New Year's Eve

Grandma and Grandpa were still here with us for New Year's Eve so we went all out!  We had little smokies, hot 'n spicy wings, pot stickers, 7-layer dip, poco pepper snacks, egg nog, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something.  We played games and watched movies and the boys really wanted to have a piñata.  We ran out of time to make a "real" piñata so I improvised and told them to decorate a brown paper sack.  When they were done we filled it up and stapled the top.  Perfect!  They were very happy with how it turned out.

It turned out very glittery and festive!

The kids took turns hitting it with a stick...youngest to oldest.  Austin got the final swing and broke it open.

The kids scrambled to pick up their goodies...fruit rolls and peanut butter bars.  

(Note:  Peanut butter bars do NOT work well in a pinata.  They will turn from bars into crumbs.)

Celebrating 10 Years

December 28th was our 10th anniversary!  I can't believe it has been 10 years.  They've been the best, the hardest, the most wonderful, and the most challenging.  We've moved 5 times (not bad), attended 3 colleges, added 4 little boys and 1 little girl to our family, bought our first little home (which was spacious at the time and now we are busting at the seams), bought 3 vehicles, sold 1 vehicle, and so on.  These have been some great years together!  I can't think of anyone else I'd rather spend them with.

  

Here's a little look at us throughout the last 10 years starting with...

TODAY:

2000:

It all began December 28, 2000 in Salt Lake City, UT

2001:

 Celebrating my birthday in our first little studio apartment in Provo, UT.  Look at us...practically kids.

2002:

2002 brought our first baby, Austin.  This is a picture of our family on Christmas Day 2002 in Black Forest, CO where we lived in a little cottage behind my parent's house.

2003: 

Our family on Mother's Day outside our apartment in Monument, CO.  We had just found out baby number two would be coming to join our family in December.

 2004:

Our family one month after we moved to Texas.  This picture was taken October 2004, just a couple months before Dallin turned one.  Austin was 2.

2005:

Our family a few days after moving into our first home.  We had just found out baby number three would be joining us!  Austin is almost 4 and Dallin is almost 2.

2006: 

Our family of three boys.  This was taken in December of 2006.  Austin is almost 5, Dallin had just turned 3, and Coen was 6 months old.

2007: 

The last year of all boys.  This was taken on the 4th of July at our church breakfast and bike parade at the park.  Austin is 5, Dallin is 3, and Coen had just turned 1.

 2008:

2008 was the year our little girl joined our family.  This is us in November 2008.  Austin is 6, Dallin is 4, Coen is 2, and Claire is almost 4 months.

2009: 

Our family in December 2009.  Just 3 more months until baby number 5 would arrive!  Austin is 7, Dallin is 5, Coen is 3, and Claire is 1.

2010: 

 Our family today.  This was taken the end of July this year in Colorado Springs.  Austin is 8, Dallin is 6, Coen is 4, Claire is 2, and Beckham is 4 months.

What a lot of changes and adventures!  We've been blessed beyond measure.  10 years ago we could only dream of what today would hold.  Some things are exactly as we hoped, some things we thought we'd be doing by now and aren't yet, while other things we never thought we'd be doing have come our way.  I married the best man and I'm so thankful every single day for him.  It's been the best 10 years and I can't wait for more!

In the words of Josh Groban's Galileo:

I'll look up high and gladly sigh
And thank the guy
Who puts the rainbow in the sky
Who lights the stars at night
Who dreamt up someone so divine,
Someone like you and made them mine

I'm so glad you're mine, Tory!

Levi and Dara's Wedding

The day after Christmas Beckham and I flew out early...VERY early...to go to Seattle for my little brother, Levi's wedding.  We arrived in Seattle the same time as Mom and Ben and soon met up with my sister Kirsten and her husband Nick who came up from Tucson.  My sister Amy, her husband Mike, and their five kids drove all the way from Utah.  Then my sister Heather came in from Chicago and Dad flew in from Wyoming.  Our Grandma Mac came in the next day.  She flew from Canada where she had been for Christmas.  So finally...we were all there!  We rented a house so we could spend every moment together.  It was so fun to talk together, cook together, and just be together.  I didn't bring my camera.  Boo.  But I did get a few copies of pictures from Kir and Nick...and hopefully more later from anyone else who wants to share ;) .

My beautiful sisters and my beautiful Mom and I.

L-R: Kirsten, Amy, Brooke, Heather, and Mom

Chatting together on one of the evenings.

Check out our view!  It was a house on the lake.  Gorgeous!  This was taken the day we left.  The first time we saw the sunshine in four days.

We drove up to the apartments where we used to live when Dad was in Dental School and Heather, Amy, and I were just little girls and Jimmie was born here.  See the top window on the right?  That was our apartment.  So many memories here.  It was so fun to be able to go back.  I recognized it the second we drove in the parking lot.  

