A Gibby Christmas Eve!

Fa-ra-ra-ra-ra, ra-ra-ra-ra

Christmas Eve at my parent's house is quite the event! Every year, we get Chinese food! We used to eat at Golden Dragon as far back as I remember with the grandparents and Kay & Bud's family. Now, it has evolved to having Dragon Diner deliver our blessed meal. (Once we had 11 little kids running around-adjustments had to be made!) I missed our tradition of the family Christmas poem. We would take the paper place mat from the restuarant and pass it around to each family member. Each family member was required to write one line of a poem until another masterpiece is created! We have quite the poets in our family (NOT!)

Then, we open sibling and cousin gifts so that we can just come to Grandma & Papa's anytime on Christmas Day. When everyone has 2 families (and great-grandparents) to visit, it make it nice to have some flexibility.

We had D & Kat this year and all they wanted was food storage! Thanks to the Distribution Center...that was all wrapped up! We also gave them some of their favorite chocolate for the rest of their food storage!Amanda got a cute Little EPet and ran right to the computer to 'adopt' it! Sydney got a purse with make-up....so Sydney....and Brandon got this cool helicopter that he had to tell Dad and his uncles (more than once) to please stop playing with his toy! He also got a cool Transformer! In keeping with the food storage theme (and threats of giving us a garbage can to put our emergency 'kits' in), Rog & Coze got us a great first aid kit! (Which we really needed-Thanks!) Here are some attempts at getting the grandkids to pose for a picture!

Our kids were already in their Christmas Eve jammies! Those silly elves had left them in Daddy's car! They are so sneaky that way!

Some Christmas traditions

Someone's birthday is this month. We get our traditional Mrs. Backers cake for each family member's birthday. Since moi's birthday was on a Sunday this year, we headed to SL on Saturday to pick up this beauty! The kids (traditionally) get a gingerbread girl or boy cookie every time we go. I thought this was really fun until this time...when the prices were posted and EACH cookie is $3.95!!!! Holy Moly! We still let them get one, but they had to eat all of it this time! :) We also went to Western Nut to pick up some chocolate covered gummy bears for a couple of friend gifts. I had never been in that store and it's quite huge! I found divinity that I bought for my Dad since I remember him eating Grandma Hook's every Christmas. Mike did one of his college projects on the Western Nut Co. I'm sure he felt like he was coming home-ha, ha!

The family 'surprised' me with a wonderful breakfast in bed! Mike makes the best omlets and the girls made sure I had cute cards! (Mikey is taking me to Market Street tonight to celebrate!)

We usually do gingerbread houses...this year, we did just one and shared it. They all did pretty well with it. But, I didn't get a picture before they started eating the candy off! After about a week...I threw the poor house in the garbage!

We also attended the Arveseth Family Christmas party at Sizzler this year (wow...a new venue!) It's fun to get together with this side of the family! We are, by far, the biggest family of Jim's siblings, but we love seeing the cousins and catching up. My favorite story of the night was when Mike & Doug were talking to Grandma-Great and asking if we could all visit her sometime (at separate times of course) and she said, 'I'm not into visitors anymore.'

Chalk it up to being 93 years old! We know she still loves us and yes, we did go visit her on Christmas!

We made sure to make our cookies for Santa! I tried a cream cheese sugar cookie recipe this year, but it wasn't that great. The kids decorated them when we got home from Gibby Christmas Eve and they were quite lovely. Santa loved them. Again, I was lame and didn't get a picture of the finished product!

But I did get a picture of our beautiful children!!!!

Brandon flips!

Ta-Da! Here is Brandon at his tumbling show. He LOVES this class!
Can you tell by the smile?

Doing a flip on the tramp

Doing his tucks and straddle jumps on the tramp

Going through the obstacle course - pure joy for this boy!

Here he is before the show started

His buddy, Matthew, is in the green shirt

Thanks to Amanda for the photography! I (and Sydney) was using the camcorder as Mikey was out of town and had to miss the big show!

Guess what we do at family Christmas parties?

Super Grandpa Santa!

