{Christmas Eve}

It seems each year our traditions evolve and change. We add new ones, take out the ones that didn't work, and remember ones from years past.

This year we remembered a treasured tradition we had when we would go home to Canada for Christmas. We only did this twice in Canada but the kids loved it and it gave us all something to do Christmas Eve day as a family. Now we try to recreate that in Vegas, but we were missing snow and a cold cold cabin but it was just as fun.

So we re-introduced the roasting hot dogs and marshmellows over the fire pit this year. C dug out a hole in the backyard, I did the shopping, K did some roasting, and E was the freezing cold flashlight holding hating the smoke of the fire person.

We also did our painting this year. Last year's theme (picked by me) was snowmen, this year was K's pick which was Christmas Trees. It is a quiet tradition with everyone at the table together will all the paints I can find. It is relaxing and different from all the other stuff we do.

We also read the Christmas story before taking the traditional kids in their jammies picture in front of the tree. The night ends with the boys opening the presents they purchased for one another. It is a fun day and a great start to our Christmas day.

{Christmas Treats}

It seems that every other year my parents are able to come to visit sometime in the month of December. So we have a lot of Vegas Christmas memories, as opposed to going out of town to make extended family memories.

This year Grandma was able to help all the kids make treats to take to school for thier classmates. Even our cousings A & L were here for the fun! K. didn't want to give "hearts" to everyone so he went with the classic candy cane, but E and L were happy to make each of thier classmates a candy cane heart. Grandma did the dangerous hot gluing and the kids punched out circles, cut ribbon and signed all thier tags while I stamped and helped out.

{Hope, Faith, Endurance}

I have followed the story of this family since the day after the accident. I read this mom's blog before the accident and continued to all these years, following her recovery and faith. She is amazing.

Her story and the story of her family has been written beautifully in an Arizona paper and is in a two piece series.

It is a great story of love hope endurance faith and family.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/stephanie-nielson-intro-120609.html

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/stephanie-nielson-intro-120609.html



p.s. one of these days I will get caught up on our lives here in blog land and i am hoping that is before Christmas!

{thanksgiving}

For Thanksgiving I pretty much force everyone into the kitchen to help. After they are in there all is well it's getting them in to help that is the hardest. I do a lot of prep the night before so we all spend a good hour or two together cooking and getting ready for the morning.

The next day after a movie at home, and dinner we do gingerbread houses that evening. This way we get our first taste of Christmas decor in our house early. This was the first year the boys were able to do all the decoratinog themselves. C still puts the houses together and we watched the boys decorate. We might need to buy one for each of us next year so C and I have something to do too!

{THe Fall Flood}

So the morning of Thanksgiving we woke up to water all over the boys bathroom, down the hallway and in the front room of our house. We started soaking up water but it seemed that as fast as we could soak it up the faster it was running out. Finally C turned the water off to the house and thus began our fun experience of turning the water on and off at the street so we could use it.

This was after they dug up our front yard to stop that leak, and replacing our water heater 2 days before...to say the least we were not happy campers.

We found out the next day after tons of phone calls to get someone out here that there was a major leak in the pipes in our house and all the plumbing would have to be replaced. And there we were for 6 days with virutally no water to the house and plumbers everywhere.

They cut holes in almost every wall in the house, turned our garage into a plumbing store and became friends with us for those days.

I think the boys counted 18 holes in all through the house. Here are a few pictures of that holiday fun.

{The Last Game of the Fall And Awards}

It was E's last game. It got warmer so we weren't all freezing (remember we are in Vegas so freezing is below 60 degrees). It was a great season and E had a great time. It was his first season the "big field" so it was a challenge but he figured out how helpful it is to play the position you are put in so you don't run yourself ragged chasing the ball on the big field.

And the picture is horrible and my battery died so it was the only one I got that day.

Then the next Tuesday was his season closing party. E got another trophy and his coach, who we love, talked about how hard he worked and how for being the smallest on the team he did a great job. We had a really young team this year and I think they only lost 2 games all season...They did a great job!

{Plymouth Day at school}

So the next day at school the scholars celebrate the pilgrims by doing activities those children did all day long at school and having a feast....not the feast we have now but the foods the pilgrims ate. It is always interesting and always fun. I had always helped as a parent in the past few years and I have to say the day was a lot less stressful as a teacher.....this is was a lot more fun on the other side this time.

