Last Minute Celebrating

Boy, it has been a busy day today.  2015 is the 50th anniversary of The Sound of Music and I've been wanting to celebrate that for most of the year.  We finally got to it today, the last day of the year.  The February 2015 FamilyFun Magazine had ideas of how to celebrate the 50th anniversary.  We sort of made the food it suggested- crisp apple strudel and schnitzel with noodles.  Yumm.  And we watched the movie.

Besides celebrating The Sound of Music, we also celebrated New Year's Eve.  We had our traditional New Year's nachos, and toasted the New Year with sparkling cider and apple Shasta and apple juice.

Lucky spent some time sleeping and some time making noise.

Now we're staying up watching movies or falling asleep out in the living room.

See you next year.

Birthday Fun

December 30 is Mercer Mayer's Birthday.  So we went out for a special birthday dinner with friends.

And I got a blurry picture.  Oh well.

O.K.  So we didn't actually go out to celebrate Mercer Mayer's birthday.  We went out to celebrate because friends from my husband's childhood now live in Northern Utah and were visiting Provo for a couple days.  And since we live close enough to Provo, we got to meet up with them and have dinner together... on Mercer Mayer's birthday.

On the way home, we stopped by the Orem Library because we had a hold to pick up.  While we were there another hold was put on the hold shelf- a book that Jr. Jr. asks about every time we go to the library.  Every time we have to tell him that it isn't in yet, but it came today.  Hooray.
Even though we were at the library just yesterday picking up Mercer Mayer books to celebrate his birthday, they didn't have the one I really wanted in.  So I checked while we were there today.  It wasn't on the shelf.  So I checked the catalog and it said it was on the sorting cart.  I looked and it was there.  Hooray.  What a great birthday surprise that was.
So when we got home and the kids got ready for bed, I got to read to them The Gingerbread Pirates (which Jr. Jr. had been waiting for for about a month) and Professor Wormbog in Search for the Zipperump-a-Zoo by Mercer Mayer... on his birthday.

That was nice.
Happy Birthday, Mercer Mayer.  We had fun celebrating.

Tick Tock Day 2015

Tick Tock.  Tick Tock.  Tick Tock.  It's getting closer to the end of the year.  December 29 is Tick Tock Day, so what can you fit in before the year is out?
Just this week (and it's only Tuesday), I've been working a lot on end of the year/beginning of the year Primary stuff- new classes and new lesson schedules start next Sunday.
We've been getting our last minute shopping and errand running in for New Year's.
We've been setting up play dates for the kids with friends.  We've been setting up visits for all of us with friends.
Just tonight we went to visit friends for pizza and games.

So many pizza toppings.  So yummy. 

When we went outside to go home, I found "I Love You" (written with an I, a heart, and a U) on the snowy windshield.  Before I could take a picture, one of the kids had blown some of the snow off and another had added to the writing in the snow, but you get the idea.

At first I couldn't figure out who had written that on our windshield, then I remembered that Jeremy had gone out earlier to put some stuff in the back of the van.  O.K.  Not so weird when you know it's your husband.

There are still some anniversaries we have to celebrate, too.  This year marks the 30th anniversary of the movie, Clue, so tonight after I blog, Jeremy and I are going to put on the movie and fall asleep to it.  We're tired.  But Tick Tock.  Tick Tock.  We've got to get the movie in before it's the 31st anniversary year.

Happy Birthday, Stan Lee!

Today's little known holiday celebrated the Creator of Comics, that Captain of Cameos, the Marvel of Marvel- Stan Lee. It was his birthday.

Usually we celebrate by watching one of the many movies that are spread throughout the Marvel Universe. Jeremy even got two new ones for Christmas, so we were pretty much set. Except in the end we didn't end up watching any movies.

Jr. Jr. displayed his unique superpower by becoming magnetized to Daddy. Daddy was officially trying to clean the living room, but he didn't seem too upset by the display of powers.

During Family Home Evening, Jeremy made up a story where the rest of the family got to choose elements of the setting, hero, and antagonist. It ended up being a story about a rogue walking Christmas tree (with spikey boulders for ornaments and a weeping angel on the top) that was harvesting a Minecraft type planet with a peanut butter core. Out hero was a lizard girl named What, who had the superpower of making the best French toast in the universe.

 

During the story Nichole drew her own comic where someone in Vegas was robbed by a guy, but later saved by our hero, Aurora. Hurrah, Aurora!

Jr. Jr. not to be out done wrote a story about Santa and his elves. A good eighty percent of it was comprehensible!

To top it off both Jeremy and I took naps. But on this of all days they couldn't be just naps. Today they were POWER NAPS!

So it may not have been cake and ice cream, but our creative juices were sure flowing. Happy Birthday, Stan Lee.

Stickers Return

What happens when the almost 2-year old finds a sheet of stickers... and his mom?

