The Christmas Post

Ok, here's the Christmas post...

On Christmas Eve, we gathered at our house for a party with my dad. We had a white elephant gift exchange, snacked and played a game.

We also opened gifts from Grandpa Waite. Grandpa gave us a neat gift. He gave us "Our Family Home Evening Journal". It's a notebook with pages in it to fill out as we have our FHE's. Documentation that may become precious in the years to come.

Christmas morning, Jason and I woke up around 7:00am. We got the orange juice mixed up and the sweet rolls baked and then headed upstairs. We thought we'd find the kids waiting to pounce. Instead we found this......
sleepy bedheads!
We were shocked. We had to turn on the light and wake everyone up from their "visions of sugarplums". Then we were told the rest of the story.... Treyson awoke around 4am, woke everyone else up and then was told to go back to sleep, cuz mom and dad would NOT want to start the day that early. (They were totally right about that.)

The kids had slept together in the family room. We had our traditional sweet rolls, orange juice and milk for breakfast.

"Hmmmm, wonder what Santa brought????"

Then it was time for the traditional line-up... youngest to oldest. (Each year the older girls try to convince us to start a new tradition... oldest to youngest. They haven't convinced us yet.)

Treyson had a Bakugan-fest...everything Bakugan.

Rylee got the Nintendo D.S. she was wanting..... lucky.

Abree got her "D.S." a.k.a. V-Smile handheld game system.

Taylee said she was 100% POSITIVE that she would get a Nintendo D.S. from Santa.... she was right. How was she so "100% POSITIVE"???

Jason got BSU attire from Santa.... and some Utah Jazz (wooden) candy canes.

The "Aftermath".

I received a new camera from Santa, that I'm still working on figuring out. (The instructions were printed in a foreign language, so even if I wanted to read them I couldn't.)

In the evening, we went to my mom's house to celebrate and open presents. Each family received emergency preparedness items to put in our 72-hour kits from mom and the grand kids got cool kit type gifts. Treyson's was a model car kit and Abree's was a clothespin doll kit.

Christmas was a wonderful day of celebration and family.

Merry Birthday and a Happy Christmas to Jaime!

Jaime's birthday is on Christmas Eve. She usually doesn't get to spend time with friends on her birthday, because of the holiday and travel.

This year, Marianne and I wanted to start a new tradition. We decided to take Jaime to breakfast on her actual birthday!

After considering the usuals, we finally decided to try something new, "The Egg Factory". The restaurant it's self was nothing fancy, but had a variety of menu items that were reasonably priced.

Marianne and I decided on the "Oatmeal Cookie" pancakes, while Jaime opted for the good ol' standby, Buttermilk pancakes.

Avery (Jaime's daughter) decided to join us, leaving the boys at home. She chose the french toast sticks and mommy's lap.

The restaurant was busy and seemed to be a popular place to dine. As we left, several parties were waiting at the door to be seated. I think they were happy to see us FINALLY leaving.

If you have "The Egg Factory" near you, I'd recommend trying it.

It's yummy!

Krissi

***This post is over due. I should have posted this several weeks ago. ***

I had BIG plans for us.... plans of crafting and making gifts 24/7... or at least most of the hours of the day.

My good friend Krissi (from Post Falls, Id) came to visit the first week in December and got to stay for a WHOLE week! ---We take turns going to see one another. We usually get to see each other about twice a year. Once at her house, once at mine. Such a fun, special treat our husband's and families are so sweet to endure.

We shopped a little, decorated a 13 year old's locker and bedroom, tried to go to lunch at "The Melting Pot" (but ended up going to dinner, when they were actually open), attended a family Christmas party, made yummy Christmas treat pretzels (of 2 varieties), taught pre-school, babysat, read a little, played a lot, relaxed, visited and actually DID get around to making a few Christmas gifts. ---Krissi took home 30+ cute bookmarks for teacher/friend/neighbor -type gifts!

