck, Lyman took us all out for breakfast. We went to the Ranch Hand and Cody ordered himself a huge plate of Biscuits and Gravy. He was so excited.

Later that day, we went to our cousins house to dig some quaky trees. Cody got playing with his little cousin and they buried him in the leaves.
I just love fall!