Our girl

Amanda got to go skiing with the 4th grade yesterday at Snowbasin. This girl LOVES to ski! She loves the story of her Norwegian Great-Grandpa who helped bring skiing to Utah and skied with Alf Engen. The girls say because of this, skiing is in their blood!

She woke up at 6 am, super-excited! We got her all ready and then I took her over to school at 7:15am. She wanted me to come inside with her until it was time to go. I had a good time just chatting with her and her friend, Kiley.

When it came time to go, she gave me a big hug. Then, she gave me another big hug. I even asked her if she was ok because it was such a big long hug. She said, 'Ya' and then gave me another hug. I don't know why I wondered that, but I love that she still will give her Mom a big hug, even in front of her friends!

She had a GREAT time and later that afternoon, I came into the family room after I finished teaching piano and this is what I found. A beautiful, tuckered-out, skiing, mama's girl!

(She really is a Daddy's girl, so just for today, I taking her as my girl!)

A little Christmas party

I'm sitting here watching the snow....our children are all home from school and now on Christmas break, and Mikey is stuck in Denver because of the snow in SL, so I thought I could update the blog!

Here's what the tables looked like full. Julene, Rachel and then the Bishop's family.
Last weekend was our ward Christmas party. It went really, really well. It was a Journey to Bethlehem theme, so first we set-up tables on the floor and decorated them very simply. We told families to bring a blanket to sit on and then put the food out family-style. Because our ward has a million children, we decided to break the party up into 3 groups or journeys.

This worked out so nicely!

Our angelic children.....love you kiddos!
Rachel Orison got a script from another ward she was in and rewrote parts of it to fit our ward. So, after eating, each caravan was led by an innkeeper (Mike or Rick) and a Roman guard (Justin Smith) on their journey. First stop was Joseph's shop. Greg Hess (who is also in MoTab) was Joseph and two of his girls and his wife also helped. They sang a beautiful song and I heard that Greg got choked up at least once. This definately set the tone for the journey and everyone was quiet reverent. It didn't take long for people to feel the Spirit.

Next stop was Mary when they had stopped for the night and Joseph went for water...so she was alone. Mary is my piano student, Missy Smith. She is so close to Mary's age and dark hair....and angelic singing voice....seriously, I started bawling when I heard her sing. Her Mom, Ann, did the narrative.

Practicing...

B dressed up!
Last stop was with the shepherds and angels. Another piano student of mine, Braydon Elliott, was one who sang with his brother playing the viola. Our girls were angels and did great on their speaking parts. Other angels were Sydney's b.f.f., Abby Orison and Zoe Francis. Brandon got to be a shepherd boy, along with Josh Harwood and Taylor Francis. After their part was done, we showed the movie 'Luke II'.

Practicing...

I spent most of the time helping with food and setting tables, but people would come up to us after with tears and saying how wonderful it was. We were so happy that it worked out and was a great experience for us. Our Bishopric were awesome as we asked them to dress up as the Three Wisemen and hand out candy canes at the end.

Brother Summers, Bishop Stuart, Brother McQuiston

We were lucky and got to use the Stake's nativity costumes for a lot of the parts. We also asked 3 people in the ward to do the sets and they turned out incredible!

So, very happy to have it over, but so grateful for all the help we had this year. We have a great committee and such a supportive ward! Merry Christmas!!

Brandon's playgroup

Brandon, Tytan and Will showing me their reindeer cookies!

We had B's playgroup at our house last Monday. Seeing as it was too cold to play outside, I decided to plan a craft! So, we made these reindeer cookies using Nutter Butters, pretzels, etc. (I found this in Family Fun magazine)

Here's Spencer, Nick, Matthew and Henry showing me their cookies
The first batch we made were really cute and done just like I told them. Chocolate chip eyes, a red M&M for the nose....just cute. But, I didn't have my camera. When I came back into the kitchen to take their picture...they had started to eat the reindeer!

So, we had another round....but this time, the boys had their own ideas and we had some pretty funny looking reindeer! Here's Brandon's creation! Silly boys!

