Christmas Day

We really enjoyed Christmas this year. It was a lot of fun with Parker being old enough to be excited, and for us to be here once again with Ben's family.

The kids had fun opening up a few presents,

and playing with them (and the other cousin's toys) throughout the day.

After lunch we all decorated gingerbread houses (as families since there are so many of us). Parker requested a castle, so we attempted to make that for him. Of course most of his help was testing the candy out to make sure it was safe :-), but we all had fun being creative and working together.

Paul & Camille & their kids made this house, which had the most color and the most candy by far than anyone else's (I took this picture half way through and unfortunately didn't get a picture of the final product).

Laura & Hussein's house

And Aaron & Megan's castle (I got pictures of the other houses, but only when they were in the workings, so I didn't put them on here).

In the evening the kids put on a play of the manger scene. Five of the kids escaped before we took this picture (or had just had enough by then), but here are some of them. Tyler (13), Gavin (6), Parker (2), Ashyln (4), Cole (4), Chloe (5), Naomi (5mo), Isaac (5), Clara (7), & Madisyn (1).

After much play, the kids all vegged out in the tv room and watched a movie (Horton Hears a Who). I thought it was cute how most of them were in there all together, so I took a picture of that. Here they are: Tyler (well, his legs that is), Isaac, Nathan, Clara, Cole, Ashlyn, Taya, Chloe, Porter, Parker, & Gavin.

Christmas Eve

We have had a lot of fun being here at Ben's parents' house. Parker has had such a good time being with his cousins-especially Porter (who is his age). He calls Porter his friend ("Where did that friend go?") and always wants him to stay and sleep with us when they go home for the night.

Ben's whole family is here for the holidays (all of his 9 siblings and their families), so we have had a lot to do. Three of his sisters have birthdays right around/on Christmas (the 22nd, the 24th, & the 25th), so we celebrated the three of those on Christmas Eve. We decided to made a huge pan of brownies instead of cake, and I decorated it with fondant & icing.

The brownie-cake

Laura, Heather, & Julie blowing out the candles

Then "Santa" came (Ben's dad), which made the kids really excited...


...except for Maddie. Even after showing her who it really was (Geary is one of her absolute favorite), this is still how she reacted.

A while later when the kids got on their Christmas pjs, she was all smiles again. Parker doesn't really understand "Santa" (we haven't tried that hard to explain), but he was excited to get presents the next day. :-)

We made it!

After driving for 15 hours (leaving at 5am) and driving through a blizzard going only 20-25mph for the last 3 hours of the drive and with Madisyn just about going insane, we finally made it to Portland! We had tried to leave early enough to get to Portland before the storm did, but we didn't quite make it. It made for a very interesting drive though, for us at least. Good thing the kids were oblivious to the fact that we couldn't see the road for the last part of the trip. Ignorance is bliss, right? We did make it to Portland before all the freezing rain hit, which was very lucky.

We went out the next day (yesterday) to check out the snow and go sledding with the cousins. The snow was covered with a layer of ice which made it real slick but made it really fun to walk in. Every step we took sounded like glass breaking, and Parker thought that was really cool. He didn't really care about sledding, he just wanted to keep walking in the snow. But we had fun and can't wait to go out in the snow again. It is still snowing here, so we'll probably have a white Christmas and we'll get to go sledding a lot more.

Parker, cousin Clara, & cousin Taya getting pulled on the sled

Parker & cousin Porter

Paul (Ben's brother) & Ben going down the hill

Paul pulling Parker & Porter, with Clara & Taya running along

Taya & Porter's turn on the sled

Princess party

My cousin's little girl just turned three and they decided to have a princess birthday party for her (since she's obsessed with princess stuff). Esther and I decided to use her castle kit to make a princess castle for Audrey. It turned out SOOOO cute. I have to give most of the credit to Esther though. She has the aesthetic eye and knows how to add stuff to make it more cute, and I'm just the helper/worker. The castle kit came with plain white towers, front door, and windows. So we used fondant and icing to cover them and decorate them, we added fondant flowers, buttercream icing leaves, and sugar flakes on top. We're thinking of someday selling birthday/wedding/anniversary cakes because that would be loads of fun. But it does take a lot of time, which we don't have as much of while our kids are little. Maybe someday though. Anyway. Audrey had her party last night and all the little girls were dressed up as princesses. They did a cake walk game, pin the necklace on the princess, ate cake, and watched a princess movie. Audrey really liked the castle cake, and the girls had fun eating it.

