November in Review

Apparently I can only do months in review these days instead of keeping current.  Too much holiday stuff going on to really blog would be a good excuse.  But the truth lies in too much laying around on the couch.


November brought us the end of football season for Nate. He worked with a ninth grade team this year and they just kept winning, thus extending their season.  They made it all the way to the championship game and won!  The kids and I went to the game and it was so exciting to see all those boys celebrating and going crazy!

They had an end of year banquet catered by Texas Roadhouse, which was so yummy!  And we have a whole new set of t-shirts that say champion on them.  I never thought Nate's wardrobe would consist of white, black, and purple.

Jack went away on his very first overnight camp with a lot of the fifth grade boys in his school.  They went to Clear Creek and had a ball.  He came back very excited after having a fabulous time!  We missed him much and were very glad to have him back!

We got our family pictures from Sanae.  I love her style and they always turn out so good.  She has such a talent, it looks like us, but better-I love that.  We had all sorts of poses printed up, and I put this one on a deck of cards-

 We ended the month with Thanksgiving Dinner at our house. Everyone really came together this year to pull it off, all I really prepared was the turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, and a dessert.  We didn't have as many this year, Alice, Terry and Family, Roger, Cassie, and her parents, and Tim and Vanella..  It was a fun day.  Sophie got to announce our news.

 

I never take any pictures at Thanksgiving it seems, and the ones I take are always very candid and clearly no one was really ready for them.  I think I am just too busy eating.  

A photo review of October

We went to a BYU football game with Jeff and Shelly!  BYU won, which always makes it more fun.  And Sophie was obsessed with Cosmo the Cougar.  She behaved really well and it was a nice day.

Sophie and her joy school peeps went on a field trip to the local fire station.  They watched a Sesame Street movie on fire safety and got to go inside the fire truck.  Fun was had by all.

It snowed.  This caused us to clean out the garage of all the summer toys and bikes so we could park inside.  Thus far we have not parked inside, we are just waiting to be punished one of these mornings.

We finished up Jack's first tackle football season.  I think this may deserve a whole post, so I will save the details.  But Jack had more fun than he knew was possible, even though they didn't have a winning season.  He's number 81 in the above photo.  He continually tackled a kid that weighed 40 pounds more than him in this game.  Scary.

The girls and I went to the PTA Halloween carnival at the school.  Sophie is clearly having fun, and so was Bella, even though you can't see her face.  There were rides and games and the girls had a blast. 

We had Halloween!  We went to a trunk or treat party on Friday night at the church.  Then we braved the rain for Trick or Treating.  I know none of you know what we are.  Jack is Darkwing Duck-shout out to the cousins from this summer.  They all loved watching cartoons from the nineties.  The girls and I are Russian nesting dolls.  It was nice and warm in the cold, much like wearing a snuggie. 


I am sure there were other things, but I spent part of the month being a little sick, so they weren't photographed and clearly not blogged about in a timely manner. 

Happy Birthday Sophie!

I can't believe Sophie is 3 years old today.  It seems her baby and toddler years have just flown by.  She is definitely growing up!  We often get comments about her that she looks different from the other kids.  It's the blonde hair, none of us have that light blonde hair.  But not too long ago we got this picture of Nate which I think looks so much like Sophie!

You can tell they were both full of mischief!

Hope your birthday is great girl!  We love you!

Mommy Mommy Mommy , I need to go potty

All my kids potty train just before their third birthday.  Sophie was ready at the beginning of the summer, but I wasn't.  The idea of potty training her on vacation, or while we had house guests made me want to gouge my eyes out-no way.  When Jack was little, he loved stickers, so I made him a chart and every time he went on the potty, he could put a sticker on the chart.  I also made Bella a chart, but she could have cared less, she just wanted cute undies.  Sophie was all about the chart, but she wanted to chart to lead to something.  So we picked out a doll, made the chart and went to work.

