Christmas Day

Noah was with Kent this year until 2 p.m on Christmas day. I just slept in and then waited for him to come home. Of course he had a fun time opening all of his presents. His big gift this year was a PlayStation 3 from Santa. He was very excited about that. He also got some Jazz stuff, movies and books. After he opened his presents here, we headed to my parents house to exchange gifts. Of course my mom spoiled us again. She also made these really cute blankets that fold up into a pillow. She made one for each of the grand kids. Noah's was a BYU one. I got slippers and a Kohl's gift card. Yeah!! Then we just spent the rest of the day hanging out, playing games and eating and more eating. It was a great time.




Each year I let Noah pick out a new ornament. This year, he picked out a Utah Jazz one.

Christmas Eve

Our traditional Christmas eve consists of getting together with all of my siblings and their families and having a nice dinner, talent show, white elephants and of course, the game where everyone fights to open the gift to win the "Christmas Prize". It was so fun this year as always. Everyone was there, including Kent and Noah. This year, Noah was with Kent for Christmas Eve but I invited them to our family party and to my surprise, he came and brought Noah. I thought the night might be awkward or uncomfortable but it actually was fine. Noah even told me how glad he was that they came. This year, we had the party at my parents church so that we could have more room. Everyone seemed to have a great time. We had a nice dinner with ham and turkey. We had some fun games with prizes for the kids. The kids seemed to have a great time. Some of the dads and kids played basketball. We also had a fun talent show. I wish I would have gotten some pictures of that. It was awesome. I definitely have some talented nieces and nephews. Kenny and Melodie won AGAIN (love you guys(:) the hard to open "Christmas Prize", which was a gift card to Applebees.Playing some fun Christmas games




White elephant game with the kids
I love this picture of Kristi and her girls

Christmas Fun

At Christmas time there is always lots of food, parties, activities and fun. Here are some of the fun things we did this year. One night, we drove out to Thanksgiving Point to see their Christmas lights. They were so awesome. It was $6 per car to drive through but definitely well worth it. They have Christmas music playing as your drive around and at the very end they have little signs with pictures telling the nativity story. We also made a gingerbread house. It didn't turn out very good. The frosting wasn't that great but we had fun with it anyway.The finished house with the "Big Cheeser" smile

We also made sugar cookies but I have to admit that I totally cheated this year. I bought the premade cookie dough that already had the shapes cut out. All we had to do was bake them and frost them. Noah didn't seem to mind that we weren't rolling out a bunch of dough so it was fine. That part is always so messy. I won't buy these kind of cookies again though because they were so small. We kept laughing at how small they actually were. I guess the whole point was to have fun so it didn't matter too much.

One other fun thing we did this year was go to the Larry Miller Sing a Long. Aside from the long wait and crowds, it was a fun night. We took Trax down to the Energy Solutions Arena and everyone got a free hot dog and drink. The whole arena was full. We all sang a bunch of Christmas songs. The Jazz bear even made an appearance which Noah was excited about. At the end of the night, each person got a free Jazz ticket, free popcorn at any Larry Miller theater and tickets to a Bees game. The Jazz ticket is for the nose bleeders but Noah still really likes to go. Of course at this time of year, there never seems to be enough time to fit everything in and things feel so rushed but we managed to do some fun things and spend some good quality time together to celebrate the season.

School Christmas Progam

They always have a Christmas program at the school. It is always a little disappointing because they won't let the kids sing any songs about Jesus. It's also so crowded that if you don't get there way early, you can't see very well at all. I didn't get very many good photos because I was clear in the back of the gym. Each grade sang 2 Christmas songs. Noah is starting to get to the age where he doesn't want me to take his picture so I can never get very many good poses from him. He bugs(:

Finally.....

We finally ventured out and got our Christmas tree the other night. I love going and picking out a tree. It's a pain getting it home and setting it up but the memories I have of picking out real trees as a child are so priceless. People tease me for not just giving in and getting a fake one but I just can't do it YET. I'm sure that I will one of these days. Of course I had issues with the lights and had to make a Walmart trip. This happens every year and I get so frustrated. Once I got the lights on, we got all the ornaments up. It was a lot of fun to decorate. Each year, Noah gets a new ornament and this year he picked out a Utah Jazz one. It's nice having the tree up and the other Christmas decorations. Now, I feel like I can start to get into the Christmas spirit a little more.

Festival of Trees

Tonight we went to the Festival of Trees. It is so fun and cool to see how these trees are decorated. I can't believe how creative and artistic people are. My favorite was the Grinch tree. It was really cool. Noah really liked the Jazz tree and the BYU tree. They had just about every kind of theme you could think of. It was a fun night and all the proceeds go the Primary Children's. To top off the night, we got a scone with honey butter. Yum!! It started getting me more in the Christmas spirit. I only got one picture. My camera was acting weird but this was Noah's favorite tree. It was a Utah Jazz tree.

Jazz vs. Memphis

Tonight we went to the Jazz game courtesy of Jr. Jazz. As part of the deal when playing with Jr. jazz, you get 2 Jazz tickets. They were definite nosebleed seats so we probably would have been able to see it better if we watched it at home on TV but it was kinda fun being there in the arena with all the other fans and being a part of all the excitement. The Jazz won by about 25 points so the last quarter was pretty boring. They had all of the bench players in. We were going to leave early to beat the crowds but Noah insisted on staying the whole time. He is loving the Jazz and his favorite players are Deron Williams and Andre Kirelinko. (not sure if I spelled his name right(:) It would be fun to go to another game but be able to sit a little closer. Kent is coaching this year so he got 2 tickets and Noah got 2 tickets so the 3 of us went. It was a little weird having the 3 of us there together but Noah was loving it and loved having all of the attention focused on him.