Brandon says:

I took the kids to the Festival of Trees after school on Friday (well almost after school...note to kids-your Mom is cool to get you out of school to go to stuff!). After a couple of hours, they were about done. I had gotten them each one toy or prize. Brandon picked a 'noodle' sword (sword made out of a swim noodle). He wanted two. I said, no-just one. This started a HUGE tantrum (you know the kind where other people comment to you: "Hang in there....I remember that age....I teach preschoolers so I understand")

Brandon: I want two swords!

Mom: Brandon, just one. That's the rule.

Brandon: My rule is two! I want another sword!

Mom: No, Brandon

Brandon: Mom, if you don't get me another sword, you're fired!

I'm a terrible blogger!

Mike told me after our computer crashed a couple weeks ago, that I spend a lot of time on it during the day. Ok, he was right. I kind of got out of the habit while my computer was gone, and haven't been good about updating the blog! This is important time on the computer and I'm hoping to do better!

Here is our little Amanda in her Nutcracker make-up. She had the best time!

Last week, we had the Christmas festivities in full swing! Festival of Trees volunteering started on Monday with decorating day. I missed last year because B was sick, so it was all new to me today. I was surprised to see how many trees were set up by the time Elise and I got there! Also, I expected the number of trees to be down due to the economy, but Sharlee said the numbers were up. Where they saw the drop was in the purchase of trees. Still, some amazing trees and it's touching to see how many volunteer hours go into putting on this festival and raising all the $ for Primary Childrens Hospital.



Thursday we had cake & ice cream at the Gibby's because Evan and Jamie were heading home. We had a great time visiting with them and are thrilled that Jamie & the kids are coming to stay with my parents when Evan is deployed. We will miss you so much, Evan! You will be in our prayers multiple times each day. We are proud of you.



Friday, Jim & Renae treated us to Five Alls! YUM! We love this place! And it was really fun to be with the adults and be able to chat. We enjoy our siblings so much and are grateful that we have good relationships with them. Thanks, Jim & Renae for a fun party! And thanks Amanda for tending! I love that she can do that!!!



Saturday started too early as I went to help set-up the Stake's Christmas festival at 7am. This year, the Elliott's from our ward were in charge of the outside party and true to form, it was spectacular! Kathryn's talent is limitless and she created like 10 Dicken's style store fronts that we helped set up.



That night, Mike & I were going back to the Festival of Trees to bag up trees. So, luckily the kids got to sleep at Grandma & Papa Arvy's! They had a grand time and thank you again to Jim & Renae for helping us out! We were able to do some shopping and then met with our friends, Darin & Elise Jensen at the Cheesecake Factory for dinner! YUM! I probably gained 10 pounds this weekend. We were late getting to the Expo center because of dinner (we got there around 10:30p), but there was still plenty to do! We left there around 1:15am!



Note to anyone doing a tree....the people who volunteer to bag your tree and get it ready for transport, do not enjoy boxing up multiple toys, dolls, little statues and fake fluffy snow. It's difficult and very time-consuming for tired people! However, despite the tallest tree almost falling over multiple times (due to an unregulated stand) which we had to prop up until the morning, we were able to get our trees all ready to go!



Since we brought some cheesecake home, Mike and I had a little 'early morning' snack when we got home at 2am! ymmmmmm, cheesecake eating at 2am gives you sweet dreams!



I ran to get the kids in the morning, while Mike met the tree deliverers....I took care of the homefront, activities meeting, posters & flyers for the party, and getting us to church while Mike did more volunteer work. Needless to say, Sunday night all any of us could do (including the kids) was fight or cry.....it was a very early bedtime!

Happy Birthday to my Mom on Monday! We love you Mom and are grateful for all you do for us!

The ward party is this weekend and we are excited about it, but anxious for it to be over. It will be nice to relax and not worry about an upcoming event!
We are about done with our Christmas shopping, also! I wish the same for all of you!
I'll do better at posting now! Loves

Some of the blessings from the back door

As I took down our 'Count your Blessings' display, some of the things really touched me:

Of course, we were all so grateful for each other

Sunshine

Jobs

Working Cars

Strong and Safe House

Transformers

Music

Grandparents and extended family

Three year old's stories and songs

Naps

Jesus

School (really!)

Clothes

Beds

and Sydney summed it up (and made me cry) when she put

My Life