Potty training is one of those things that you know will be excellent when it is over, and the end result is totally worth it.  But the middle, not so much.  I think I was also reluctant because we got new carpet this year, and it is still nice.  But we stocked up on the thick gerber panties and those usually don't leak a ton, at least not on the floor.  And here we are a few weeks later, and she's got it!  I know there will still be the occasional accident, but I won't be buying diapers anytime soon.  We do have to go in a ton of public restrooms, and I do have to focus on someones bodily functions besides my own.  But that will all pass.  We did have a bout of being afraid of big potties, but I think she is conquering that. 

So adios diapers, hello more things to wash!

Family Bike Ride

On Labor Day we went on a bike ride all together.  I have intentions that we will do this a lot all summer long, but this last summer got away from us and this was our first ride together.

The weather will hopefully be mild enough that we can get another one in.  That is, if we get a new tire tube for the trailer.  It has a flat that we just pumped up along the way.  Bummer.

We also went and saw the Karate Kid, which I think was okay.  Sophie is potty training and asked to go to the bathroom at least five time during the movie.  We are now talking about the ability to "hold it" for a bit.  And why is it all kids like public restrooms?

First Day Of School!

We started school about a week and a half ago.  The porch light is on because Jack left early for his new school.  We are sooo blessed to be in a carpool with a bunch of kids from the neighborhood.  He was in school for a week before I drove!  I hope all the other moms are loving it as much as I am, one of the hardest things about letting him go to the other school was the driving everyday prospect.  It was a bit of a rough start, Jack feels homesick for his old school.  But he's starting to get the hang of the new rules and procedures and getting into a good homework groove.  The kid does as much as he can in the car on the way home.  Maximizing his time, that one is. 

You can see here that this girl is thrilled to start second grade!  She was beyond excited.  The funny thing is, neither of these girls even saw their brother that morning the start times are so different.  She is so independent this year.  She says she wants me to go with her to school, but then takes off so I am just watching her from a distance, or running to keep up. 

People keep asking me if Sophie is sad to see the kids go.  No, no she isn't.  With them gone she has run of the house and can try and sneak into the stuff of theirs she isn't supposed to play with.  She can also choose to watch a movie without negotiating or compromise.  She is looking forward to her neighborhood preschool we are doing.  She is a bit bummed that the first place they are coming is our house, but she'll have fun.  Also, we are in the throes of potty training right now.  She is doing really well, she is telling me when she needs to go of her own volition.  I am thinking in a few weeks we will be there.  We did go shopping on Friday and did have to go in many public bathrooms.  She is terrified of falling in the toilet, so when out and about she makes me really hold her on the potty, which is fine, but awkward.  I'll take it over diapers though.

In The Zone

Football season officially started at the beginning of August.  Jack is playing padded football this year rather than flag-and the kid is beyond thrilled.  These are some shots from the Jamboree his league had last Saturday.  Jack is the one with the long white sleeves.  He is a back on offense and a linebacker on defense.  The kid is in heaven. 

It was great to see them play at the Jamboree and I am even more excited for the games.  The girls and I have been at practice so much this past month-we are anxious to see the fruits of their labors.  Don't they all look cute in their pads-it's funny how small some of them still are.

We also have this guy out on the field with the freshman this year.  This means three football games a week for the next 2 months.  Plus any other high school or college games we try and hit.  It will be crazy!  I have everything all scheduled out though and am ready to go.

Freezer Jam

We recently had a Relief Society Meeting about Canning and Preserving food, and freezer meals.  I have done freezer meals before, and I have always liked how they turn out.  But I have never canned or done any other preservation.  So, knowing my tendency to start out too big,  I decided to pick a small easy sort of thing.  I bought a lot of strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and mangoes, and made some freezer jam.  I dragged Nate into the project to cut the mangoes into chunks and help bag up in freezer bags all the fruit we weren't using in the jam.  We used the Bell Freezer Jam pectin, because it was recommended at the class.    We made two varieties, strawberry mango, and raspberry blackberry.  It didn't take all that long, and I have 11 jars total, which is plenty of jam for us.  Maybe another time I will try some actual canning.

