Happy New Year!

Last post of 2021.  Here's the view we had this morning!  If you look closely, Cameron is out there scooping up snow and having a little taste.  

We were pretty boring this year!  We watched Encanto and Wreck-It Ralph and it was about 10:00pm, so we watched the ball drop live from New York and had our sparkling cider toast to the New Year.  Cameron went to bed, and we kind of puttered around and are now heading to bed ourselves!  Here's to 2022!

Christmas!

Merry Christmas!  The kiddos all got very large Squishmallows this year.  Santa is quite possibly a sucker for those!  They are super soft, and the kids were all excited to try to find a place for them on their beds!

Cameron was beyond excited about each and every present.  He had his opened in no time at all.

Jingo the Cat was very interested in what was going on.  He climbed all over the presents to see what we were up to.

Parker and his two family-size boxes of Cheez-Its.  Kenzie exclaimed, "Oh, gross!" but he just laughed.  They won't last long!

More in-action present opening.

Jingo got his new present of a catnip-filled monkey, and he went bonkers.  He rolled around biting that thing, but then tore through the house like he was, well, on kitty drugs!

Parker immediately had to play his new video game, and Cameron was all wrapped up in his new dragon blanket.

Here was Kenzie!  We woke her up for present time, which she was okay with "since it's Christmas" but it was still early to her!

Loved this pose as Cameron went to try out his new green scooter.  We had some rain that melted most of the snow right before Christmas, but at least that meant the roads were clear for travel!

This was one of my favorite things I found for the boys this year, since they love pandas, red pandas, and video games.  They haven't had matching shirts in a long time, so it was cute they're still willing to do that.

Then we headed out to Grandma and Grandpa Arnold's.  Kenzie and Annie had a tea party with Millie and Sutton.

Cameron, Tatum, Paige, and Parker hung out in the other play room for a while.  Lots of sitting around, playing games, and eating!  We're all still exhausted, but it was a good Christmas!

Almost Christmas

There are a few things we have to make sure to do each year: decorate gingerbread men...

...watch the Garfield Christmas special from when I was a kid (and since we all have it memorized the kids were playing games at the same time!)...

... and decorate gingerbread houses.

As always, they turned out cute and our kitchen table was very festive!

We always look forward to Muppets Christmas Carol each year.  The kids act like dinner is super exciting, even though it's just simple with cheese and crackers and other snacks.  It means we are getting so close to Christmas!

Christmas Eve dinner!  We roasted game hens this year. The kids don't care too much about dinner -

- they just want to get to the important part, their annual sibling gift exchange!

All showing off their stuff.  Also Chris opened his Son-In-Law gift, which is always uh, special.  This year it was a little thing to squeeze that made tooty sounds.  The boys wanted to play with it and Chris told them, "No, someday you'll grow up and become a Daughter Stealer and get your own Son-In-Law presents!"  haha After this Cameron set out cookies for Santa and was pretty good about going to bed.  The older kids always stay up and watch Christmas Story with us (and each year it's baffling how it's possibly been another year!).  

Snow Day!

Yesterday we woke up to a ton of snow!  I can't remember the last time we've had that much in just one night.  The kids all had a Snow Day from school.  Several of their teachers even assigned things like "play outside" and "build a snowman" and the kids were perfectly happy to comply (except the snow was too powdery for a good snowman, so they just wound up throwing snowballs at each other instead).  Either way, it was nice to not have to drive anywhere until the plows had time to come through, and it's always cute to see them having fun together.

Planetarium Christmas Party

How often do you get to dine on the surface of the sun?  Well, at least next to a giant screen looping a video of the sun?  Either way, Friday night was Executech's Christmas party at the Clark Planetarium in Salt Lake.  In years past, they've had awkward Christmas dinners with live bands (and one we skipped had a costume theme).  Going to the planetarium was far more up our alley, plus the kids could come along as well.  

We don't make it out to the planetarium often so it was neat to have it all just for our group.  A lot of the adults just sat around eating and talking, so the kids had no trouble playing on any of the exhibits.