The only thing different was...everything was so much smaller now!  Like that playground, the only place we ever played, was a lot bigger...I'm sure of it. ;)  We would catch worms and potato bugs and play with our friends.  This was our whole little world for several years.  We moved to Kansas from here right before I started Kindergarten.

Here I am with all of my siblings.

L-R (and in age order):  Heather, Brooke, Amy, Ben, Kirsten, and Levi
Yes, at 5'7" I am the "shrimp" of the family.

And here is the beautiful bride, Dara.  They were married in the Seattle, WA temple on December 28, 2010.  Exactly 10 years after Tory and I to the day!  It was beautiful!  The grass might have been a little soggy but they were lucky and didn't have any rain during pictures.  We are so excited to have a sister join the family and I can't wait to get to know her even better!  They honeymooned in Florida (FUN!!) and now they are back in the real world both working in internships between semesters.

L-R:  Ben, Brooke, Heather, Dad, Dara, Levi, Mom, Kirsten, and Amy

Their reception was so much fun and so beautiful!  Dara chose peacock colors with purples, greens, and turquoise.  It was beautiful!  They put up a faux ceiling with lights and it was just amazing.  I wish I had pictures to show you better.  They had a crepe bar which was so fun and...a dance!  Very fun!  Here I am with my sisters doing a little Electric Slide.  Oh yeah...it comes right back.  I even got to country dance with Levi, something I've always wanted to do.  I took a dance class every single semester while at BYU and my country dance classes were my favorite.  I haven't been country dancing since before my mission!  It was sooo fun!  Dara, thanks for sharing Levi! ;)

And as all good things do, our time together came to an end.  On December 29th we all went our separate ways again.  {sniff, sniff}  That's the hard part...never knowing when the next time will be when we can all be together again.  I'm just thankful that I was able to go and spend this time with my most wonderful family in the whole wide world.

Congratulations Levi and Dara!

Thanks Nick and Kir for the pictures!

And a HUGE thank you to my in-laws for watching our other four children so that I could go on this trip and Tory could go to work.

Christmas Day

We had a most wonderful Christmas.  A Christmas to remember for sure.  What was going to be a very simple Christmas turned out to be beyond any of our imaginations thanks to family, friends, and even strangers.  It was truly the most amazing day...our own Christmas miracle.

The kids woke up at about 7:00 and had to wait for us before they could come out.  Santa had indeed come and what wonderful surprises he left for each of the children.

Austin found ramps for his Tech Decks from Santa.  Aunt Wendy and Uncle Jason sent him a skateboard.  He was in heaven!

Dallin was surprised to find a roller coaster to add to his K'Nex collection.  And of course Santa knows how much Dallin loves dragons and brought a new one just for him.

Santa brought Coen a big Fire Truck.  He also specifically requested snakes and Santa didn't disappoint.  Two snakes were found "crawling" around Coen's pile.

Claire got a new shopping cart filled with groceries.  She had accessories from head to foot by the end of the day.  Everything from headbands and fairy wings to purses and dress up shoes.  She was in heaven!

Beckham loved his first Christmas and got new socks, books, and pull apart beads.  He mostly loved checking out what everyone else got and was in to everything!

We had a relaxing morning looking at our Santa gifts.  Afterwards we took a break and had breakfast casserole and then we came back to open presents under the tree.

Then came the fun of calling family and loved ones far away.

  We are so grateful and so thankful for the love shown to our family this Christmas and we were so thankful to have Tory's parents with us to make it even more fun!

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve we had our traditional Clam Chowder with bread sticks for dinner.  The kids opened their PJs from Grandma and Grandpa...

...set out some cookies Cinnamon Popcorn and Nerdy Popcorn and milk for Santa...

...sprinkled Reindeer Food (oats and glitter) on the front lawn to make sure that Santa would see our house and threw some celery and carrots out for the Reindeer to eat as well...

Then we got cozy and watched our favorite Christmas Eve movie "Mr. Krueger's Christmas".  Then off to bed so Santa could come!

Christmas Fun

With Grandma and Grandpa here the kids (and Tory and I) had lots of fun!  We shopped, ate out, played games, did crafts, and played some more.  

We broke out our Christmas Eve game a little early and had tons of fun playing Mouse Trap.  Tory picked the game this year and I think he was just too excited to wait! 

Austin was supposed to make a container to hold all of his party favors at his "Winter" party at school.  He came up with this cardboard gingerbread house and won first place!

The boys spent a little time in the kitchen making us a delicious breakfast cookie complete with frosting writing.  Aunt Sara and Uncle Aaron sent a gift card to buy new shoes and this was the boys' way of thanking us for taking them to get their new shoes.  Ha.  Thank YOU boys!

They made scratch off ornaments for the tree.  Grandma joined in the fun, too.

