Christmas Day

This is a picture from Christmas Eve, usually the kids get new pajamas, but this year they all got new soft blankets. I was also hoping that the blankets would help them fall asleep faster, but that didn't work too well, they were too excited!


The kids woke up around 6:30 and we came out to the living room to find a bowl full of clues that Santa had left telling where he had hid the presents around the house.

The boys got a Wii, Wii fit, games, board games, Webkinz, books, clothes, and their most favorite thing of all, the NXT 2.0 that Grandma Cannon got for them. They played with this nonstop Christmas Day, Mason finally passed out on the floor in his room at around 2:30 in the morning and Taylor was right there with him. We also played Super Mario Bros, Paper Mario and Shaun White's snowboarding game. We stayed in our pajamas all day long and just played games and had fun! (For some reason my new camera's date was mixed up, but all of the below pictures are from Christmas Day).

Taylor playing the online game from his Webkinz, "Hippy" that he got.

Mason and Taylor built the Alpha Rex robot.

Alyssa told Santa that all she wanted was a desk and a garbage can, so that is exactly what she got. She also got some music, a Webkinz, a ton of craft and coloring stuff, a pink garbage can, books, a dress for her and one to match her American Girl Doll, and a Barbie game for the Wii. She stayed in her room all day listening to music, singing, coloring, and doing activities. Now she has a place to store all of her craft and coloring things. Taylor even made her bookends for her desk.

One of the crafts she made. Grandma Cannon gave her a whole box of crafts to do.

This is what Lance did most of Christmas Day! Alyssa gave him a teddy bear so it would help him sleep because it was soft. Lance got a new camera, a snowboarding helmet, and a hat with built in earphones. I got a heated blanket, (which I love!), a camera (just a small one to take around, instead of our big one), and a picture frame.

We have also been working really hard trying to give Jesus a gift this year. We have a big jar that every time one of us does some act of service for another we get to put a puff ball in there. We almost had it all the way full! I am proud of the kids for learning about service and giving something back.

Later that day Lance's parents, Vicki, Pat and Casey came down to spend the night. The next day we all got up and went to Rexburg, to the Hogi Yogi, to spend some time with Lance's brother Joel and his wife's family. Holly's family owns the Hogi Yogi, so they closed the doors to the public, and we ate, played games on their Wii, and watched a movie on the projection screen up in the loft. The kids had a blast! While the kids were watching a movie, Lance, I, Joel, Holly and Brent snuck into town and went shopping. We found some good deals, but it was crowded!

It was a fun holiday spending time with friends and family!

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve my side of the family got together at a church (the only place we will fit now) to play games, eat dinner, see Santa and just be together. Ed and Cam organized some football for the kids and the adults played lightning and card games.


Santa came and brought the kids some presents and made sure they were being good!


Aunt Ken and Lysa

Playing "BS", my family should be very good at this game!

We played our annual white elephant game and yes, the "white elephant" and the picture of Lance showed up again. Whoever gets the picture of Lance is supposed to hang it somewhere in their house for the year. Nate sent me a picture when he got home and it showed the picture of Lance hanging over their kitchen table! Other gifts included some redneck bubble bath, old motorcycle gear, a pregnancy test and my favorite a nice holiday CD cover of my brother Ed looking rather festive!

HAPPY 13TH ANNIVERSARY

Tomorrow is our 13th year wedding anniversary, I can't believe 13 years have flown by! Looking at these pictures makes me laugh, wow we look like we are about 12 years old! I can't say it has always been easy, I think our 1st year and last year were our hardest years, but I love Lance very much and he keeps making me laughing, which is one of the reasons I even started dating him! Every year if I am not with Lance at 11:45 a. m. he calls me and tells me happy anniversary (that is exact time that we got sealed). I love that he thinks of little romantic things like that.


Lance and Tris at the reception in Buhl.


I remember this picture, because Lance was so nervous to kiss me in front of everybody! (I am sure he will not admit that to anyone though!)



At the reception in Idaho Falls, this is Lance's brother Greg that nobody ever sees because he lives in Korea. I loved my flowers! The perks of working at a flower shop was that I had the most amazing bouquet and other arrangements.