Cameron pretty much only wanted to play this "game" about solar systems.  Basically he worked to get a black hole and destroy everything!  He came back to it multiple times.  

Both boys take launching the rockets seriously, and took turns here for a while, too.

Then it was time for the dome theater.  Usually we watch educational movies in here, but they showed some strange, very trippy show with lots and lots of spinning objects to the tune of Christmas classics.  (We kept saying to each other, "What was in the food they served us??")  At the end, though, the smoke machine came on and there were lasers and that was neat.  Cameron was dancing in his chair.  (Poor Daddy is a good sport - Fridays he has to be at work a little after 6:00am to prep, as he does the training for the company wide morning meetings.  He was quite tired going straight to a work outing downtown 12 hours later!)

Then we headed over to the 3D theater to watch a show about the ocean.  That was pretty neat.  I was also highly amused by a little kid to my left, as there were some cuttlefish trying to mate and the song playing was "Perhaps, Perhaps."  The kid loudly was asking his mom, "Perhaps what, Mom?  Perhaps she'll eat him?"

We left a little after 9:00.  It was going to be open until 10:00, but we had seen most things and Cameron was obviously getting tired and zany, so it was definitely time to head home!  It was a fun little outing, though!  

December So Far

Even from behind, can you just sense the pure excitement Cameron had for the tree?

Not even joking, about 30 seconds after discovering the tree, Jingo was in the very middle of it climbing higher.  The reactions from the kids as Kenzie pulled him out cracked me up.  We now have aluminum foil wrapped around the trunk of the tree, and have sprayed everything with citrus oil (which supposedly cats don't like).  Jingo still chews on the branches, bats the ornaments off, and has still climbed the tree a few more times.  It's very lively around our tree!

Kenzie's Marching Band had a celebration dinner, and Kenzie was voted Rookie of the Year for Woodwinds.  She was obviously both surprised and delighted.

Showing off her medal.

Last week the middle school held a Family Fun Night where different clubs had activities throughout the school.  Parker was so happy to have us come by his Robotics class.  

Cameron got a turn to drive the robot through the obstacle course the kids had set up.  He was very happy to get to do that.

Over in the cafeteria were some animals from Scales and Tails.  Kenzie pet the bearded dragon.

Cameron didn't want to touch the snake or the bearded dragon, but he did pet the alligator!  We happened to meet up with some of our neighbors so maybe having friendly peer pressure helped Cameron be brave!

More pure joy, as we drove through the Christmas in Color light display.  The kids look forward to that tradition each year.

And finally, Saturday night we went to the Vivint Arena downtown to see Jim Gaffigan.  We were at the very tippity top!  Kenzie and Parker were sure laughing.  Most of the jokes went over poor Cameron's head, but he was happy to be included.  It's hard to be the youngest!

I thought this was pretty as we walked back to the parking garage.  It has been a busy couple of weeks!

Thanksgiving

Pie time!  Cameron helped stir a little bit for the Samoa pie.

He also filled and decorated the Oreo pie!

Parker was AWOL for pie making time this year.  He was only interested in the end result!  Kenzie, however, made the pumpkin and cherry pies and also made the blueberry compote for the cheesecake.

She decorated the cherry pie in the phases of the moon!  Everyone was quite impressed.

Here's our contribution to dinner, all wrapped up and ready to go to Torry and DianaLynn's house.  We had cheesecake, cherry pie, Rolo pie, Samoa pie, pumpkin pie, snickerdoodle cookie pie, Oreo pie, rolls, cranberry sauce, and Crispix mix.  Somehow we fit it all in the van around us!

It is so loud that I can never get everyone's attention for a picture, but here's the "kids table".

Brilee and Nick's little guy, Davis, was having fun playing with a ball that Great Uncle Geeb would hide in his fist.  They both were getting a kick out of it!

I laughed at this - Parker was hovering, first in line for pie time!

Goofy ladies playing games.  There was a lot of laughter from this table!

Since we enjoy leftovers all weekend, I spent Friday roasting a small turkey just for us, and we had our own little Thanksgiving all over again!  Always a fun weekend of eating a lot!