They were very sparkle-y and pretty on the tree!

GGMa sent Beckham his stocking just in time.  It's always fun to see what the new design will be each time we have a new baby.  I LOVE these stockings that my Grandma makes for us.  Beautiful!

We decorated miniature gingerbread houses.  Unfortunately we didn't get to nibble on them because they were from a kit that I bought LAST year that we never had the chance to actually do.  The boys were a little disappointed in that part and made me promise to buy FRESH houses next year.  Done.

They did turn out very cute though and the candy did happen to disappear....

There was plenty of dancing by the Christmas tree.

All in all we played until we could play no more.  Some of us dropped where we were, too worn out to wait for bed.

Singing Our Way to Christmas

At the beginning of December our Primary music leader introduced a fun Christmas countdown to the kids.  Every Sunday they would sing enough Christmas songs for each day of the week.  She suggested that they do it at home, too, maybe after family prayer or family scripture study and sing one Christmas song each day.  I loved this idea!  I'm crazy about singing Christmas songs.  I think I've always been like this.  I remember as a child just wanting to spend hours sitting around the Christmas tree as a family and singing song after song.  It just sounded so fun and cozy.  It usually didn't happen very often and especially not everyday and especially not as long as I wanted.

So anyway, I thought I'd do this with my family.  There was only one problem.  We weren't having really consistent family prayer or scripture study every single night that we could just add the Christmas song into.  It's something we've been wanting to do better at so I figured this was the perfect opportunity to get us going.  I can now say that we have read the Book of Mormon every single night as a family for a little over three weeks straight now (we started just before December) and have had family prayer every night AND we have sang a Christmas song...or two...or three...every single night.  They say it takes two weeks to form a habit and I feel like it has definitely reached "habit" status.  I love this and I'm so thankful for the little motivation that singing a Christmas song a night brought.  I love to be able to read together, talk together, and pray together.  And yes, sing together.  We might not sound like a choir but it's perfect to me.  So thank you Lorianne for the great suggestion and in case you wondered if anyone was listening (as I always do every single Sunday that I'm up there) there is at least one family counting down to Christmas with a song a night thanks to you!

Stolen

Have you ever had something stolen from you?  Last Friday it happened to us.  Tory was taking the boys to school and he had a couple of chiropractic stools and a humongous laundry bag in the back seat.  He set them out in front of our garage so that there would be room for the boys back there.  He's done this before and he would only be gone about 5 minutes anyway.

He came home and asked me if I brought his stuff in from outside.  I didn't know what he was talking about and that's when he realized that someone had stolen it all.  The two stools were for his office that we are hoping to start up soon and the laundry bag was filled with at least seven sets of twin size sheets.  I wash a few loads of sheets a couple times a week that the massage guy at Tory's office uses for a little extra income.

While none of it is irreplaceable it is still shocking that someone would take something that is yours.  Something from right in front of your own home!  We are thinking that it must have been someone who was right there at the moment that Tory was unloading it all onto the driveway and saw him drive away.  I have to say that it has made me feel a little less safe and a lot more vulnerable.  I find myself locking my van doors in between unloading loads of groceries in case someone comes and takes them while I'm in the house.  Ha.

It's been a week and we thought maybe...just maybe...they would return it as a "joke" or something.  But no such luck.  I hope whoever took it can find a great use for two nice and cushy stools and seven or so sets of twin sheets.  Tory said it was pretty interesting breaking the news of the stolen sheets to the office.  They didn't believe him at first and thought he was joking because "who would steal a bag of sheets?"  I guess they finally accepted it and broke down and bought some new sheets.  I have to say, it is kind of nice seeing some new fabric patterns going through the wash. :)

Have you ever had something stolen from you?

Santa Claus Came To Town

Saturday we packed up the kids to take them to Cabela's for the long awaited visit from Santa Claus.  We visit Santa at Cabela's every year.  It's the best!  It was hard to find a spot to sit on Santa's lap this year but we got them all on.

The kids were all very happy to sit with Santa and would have just sat there all day if we would have let them.  Santa was so nice.  He took the time to ask each of the kids what they wanted for Christmas.

Dallin said he wanted a dragon.

Austin said he wanted a remote control plane.

Coen said he wanted a white horse.

Finally we had to let the next children have their turn.  Santa gave them each a candy cane before they left.

They also got to see Mrs. Claus while we were waiting in line.

After our visit with Santa we went home to make some homemade stuffing to bring to our Ward Christmas Party.  We had a nice turkey dinner, the kids sang, and we had a great time visiting with everyone.  On the way home we drove around and looked at Christmas lights.  It was a fun Christmas-y day!

*Ha, ha...I was looking back through my blog and realized the three boys wore these EXACT shirts TWO years ago!  Nice!  Guess they go good together!  And glad they still fit!  Check it out HERE.
Ha, ha...oh boy.