White Elephant Gift Exchange

We started the white elephant gift exchange tradition with Steve and Katie a couple years ago and this year since they are gone we were glad the Diantha and Curt and their kids were willing to do our silly exchange. The rules are that you have to get something from your house and you can't purchase anything. We all draw numbers when we are together and #1 picks a wrapped present first and #2 can either take #1's present or choose a new one from the pile. But we leave the gifts wrapped until we are totally finished and then you get what you get when you open your gift at the end. Here are some of the final results:

Here's Maren with the gift that Jessica brought to the exchange. Jess was laughing her head off when Maren opened it she thought it was a brilliant gift! What could be better than a saw blade for her friend?!

Here's Jess with a pair of capris that Diantha brought to the exchange. They are actually quite cute and my size so they may end up in my drawer by accident one of these days. Jess has assured me, though, that all gifts have to be exchanged fairly and if I end up with her gift she gets mine. (My gift was actually quite nice. A couple of nice picture frames. So I'm going to have to think about that deal.)

Here's Alcy with the gift that I brought to the exchange. She was quite cute about it. Here she is giving it a nice pat. I don't think her mom and dad were as excited about the gift because it is still sitting in our shop. BUT not to worry, Diantha, we know who the rightful owner is and we will be sure to return the gift to her!

Christmas Eve Festivities

We did the nativity with Diantha and Curt and their girls. Here are all the kids taking a bow at the end of their performance.

The three wise men.

Joseph, Mary, the shepherd and a little black sheep!

These picture are kind of backwards, but this was Christmas Eve morning. Our tradition is to make candy cane pancakes (candy canes crushed in the batter) with chocolate chips smiley faces. Why is it that it's not a holiday unless our kids have a sugar rush ALL THE TIME? We did have a great time, though.

"I'm Hot Stuff!"

A couple weeks ago Rylan told Cody, "I'm hot stuff!" Cody didn't know where he picked that up. I guess that on Sunday when he wore this outfit to church our friend Diantha taught him to say that in nursery. He does look like quite the little man in his outfit (Grandma Judy got it for him). I especially love the addition of the cowboy boots. Rylan thinks he is awesome when he wears them. He struts like a champ!

Rylan's Run

This is just a little silly video of Rylan. This is the way he runs around the house. I'm not sure where he got the thing with his arms, but that's always how he runs. It's quite funny! And you have to love his blowing the kiss.

White Christmas

We have had a lot of storms this winter so far. The week before Christmas we had a big storm come in and we had school canceled for 3 days. This is what things looked like afterward.

This is what our trees looked like outside our kitchen window.
This is the view of our back barn. I was standing next to the front barn when I took this picture. I just thought this looked so pretty.

We are still Alive

Well, we have not dropped off the face of the earth, though at some points during this year it felt like we had. We had a crazy but exciting year and things are finally starting to mellow out for us. I want to update everything that has happened this year, but I first want to put some things on here about Christmas.

This is a picture of us sledding the week before Christmas. We had a big snow storm the week before Christmas and so the snow was perfect for sledding. We have a great hill on the back side of our property so we got bookin' on the sled. We had a great time!

The Happiest Place on Earth (Yes, it trumps Disneyland)

I think Cody and Steve look like Rocky and Apollo Creed, except they share the love of food and not boxing

Steve, Katie, Cody and I share an intense love of indian food so we chose to have our "last supper" together at The Oven before they moved to Kentucky last week. It's been fun to live close to them for these 5 years and become great friends. We are really going to miss them!

Cody would be offended if I didn't display THE FOOD!

Maleah's Spring Concert, cont'd

Maleah did a great job in chorus this year. It has been fun to listen to her sing her songs around the house. She has a very pretty voice.

It has been fun to watch Maleah improve playing the violin this year. She has done a very good job. Here she is in action.

Maleah's Spring Concert

Spiderman Walk

Rylan does this silly mix of crawling and walking. I think it's a genetic flaw because I think it was something that I did when I was his age.

Cheese!!!

Here's another cute picture of what Rylan does when you pull out a camera. He thinks he's pretty hot stuff and so he should . . . . we think he's pretty hot stuff too!

Rylan's Bedtime Party Ritual

Rylan is usually pretty good at putting himself to sleep but it's not always without a pretty decent mess. Cody went in to check on him before we went to bed one night and this is what he found. These were baskets full of Rylan's socks and onesies.

The Mayor's Run

I love to run the Mayor's Run with the kids every year. It's a 1-mile run around the capital building. Cody is usually not available to go with us (I'm starting to think that he schedules himself on purpose!!) but we have a great time. Here we are just before we left the house.

These are some of the kids from our school that ran. The lady to the right is Mrs. Brandt the wellness teacher.


Here we are at the starting line for our first time through the race. We were about to run with Maleah's age group.

This was after our second time through the race. Between Maleah's and Jessica's age-groups I added a couple more kids to my team. Abbie and Eliza joined us because Steve had to work for a couple hours and Katie was out of town. So I did round two with six kids in tow. It went quite well. We were proud of ourselves, especially Abbie because it was her first race!!

WE SOLD OUR HOUSE!!!

After almost a year of having our house on the market we finally sold it!!!!! Here are the kids celebrating that they don't have to keep their rooms clean "in case someone wants to see the house." Little do they know I'll find another excuse to motivate them (I hope!) We are really excited to be moving, though. We are in the process of getting finalized on a new (new to us, not NEW) home. Cody said I can't give any details because it will jinx (sp?) us and everything will fall through. SO, more news to come on that!

Multi-cultural Night at the Church

The beginning of May we had a multi-cultural night at the church. We represented "team Brazil" along with many other families in our ward. Here we are in our brazilian uniforms. You need to notice Rylan's face in this picture. This is what he does when he's in front of a camera. Quite the CHEESE! The other little guy isn't ours, but we would claim him, he's adorable. Ryan decided he needed to be in the family photo.

Just a cute face!

Rylan and Norah helping take down the tables after the party

Here's a clip of Maleah's performance. It's not very good I was borrowing Diantha's camera and I didn't know how to work it that well. She starts out on the left side of the screen, and I hope you can find her when I zoomed in a bit. She did a really good job!

Maleah's First Gymnastics Performance

Here's Maleah getting ready for her first gymnastics performance. It wasn't a competition. They just performed a dance during the state competition for the older girls. It was really fun to watch her and see how much she is learning. I also think she looks sharp in her leotard!

At the competition she helped flash the scores for the uneven bars.

At the Devaney Center

Here she is in position to start the dance

Here's the end of the dance

Rylan Playing Ball with Dad

Once again, just thought this was cute!

Crazy Dress-Up Day

Here are the kids on Crazy Dress-Up Day at school. Cody did the girls' hair and helped Isaac with his get-up (Notice that Isaac's leg is coming out of the hole in the knee of his pants!) Maleah was embarrassed to walk to school with Isaac because he looked so funny. I thought it was hilarious!

Maleah's Sleeping Mask

Cody and I just thought this was cute. Maleah got this sleeping mask for Christmas and it has actually turned out to be quite functional for her. She and Jess share a room and Jess likes to have some lights on from the hall or something so it's not totally dark and Maleah wants it to be pitch black, so the mask has turned out to be a decent compromise for them.