This was my first time at "The Melting Pot". It was yummy and oh so very expensive. :)

Here we're painting canvases to go in the windows of Rylee's room.
These were extra yummy pretzels. Krissi cooked the carmel from scratch (a process that took WAY more time and patience than I have for cooking) which is why Krissi did it.
After the carmel started to set, we cut it in strips, then took the carmel and wrapped it around a pretzel. Next we dipped it in chocolate, then drizzled white chocolate on top for decoration.
Do they remind you of corn dogs.... or cat tails??? They tasted much better I assure you.

These were the second pretzel treats we made... I've seen them referred to as "bellybuttons". Bellybuttons are my kind of treat.... quick and easy.

Arrange the pretzels on a cookie sheet, plop a Hershey kiss in the middle of each one, put in a 200 degree oven for approximately 5-7 minutes, then take them out and press an M&M into the top of the kiss. Let cool.

Voila! A wonderful combination of salty and sweet. It's hard to eat just one. If you start, it's very hard to stop.... not that I would know. :)

Verdict: Second pretzel treat takes WAY less time/effort to make, almost equally yummy.

During the week, I felt that I wasn't being "productive" enough... that we weren't accomplishing what we set out to do. Now as I look back on the week, I see it differently..... many things accomplished, lots of fun had and many memories made.

Thanks for a wonderful week Krissi! And thank you Steve and Goodmansen Family for letting me take your wife and mommy for a week.

Krispy Kreme with Cousins

During the time J.C. (Jason's youngest brother) was working in the Boise area, his family came up to visit for a few days. J.C. and Julia have 4 cute boys ranging in age from 7 to 1 1/2. It was fun for Treyson to finally have some balance in the boy to girl ratio, in the house. Lots of time was spent with cars, bad guys and superheros.

For FHE that week, we went to Krispy Kreme. The "HOT" sign was on when we pulled in, but we were afraid that when they saw us coming they would turn it off and deny us a free doughnut. We were lucky to catch the last of the doughnut production of the night AND get our 12 free doughnuts!.... along with another dozen that we purchased. :)

Cool Cameron
Awesome Adam

Marvelous Matthew

J...J...J...Joshua!

(Sorry couldn't come up with a good adjective starting with J.)

The whole crazy cousin gang.

We were so glad to have them come visit. The kids shared lots of fun cousin memories.... and I got some good scrapbooking time in with Julia . :)

12 Days of Christmas

As a gift to my primary class this year, I gave them the 12 Days of Christmas. A fun way to count down to Christmas and remember the Savior during the season.

The original idea was to use a real nativity set and leave a new piece on the doorstep each night, along with a poem about the piece. I knew that wouldn't work for me since I have 12 kids in my class.... too much money and too much delivery time.

So I did the affordable thing. I printed off this cute nativity set onto cardstock, cut them out and put a magnet on the back (so it could be displayed on a refrigerator or magnet board.)
Then I wrapped each piece individually, with it's corresponding poem and numbered them in the order they were to be opened. I put them into a large envelope and wrapped the envelope with wrapping paper, so it felt like a "real" Christmas gift. (I secretly hoped they weren't disappointed when they opened it.)

I've had several mother reports that the kids DID like it and are enjoying opening a new piece each night. Whew. Maybe it's the mom's being nice... or maybe they really are getting into the "reason for the season".

Merry Christmas!!!

My Kind of Gingerbread

I don't LOVE the taste of gingerbread or all the time and effort it takes to make, roll, cut, bake and put together gingerbread houses. (I do LOVE the way they look and smell though.) My kind of gingerbread houses are the graham cracker kind! It has become somewhat of a tradition in our home. No baking required... just lots of fun decorating! This year, we had cousins at our house overnight (Tim and Karen went on a little 24-hour staycation for their anniversary) and I thought it would be fun to do it with them.

I read on a blog that I frequent, that you could hot glue them together. This sounded like a great idea, so I glued and assembled the night before. It worked great! The houses were more durable and had less set up/drying time. I'd highly recommend it if doing this project with kids.

