Christmas 2007

Here are just a few pictures of Christmas morning. After I was looking at the pictures we took that morning I realized we didn't get any of Darren or I. But we were both there and had fun too.



















Jacob with the animals the Santa and Mike and Kim gave him.















Jacob and Ethan's Santa stuff.















Kevin's Santa stuff.















Ethan checking out his monster truck.



















Ethan showing off his monster truck.




















Kevin showing off his pokemon toys.

Happy Birthday, Ethan!

Ethan's birthday was Friday. We decided to just have a family party. He chose to go bowling and eat dinner at McDonald's. Afterwards we went home for cake and presents.















Ethan blowing out his candles


















Showing one of his presents














He got some markers and a large pad of paper. This is one of the rare moments everyone gets along and plays together moments that Darren caught on camera.


















The artwork

Kevin's Christmas program

Kevin had his third grade Christmas program on Thursday. It was mostly just singing Christmas songs but they had one mini play. Kevin was a toy soldier. All he had to do was march.

Snow day

Last Saturday the boys and I were out doing some errands and on our way home we passed the park. There were some kids sledding on the hill there and they started begging to go. Normally, I wouldn't take all three kids sledding by myself. Darren was doing the Idaho Falls Christmas bird count. But the boys caught me in just the right mood and we went sledding. It was actually pretty fun and their friends from across the street were there, too. Here are a few pictures of the day.



















Ethan posing in the snow



















Ethan and one of the boys across the street going down the hill.


















Jake in all of his snow gear. The mittens are hard to get on and that's why they look kind of funny.




















Kevin just coming down from the hill.

Mischief

This is what I found when I got out of the shower today:

Santa

Last night at our ward Christmas party, there was a special visitor. Of course, you know when they say that that it is Santa Claus. This year the activities committee wanted everything done in one hour. So as soon as the prayer was said and people were standing in line for food, they called the primary kids up to sing and the other brief entertainment followed. Then Santa came and they wanted families to go together to get through it faster. That was fine with me because I prefer shorter lines to visit Santa and I wanted all my kids in one picture. Jacob clung to me the whole time we were in line and wouldn't let me put him down. I thought my back was going to break by the time it was our turn. Because of the way he clung to me I thought he would cry when he sat on Santa's lap but, surprisingly, he didn't. Oh, and the party was done in one and a half hours.

Christmas Decorations

For family home evening last week we put up our Christmas tree. The rest of the decorations slowly went up throughout the rest of the week. Now the only thing left are the outside Christmas lights. I bought them two years ago and we still have yet to use them. But I am very determined this year. Here are some pictures of our decorating:















The nativity set. For some reason baby Jesus keeps ending up on the roof.



















Last year when we were in Utah after Christmas, my mother in law, Pat, was getting rid of some of her old Christmas decorations. She let us go through and take out what we wanted. This advent quilt was in there and I consider it a treasure. It is now my favorite Christmas decoration. There are pockets on each square to put treats, scriptures or whatever you want in them. Only a few of the pockets have treats right now but by the time the dates come around they will have something in them. It is now the second day of December so the kids are catching on to this one pocket a day thing. (We do have to keep the bottom pockets empty until that day, though, or Jake will get into them.)



















Kevin and Ethan decorating the tree. They did it almost all on their own, even the star at the top. Again, though, the bottom branches are pretty bare thanks to Jake.

Our refrigerator

I forgot to bring my camera to Utah this past weekend so I wasn't sure what to blog about this week. Then, this morning, Ethan said a funny thing and I knew I had my blogging moment. This is what our fridge looked like when we came home Sunday. Before we left I had tried to use as much food as possible because we would be gone several days and I didn't want anything to go bad. (We brought the milk with us from Salt Lake). The kids thought they were going to starve yesterday because we couldn't go to the store. This morning Ethan said "Our fridge looks like Tracie's."

My New Skill

A couple of weeks ago our ward had a Relief Society activity where we learned how to knit using knitting looms. There weren't very many people there so it was easy to learn with more one on one help. And it is actually very easy. I went home and finished the baby hat I started. Then Porters Craft Store had a big sale a few days later and I bought my own looms and a pattern for some other things besides hats. I made this Christmas stocking.

No More Wallpaper

Saturday morning there was an open house at our local craft store with great discounts. Kristi, Tracie, and I went to check it out. After we finished, Kristi had the great idea to take down the wallpaper in our kitchen. She had never taken wall paper down before and came ver prepared after researching it on the internet.

So here is the before look.















Kristi hard at work with a smile on her face.



