This day the kids also dress up. K stuck with the pilgrim costume (which he says he will use as the pirate costume he will need later in the year by changing hats and adding weapons) E went with his last years Indian costume. He came home looking like this...feather headband, war paint and shoe-less. I guess the Indians didn't really have slippers back then.

{Plymouth Plantation Play}

Our school put son a play each year for Thanksgiving. It tells the story of the Pilgrims coming to America and how Heavenly Father's hand was in it all.

This year the lower grammar were the stars of the show. E was a pilgrim in America, and K was the first Governor of Virginia. He got to be in Holland, England on the Mayflower and die in America. Both boys had a few lines and got to do a lot of acting.

Here they are before the play getting all ready to leave.

This is during the play.....

on the boat

the final bows

C was in charge of pictures since I was helping with the play and he wasn't really close to E's side of the stage so the pics form there are blurry and hard to tell who is who. But E was happy because he got to wrestle on stage too.

{Same Picture 5 years ago}

So somewhere in my collection of pictures I have this same picture

Only they were smaller like around 3 and 4 years old


Wearing capes made by the darling little girl's mother


and they couldn't touch the floor.



I would share it with you but first I have to find it (it was before we all went digital (the olden days as my boys call it)

{Trick or Treat}

We took all our costumes and headed out with the cousins. It was great to be in a place where there were a lot of other kids on the streets instead of just us and a few other random teenagers. It was cool and felt more like Fall weather up there.

Here they are before the fun began....

{Pumpkin Fun}

So I'm behind again in our blogging world but we are alive and well here.

We spent Halloween with our part of our Walker family in St George...so it is really our Salmon family but it all works itself out.

We took our pumpkins up and the boys had fun carving their own pumpkins with their cousins. K was happy because we let him do it all....the cutting the de-seeding everything on his own.

E was happy to pound the light brights into his. He doesn't like the cleaning out part though, if you couldn't tell.

{Proud to Announce.....}

With all the fanfare of fireworks, trumpets and drums we are happy to share with everyone....

.....K got straight A's this quarter!!

This is the first year he gets letter grades and percentages and he did it. He will be joining his fellow Straight A Scholars at a luncheon just for them and the Principal in a week or two and he is so happy!

His report card reads...
MATH 99% A
HISTORY 95% A
LITERATURE & GRAMMAR 94% A
SCIENCE OUTSTANDING

{Bored already}

2 days off of school and on the second day they are bored already. Good thing they have school again next week. Yesterday they watched movies played wii and ate junk.

Today none of those sound good. I found E standing on his head next to the couch and K sitting on the floor staring at it.

E left with C to get lunch and K re-discovered a little can of play dough. I don't know where it came from as the play dough all jumped into the trash can a few years ago and no one has seemed to notice.

But after 45 minutes of being entertained and actually making things out of it I am reconsidering...maybe play dough for big kids is great. I didn't have to tell him not to eat it, to keep it on the table, to not use my good kitchen tools with it. He didn't just smash it in the table and carpet or shred it into a million little pieces and promptly wipe it all onto the floor like he would have 4 years ago.

Play dough might be welcomed around here again.

{Water}

So we got a rather large water bill. C was concerned ...I knew that he would figure it out and forgot about it.

Tuesday morning a water district guy showed up b/c the company was worried about our water usage being triple last month....we live in the desert remember? So he and C looked around and decided the problem was under the house or yard somewhere.

So Thursday I go to work (the boys have Thursday and Friday off) to do Parent/Teacher Conferences and come home to this.....

Today they will finish digging, re-route our water line to the house via the garage and the leak in the yard will be fixed. I hope we get some new landscaping out of this!

{Carnival Cake}

Last year E won a cake at the cake walk during the carnival. And that's all he wanted to do this time too....so off he went and he came back with this one...

He is one lucky boy!

{Halloween Carnival}

Our ward has a scout fundraising carnival for Halloween and the boys wanted to go so off we went.

It was the first time they got to wear their costumes since I take them away after they try them on at home and hide them until it is time to wear them so we don't ruin them or break the accessories before the big day(s)!