Haircuts!

Isabella decided she wanted to donate her hair again.  So last Friday, we went to Cookie Cutters and she donated about 11 inches. 

Sophie also decided she wanted a haircut.  She got about 4 or 5 inches cut off.  She was very excited and felt very grown up about it all.

 Bella's short hair is working out so nicely for gymnastics.  I am so used to her with long hair, I was a little worried at first.  But I gotta say, I really love it short.

This is Why All the Kids Love Him

Happy Birthday Roger-hope you have a great day!  All the pics I have of you are with the nieces and nephews and they are always having fun!  We are glad you love being an uncle!

At the Qarium

That is what Sophie called the Aquarium.  My grandma came and visited us for a week and we went to the Living Planet Aquarium. It isn't a very big aquarium, but I think that worked out well for us.  Too big and everyone would have been worn out.

The kids liked everything we saw.  The aquarium is in wings-one that had local Utah fish and wildlife stuff, one that is ocean related, and a South American wing.  The kids really loved the penguins!  They were the most active penguins I have ever seen.  They were all swimming and jumping and playing.  We could have watched for a long time.

This is the biggest lobster I have ever seen.  You can kind of see Sophie there at the bottom of the picture for scale.  It was huge.  They also had an anaconda, which Jack was very excited about.  He is consistent, that kid.  He decided anacondas were his favorite in kindergarten, and has stuck with that ever since.  I think he has done at least four anaconda reports over the years.

We didn't take a ton of pictures while my grandma was here-but we had a great time and I was really glad she got to come.  We played cards, she read lots of books to Sophie, and watched the kids at their practices.  I am sure she was worn out by the end of the week.  We went up to Park City and rode the Alpine Slide, Alpine Coaster, and Ziprider-not grandma, she watched.  My Aunt and Uncle were up there vacationing and invited us up.  It was a really fun day capped off with swimming and BBQ.  Alas, I have no pictures, I forgot my camera.

Baking Cookies

The girls really wanted to make cookies a few weeks ago and Nate thought it was cute and took a few pictures.  I didn't remember he did until I downloaded from the camera, I love that the two pictures he got show how it always goes, Jack trying to sneak in and torture his sister.  And Sophie has a big poof of flour all over her nose.  The cookies were good, we didn't even let them cool to slap some ice cream in the middle.  Next time.

Foam Day and BBQ

Last year our little town started a new tradition of Foam Day.  Basically they fill a field with foam with fire hoses and then let everyone loose to play in the foam.  It was crazy and crowded.  Jack braved the foam.

Bella saw the foam and said no way-I think it was also the big crowd.  Sophie and Nate waded into the little kids area for a while.

They had another area set up in which you could rinse off, the water was apparently freezing.  I will see if the kids want to go next year, I couldn't tell how much they enjoyed it, well besides Bella, who didn't.

Later that evening we went to a BBQ in which I made this cake:

It is supposed to look like a flag, which it sort of does when you cut it.  I had seen it all over the blogosphere and wanted to try it out.  The ice cream was homemade by our BBQ hosts and was really good.  I am not usually a strawberry girl, but I really liked it.  We also had some fun on some 2 x 4's with ropes on them, four people are on a team and have to cooperate to walk on the boards.  There is some video here which shows the team I was on winning!  And yes, yelling right, left incessantly is necessary. But I admit, we have more practice than the other team.  It was a fun day and we capped it off with some fireworks, which is always nice on my birthday.

