Thursday, March 30, 2017

Picture Perfect Christmas

In order to have a picture perfect Christmas- 

 My front entry way.

you must have family around.  Emma was not going to be able to get more than a day or two off of Walmart so we decided it would be another away Christmas.  We generally don't like to go away for Christmas, but we did last year, so why not again this year? 

We stopped on the way to pick up a new addition to the family.  The boys have been begging for a dog for years and we always had a good excuse not to get one.  We no longer have an excuse!  Rob found this dog, after almost getting tricked into an internet scam "dog."  Luckily, I kept feeling it was a scam and kept nagging about it, so he made me check it totally out and we figured out it was indeed a scam.  Non-scam dogs are much more expensive! 




Angus is a full bred Scottish Terrier.  He is cute and smart and also too smart for his own good, but more on that later.

We also stopped to see a couple arches at Arches National Park as we headed up.

Next we stopped at my parents house to give them their presents and get our.  The boys got a day at a fun center with go karts and mini golf and laser tag, among other things.  I got a night out with Mom to see the Nutcracker Ballet by Ballet West. 

It was wonderful!  There were all kinds of little girls all dressed up with their moms there.  It is obviously a tradition for many people in the area.  We just had never done it before.

Rob and Sam hopped over to Rob's brother's home and did some picture perfect snow machining.  



Lots and lots of snow is required for a picture perfect Christmas and we got just that!  

The kids made a snow dog to go with the snowman.
Poor little Angus was buried in the snow every time he went out!  I don't think he enjoyed going out much- besides that he still wasn't trained to potty without a door open all the time.  He pottied a lot on many different rugs!  Oops! Sorry!

Lots of dog friends, family and fun games made it even more perfect.




Christmas day was nice.  They don't get excited as they used to, but they still play along pretty well.  Sam wrapped Joe's present that he really really wanted, but I refused to buy, up with some bullets for his nerf gun.  Joseph said, "oh, I know what these are.  Yep, bullets." And then he saw the game he had wanted.  He went crazy!  It was super fun!  Best thank you ever.


Before New Year's we left, since Robert had to go to work right afterwards.  We had a super subdued New year's.  In fact I don't think anyone actually stayed up.  We were woken up by gun shots at Midnight however, because that is obviously a thing you do here in New Mexico on New Years!  We have since had one snow day.  This was our crazy amount of snow that day-

Dosen't quite compare, does it?  We had a few heavy presents that couldn't come with us visiting, so we opened those too.  One was a basketball hoop and one was clay thrower for Rob.  

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

The Holidays are fun unless You are Puffy!

This December we had lots of fun stuff to do.  
St. Nicholas came, 

we payed our taxes

and went to "Bethlehem", 



Sam got his wisdom teeth out, 

 we went to a fun parade in the next neighborhood over,

 Our Friends and fellow basketball players the Burks
 Our friends the Chapmans- She was in charge of the whole parade!
I made snowflake cookies for Max's Christmas celebration at school

and the boys made gingerbread houses at YM.

Oh wait- one of those things wasn't so fun!  We- Ok, Mom- decided that Sam could only have gas and Novocain to have his 4 wisdom teeth out- I didn't want him fainting and his heart stopping again with an IV- which is what would have been required if he had any other medicine.  Unfortunately, he didn't like the gas either.   He started to pass out on them and they had to give him oxygen and put ice on his neck and head for the rest of the procedure.  The good news is that we got that money back and now we get to put it on Joseph's wisdom teeth that need removing! I guess this makes my decision easier.  I am against surgery unless absolutely necessary.  So I am not a big fan of the churches stance on having all the young men have their wisdom teeth removed before they go out on missions.  I was planning to fight it.  Well the Lord must know me pretty well and took care of that little road block with the need to have their wisdom teeth removed!  We still have Max- so I might have my fight after all!

Momentous Occasion


 Yes- this happened!  Who can stop time from marching on?


Thankful

Grandma and Grandpa came from Utah for Thanksgiving and Karl and Terrie and family came from Arizona.  It was really nice to have some family for our celebration since we weren't hopping among the English Isles this year.




Besides yummy dinners and amazing pies (I tried a lemon tart, Pumpkin cheesecake pie, apple and a cherry berry pie- all of them were so good!)

We played at the traditional Turkey bowl





went and saw where Grandpa was born- or at least round about

and we went and climbed around the Petroglyphs.


These particular petroglyphs are smack dab in the middle of the suburbs- you wouldn't even know it though.  They have protected them pretty well.  
In November Sam finished football and started wrestling- all the sports have overlap here.  
Joseph got promoted in JROTC

And Max started playing basketball with a team I really enjoyed.  They were actually in a different city, but I really liked the coach and his teaching techniques!  The kids all seemed to be good kids and they had fun together.



October 2016



For Halloween we went to the Trunk-or-Treat at our ward building.  Max was the only one that went around the neighborhood this year.  Joe stayed and handed out candy.

 Max was a caveman
 Sam was the King of Exercise- mostly because he didn't want to get changed.
 Mom was a Hawaiian
 Joe was some form of Robin Hood

Went went to the Ninja Gym as a family and had a blast.  It is one serious workout!  We have a ten punch, but only had the kids go back once, because it was so much work and the gym is a little farther away than we would like.

 I decided to make donuts- just for fun!



Love my new Jack-o-Latern!