Out With the Old

When Balloon Twisters Get Angry

Remember this guy?

I mentioned back in May that Jeremy made this costume and wore it while chasing our son around the Spanish Fork Library.
Well, in honor of Stan Lee's birthday, December 28, you can now see him chasing Jr. Jr. around in a new youtube video on Balloon Guy Entertainment's channel. 
And while you're there, watch "Balloon Bag End" again.  Did you know pictures of Balloon Bag End made it into Ripley's Believe It or Not book, "Dare to Look"?  Yep.  You should "dare to look."

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone was able to get everything ready for Christmas on time.

A Special Celebration

This evening was nice.  We were invited by a woman in our ward to come celebrate Hanukkah at her house with a few other people.  She fixed latkes.  Two different kinds.  One was the more traditional like we did and one was from a mix, which was different.  She even has a plate that says "Love You a Latke" to put them on.  Cute. 

Of course there was applesauce to go with them.
The kids got to spin dreidels.

We got to do something we'd never done before in our own family.  The kids got to help light the menorah for the sixth night of Hanukkah.  It was neat to hear the kids answer questions as our friend shared the background of the holiday.

A little while later she read a story, "The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming."

Besides the Hanukkah celebrating, she showed us some of the different nativity sets she has (she collects them) from different parts of the world.
She also taught us a new trick.  Drinking orange juice from a peppermint straw. 

Yeah.  You roll the orange back and forth on the table for a little bit to loosen up the juices.  Then you break a candy cane- break off the hook and the other end.  If you look at the stick you now have you can see little holes that go all the way through from one end to the other.  Make a hole or slit in your orange peel and poke your candy cane through.  Start sucking and sucking and sucking until the juices start coming through the peppermint stick to your mouth, then enjoy.  Fun, isn't it?

It was a good experience for our whole family.  The kids enjoyed it.  The adults enjoyed it.  It was a really nice evening and I thank our friend for inviting us to this special celebration. 
I'm glad that Jeremy made a balloon menorah for us to bring.  It was a way to say thank you for what this woman did to share with us.

Continuing Celebrations

Last year when we drove through the holiday lights at Thanksgiving Point, we went to the Water Tower Plaza afterwards to see the reindeer and warm ourselves by the fires.  Lucky wasn't able to see anything last year due to the fact that he wasn't born yet.
This year when we went to see the lights, it was so crowded getting to the lights that we didn't even try to go to the Plaza afterward. 

So today was our day to go see the reindeer... in the afternoon.  

Hey, I thought you said there would be flying reindeer.

There were a lot of people there to see Santa, but since our kids got to sit on Santa's lap twice already this season (at our ward Christmas party and at Riverwoods), we didn't bother standing in line for that.  The kids were more interested in standing by the fire anyway.

Last year it was sooooooo cold that night.  This year this afternoon was a different kind of cold.  It was drizzly so it was a wet cold instead of a freezing cold.


This evening we continued with Hanukkah celebrations and played Dreidel.  My dreidel kept landing on "Gimel" which meant I got to keep taking the chocolate coins from the center.  I had a LOT.  But we just do it for fun, so everybody got to eat a chocolate coin at the end of our game.

Last night, Lucky slept through us eating latkes so tonight Jeremy made some more so Lucky could eat some.  He enjoyed them, too.

It's been fun continuing with our celebrations for the season.  And it's especially fun to celebrate as a family.

Happy Hanukkah!

Still love those perks of my husband's job.  He brought home a box of donuts from one of his shows.

Well, it wasn't a full box.  But it was just in time for Hanukkah.  Fried foods!
We also had latkes (potato pancakes)

and applesauce.

And some parmesan chicken, which isn't traditional Hanukkah food, but we wanted it with our meal.

I think this was the first time we did food for Hannukah.  Usually we spin the dreidel.  We sometimes talk about where the "Festival of Light" came from.  This year after we do our scripture study in the morning and the kids get their mint M&Ms for answering questions, we talk about Hanukkah and the kids get a donut for answering questions.
Again it's a nice way to learn about different cultures.  And eat food.

For the past couple years, Jeremy's also been able to twist balloons at a Hanukkah party at the synagogue in Park City.  He builds a large (you can see how large by this picture) menorah for them and has a nice time there.

Happy Hanukkah!