At first, my kids were worried that I had put glue on their food. I told them they didn't have to eat the glue... just the crackers and candy. (It seemed like it would peel off fairly easily when it did come time to eat.)

Get ready... get set... decorate!

Audrey's ready

Katelyn says, "Ta-da!"

Abree's excited about the candy cane, but hasn't decided where to put it.

As soon as Treyson's was completed he asked, "Can we eat it now?"

I told him he had to wait for a few days, so it could decorate our house for Christmas. It didn't take long for it to be picked at and dilapidated looking.

Rylee had to piece hers back together, after a candy light mishap.

Taylee came up with the idea of using a Tootsie Roll for a chimney. She angled it so it would fit just right.

L is for Ladybugs & Lollipops

When it was my turn for pre-school this month, I had the letter L.

The first day we talked about ladybugs. We colored a picture, made a counting book (with fingerprint ladybugs) and played a "site word" ladybug BINGO type game. (Some of the girls are starting to be able to recognize the site words! Some still don't really care.) :)

The next day we talked about lollipops. I had this idea about making lollipop sugar cookies.
Plan A : roll the dough into "snakes". Then wind them around in a swirl creating a lollipop.

The dough was WAY too crumbly to do this. Soooo....

Plan B: Form different sizes of balls squish them into circle shapes onto the sticks.

They were supposed to be edible, but they didn't taste very good in my opinion (a new cookie recipe that someone on the internet raved about). Maybe too much food coloring??? They were pretty bright! :)

We also made these little lollipop magnets. This was my last minute brainstorm that ended up being so cute.

I had the girls glue the circles together, sandwich the craft sticks between 2 yellow circles, put a clear plastic bag over, tie a bow and stick a magnet on the back.

---I was happy to use the little craft sticks and little plastic bags I bought on clearance... I didn't have a use for them at the time. I have LOTS more. Anyone NEED a lollipop magnet???

Ison Christmas FHE

The Annual Ison Christmas Family Home Evening.... a tradition that has been going well over 60 years.

Some things have changed; the location, the nativity narrator, the number of attendees, the addition of bells to our Christmas songs and the children (they just keep growing up!).

Some things have remained the same; children playing the parts of the Christmas story in Luke, the adult white elephant gift exchange, yummy food and a special visitor, with gifts, for the kids.

The kids no longer play a specific part in the Christmas story re-enactment. They're all Mary's, Joseph's, shepherds angels and wisemen. I guess the idea is less fighting that way. Usually there is only 1 Baby Jesus. This year, there was no fighting or crying about who was to hold him. Whew!

The kids getting geared up to play the parts of the Christmas story.

This year, Josh was our Luke 2 narrator.
Isn't Daisylyn the cutest Mary/Wiseman/Shepherd/Angel you've ever seen?

Santa had trouble with his sled this year. We sang and sang and kept singing waiting for him to arrive. We moved onto the adult gift exchange when we ran out of songs to sing. Finally, Santa arrived and explained that Mrs. Claus forgot to fill up the sled with gas, so he had to borrow her sled. We were just glad Santa had made it safe and sound.

Given the choice of a Santa gift or playing in the adult gift exchange, Rylee chose the Santa gift, "You usually get something you want from Santa. You may not be as lucky in the gift exchange." Smart girl.

Abree was quiet, but DID sit on Santa's lap.

Treyson bounded up onto Santa's knee. Hopefully he didn't hurt Santa.

When Santa asked what he thought his mom wanted for Christmas, Treyson replied, "Ummm, maybe a new camera???"

YES! I hope Santa was listening.

Jason and Taylee were at an award ceremony for the Reflections Art Contest. Taylee had received an "Award of Excellence" once again this year. They showed up after Santa had gone, so we saved Taylee's gift for her. (More on the contest later.)

The Ison Christmas Family Home Evening is a tradition we look forward to every year.

Happy Birthday Aunt Hertha!

Monday, December 7th, was my Aunt Hertha's birthday. (She passed away from a battle with cancer in 1990.)

