Double Digits for Sydney

     Sydney turned ten this month and was excited to reach double digits. She had a fun birthday party at Joanne Fabrics with the girls from her Activity Day group.

The girls met in one of the classrooms at the store and decorated tee shirts with fabric paint. They basically tie-dyed them without the dye! The best part was that it was not happening in my kitchen. It was a great activity for mid-January and all of the girls went home with a unique shirt that they had created.

    

     Of course, we had to celebrate at home too, so we had ice cream cake on her birthday and she opened gifts from family members.  She also enjoyed taking donuts to school for her birthday treat. Happy Birthday Sydney, we love you and are amazed at all that you accomplish- from school work, to dance, to flute lessons, Activity Days, your Destination Imagination Team and more!

Cutting Down a Fresh Christmas Tree

  For seventeen years now we have had a live Christmas tree, but we usually get one from The Home Depot or something. Since moving to New York, we found a Christmas tree farm just about 20 minutes from our home where we can go and walk through the tree farm and find the perfect tree.

    



This year was more fun than last year because we already had snow on the ground, so the kids could pile into the sleds that the owners had set out. Michael pulled them around for quite a while and they thought that was really fun. After walking by many, many trees, we finally settled on one and Michael cut it down for us. Then we had to drag it out to the dirt path and they brought a tractor down and hauled it up to our car for us. Maura says that it is the best part of Christmas!

Double the Fun for Thanksgiving 2010

     Michael's brother and wife had these adorable twin boys in October and we were thrilled that they were brave enough to drive up to our home for Thanksgiving. It was exhausting, but amazing, to meet our two new nephews. They were barely five weeks old, but already much different in mannerisms. I could have cuddled them for hours!

     My little one became "Mighty Reader" in her kindergarten class. This is the Native American name that she chose for herself and she came to Thanksgiving dinner in full costume this year. Notice that she is missing one bottom tooth. She had the nerve to lose her first tooth while Michael and I were away in Florida!

  

     What can I say other than Michael makes a great turkey.  He got up early and put our bird in the oven while I went off and ran an 8K race on Thanksgiving morning.  He amazes me and I amazed myself.  I finished my race, in the rain, and averaged a ten minute mile. Not bad for someone who had never run outside of her house since middle school!

  

     Here are Hayden and Sydney at Thanksgiving dinner. We had all five of us, plus Michael's two brothers, their wives and our little niece and our twin nephews.  It was wonderful to have a house full of family for the holiday weekend. We had so much fun just hanging out and playing board games.  The girls went to see the movie "Tangled" one afternoon, and all of us went to visit Santa Clause too.  It was a memorable and enjoyable Thanksgiving.

Florida Trip- Harry Potter World

      You may not know that Michael and I are big fans of the Harry Potter series. We have read all of the books and seen the films, which frankly don't hold up to the writing, but that is another topic for another time.  Anyway, we decided that while we were in the Orlando area, we wanted to see the new Harry Potter World in Universal Studios Islands of Adventure.  Overall, it was amazing, it really did seem like we were walking through the village of Hogsmeade and the Hogworts castle was incredible.

     Michael looked pretty good next to this snowman who is wearing Griffindor colors.  I guess the scarves are a popular item because they sold out during the Christmas season.

     This is me in the village window shopping.  You can peek into the windows if you dare to! There are a lot of special effects just in the window displays that catch your attention.  It was cool to peek into shop windows that we had read about and see cauldrons, wands, books, candy, and more.

     Butter beer is something that the kids in the Harry Potter series are always drinking.  It tasted really good, so it was fun to drink something that we could only imagine previously.  It is kind of like root beer or birch beer, but with it's own unique flavor.  Too bad it is not widely available.

     One of the highlights in the village of Hogsmeade is Ollivander's Wand Shop.  We had to wait in quite a line to get in, but it was worth it. Once inside, the salesperson finds the perfect wand for one of the children who is in the shop.  Then you have the opportunity to buy a wand unique to you or one of the wands from the movie.  It is interesting to take a close look at Harry's wand, versus Snape's, Dumbledore's or the Weasley twins'.  We had a great time exploring the shops and ended up buying a chocolate frog for each of our children, complete with a wizard card in each package.  We also brought home Bertie Botts every flavored beans.  Some taste good, but you don't want a second once you have experienced booger, vomit or ear wax flavor!

Halloween 2010

    

     Hayden does not like to get messy, he never has, and he probably never will.  So when Halloween rolls around and the children want to carve pumpkins, he can hardly stand the idea of touching the guts of a pumpkin.  This year however, Michael forced him to pull out some of the guts on his own.  It was pretty hysterical to witness because he was freaking out about it.

     Sydney on the other hand has never had a problem with cleaning out her pumpkins and can often be seen up to her elbows in the goop.  She did an excellent job cleaning out and carving her pumpkin this year.  She knew exactly what she wanted to do and did it.

