Christmas and other December events

Since I have been putting all of my blogging off until after Christmas, I figured it's time to document all the fun things we have been doing. December 1st, put up the tree. Christmas music blaring, we had so much fun together.

Carter knows that he gets to put the star on top

Not to be outdone, Preston also put the star on for good measure.

I think they had the most fun with the Christmas tree box as their spaceship

Preston loved ripping all the ornaments off the tree-this is what it looked like most of the time! We decided to put the tree in the front room this year and I liked it better.

James and Carter went skiing again. Carter didn't want to do the "pizza slice" (snowplow) because it made him go too slow. Crazy kid!

I hope we make this a new family tradition-going out to breakfast at Dennys on Christmas Eve morning. There were 18 of us at one table! I somehow got stuck with all the kids at the end of the table, but eventually found my way over to the adults.

All the kids got this powder to put in their drinks to turn it a different color. Great idea, it kept them occupied for a few minutes.

Brevin, Halle, and Preston waiting for their food

Christmas Eve was a blast, I didn't take any pictures, oh well.My brother Scott and Lisa got stuck in a snow storm the night before and had to sleep in Pocatello. We haven't seen them since June so it was amazing how much their kids had grown! My cousin Bekah came out with her new husband Rob and it was fun to see her pregnant. We had a yummy turkey dinner with my dad's famous stuffing. It was delish. Then it was off to the hospital to sing. The highlight of the singing this year was trying to remember the words to Frosty the Snowman. None of us knew them except my sister Shauna who was getting annoyed singing a solo. Do you know the words in order? I'm telling you, it's hard! After the hospital we stopped at Joann Luke's house to carol to her family going on year number 10 now. Her husband died around Christmas time 10 years ago and we came to sing to her and she just appreciated it so much we keep coming back! We also stopped at some old neighbors of ours, the Cleggs, to say hi to their family. James did another Christmas quiz for us to play when we got back. I didn't help at all so I actually got to play this time! We did a family feud round that was so fun. The "Tremors" round had to be my favorite. It's a Tenney classic favorite movie.

The presents did get wrapped BEFORE Christmas Eve this year which was nice. Here's the tree with all the ornaments on it and all the presents underneath.

The stockings filled with lots of yummy candy-also an ice scraper :)

The mince pies for Santa

Carter at Grammy's house showing me the lovely makeup that Jenna put on his eyes

He got a fun kid's cd player complete with microphone from my parents-it was a hit with all the kids!

James with one of his new workout shirts I got him and a HUGE bag of swedish fish from my parents. My dad always delivers with a big box of popcorn and a fun treat.

This is a typical picture of my dad-he can sleep anywhere! That night me and my mom went to the movies to see 4 Christmases. I thought it was pretty funny. I love Reese Witherspoon and thought Vince Vaughn was hilarious. James took the boys over to Kevin's house and watched Aliens with my brothers and Dad. Driving home from there was the worst snowstorm I have ever been in. It took us 40 minutes to drive 3 1/2 miles. We had to help 2 people that were stuck and we could barely see in front of us. All in all, a great Christmas! I was spoiled with a new quilt for my bed from my parents and some workout gear from James.

We got a ton of snow the week of Christmas so the boys finally went out to build a snowman. Carter refused to put his hood up and Preston didn't do much but eat the snow off of his gloves. James built the head and just as they were coming inside Carter knocked it off because he didn't want a head on it. Alrighty then!

Presto's little nose and cheek were so red from the cold!

From Saturday the 27th to Monday the 29th we watched Kevin and Bethany's kids while they were in Denver for their 10th anniversary. Keeping 6 kids occupied is quite the task! We had forgotten to make our gingerbread house before Christmas and so we brought it over to do with the cousins. Don't worry they didn't let it stay up for long! It was all gone by the next day.

We had quite an eventful December with all the neighbor gifts, Christmas cards, wrapping, shopping, parties, post office trips, work, and trying to squeeze a little exercise in there too. Hopefully next year I will be a little bit less stressed and enjoy it more. Last year seemed to be that way and I think it is because I ordered stuff online! Stores make me crazy, especially Walmart. Tonight we are going to my sister's house to bring in the New Year. Here's to a great 2009! My annual resolutions post to come...

Return of the Birthday Bash

For those who don't know, my husband throws me a birthday party every year for the past 6 years. We always have so much fun and come up with new ideas every year to switch it up. The first year was 80's trivia since I was born in 1980 and it has evolved into several different rounds of random trivia and crazy tasks since then. One year we had a hot pepper eating contest fear factor style. Each pepper was worth certain points. Another was to see how fast someone could chug a cold bottle of sprite. This year we had a cake decorating contest to see who could frost their cake the fastest, best presentation, and taste. Bethany my sis-in-law used to decorate cakes for Baskin Robbins so she has a little advantage so she won for fastest frosting and presentation.

After the cakes were frosted we threw a twist in the competition and had each team pick one person to see how much they could eat in 1 minute 30 seconds. Who would you pick to win out of these three?
My oldest sister Shauna was AMAZING! We weighed the cakes before they started and she ended up winning by eating an ENTIRE POUND of cake in 90 seconds. Wow. Needless to say, she doesn't want to see any cake again for a long time! I am still in shock that she beat both of those boys!

Another addition to the party this year was ugly sweater/outfit contest. If you participated, your team got points. The funny thing was that this decided the winner for the night. All three teams were tied in points and the outfits were the deciding factor. Team Naughty Pirates took the title and D.I. trophy home for bragging rights! My sister Melanie took the trophy home for worst outfit/sweater. It was so awesome. She bought the polygamist dress with some friends this year on a girls retreat for a joke picture and decided to hang on to it! She found this cat sweater vest at D. I. for three dollars and rounded out the outfit complete with sneakers to complete the polygamist wife look!! haha Carl is wearing a lovely "blazer". It has seashells and huge shoulderpads inside! So great. He always has to wear this ugly wig with everything too. We had a good laugh at everyone's finds.

Notice the mouse buttons on the vest, it was so hilarious!

My mom had a sweater with little gardening people on the bottom and the sweater was way too short so she had to wear a shirt underneath. Mike H. also let her sport the Santa hat for most of the evening to complete the look!

Here are all of the ugly outfits in all their glory. (the people that didn't dress up aren't pictured) I wish we could do them all justice. My sweatshirt I actually just received from my 5k for Thanksgiving. It looks like it was from 1983 and has no hood on the back. SO hideous. Next year I plan to step it up but just didn't have a lot of time to search.


I got all of these pictures from my sister's blog so if you have already seen them, I'm sorry! My camera battery of course died right before the party so I didn't get any pictures. We also don't have pictures of the singing audition for "birthday Idol". Greg sang "Hearts on Fire" and danced for us, which is always a treat. Mel did "Hit me baby one more time" hoping I would pick her since I love Britney Spears so much, and Leah rounded it out with some R-e-s-p-e-c-t. Some other highlights were the Twilight trivia, and my most hated songs name that tune. Christmas shoes was on the list, along with Nickelback, Avril Lavigne, and Butterfly kisses. If you like these songs, no offense, but they are the worst!! My family is so competitive sometimes it gets pretty heated, we can't stand to lose! Thanks to all who came, it was such a blast of course! I am hoping to do a Christmas post of what else we have been up to this month, we'll see if it happens...until next time...Merry Christmas!

Gone Baby Gone

I chopped my hair off! Wahoo!!