Turkey Day

We had a nice, quiet Thanksgiving this year. It ended up just being Kristi and her family and me and Noah at my parents. We missed having everyone and it seemed so quiet. We had a yummy turkey dinner with all of the fixings. My mom did the turkey, stuffing and pies and then Kristi and I brought the rest of the stuff. We ate about 2:30. After we got dinner all cleaned up, we did a couple of fun activities with the kids. They made turkeys out of graham crackers and chocolate icing and then they made snowman ornaments. They had fun, especially the girls. Me, my mom and Kristi went to Wood Connection earlier in the week and bought some letters to paint and decorate. I did the "Family" letters. It was fun. It was kinda stressful at first but turned out really cute. Tara and Raleigh came over later in the evening so we had a chance to see them and their cute kids. Kenny and Mel came home from her families around 6 so they were there the rest of the evening with us. I think we should make it a tradition that the girls do some kind of a craft every year while the guys all watch football. Hope everyone else had a great Thanksgiving too.
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School Pictures

This is Noah's 4th grade school picture. I usually don't buy the school pictures but decided to this year. They had a really good package deal so I bought a few. Pretty handsome kid.

Football Is Over

Another football season is over. November 7th was their last game. They lost their first playoff game to Murray. They didn't seem to be playing their best that day. I think they all were feeling the pressure of winning so they could go on to the finals. We can't complain though because they had a great season. It's almost kinda weird when its all over because we have been used to this strict schedule of practice 3 times a week for 2 hours and games every Saturday and then all of a sudden, its over. I wasn't as impressed with the coaches Noah had this year compared to last year. The head coach seemed to have his favorites and they were the ones who got to play the whole game every game. I didn't expect Noah to play the whole game but there were a couple of games where he only played 1/4 of the game. Kent had to talk to the coach a couple of times which seemed to help and the second half of the season seemed to be better. I really do like the team sports though because I think kids learn how to work together and support each other. Their team did some fun things with the kids. When they lost a game, the kids had to paint their fingernails pink and when they won, the coaches had to paint their fingernails pink. They also got pizza each week if they won their game the Saturday before. The end of they year banquet was on a Sunday. I don't know why they chose that day but they took the kids to Boondocks all day. We left the decision up to Noah to go or not. He ended up choosing not to go. I was proud of him for making the right decision. I knew it was hard for him because he wanted to go so bad but I think he felt better later that he had made the right choice. Later that evening, they did a dinner. They had tons of food. They called each kid up individually to present them their trophies, pictures and each kid got a Cyprus t-shirt, beanie, and CD with different pictures and footage of the season. They also said some nice things about each of the players. They said that Noah always did what he was told and was quiet. They said he had improved a lot from the first of the season. They also gave each of the kids a football and marker so they could all sign each others footballs. The kids had a good time. Now Noah is signed up to play Jr. Jazz. Thank goodness the schedule isn't as rigorous as football.

Who's Your Hero?

A couple of weeks ago we went to the South Towne Family Christmas Boutique. It was pretty much a huge boutique with several different vendors. While we walked around looking at the merchandise, they had people performing Christmas dances and songs. One of the booths was called, "Who's Your Hero?" The booth had large posters of hero's from the Book of Mormon and the Bible. Noah's favorite was Captain Moroni. These posters looked so cool and looked so much like how I would picture them looking. On the way home we had a conversation about Captain Moroni and the Title of Liberty. The following Monday night, Noah did a FHE lesson on Captain Moroni. He did such a great job. I was pretty impressed. After the lesson, he made his own Title of Liberty. It was really cute. I tried to take a picture of it to post on here but couldn't get it to be dark enough to show up but this is what he wrote: "Always love God and have faith in God, repent, choose the right, pray, go to church, love one another, keep the commandments, go on a mission, be an example, obey parents. Do these things to become more like our Heavenly Father and Captain Moroni." He seems to be pretty interested in learning about the Book of Mormon hero's. I just hope he continues to want to learn and study about them as he gets older. If you haven't seen these posters, you can check them out at Seagull book, they are pretty cool.

Touchdown!!!!

Yesterday was our last regular season game. If we didn't win, we weren't going to the playoffs. We played Cottonwood and pretty much creamed them. Noah got his first touchdown in a game EVER!!! He was so excited and so were we. I couldn't believe it when it was happening and I almost started crying when he made it to the end zone and they yelled touchdown. The look on Noah's face was priceless to say the least. He caught the ball on the kick off and then proceeded to run it down the field for the touchdown. I was so proud of him. This weekend he has been with his dad but Kent told me that he was on cloud 9 all day yesterday and couldn't stop talking about it. When he came home today, he was beaming and kept telling me the play over and over. It was really neat for him. Since we won yesterday, we are going to the playoffs so we will have at least one more week of football and possibly two if we win on Saturday.

Halloween

Halloween is always a fun time of year. I love the fall and the changing leafs, the pumpkins, all the yummy Halloween treats,etc but I know when its over that its time to start thinking of Christmas and Christmas shopping and all of the stress it brings with it. Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas but I need to be more organized so that I can enjoy the holiday more.Noah first wanted to be a hobo for Halloween and then at the last minute he decided he wanted to be a Viking football player. We already had the jersey and all of the stuff except a helmet. We had an old San Francisco 49er's helmet that I spray painted and tried to put the horns on for him. It didn't turn out the best but it did the job. Here are some photos of Halloween and some of the fun things we did to celebrate. Warning, there are quite a few photos.
We went to my parents ward Halloween party and Noah was playing the game of eating the donut off the string without using your hands (not sure of the official title of the game)
Making the yummy sugar cookies

Noah's school paradeNoah at his class party playing Halloween Bingo



Carving pumpkins
The finished pumpkinsThe helmet...don't look at it too closely