In remembrance of her, I dug through my childhood keepsakes and found this cute denim purse she made and personalized for me. I'm so glad that I've kept it over these years and am so glad that I have something to remember her by....precious!

I often think of her, as I stay up late to work on projects. (Something she did all the time.)I remember how she told me that it was cool to be tall. She said that I have a "presence" as I walk into a room.

I wonder what she would be up to, if she were still here on earth with us? I wonder what kinds of projects she would be into (besides sewing, of course)? I wonder how many more ribbons she would have won at the fair? I think of her often.

Thank you for being a part of my life Aunt Hertha.

Teenage Mom

It's official, I'm a teenage mom.... a mom to a teen that is.

Rylee turned 13 on Sunday!

My friend Krissi, Abree and I went to Rylee's school and decorated her locker Thursday afternoon, so she could see it Friday morning. (I forgot to take a picture, darn.) Then on Friday, while she was at school, we worked on this little project...

a bedroom for Rylee.

Rylee has been wanting her own room for several years now, but we've never had enough space to give her one. Even in our new house we only have 3 bedrooms-- the girl's room, Treyson's room and the master bedroom for Jason and I. (We actually do have another room that we call "the office". It has our piano in it and is used for craft storage and guests when they come.)

As I thought about a room possibility for Rylee, I started thinking about the unused space at the top of our stairs, sort of a huge landing area. I don't know what it's intended use is, but we used it for our computer at one time. Recently, we've moved the computer downstairs into the nook by our kitchen, so the space has just been sitting there mostly empty.

I pondered how I could divide the space, for a little privacy. At first, we thought of buying some type of divider, maybe like an office cubical. That seemed like an expensive, too-much-to-figure-out solution. Then I came up with the idea of a temporary wardrobe closet thingy. I had one that I used to store Halloween costumes in for re-sale, so I it gave me a good idea of how big it would be and how it would divide the space. I thought it would be a good solution. I bought a new one for her room, because my costume one was FULL.

After wrestling with the wardrobe thingy and bending back and cracking my big toenail in half on the bed frame (OUCH!), I finally got the room set up. I decorated with new bedding, painted canvas', polka dots and a great vinyl phrase; "Cinderella.... proof that a new pair of shoes can change your life." (Rylee is a BIG time shoe freak! A perfect saying for her.)

When she got home from school we waited and waited for her to discover it. Finally, we told Abree to take Rylee upstairs to help her with something in her room (she was sworn to secrecy and wasn't supposed to say anything). Rylee said that as she walked up the stairs she saw the wardrobe thingy first and thought that I had created a little craft corner for myself. As she walked around it and looked in, she saw the bed, decorations and note that said, "Happy Birthday Rylee!" We heard her gasp and squeal, "Oh...oh...I LOVE IT!... I can't believe it!... I LOVE it sooooo much Mom!.. Thank you!... Thank you!... I LOVE it!" Such a fun, big reaction... so funny, so dramatically teenager-ish. :)

The room is a work in progress. I couldn't get everything done in that one afternoon. So Rylee and I will work together to complete it and get it looking ultra cute. There may be more photos to come, as it takes shape.

On Sunday, her actual birthday, we celebrated in the normal way.... gifts and cake. Rylee's bedroom was her main gift, but she did open a few others; Wii "Pop Star", Michael Jackson's "One" cd, "Princess Diaries", fuzzy socks, a basketball and Colgate Wisps (she's been wanting some of these for months. Don't ask me why???).
We had yummy pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting instead of a normal cake. We also did a sparkler star "candle". Lots of smoke, but really fun and different.

Happy Birthday Rylee!!!

We LOVE you!

With Tiffany in Mind

As I walked into "Real Deals" this Thursday, I was greeted by these beauties.

The colors made me think of you, Tiffany.

Enjoy...

I thought this decoration was especially interesting. They took a Christmas tree and hung it upside-down from the rafters. It created a cool shape and neat effect. I would love to try this in the entryway of my home. Ya right. Getting Jason to figure out the logistics and rigging it up would be another neat effect.