Family Talent Show

At our recent family reunion, we had a talent show.  It was fun to see what everyone prepared and see the kids perform.  Above are just a few snapshots of how it all went. Bella played the piano despite being terrified.  She memorized the easy version of Can You Feel the Love Tonight.  Grandma Miskin told a story.  Jessica sang a song then Sophie played the Harmonica or Hanananka as she called it.  Terry made a pinata which the kids later got to break open.  I  spent a lot of time being crazy while they were doing that because all the pinatas I have seen at parties before don't go well.  Someone always gets hit, I mean, it's the basis for America's Funniest Home videos.  But this one went down just fine, probably because of my extreme bossiness.  Louis did a rap, he is going on a mission this fall to Columbia and we are all very excited for him.  The Christensen Kids plus Jack sand If the Savior Stood Beside Me.  I had no idea Jack was singing with them all until we were there-still not sure how that came about.  Alice played a song on the piano.  Roger filmed the whole thing and will someday distribute copies to the family.  Marshall played some original music.  And the Flake family sang On Top of the World.  Nate and I sang, but I don't have any pictures of that.  nd Manasseh was the MC for the whole thing and told some jokes. 

NaNaNaNaNa-they say it's your birthday!

I love my birthday, it means I survived another year!  I made Nate take this picture in Disneyland.  I am very excited to be 33-maybe someday we will eat at Club 33.  Have a great day everyone and eat cake!

Cousins!

For two weeks in July, we hosted our Texas cousins!  The kids had so much fun and everyone was really worn out by the end.  We spent a day at BYU dropping off Morgan to EFY.  Then the rest of us walked around while Jessica and I showed the kids our old stomping grounds.  It always feels like we were just there, but it has been ten years since I graduated, and there are new buildings and things are different.  We played around in a few of the buildings that have interactive displays.  They ran around the tree of life for a while.

  L to R: Finn (9), Jack (10), Cade (6), Sophie (2), Brandon (13), Makenzie (10), Kellen (4), Liam (3), Isabella (7)  We had already dropped of Morgan (15) at EFY, we were quite a sight with our large crew.

Then we had ice cream at the Cougareat.  It was a hot day, and by the time we were finished everyone was really tired.  Cause don't they all look thrilled to be waiting for their ice cream.

Hostas

Jack is going to be in fifth grade this fall-I can hardly believe he is already that old.  I remember fifth grade really well.  His teacher is planning on teaching them about inheritance and some genetics this year.  So a few weeks a go we went and helped pollinate hostas with his teacher to make some cross breeds and then later in the year the kids will grow out their seeds to see what happens.  Jack and a friend we there and at first you could tell they weren't all that excited about school in the summer, but after going over what they were going to do and why, they really got into it.  There were a lot of varieties of hostas with dozens of different traits, they picked traits they liked, then pollinated the two different plants.  It was a really fun morning.   The whole project made me excited for this school year.  I love that his teacher took time out of his summer to start a project with his students. 

Baseball Season

We have just finished up Isabella's second baseball season.  Last year she did t-ball, and this year she played coach pitch.  She had a great time!  After watching Jack play, she is pretty particular about what positions she plays.  She tried to go from catcher, to pitcher, to first base, to short stop.  It's pretty funny that she has caught on to which positions get the most play, especially since she doesn't seem to really want to go after the ball.  We had fun watching her this year, though we melted during a few games. 

I have shockingly few pictures of Jack's baseball season.  A lot of his games were after 8, so I stayed home and put the girls to bed, and since Nate coached, we couldn't switch off going to games.  He played catcher and pitcher and second base this year, in the picture, he is catching.  His season had a lot of rain and cooler weather.  And I broke my camera at his last game.  I pulled it out of my pocket to stick in my purse and all sorts of dirt blew into the lens, it then made an awful noise and the shutter popped off.  I was very sad and had a hard time picking out something new.  Finally I settled on a Panasonic Lumix, which I like so far. 

Jack's team had a good year, at this age they get to play on the same team two years in a row, so some of the kids had played together before.  Nate coached for both years and that worked out really well for our schedule.  Jack has a lot of fun and is looking forward to next year. 

Vacation 2010

Nate's brother Roger got married this past weekend in San Diego.  We decided to incorporate our vacation with the wedding.  Things were a bit tight as Jack had a baseball game on Wednesday and another the following Monday.  Thus, we decided to fly.  We have never flown as a family because we actually really like road trips, but there just wasn't enough time to drive.  Bella hasn't flown since 2004, so she was pretty excited.  She ended up being okay with the flying, but thought it was way too loud. 

