Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from Makayla!

The crew

Roger is a Luke Skywalker wanna be

We had a great 5 day weekend for Christmas this year! And now we are looking forward to a 5 day weekend for New Years! Mikey did work all day on Wednesday, though. We had Dan & Stacie, Rog & Coze, and D & Kat with their families up to bring in the new year!!!

We ordered in some Pizza Hut and watched the Utes basketball team win Gonzaga! Then onto a little Wii fun! The kids ran back and forth from playing in the basement! Who says we need a finished basement?

Kat was our Wii bowling champion. She has high score by far! Next was boxing and all the kids got in on that. We pulled out Playstation and played Guitar Hero, too. We've had Playstation/Guitar Hero for a year, but this is the first time I have ever played it!

Brandon is fun to watch because he uses his whole body to play! Those legs get running as fast as his hands are moving! Happy New Year Isaac!
Aidan & Brandon boxing

Only Rog & Coze (and kids) made it to midnight (Garrett got to sleep in our closet in a pak-n-play) and the kids went wild! The adults were in the middle of a big Phase 10 game and didn't party too much at midnight.

Happy 2009!

The Rest of Christmas Day

Our first stop was to Grandma-Greats. G&P Arvy were there, too. We had a nice visit.

The next stop: Gibsons. We opened Grandparents gifts and got to play with cousins again...Grandma & Papa gave us cute outfits and books! Amanda's book is by one of Grandma's friends. Sydney got a great chapter book. We had a great time visiting again!

Then, to Arveseths at 4pm. Lots of cousin time and fun. Great presents from our cousins and siblings. When it came time to open Grandparents gifts, we all got new U t-shirts and socks for game day! Go Utes!

Then, they had our kids open the presents first. Brandon opened first and it was more Wii games! He goes 'Oh no! More Wii!' He was so disappointed because he knows we don't have a Wii! Then, Sydney opened some Wii controllers...then Amanda got it! She opened hers and it was the Wii! They were SOOOO excited! She had a Wii on her list. Santa must have talked to G&P and knew we were getting a Wii, so he sent some games to us! Renae surprised Jim with a Sugar Bowl ticket! It was a fun night!

They all stayed up until 11:30pm playing the Wii!

Brandon, finally happy about the present!

Merry Christmas to all

And to all a

Good-night!

An Arvy Christmas

Before the wrapping paper storm! (I have to say that staying up late on Christmas Eve with Mikey watching 'A Christmas Story' is one of my favorite times!)

We had a great Christmas! Santa brought us plenty of fun and the kiddos were very happy! (btw-our kids decorated the Christmas tree this year! They were so excited and very helpful!)

Discovering the loot!

B likes his boots!

Amanda got a Camera! Unfortunately, it was broken and didn't come with a memory card (really?), so we e-mailed Santa and picked up a new one on the 26th. She is having a blast with it! Especially the video feature!
Sydney gets a DS! The girls have had fun 'pictochatting' I know...strange techy word!

Brando's nerf gun!

I gave Mikey clothes....just boring stuff that he needed....and his annual photo calendar of the kids. He and Brandon each got a remote control car that they had a good time with in the basement. Oh ya...and a ticket to the SUGAR BOWL!

He was thoughtful and bought me a new chair to use for piano...since mine is going to break any day now! And then a bag of potatoes....a slicer....a mandolin slicer and finally a deep fryer so we can have homemade fries....He fired up that puppy for breakfast and made some yum-o fries!

The kids in their Christmas outfits

Santa also brought us some Wii games....we don't have a Wii and figured Santa got us mixed up with the neighbors.....

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!!