A Special Picnic

Jr. Jr. and I had the opportunity to go on a Mommy-Son date today.  He picked for us to have a special picnic and he wanted to do it at the duck pond.  So we did.  I let him know it was too cold to eat outside so when we got there I parked the car and hopped in the back seat where we ate our lunches together while watching the ducks in the water. 

After we ate, we took a little walk to say Hi to the ducks and enjoy the sunshine that emerged while we were eating... until it went behind the clouds again.

It was a good Mommy-Son date.  I love that little boy.

National Maple Syrup Day 2014

December 17 is National Maple Syrup Day.  Why not make a smiley face with your pancakes and bacon and eggs? 

And put syrup on them after Mom takes a picture.

Nichole thought it would be fun to bring her new stuffed chicken in to be appalled that we were eating chicken eggs.  :Nice, Nichole.

12-13-14

Musn't forget that December 13 is Cocoa Day.  The kids were happy to have hot chocolate with dinner.

And Jr. Jr. went from being a wiggly 2 year old on 12-12-12 to a wiggly 4 year old on 12-13-14.

Happy Birthday, Frank Sinatra

December 12.  It's Frank Sinatra's Birthday.

So have a cupcake.

Open a present.

 

 

And play a game.

"Baby blue eyes" here knows how to celebrate the birthday of "Ol' blue eyes."

Riverwoods Lights

We took the kids to the Shops at Riverwoods tonight to walk around and look at Christmas lights.

They were more excited to see the different fires they had set up than the lights.  They remember that from a couple years ago when we went.  It was so cold that last time, we spent a lot of time around the fires.  This year is not nearly as cold.

The kids tried their hand at "water bending" and "fire bending" (we've been watching Avatar: The Last Airbender again lately).

Jeremy and I got a kick out of one spot we stopped at because two shops side by side had the word, "mountain" in their names.  And December 11 is International Mountain Day after all.

Santa was also at Riverwoods so the kids got to sit on his lap and tell him what they wanted for Christmas (again).

And Lucky slept through everything.  It was too dark to get a picture of him in the stroller.  There was a bit of a breeze so we kept a blanket hanging down on the stroller.
We did have fun tonight.  Good family time.

A Broken Tradition

Sunday, December 7, was the First Presidency Christmas Devotional.  Tradition says that someone in our family has to be sick that day. 
Guess what.  Nobody was sick.  Everyone got to go to church and everyone was able to watch the Devotional together... and answer questions about it to earn mint M&Ms since we are continuing with that good tradition of our advent calendar in a jar. 

Last year I put a list of the scriptures we use up on this blog.

December 7 was also Cotton Candy Day.  We planned ahead and bought some cotton candy earlier in the year so we would have it ready for December.  It's nice that cotton candy lasts so long before it's opened.
Jeremy gave the kids each some cotton candy in individual containers.  None of them finished it so they each asked for lids.  Jeremy of course labeled them so they would know who each belonged to.

 

He labeled them all "Daddy's Cotton Candy."  

The kids were unhappy about this at first until Jeremy pointed out that he drew little pictures representing each child so they really could tell who they belonged to.

Silly Daddy.

I'm really okay that we broke tradition this year and all felt well on Sunday.  I'd rather have the good traditions than the bad.

Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day 2014

Want to take a trip with me?  Let's travel back in time 30 years to the year 1984.  The movie, Karate Kid, came out that year (we're watching it tonight to celebrate the 30th anniversary).

Now let's move forward in time to my college years.  Jeremy and I were in the juggling club at BYU.  From time to time people would come to the juggling club who didn't yet know how to juggle.  We taught quite a few people how to juggle there.  Good memories.  Traveling forward to today, I was able to spend some time with one of my friends teaching her how to juggle.  It was so fun.

Now let's travel back in time just a few days to our ward Christmas party. 

We were encouraged to pick a name of a family in the ward (or a few) and during the Christmas season, we were asked to do anonymous service for that family.
 
Tonight there was a knock at our door.  On our doorstep was a plate of brownies with a note from our anonymous ward member friend.  They definitely know our family because on the note was written, "Happy National Brownie Day!  Merry Christmas!"  Besides Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day, today, December 8, is indeed National Brownie Day.  And we do like to celebrate.

Well, thank you for taking this trip through time with me.  It's been fun.