Nativity 2015

We are celebrating Christmas a day early this year because of our trip to Oklahoma... so tonight is our Christmas Eve.  We decided to do a time lapse video of our nativity reenactment.  The casting is as follows:
Henry--Joseph
Jeanine--Mary
Lydia--baby Jesus
James--shepherd
William--angel
Alex--wise man
Rich--narrator

Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving we invited over a family from the ward.  It was fun to have friends over!

Later in the evening we had the Fitzgibbon crew over for dessert.  It was fun to let the kids run around and play while the adults visited.

Birthday Celebrations

William is such an amazing, responsible, hard working boy.  It was fun to celebrate him as he turned 11.  His birthday was on a Sunday so it was pretty low key.  The boys got ready quickly that morning so we had time to open presents before church.  My boys are so funny... they cannot sit down to watch someone open presents!  They have to be right up in the action.

William got a new watch which he was pretty excited about.

And the quilt I made for his bed--my last one! (For a while at least)  He also received legos, new clothes (he's growing like a weed!), money, and a gift card.

I told William I was only making one cake for his birthday--so he had to choose  if he wanted it on his birthday or for his party.  He chose party... so we made chocolate mint cookies for him to blow the candles out on Sunday.

During the coming week we made preparation for his Harry Potter birthday party.  We have been talking about this party for almost a year.  The Harry Potter books start with Harry's 11th birthday... so it seemed fitting to have this theme on William's 11th birthday.

We made chocolate frogs.

And a cake that looks just like Harry's 11th birthday cake.

And we made a bunch of wands.

We even attempted floating candles just like the great hall.

And those red cups are filled with butter beer.

We started out with a meal in the "great hall" of Costco pizza and butter beer.

Next, we sorted all the boys into houses and played Capture the Prophecy (ie: capture the flag) at the neighborhood park.

When we got home we played a game with Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. We passed out the same flavor to everyone and they had to guess the flavor.  I'm so glad that I thought to pass out some spit cups before had because almost every boy spit out a jelly bean... and one boy threw up just a little after eating the vomit flavored bean.  Bleh!

William painted some wizarding currency and had each of the boys buy a wand.  We used the wands to play "keep it up" with balloons.  Everyone had a good time with that.

Then of course... cake!

It made for a house full of boys (one which was invited by the neighbor boy!  Good thing we had extras...) but it was lots of fun!

Such a great birthday with so many memories!

ELEVEN

William is eleven!!  ELEVEN.  One-one.  So crazy.  This week he had his last pack meeting for Cub Scouts.  He worked hard to finish all his requirements for Webelos and Arrow of Light.  This year will be a year of lasts.  Last year of primary.  Last year of elementary school.  It's exciting and hard to believe I have a kid this old.  William is getting to be really independent and responsible.  He rides his bike to school on his own early once a week to get to student council.  He also rode to scouts every week.  He's great at getting his homework done, getting ready quickly every morning, and practicing the piano.  We are really lucky to have William as our oldest son.  Happy birthday, William!

What is your favorite...
color? blue
food? pizza
toy? legos
show? Teen Titans Go!
animal?  wolf
book(s)? Harry Potter
song? Everything is Awesome
primary song? I Am a Child of God
What do you like to do? play football
Who is your best friend?  Brayden
What do you want to be when you grow up? a video game designer
 Do you have a girlfriend?  No!

I am - 11

I am afraid of - I don't know

I like - video games, pizza, football, legos

I like to eat - chocolate candy, pizza

I don't like - brussell sprouts, corn, broccoli, cooked broccoli, soccer, golf

I know - a lot of stuff

I want to be - a football player and a video game designer

I like to watch - Teen Titans Go!, Johnny Test, Studio C

I like to go to - Disneyland, Legoland, not school

My hero is- Dad

I cry when - I get really hurt

Mom gets mad when - I anger her

Mom is happy when - I help her

Dad gets mad when - I anger him

Dad is happy when - we help him

I can't wait for - next year when I'm 12.  And Christmas. 