Me hard at work. (Jon took this picture)



















The mess we left behind. (Jon took this picture)



















There is no more wallpaper in our house.

More Mitchell kids pics

Here are a few more pictures on the last day the Mitchell's were with us:















Kaitlin reading a Pokemon book on the couch















Jake and Luke dancing to Dora















Heather, Jared, and Ethan digging for dinosaur bones.















Making cookies. Jared isn't really frosting his forehead.















The end result. And the floor looked just like the table. That's why these cookies are only made about twice a year.

Mitchells Days one and two

For the next five days, we are the parents of 7 children. Rose and Dave went on their annual business trip and their kids are at our house. Rose drove them up Friday afternoon and turned around almost immediatly and drove home. What a drive!


Here are the pictures last night of them trying to get to sleep. I don't think all of the kids were asleep until 11:30 or midnight. (and that's not from my lack of trying.)



















Luke and Jake trying to go to sleep. I put them in bed at 9pm and it took them at least an hour and a half to fall asleep. It was kind of cute, though. And this morning I woke up hearing them chattering to each other.















Jared with his cozy position on our great sleeping couch.



















Kevin in the other great couch spot.















Ethan, Heather and Kaitlin bedded down. Ethan didn't last long. He slept all night in his own bed.

This morning we made everyone go outside and help rake leaves. It was a good way for them to get out of the house and use up some of their energy. I gave the camera to Kevin and Kaitlin so most of these pictures were taken by them.
This is Kevin trying to drag a bag of leaves up the hill. (Kaitlin photo)














Luke was rolling down the hill so Jake decided he wanted to try. But he kept getting in Luke's way.















Heather rolling down the hill and Ethan and Jared in the background raking hard. (Kaitlin photo)
















Jared and his rake. When Kevin had the camera they were doing all sorts of poses for him. (Kevin photo)















Luke rolling down the hill (Kaitlin photo)














Everyone helping with the last pile of leaves. (Susan photo)















Darren cutting down all the dead plants. It looks so bare. Ethan raking. (I don't know who took this one.)

Jack-O-Lanterns

This is a common blog post at this time of year but it was part of our lives, too, this week so here are our pictures.

The first one is Kevin cleaning out his pumpkin. In years past I have always had to do it because the boys are too grossed out. But this year I told him he had to be a man and do it. He actually did his pumpkin almost all by himself. Darren helped him design it a little but he did most of it.


















Darren and Ethan working together on Ethan's pumpkin.















Our finished products. This picture was actually taken in the dark with the candles glowing but you can't tell because of the flash. This was Monday night and it was the only night we lighted them. We didn't even do it on Halloween because we forgot and by the time I remembered, we were out of Halloween candy. By that time we didn't want to draw attention to our house.

Dancing

Yesterday, Tracie came up to visit for a little while. She was downstairs with the boys and I was upstairs. I came down to see what was going on and found the following. It was also accompanied by loud bluegrass music.



















Tracie, Kevin, and Jacob dancing away.














Ethan being mad about something and not participating.



















Another picture of the dancing. You can tell how wild they were by looking at Tracie's hair. Jacob didn't like me taking him upstairs to take a bath.

I'm delinquent. These picture are from over a week ago. And since nothing blog worthy has gone on this week, I'm putting last weeks pictures up.

Tracie had my camera for a while. It was a nice surprise to see what pictures she took while she had it. This picture of my Mom getting some water was one of them.


















This is also a picture of Tracie's. My sister, Rose, and her family are redoing the house Dave grew up in and moving in to that. They decided that while they had a bunch of strong guys around, they should move some heavy things like the piano, cedar chest, kitchen table. They also traded refrigerators with the other house. After they loaded up and left for the new house, we were still waiting for Kevin who was in the bathroom "swinging his legs". Darren was hopeful that by the time we got to the other house all of the heavy unloading would be done. But they had just started the unloading when we got there.















Ryan, LaCee, Jared, and MaryAnn waiting in front of the restaurant for the rest of us to get there.















Darren lying on the couch. Tracie took several of these shots. He was getting annoyed at being at this end of the camera.



















Tired Jenna rubbing her eyes while her daddy holds her.



















For some reason, height came up. I am the shortest of the siblings and all the girls decided we needed a tallest to shortest picture. My mom is not in the right spot. The guys told her she had to be in the middle because of her hair. But you can still tell she is shorter than Rose.















A cute picture of Kaitlin and Brianna that Tracie took.



















Pregnant MaryAnn going through hand me down baby clothes.