| December made its appearance with lots of beautiful snow! Mack loved getting bundled up and playing in it. | 
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Here's Ella with Cousin Carter who stayed with us for a couple days while his parents were out of town. |
| But the best snowplay of all was on a raft behind the "Mule" with Gregg at the wheel. | 
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We're freezing and this isn't fun anymore. |
| Abigail is part of a Percussion Group through her school. Here she is at her winter recital. They sounded cool! | 
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Abigail is one of the most capable people I have ever known. Her talents are fueled by her high level of motivation. At school she has made it a practice this year to complete all assignments within a day of their being assigned, even if they're due in a month. She also goes to great lengths to make her projects masterpieces, above and beyond what was assigned. Here is an example. She was supposed to portray the earth's layers--just a simple construction paper model or drawing. She decided to make a cake. Yes, she stresses me out sometimes, but it's worth it. It's fun to just sit back and watch her go! |
| She shared it all with her class! | 
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The kids insisted on making "gingerbread" houses during the Christmas break. Ick. Making them is super messy and they always end up falling over, resulting in frustrated kids and a grumpy mom. Plus, a toothpick from one of them got into the garbage disposal and broke it. I'm proud to announce that I installed a new one all by myself. (I wasn't going to call a plummer the week of Christmas!) But all the inconveniences were worth it--look at those masterpieces! |
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We hosted Christmas Eve at our house and it was so much fun to have everyone over.
I enjoyed preparing for it throughout the day--decorating, cooking, etc. We had a big dinner, a program, and
then desserts. Everyone helped by bringing great salads and desserts.
Here we are during the program. Look at these three cute little Nephites! |
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| Here we are the next morning! These pictures show the first step in our Christmas morning routine. The first thing we do is to watch the Luke 2 video (the short 2-minute one). Then we sing "I Stand All Amazed" and say a prayer. It is a special time. Believe it or not, the kids really enjoy this part. Here we are watching the movie. | 
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The next step is to open the gifts we made for each other. Zeke and Ella painted
vehicle wall-hangings for Brock and Mack.
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| Abbie made jewelry, bookmarks, some crocheted doll things, and other things I can't remember for Ella. | 
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Stone made Zeke a BSU plaque and I made Abbie some wall-hangings. (We had a vinyl-lettering theme this year, evidently.) |
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| Gregg made Stone a kicking tee out of PVC pipe, and he finished an afghan for Stone that he's
been working on for years. It was Stone's make gift from the last two Christmases I think!
Not pictured: Brock painted Gregg a sign to which I attached a vinyl lettering replica of our farm logo (designed by Gregg's brother, Ben). Mack (aka Abbie) made me a beaded watch. |
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Then we open the gifts we bought for
each other, and then come the regular "Santa" gifts. Although, I will say here that I hate Santa. I totally do not believe. The Polar Express
bell does not ring for me. The parents go through all the thought and work and then Santa gets the credit? Not in this house. I won't shatter their childlike belief concering the
fat red detraction from the true meaning of Christmas, but I do tell them that Mom and Dad help Santa and basically do all his work for him.
I drew Ella's name this year. I found these cupcake necklaces and I was so excited about them, because since Ella was a baby, I have called her my "cupcake." |
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The girls and I got ice skates for Christmas and, worried that our pond wouldn't freeze this year, we took a trip to the ice skating rink during the Christmas break. |
| Here is the cake I made for Stone's and Zeke's birthdays. Are you impressed with my football logos? I found out how to do this online and I was pretty excited about it as were the boys. Stone (Philadelphia Eagles) turned 14 and Zeke (Minnesota Vikings) turned 9. | 
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I had no reason to worry about the pond not freezing! It froze for about a 2-week long stretch. The last
time it froze, it was super fun to be out there skating, but it wasn't the best-quality skating because there was snow on the ice or because the ice
was pretty bumpy. This year--wow. This year it was like an ice skating rink--smooth as glass. And clear as glass! You could see down to the bottom of
the pond. It was like skating over air. We even saw fish swimming around under us. So cool! We went out as often as we could, knowing our ice wouldn't last forever. We managed to make it out almost every day. One day when there just hadn't been time to go, we went out after dark. The girls wore headlamps and Gregg brought the kerosene lantern out. That was really fun. |
| Here you can see the bottom of the pond. Brock enjoyed being out on the ice. (Mack was a nuisance and, therefore, confined to the house.) We borrowed a pair of ice skates from our neighbor for Brock--the kind that just attach on to his boots. He loved that. He trucked around on the pond, exploring the bank and the little island out there. He did get frustrated at one point, though. He wanted to do spins like Abigail and I were doing and he was frustrated that he couldn't. I told him that he just needed to practice. Five minutes later he yelled, "I'VE BEEN PRACTICING AND I STILL CAN'T DO SPINS." | 
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Abbie is such a great skater. We worked on spins, one-footed skating, and skating backwards. She nailed going backwards. She beat my socks off at that. |
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Racing. |
| Ella improved immensely this year. She was able to skate around all on her own, whereas last year she pretty much needed to hold my hand the whole time. Her skates have two runners on them, which was wonderful for a beginner. | 
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Blowing a kiss to the handsome camera-man. |
| The handsome camera-man playing with his remote-control car out on the ice. Gregg ended up getting himself a pair of hockey skates and skating around with us, too | 
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| In February Gregg and I did our second-annual Valentine's-weekend-away in McCall. We had a wonderful time.
We had dinner at Johnny Carino's on our way out of town before driving up to McCall. We spent the first day skiing. So much fun. The next day we went
snowmobiling and ice skating. We ate out at yummy restaurants, relaxed in the jacuzzi in our hotel room, and, best of all, slept until 9:00 EVERY MORNING!
Our good friend Michelle Du Bois stayed with our kids which was so cool of her. Gregg's parents also helped out by taking Stone and Zeke for a night. They
had a great time.
Here were are, all bundled up for skiing. |
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Here's Gregg in his bad-boy snowmobiling gear. I had never snowmobiled before. I hated it for the first 15 minutes, tolerated it for the next half hour, and really liked it by the end. Gregg was a dare-devil--going over jumps and up mountainsides. I just stayed put and cheered him on. |
| Abigail had her first clogging competition of the year in Nampa. She has a tiny team--only four dancers. But they are at the Advanced Level and danced a fun, challenging dance, complete with Abbie doing a backflip (assisted) at the end. She rocks at clogging. She's got the steps down pat, the timing down perfectly, and she sparkles on stage. Her team earned a 1st place, meaning they qualify to compete at Nationals at Lagoon in May. | 
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 Pretzel creation. |
 Rapunzel |
 Mack fell asleep on his big brother. |
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| So interesting to see how kids turn out. Stone and Brock are very similar, both in their appearance and in their characteristics. Same goes for Zeke and Mack. Zeke ALWAYS has a football in his hands. So does Mack. Here he has taken his socks off so they can be his receiver gloves. | 
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Gregg got me my first countertop mixer for Christmas. Here are my first two loaves of bread after only 16 years of marriage! Pathetic, I know. |
| Brock and Mack have been interesting kids for me. For one thing, they are the closest in age of any of my kids--22 months as opposed to 2.5-ish years. Second, they are my only two kids who are next to each other in age and are the same sex. We've alternated sexes until Mack. This means that they are the best of friends, and the best of fighters. Those two can really go at it when they're fighting over the same train or truck or spot on the couch. But they also love each other in a way none of my other kids have. It has been sweet to watch--in between wrestling matches. | 
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