Something Mom says to me - 'hi'

Something Dad says to me - 'hey'

My favorite place to go is - Chili's!

My Mom and Dad make me laugh by - tickling me

I know my mom loves me because - she doesn't chase me around with a knife (and she lets me play video games... but not on a school day)

I know my dad loves me because - he hugs me

Lydia's favorite past time

We have a bucket of markers that sits near a shelf in our kitchen.  Lydia loves to scoot over to the corner and play with the markers.  As of now she can't open the markers so it's a great pasttime for her!  She plays there forever.

To begin with she would just empty it out or empty it out and fill it back up.  When we started getting low on markers I wondered where they were disappearing to.  Eventually I found that she was putting them into the bin of coloring books on the shelf.  Her busyness is so much more contained than her brothers.  It is a nice change!

Flash Mob

At the beginning of the school year William was part of a flash mob during the morning announcements.  I had a hard time finding him in the crowd because it turns out he was purposely standing behind some of the teachers!  Silly boy.  He practiced after school so that he could be part of the dance.  I think he had a great time.

Hardworking James

We had a little tree in our backyard planter that hung over into our neighbor's yard.  It had little tiny leaves that shed into their pool so they asked if we would cut it down.  One Saturday Rich got to working on it and James decided to help him out.

James is such a hard worker and is up for a good challenge.  Plus, he got to use a saw so what's not to love?

I love watching my boys work hard, learn something new, and feel good about their accomplishments.

Halloween Fun

These days it seems that Halloween lasts for 3 weeks!  Around the middle of the month was our school Fall Festival.  Always lots of fun. We took a few pictures before we headed out the door.  Isn't Lydia the cutest little ladybug you ever did see?  The boys kept calling her a "Lydie-bug".  It was adorable.

My boys are such cheesers in front of the camera.  It was hard to pick just one of their silly poses.  So sorry for the picture overload.

I didn't get any pictures at the festival except for one of Lydia and Rich.

The Monday before Halloween Alex gave us a nice lesson about letting our light shine (using the idea of carving pumpkins) and then we carved our pumpkins.  This year was awesome because, for the most part, the boys gutted their own pumpkins.  William and James even carved all by themselves!

The finished jack-o-lanterns.

We put glowsticks in the jack-o-lanterns instead of candles and the colors made them look extra cool!

Wednesday we had a tri-ward trunk-or-treat which was fun (no pictures).  On Saturday (Halloween) our neighbor brought over the cutest ever Halloween cookies for us!

That evening, after eating our traditional jack-o-lantern pizza, we went trick-or-treating.  We took Lydia to just a few houses nearby.  She was pretty tired so I brought her back to the house to pass out candy while Rich took the boys around the neighborhood.

The trick-or-treaters thought Lydia was the cutest.  When there was a lull I took her to bed and had a laundry folding party by myself while I waited for kids to come by.  The boys got way too much candy.  They each sold a little bit back to me so that I could pass it back to the kids still stopping by the house (James sold all but 5 pieces back!  Yea!)

Phew! Another Halloween in the books... onto my favorite holidays!

Pumpkin Patch

The week before Halloween we took the whole family over to the Gilcrease Orchard.  We love going to their pumpkin patch every year.  The first order of business was a wagon ride around the property.

James thought he was super funny making bad faces in every picture.

Next we stopped at the hay maze.  Lydia had fun playing in the hay while the boys ran around.

Lydia loves to point.  It's her "thing".

While picking our pumpkins we made sure to stop for a "tractor" picture.

After getting everyone's "perfect" pumpkin we let Lydia ride in the wagon on the way to pay.  She thought it was great fun.

She loved it so much she kept kissing the pumpkins.

While we were in line we spotted this cute little white pumpkin that we bought for her.

When we got home she was so sweet and scooted it all around the house with her.

It was the perfect day at the pumpkin patch.  I love these little adventures with my family!