We went straight from the airport to the San Diego Zoo.  The weather was beautiful and the kids had a great time.  Jack was very interested in the reptiles and Sophie loved the polar bears.  Bella would not commit to a favorite animal, but she bought a stuffed lioness, so we will call the lions her favorite.  We were pretty tired when the zoo closed, but our hotel was in Anaheim, so we hopped in our rental car, which just barely fit us all, and drove up.

Earlier in the year we participated in the Give a Day, Get a Day program that Disney had going on so we had vouchers for some free tickets.  Despite her slightly worried face, Sophie had a lot of fun.  She was a little nervous, but after each ride, she would want to go again.  We spent the morning going on rides she could ride.  Then she fell asleep in the afternoon and we did a lot of parent swapping.

We decided to eat at places we hadn't eaten before and ride on a few things we hadn't before.  Bella really wanted to go on the Canoes, so we did.  It ended up being pretty funny.  The girl behind me hit my paddle no matter what I did.  Bella managed to get all of us wet from her seat in the front.  Sophie was really mad at her, which made it more amusing.  While Bella and Nate were on Splash Mountain, Jack, Sophie and I went on the Pooh Bear ride.  At the end of the ride you can meet Winnie to Pooh and some of his friends.  Sophie ran and hugged him and was very excited.  But when we went up to see Tigger, she didn't want anything to do with him.  

 Bella drove the car on Autopia for the first time, she is a pretty crazy driver, and Jack drove a car all by himself.  I think he has passed all height requirements and can ride, drive, and do everything.  He was pretty excited.

Bella still really loves the FantasyLand rides, especially the Alice in Wonderland ones.  Sophie didn't mind the spinning tea cups at all, she was pretty much on board with everything.  She even went on the Matterhorn and clapped at the end.

 By around 9 o'clock Sophie crashed.  We did a few more ride swaps, then the kids and Nate watched Fantasmic while I found some t-shirts.  When I sat down I about fell asleep myself.  We ended up staying at the park until midnight, so it was a sixteen hour day of fun.  Bella fell asleep in the few blocks back to our hotel, and we all crashed and slept really soundly.

Saturday, we drove back down to San Diego to the wedding.  We got to the San Diego Temple to find the wedding party had arrived in a stretch Hummer.  The kids thought that was pretty cool and loved sitting in it for a while.  The temple is undergoing some cosmetic renovations, so most of the pictures are off to the side.  The ceremony was really great.  We are so happy to have Cassie as an official aunt now.  She automatically get 18 nieces and nephews in one fell swoop.  Also, she is the most recent daughter-in-law since me, almost thirteen years ago.  We drove up to the reception in Temecula, where apparently I didn't take any pictures.  That night we stayed in Lake Elsinore.  After so many late nights we were pretty tired and slept really hard that night.  Sophie had fallen asleep at the reception and woke early as ever, so we all got up, got ready and headed over to Dana Point.  Nate's two older sisters, mother, and younger brother were at at the same place as we were, so we went to the beach together.

My mother-in-law hadn't been to the ocean in 42 years!  It was so fun to be with so many of the family and hang out together.  The time went by too quickly and we didn't get to visit enough.  We spent about an hour at the beach then headed out to the airport.  Our flight was a bit delayed and the kids were going nuts in the airport waiting.   Finally when we boarded and got all situated everyone calmed down.  As the plane began to taxi Sophie pointed out the window to show Nate something and fell asleep mid-point.

She was so tired she slept until we landed in Salt Lake and plane was pulling into the gate.  We had a hard time convincing her that she flew anywhere at all.  She thought she had just sat on the runway then got back off.  I don't think she was really convinced until we found our van in the parking lot.  We came home to a relatively clean house (yay!) and lots of laundry (boo!).  I love vacation, the anticipation, the going.  The coming home is always my least favorite part.  I need another trip to look forward to.  I am glad we will be seeing everyone again soon at the reunion next month!