    

      Maura is more like her brother and not too convinced that pulling out pumpkin guts is something that she wants to add to her "to do" list.  She did a little of it, but became grossed out by the smell of her pumpkin and ran and hid in her room.  Apparently she is not a fan of the smell of squash.

     We were down to the wire though, it was Halloween and we only had an hour or two before dark, so Michael rallied the troops and got the 3 pumpkins finished and transformed into jack-o-lanterns.  We put them on the porch and lit the candles and handed out candy to the early trick-or-treaters, but then we went to our friend's home for dinner.  Halloween fell on the Sabbath this year, so no trick-or-treating for our family.  Instead, we enjoyed a trunk-or-treat at the church the Wednesday before.

     Here are the children with their friends finishing up dinner.  We had delicious chili and bread sticks.  Then we gathered in their front room and held a Halloween themed poetry reading.  It was a fun filled night and something that we will never forget.

Trunk-or-Treat

  

      The girls were very excited about Halloween this year.  Maura was determined to be a ladybug, and Sydney spent a long time pouring over the Party City circular until she determined that she wanted to be an "Indian Flower Princess."  Over course, her costume did not come with any shoes, and so she talked me into getting her some moccasins in addition to the costume.  In the end, they were both adorable.  Since Halloween fell on Sunday this year, we did our trick-or-treating early.  We met up with our fellow ward members and held a trunk-or-treat a few nights before.  The girls were so excited to go.

      Once the candy exchange was over outside, we headed inside to get warm and play some games.  Maura was not sure what to think about eating a donut hanging from a string.  She found out that it is much harder than she thought it would be though!  The donut just kept swinging around and even though she was not supposed to use her hands, she just could not help herself!  She had a much easier time at the cake walk and the thing that she enjoyed the most was having her face painted.  At first she had a ladybug painted on one cheek, but later, she went back and had a pumpkin painted on the other cheek.  She just loved knowing that those pretty pictures were on her face.  Maura also liked the fact that her two friends who live down the street came to the party.  She and I invited their family to come and we really enjoyed Heather and Carissa's company.  We have been blessed to have good neighbors and it was fun to introduce them to the idea of a trunk-or-treat.  All in all, we had a very fun-filled evening.

Making Applesauce

     Western New York is really into apples. They grow a lot of them and we found over 80 u-pick farms in our area that allow the general public to go and pick fresh produce through-out the season. We discovered an apple farm in October and drove up one Saturday afternoon.  Within a half hour the children picked about 50 pounds of apples- although it helped that some of these apples were almost 3 pounds each!  After making every apple recipe that I could find from fresh homemade muffins, to crumb cake to pie, we had to resort to applesauce to use all of the apples that we had picked.  It was a time-consuming process to locate all of our canning equipment in the moving boxes in our basement, but worth it in the end.  Michael and I made batch after batch of applesauce and stayed up until 2:00 a.m. or so on a weeknight, but we got it finished.  I love looking at the jars and jars of applesauce in my pantry.  This is a new annual tradition I think!  Now, if we could only get a salsa garden going again, but I don't know how to keep the deer and rabbits away.

Relief Society Retreat

This is the spire on top of the Palmyra, New York temple.  After enjoying a wonderful over-night Stake Relief Society  retreat on the Finger Lakes, we had the opportunity to go to the temple.  It was an amazing experience and really strengthened my ties to women in my ward and stake.

This is me on the grounds of the temple.  The flowers were so colorful and the sky was just a gorgeous blue color that afternoon after the rain had cleared out.

These are the three Jennifers.  Everywhere I go I always meet up with another Jennifer, but I have to say that these two are very amazing women and I am lucky to know them!  I get to serve in Relief Society with one and visit teach with the other. 

 

These are the two ladies that rode out to the retreat with me.  I drove and they directed.  It was about two hours from home, so I was glad to have their company.  I appreciate both of them and had a great time with them throughout the weekend.

First Day of School 2010

     Summer came to an end and we had to face the reality of going back to school.  Hayden is in seventh grade and gets up too early for me to follow him out to the bus to snap a picture, but the girls don't leave until much later, so I got pictures of them.  Actually, Sydney and Hayden started a day before Maura, because only half of her kindergarten class went the first day, half the second and then the whole class went on the third day that week.  So Maura and I sent the older two to school and she and I had one last day together.

     She planned the whole thing. First we went to the park and then we ate at, you guessed it, McDonald's.  It was wonderful, but heartbreaking too.  Maura has been my lunch buddy for so long, and now it is over, five years have passed and she is off to all day kindergarten.  I am happy for her, but sad for me.

     Sydney is in the fourth grade this year.  Her teacher was a fifth grade teacher last year and he did not want to have to move classrooms, so even though he is teaching fourth grade, they are in the fifth grade wing of the school and have their own, individual lockers.  It seems that my children are growing up faster here than they would have in Utah!

    
     Here are my two girls, ready for school and watching for the bus.  Maura had to wear her bus pass around her neck for the first few weeks of school until the kindergarteners learned the routine.