Overall view of the castle

Front of the castle

Side view

The "princesses" doing the cake walk

Alyssa and Audrey watching as the candles are lit

P.S. We are headed to Portland on Saturday for the holidays. We are so excited to return home, to be with our family, and to see some of our friends! Hopefully the trip will go smoothly (considering all the snow we've gotten and the mountains we go through) and the kids will be okay for the 12-14 hour drive!

Ward Christmas Party

So we were head out of town for Utah this weekend to go visit some friends, go to Temple Square to see all the lights, go visit Santa, etc, when all of a sudden Maddie gets sick all over herself and her carseat. It's just too much to try to clean up in the car on the side of the road, so we reluctantly head back home to clean her up and decide to stay home. Luckily we were just leaving town and weren't out in the middle of nowhere, so that was a blessing. But it was good in a way though, because it started snowing shortly after we left, and it hasn't really stopped since. It's really slick out there, and the road have been really bad. I think if we had gone down to Utah we wouldn't have made it back. So it was a blessing in disguise. Maddie has been perfectly fine since then.

Since we were in town, we got to go to our church Christmas party Saturday night. The Christams party had a theme this year: "Back to Bethlehem." So everyone (if they wanted to) dressed up in Bethlehem-type attire, we had food, we did activities with the kids, and we did other things that would have been done back then. There was a little nativity scene (which reminded me of when Maddie was Baby Jesus just a year ago!), songs were sung, etc. It was a lot of fun, and Parker even had fun dressing up (he thought it was Halloween again :-) ). A friend of mine talked me and some other friends in to doing a Jewish-type dance for it. Now everyone who knows me knows that I don't dance usually, but I actually did pretty good and had fun doing it. Here's a few pictures from the party.

Our family in Jersalem attire: Nicole, Parker (almost 3), Maddie (14 mo), & Ben

Parker & Maddie waiting for the activities to begin

Me and Maddie at the party

Parker making his own ancient history writings

Me dancing

And here's a not-so-good picture of Maddie (when she's crying obviously), but it shows her three little teeth that are starting to pop out

SNOW!!!

We finally got our first real snow! Can you believe we're half way through December and we just got our first snow, and we're in IDAHO?! Monday morning we woke up to a mini winter wonderland, and Parker & I went right out to make a snowman and have some fun. It wasn't really a whole lot of snow, but we made the most of it that we could. I can't wait until we have enough to go sledding in!!

Parker all bundled up

Making a snow man (a very little one)

Parker next to the finished snowman

Ginger Bread Men

Every Sunday our family goes over to my Aunt & Uncle's house for some fun family time (we call it FHE-Family Home Evening). We have dinner, do a little lesson for the kids, and have a fun activity. Last night Parker & I went over (Maddie has had the flu so Ben stayed home with her), and after dinner we all decorated ginger bread men. Parker, cousin Kenya, and cousin Sam had fun decorating little ginger bread bells while us adults made ginger bread people of our families. They turned out pretty cute, and the kids had a good time.

Parker decorating his bell

Cousin Kenya

Cousin Sam

Mmm, this tastes good!

Esther with her ginger bread woman

Steve with his ginger bread man

Our family: Ben, Maddie, Parker, & me

Smith family: Steve, Esther, Kenya, & Sam (and the baby soon to be born)

Madsen family: Mike (in his army camoflage), Jordan, Kynwynn, the baby not born yet, & thier dog, Socrates

Uncle Allen & Aunt Joann (set up to look like that one famous picture of the farmer man with the pitchfork and the woman)