Cuteness!

I wonder who he learned it from.

National Candy Cane Day 2015

December 26 is National Candy Cane Day.
For Christmas, friends of ours gave us hot chocolate packets with candy canes.  One of their children who is Jr. Jr.'s age picked out a special candy cane spoon just for him along with a hot chocolate packet.  Unfortunately since Christmas (yesterday), Lucky has been on a candy kick getting into any candy he can find whether it's his or not.  Sigh. 
He found Jr. Jr.'s candy cane spoon.  Yep, and ate it or part of it until I took some out of his mouth.  Oooooooooooh.  Poor Jr. Jr.  He was upset.  He cried.  He got hugs from Mommy.  But he did not hit or yell at his little brother.  I was very proud of him.  I took the opportunity to talk to him about how it's okay to get upset, to be sad, to cry when something like that happens, but he made a very good choice to not get angry and hit or yell at his brother.
After getting over being upset, Jr. Jr. calmly asked me if maybe we had enough money to buy a new candy cane spoon.  So sweet, so precious.  So Daddy contacted our friends to ask where they had gotten those spoons so we could look for one for Jr. Jr..  They said they had some more and Jeremy could go over and get a new one for Jr. Jr.  Thank you, friends.
So, Jr. Jr. got a new candy cane spoon which he was very happy about and was able to use it in his hot chocolate this evening.  And Jr., Nichole, and I all had candy canes in hot chocolate as well.
Lucky was put to bed before we had the hot chocolate.  He did not get any.

White Christmas

Last night it started snowing and it snowed... and it snowed... and it snowed... and it kept snowing.  Then this morning it snowed... and it snowed... and it snowed... etc. etc. etc.  I haven't seen this much snow in years.  At one point today I went out with a measuring tape and measured 10 inches.  Yep.  10 inches.  Wow.

Last Winter was very mild with not much snow so this is quite something this year.  We definitely had our white Christmas.
Speaking of Christmas... today was Christmas.  The kids were very happy with all their presents.  Jeremy and I were, too.

Unfortunately, some people didn't get enough sleep last night either from being so excited they kept waking up or they had to stay up anyway because other people stayed up too late. 

"I'll put you to sleep, kids." 

And... too much stocking candy was eaten instead of real food (although we did have salad and grilled ham and cheese sandwiches for dinner).  In general, we didn't do as well today with being nice to each other.  Sigh.  We need to do better.  We need to eat better and get better sleep.  And choose to handle things better.  Sigh.

In other news, I did handmade gifts for the kids again this year.
I made Lucky a penguin stuffed animal.

Jr. Jr. used to have some favorite pajamas.  Every time he had the choice he would wear those pajamas.  He wore them so much even though he got too big for them and wore through the feet.  He loved those pajamas.  They were monster pajamas.  I took those monster pajamas and made a monster out of them.  I sewed fleece to the feet to cover them.  I made a monster head to match one of the monsters on the pajamas and stuffed the monster.  Jr. Jr. was so happy when he unwrapped that.

I made Jr. a new scripture bag since the one I made for him before doesn't fit his new scriptures he got after his baptism and the other things he puts in his bag.

For Nichole I made a doll head with yarn hair to hold hair clips and hair ties.  I had one like that when I was young and wanted to make one for her.

The kids and I decorated a bowl for Jeremy.  We traced around the kids' hands and it says, "Love our Daddy!"

I'm glad I was able to make gifts for my family again.  I like doing it.

Christmas Eve

Well, today was a big day just getting ready for Christmas.  I went out this morning for some quiet time.  I took some time for prayer and personal scripture study, things to invite the Spirit.  I also enjoyed looking at the snow covered mountains in the morning light.

I've been grumpy lately and the whole family has just been having trouble fighting and yelling and being mean to each other.  But not today.  When I got home, everyone was working especially hard to be nice to each other.  The kids were quick to say, "I'm sorry."  They did better at explaining why they were unhappy about something.  We all tried extra hard not to raise our voices unless it was absolutely necessary.  "No!  Don't touch that, Lucky."  It was much better because everyone put the effort in.
Lucky and Jr. helped me make breadsticks for our big Christmas Eve dinner.

The kids helped Jeremy decorate the tree. 

Jeremy made peanut butter fudge the other day and we all got to have some today.  Yumm.

The kids watched The Muppet Christmas Carol while Jeremy and I finished preparing dinner, including our traditional Sprite with candy canes.

So much food.  What a blessing.

In the evening we had our Christmas Eve program and scripture study. 

Before that, we hung up our stockings by the fire and danced to The Piano Guys Christmas music.

After opening presents from my visiting teachers, the kids had some pie and put out a cookie and a glass of milk for Santa.

After the kids went to bed, Jeremy finished decorating the tree. 

That's how our Christmas Eve 2015 was.  How about yours?