     While waiting for their bus, they like to get out their scooters and go over the "bumps" that have been made by tree roots underneath our driveway.  They have serious skills.

     This is the moment.  The one that every mother dreams of and secretly dreads, the day that their youngest child leaves for school.  It is humbling to realize that they suddenly spend more waking hours with another adult, a teacher that you have never met before.  Part of me was relieved, part of me was scared and another part of me was absolutely heart broken.  How had we got to this point in time so quickly?  Going back into the empty house was lonely.

Hayden is Now Twelve

   Hayden turned 12 on the 29th of June this year.  Twelve is kind of a big deal.  I mean, he advanced from Primary to Young Mens and he was ordained a deacon and received the Aaronic Priesthood.  These milestones seem like they will never arrive, but it is humbling when they do.  All of us were together to celebrate his actual birthday on the 29th.

A few days before his birthday, he had a party with his friends.  We sent out cool invitations that were shaped like a BBQ.  All Hayden wanted to do was have a huge water party in our backyard and have his dad grill steaks.  So that is what we did.  We bought each of the boys a water gun, had a lot of water balloons, put the slip and slide out and the beach ball sprinkler. We served steak, hot dogs, watermelon and chips.  We played the candy bar game where you have to roll doubles to pick one up or steal one from another player.

 Hayden wanted to mix it up a little, so the boys also had the option to put on oven mitts and attempt to unwrap a huge candy bar that was wrapped in several layers of aluminum foil.  Here is Adam giving it a try.

For dessert Hayden had picked out an ice cream cake from Anderson's. It was delicious!

His awesome friends gave him several gift cards, a huge Nerf gun and the Wii Ski game.  All in all, he had an excellent birthday.  Happy Birthday Son!

Maura Turns Five!

  Maura was so very excited about her birthday this year. Turning five years old meant that she could have her first birthday party with friends. She decided to invite all of the children in her preschool class and a few from church as well. We held her party at a local children's museum and they had this cake made for her party which was themed around butterflies and flowers.

 Maura and Lilian found these butterfly costumes and had a lot of fun "flying" around the museum together.  It was great creative play.  The children also played in the store area, on the farm, climbed the rock wall and loved the arts and crafts room.

 All of the children were able to do some arts and crafts in the party room.  They were working on a butterfly project here.  It was so funny to listen to their conversations because they had been together so much this year, that they banter back and forth like siblings.  We heard one of the kids say to a classmate, "We know, you've told us like a million times!"  The museum employees thought they were hilarious.  We were just glad that they came because it made Maura's day.

 
  Her is our birthday girl, so excited to be five and to blow out the candles!

  Maura opened some cute presents from her friends at the museum party, but on her birthday she opened presents at home that were sent by her grandparents and from our family.  She was thrilled to finally get a Zhu-Zhu pet or two!

  Happy Birthday Maura!! I cannot believe that you are already five years old, it is making daddy and I feel a little old.  Our baby girl is growing up and soon you will be off to kindergarten!

Final Soccer Games

  Both Hayden and Sydney played soccer through our town's soccer league this year. They played in the fall and again in the spring, but they are two different seasons here, and you generally have different players and coaches for each season. To celebrate the last game of spring soccer, each team had a pizza party and the kids received their medals.

Michael Turns 39!

  Michael's birthday was just ridiculous this year.  The children were still in school because school did not end until the 23rd of June in New York and we had the craziness of all that going on.  His work schedule was ridiculous, he had not been home to eat dinner or see any of us in days.  In fact, he worked until after midnight on his birthday and did not even bother to tell anyone at work that it was his birthday!

  Meanwhile, I kept asking him what he wanted to do for his birthday celebration to which I got no response. So the 8th of June rolled around, and he had no cake, no presents, no plans, and he came home after midnight.  Finally he told me, "All I want is a coconut cream pie."  Pie!!? Seriously, that is what you want for your birthday? Done.  Of course, there are no Marie Callendar's in New York, so I made a pie from scratch- the crust, the whipped cream, all of it.  I made it the day after his birthday, and he was kind enough to pull away from work, come home for about 25 minutes, eat a piece and go back to the office.

 
  I am just glad he had the energy to blow out the candles, maybe that is why there are only three? Why would we only have three candles on there, one for each 13 years?! Were there only three left in the cupboard? Could we not be bothered to put any more than that on? Of course, 39 candles probably would have lit my masterpiece on fire.  But the downside to this whole thing is that after 17 years, Michael found out that I can make really good homemade pie- he wasn't suppose to know that.  How I miss Marie C's pies and stacking up all the tins in my cupboard until I would finally take them back in to get a refund on the tin deposits and have more than enough for a free pie!  I love Razzleberry and German chocolate and French silk, not to mention banana cream... on second thought, it is probably better on our budget and our waistline that we have moved away from Marie's!  But it was so great at Thanksgiving to just go and pick them up.