Lance and his brother Joel. Everyone thinks that Lance has blonde hair, but I always think of it like it is in this picture, curly and very red!

SO PROUD!

This happened a week ago, but it is something I want to put on here so Taylor will always have it to look back on. I was coming home late from school last week, like 20 minutes behind schedule, so Taylor was in charge while Mason was at robotics, anyways when I got home Alyssa was sitting on the couch with tears in her eyes. I asked what was wrong and Taylor said, "Alyssa was choking and couldn't breathe so I did that one thing that you did to me when I was choking of a piece of sucker."

I had to think for a minute and when Taylor was about 5 years old I made homemade suckers and we were eating the extra pieces and he got a big chunk stuck in his throat and couldn't breathe so I had to do the Heimlich maneuver, and the piece went flying, it was a pretty scary moment!

I couldn't believe that he actually remembered and knew how to do that. I was so proud of Taylor and sad that I was a bad mom and wasn't there to help at the same time! The rest of the night Lysa was giving Taylor luvs and kisses, telling him thanks! I am so proud of you Tay!

Robotics Team

Mason has been part of a robotics team at Fairview Elementary since the start of the school year. Their topic this year was Transportation. They worked together to program robots and come up with different ideas to help with transportation.

They had three rounds that they competed in with their team robots doing different missions. They also did a teamwork round, robotic design round and their presentation round.


Mason at the awards ceremony. His team did an awesome job!!


This is the Fairview team doing a teamwork project. They also did a presentation project about how they could use "kid power" on the bus instead of gasoline, it was wonderful!


Mason and his buddy Austin. This is who Mason worked the most with. They shared a robot and worked together to program it for their missions. I didn't get any pictures with their NXT robots that they made.

I forgot my camera so I had to use my phone, so the pictures are not that great. We started at 8:15 this morning and went all day long. I even got to be their team coach, since their normal coach was in charge of the whole event and needed to focus on that.

They worked so hard all year to be able to complete against 35 other teams, some even coming from Utah. Good Job Legonaters!!

OH CHRISTMAS TREE!

This year for Christmas we decided to get a "real" tree. We have never had one before so we set out on a journey to find one. We went to Victor to get a permit and the perfect tree. The kids went sledding while Lance and I searched.


The kids sledding. They found a huge hill to go down with a bump that sent them flying!


Lance getting ready to cut down the tree. We found one that we thought would be funny to take home, it had three tops and would have required three stars.


We each took turns cutting down the tree a little bit at a time!


We had so much fun looking for a Christmas tree and playing in the snow. We are going to have to make this a tradition to do every year.

Lysa decorating the tree. Okay, so having a real tree was fun to look for it and just spending time together, but when we got it home and started decorating it we had one problem! The decorations that we usually put on the tree were too heavy so they kept making the branches hang down or the ornaments would just fall off. We could only put about one fourth of the decorations on that we usually do. Every year the kids get to go and pick out a new ornament for the tree and they said, "Mom we can just find a light one so it will stay on the tree."


This is what the tree ended up looking like, not the fanciest, but the kids said that this was their favorite tree EVER! The kids wanted to sleep on the couch, by the tree, so they can look at it all night!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

We decided to try to use templates this year for our pumpkin carving and the kids loved it!
The Moffats came over for FHE and we had a night of carving pumpkins.

Lysa was so cute, after we carved out a bat for her pumpkin she decided that she wanted to write boo and pretty other things all over her pumpkin. Mason and Taylor both used their pocketknives to carve with.

The final result. We had bats, a skeleton skull, and scary faces!

Lysa is a witch/pirate, we couldn't decide. What a beautiful girl she is! She loved the red lipstick and keeps asking me everyday if she can wear it to Kindergarten!

Taylor is a scary demon, he just really wanted to wear the sticky horns on his head and have his sword. Lance helped paint his face. SCARY!

Mason is an evil Jester, he picked out his costume all by himself.