This year the boys are all about the accessories.

K went with Darth Vader (I know not a surprise since they are both into Star Wars so much) but he loves the mask, the light saber and we got him a voice changing thing that makes it sound like the funky breathing Darth does.

E went totally off the star wars thing this year and is Snake Eyes from GI Joe. I don't think he knows much about GI Joe but he knew he would get a sword and daggers so he was sold.

The pictures do not give the whole "affect" seeing as for the ward carnival no masks were allowed so I'll post more after Saturday night!

Happy Haunting!

{Math Bee}

This past Wednesday was AHA's Second Annual Math Bee.

The boys did really well. Luckily for me the Bee was held right next door to my classroom so I could poke my head out when K was part of the action.

E's class had some of my 1st graders competing since they made it through all the first grade questions. He was the second to last second grader left in the contest...he did great!

K made it through his grade and to the 13th question of the 5 grade's questions. He was one of 3 4th graders left at that point. That question knocked two 4th graders out though. He did great and we are so proud of them both!!

{How we know the weather is changing}

This is what the family room looked like after digging for clothes for the soccer game. We have now cleaned it up and tried on clothes to see what the boys need for the new season.

Every time the season changes we "go shopping in the garage" as the boys call it (It is their favorite kind of shopping and they don't' even want to talk about real shopping) and the family room takes a few days to show up again.

{Night Game}

E's first night game this season happened to fall on the coldest day of fall so far. It was under 50 degrees so all the kids were freezing!

E. had on three layers of shirts , two layers of pants, his soccer gear and gloves. K was also bundled up and got to wear his new jacket to the game. Everyone was cold and the players certainly weren't used to the fall weather.

It was a cold night.

{Celebration}

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving to all!!

Even though it has been a long time since we have been home to Canada but we still celebrate Thanksgiving and Canada Day evey year.

Here are two pictures of one of our favorite places in Canada

{The After Conference Look}

So we have the boys watch all sessions on Sunday and we let them pull out a few things to do while listening.

Their favorite is this HUGE Bingo board a great friend made for us years ago. The boys always want to get it out and remind me daily to buy candy for it. E has been reminding me for two weeks now!! But it gets them to listen and pay attention. K asked why no one talked about family home evening this time....he noticed b/c he never got to cover up that spot this time.

Anyways this is what the room looks like after the last session is over. I did make them clean up most of the candy wrappers before I thought to take a picture of it.

{Spirit Week}

This week was spirit week at school.

Normally we wear uniforms but this week all the kids went wild...

Tuesday was PJ day

Wednesday mismatch/crazy hair day

Thursday Superhero/Who's your hero day

Friday was Retro day

The only morning I remembered to take a picture was Wednesday....here they are in all their glory at 630 am. on mismatch day....

and after school we had to run one errand....I bet the people there thought we were CRAZY!

{And my mouth was open...}

Today was game 2 of the season.

E did great. I forgot the camera but he was more into the game and has discovered his "inner defender."

He played forward for about the first 5 minutes of the game and then a goal kick from the other team happened and he took the ball to the face. Literally to the face.

Their best kicker and strongest kicker kicked it with power full force into E's face. He landed flat backed on the field and was stunned until he grabbed his face and sat up when the coach ran onto the field.

He got a bloody nose (not unusual for him) but wasn't crying very hard (that too is unusual for him..he is the cry-er of our family right now so this seemed to be the perfect chance for him to go into full meltdown mode but he didn't). He was standing/sitting on my lap while I tried to stop the bleeding and he tells me...

"I couldn't get air and my mouth was open"

I explained getting the wind knocked out of you and while he was trying not to cry he told me must be what happened. Another dad came over and told him that that shot would have knocked us all out (that is how strong the kick was).

After a few minutes he was okay (no bleeding) and I made him go stand by his coach. A few minutes later he was back in the game as a fullback.

He loves defense and is great at it. We thought after his shot to the face he would be timid and not play very well but he did the best he ever has. He went right up to each player every time they ame down field and was taking balls away and he cleared it out a few times. While he was in the back they only shot on goal a handful of times.

He also took a good shot to the stomach in the second half, was pushed down and tripped over other fallen players at least twice. His coach wondered if E was the target today.

It was a great game though...and we won by 1.