Getting ready for trunk and treat! This is one of the first years we stayed in Idaho Falls for Halloween and I was a little disappointed in the turn out for the trunk and treat! The kids loved it though because we went over to the church afterwards to meet up with some friends and they went trunk and treating again and they ended up with a TON of candy!

What a fun Halloween night, the kids had fun and got a lot of candy. Lance and I and some friends got into some mischief, which we still need to finish! What is Halloween without a little mischief right!

Flag Football

The boys wanted to try flag football this year, they usually do soccer, but wanted a change. Mason and Taylor were on the same team with some of their friends Dylan and Traiten. They always do such a great job at anything they try! I think their favorite game was the one they played pretty much in the dark, the parents had no idea what kid was theirs because it was so dark. Mason and Taylor both made touchdowns that game. Good job boys!


Mason going for a touchdown!


Taylor has the ball! (Dylan is by him in the striped hat)

A RELAXING WEEKEND

On Saturday after flag football Lance took the boys and Dylan fishing at Magic Reservoir over by Shoshone. They caught 29 fish! Lance taught them how to use fish eggs as bait, which they are telling me right now that it is a secret and I am not supposed to tell anyone. While the boys went fishing Alyssa and I went to the movies and watched Aliens in the Attic and went shoe shopping afterwards. We didn't go with the boys fishing because I had to work so after the movie and shopping I worked the rest of the day.

The boys had a ton of fun!

Lance finally getting some alone time! He spent most of his time helping bait hooks and getting lines untangled.

Taylor and some of the fish they caught.

GIRLS WEEKEND GETAWAY

My friend Lora and I ran the Women's Fitness 5k race in Boise last weekend. I have never seen so many ladies in on place. They said there were about 14,000 ladies signed up for this race. They had music blasting, people dancing, and just having a good time waiting for the race to begin. They started us in waves so we all wouldn't trample each other. I was so tired that morning because we didn't get to Boise and get to sleep until about 2:30 that morning and I got up at 6:45 to head down to the race. I am surprised I finished the race. Nita and Katie came down with me to Boise to run the 5k too, but they decided to sleep in with the babies (wink, wink - we all know the real reason)!




This was right before the race started, if you can see in the background tons of people lined up down the street. There were other streets just as packed and ready to go.


This was our main reason for coming to Boise, to get away, shop, and relax!! Nita and Katie had me laughing the whole time, I love you guys!! Nita and her housekeeping demands and elevator problems and Katie just being ghetto Katie! What fun memories we will have from this trip.


Nita and Katie found these "sheep" vests that they thought Lance would love!

All of us sporting the sheep vests! We did some shopping, eating (which I am still full from) and just hanging out. We were trying to street Katie up a bit, HOLLER!

Hayden and his medicine on his face. He kept us entertained, so cute!

Nita's scary picture! Ha ha! We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express in Nampa, my friend got us a really nice suite, 2 rooms, a huge bathroom with separate tub and shower, and even comfy bathrobes to lounge around in.

Katie and Tanner. What a good baby he is, he just smiled most of the time.

Nita taught us a new game, "ghosting", where you following somebody really close and copy what they are doing and see who can go the longest without getting caught. She is trying to ghost Katie in this picture.

Nita and her super coupon deals that she got (notice how stuffed the trunk is!!)

MR. AND MRS. CUNDICK

I thought I should post some of Kendra's wedding for when I print my blog book at the end of the year. I am so glad that Ken and Nate found each other!


Dad walking Ken down the aisle. Ken you looked so beautiful! I tried my best and didn't cry because I knew Shanda would be doing that for everyone!


Ken and Nate. Welcome to the crazy family Nate!


The kids were so excited to see their favorite Aunt Nenna get married, they love her as much as I do!


When the Murdock's get together there is always mischief! Ya, we know it comes from their parents. Kendra gave them bubbles to blow after they got married, but instead they used them in the fountain to make even more bubbles!

This is the "Murdock" side of the family, all nine brothers and sisters were there, we were just missing Meisha's Lance and Paul. We have a huge family with two more on the way and many more I am sure! Congrats Ken and Nater!!