Until next Christmas...

The Kids Christmas

It was a quiet and relaxing Christmas for our family. We stayed in Utah and enjoyed our annual feast of fondue at Craig and Gail's house then we headed home to open gifts from Grandma's and Grandpa's that live in Idaho. We then got into are new Christmas pj's and headed to bed and checked where Santa was on the Internet tracker. He was on the East Coast delivering presents to their cousins. So, the kids were quick to get into bed and fall asleep. The next morning we all woke up and had a wonderful day together and ended with a yummy meal at our house. The kids were so excited to stay in their pj's all day long. We all hope our families that we couldn't be with had a Merry Christmas!

Can you say Sugar rush...

Treats..yum..yum..

I did a different "twist" with my pretzels this year. I found a recipe that had a yummy sauce that you pour over the pretzels and bake them in the microwave, then drizzle chocolate on them. Then, we added sprinkles to some of the pretzels. They turned out very yummy and looked very festive in their treat box. I made several batches of these with the help from my friend Kristy and our kids folded all the treat boxes. What great team work!

Christmas dance

Lights before Christmas

We enjoyed our time looking at the lights in Layton's park. We walked through the park and then took a hayride around the park. So we ended up seeing the lights twice. It was great! Although, Ashlynn has made it very clear that she does not want to go on another hayride because she doesn't want hay on her bum. What a funny girl! Then to add to the night we had cookies and hot chocolate. This could definitely become another one of our families annual Christmas activities.

The Countdown has begun times 5

We have collected a few countdowns for Christmas this year. I think we are safe to say that we definitely will not miss the big day. We just have to remember to change them all because they are all located in different spots throughout the house. Ashlynn and Carter take turns changing them everyday.

This is our family's first countdown that we have had for a few years. The pieces are in the pockets and then they are placed on the tree. This tree will be fully decorated when Christmas gets here.

This is Carter's countdown that he made at school.
The classic glue the cotton ball on Santa's beard.

This is Ashlynn's calendar that she made at school. I love the coloring and number writing. She crosses off each day. She supplies us with these festive calendars each month.

I picked this up at a after Christmas sale for a quarter last year. It was too cute to pass up and it sits nicely as a pillow on the couch in our living room. You move his cookie around his beard.

This is our newest addition to our Christmas countdowns that we just got in the mail. My crafty mom made this for us and the kids love changing the blocks around. This completely confused the kids since this is our only countdown that counts the days backwards. Thanks Mom! It looks nice on our table. Thanks for thinking of us!

He's watching....

We adopted this cute little elf from our adventure at Gardner Village. He is Santa's little helper and reports to Santa each night on what he sees the kids doing each day. He will report the good and the bad. He also came with the cute storybook. He moves into a different location each night after he reports to the big guy at the North pole.



The holiday season has definitely begun. My sister-in-law Gail and I embarked on the Black Friday deals again this year. This is always a tradition for me and I will take who ever is willing and in town to come with me. Gail and I always have good luck together and we have fun breaking our normal scheduled life and living carefree for a few hours with no kids and husbands. This year did not disappoint either. We tried a first this year, we started on Thanksgiving night 9:30p and shopped until 8:00am on Friday. Well, I must clarify we stood in lines for over half the time, but it was all worth it. We had another crazy experience and will do again next year. So, I am ready to enjoy this Holiday season and the exciting things that come with it.

Gardner Village

We didn't make it out to this place for the Halloween witches so we had some free time last Saturday and made it to see the elfs. We happened to pick one of the worst weather days so far. We stayed through the wind, rain and snow. We completed the fun elf hunt, ate dinner at Archibald's and it definitely felt like we were in a winter wonderland.

Swim to stay busy...

For the first two weeks of our track break we kept busy with swimming lessons.

The kids looked forward to it everyday.
They both made some outstanding improvements in their skills.

Officially over..

Wow! We had a fun month with Halloween activities. I am now looking forward to the next holidays. We spent the last day before halloween at the kids school carnival. This carnival was so fun, every classroom had a game to play and the kids were excited to see all their classmates. Carter's teacher had the best costume as a two-headed dragon. She and another teacher walked around the school and it was so tall that you couldn't miss her. We then spent halloween night with our neighborhood getting candy loot from a trunk or treat. Then we ended the night hitting houses that were decorated very scary. Poor Ashlynn got scared by the "Batman Joker" sneaking up on her and her candy went flying out of her bucket in the dark, but then we were able to get most of it back. It just can't be Halloween without alittle scare!
Now, the kids are off track from school and out for a month until after Thanksgiving. What will we do...I am sure we will fill the time quickly.

We are ready...

For Halloween that is...We have had our parties, got our costumes and finished our pumpkins. We are ready for the big day of fright and fun!

Lets Party!!

We love parties...we had fun with 2 parties on Saturday. The kids had fun with all the fun activities. What a fun time of year!

Ashlynn's dance school party.

Frightmares

We just can't say its Halloween until we experience the excitement at Lagoon for Frightmares. The kids were a little nervous about the scary characters walking around the park, but we had fun with the group of friends we were with.

Pack's Pumkpkin Patch

It is that time of year again! My favorite time, if I might add. This is our annual trip to the pumpkin patch. It was hot with lots of fall colors all around us. We had fun scoping out our favorite pumpkins this year with Gail, Jessica, Anthony, Trey and Sam. We then headed to Artic Circle for lunch to get some squishy light up spiders that come in the kids meals and ended the meal with a yummy ice cream cone. Just perfect!

Mud room project

This room turned out to be more time consuming than we thought. We or I should say Matt just finished the final touches last week. He work so hard with his limited time and with family coming and going this summer. Once again, I am amazed at what he did with the mud room. It looks great!

A new look...

The kitchen table needed a refinish like 5 years ago, so we finally got tired of the stickiness and just went for it. Matt and I have never done this before and it turned out to be a great project to do during Saturday's session of General Conference. We sanded the table and put a rejuvenating oil over the natural wood and then put a clear coat to make it smooth and shine. This whole process had to be in steps and had to wait 2 hours between coats so, hence a great conference project. It looks and smells so new! Now, when we have guests over to eat we don't have to worry about placing them on the good side of the table to avoid the embarrassment of the old grime that would not come off.

Birthday Girl

Monday was my birthday and this day of the year always makes me think of what kind of a person I am and what I want to accomplish before my next birthday. It also is a day I reflect on all my many blessings I have in my life. This year on my birthday I got to meet with both the kids teachers and got to listen about all the great things the kids do and how they are a pleasure in class. Blessing accounted for that I have this opportunity to be a mother to these nicely behaved kids that their teachers can't say enough about. Then it was on to getting Carter's haircut and torchering the kids to get their flu shots. (Just kidding no torchering, just heavily convincing them that we needed to get it done). Then they were relieved that they only had to get the mist and of course they got a a new toy.
We ended the day at the Olive Garden (my favorite place) and I thoroughly enjoyed not having to cook dinner that night.
Always a treat!
Thanks to everybody that called, sent packages, cards, treats and text messages. All of them are much appreciated and makes the day just a bit different than all the rest.

Future Cardinelle's

Ashlynn got to participate in a performance during half time at our local High School. Go Northridge Knights! The girls were taught by the dance team (The Cardinelle's) and got to watch one of the Cardinelle's dance routines. I was even impressed by their talent!

The girls had so much fun performing and the game was exciting with us scoring so much at the beginning of the game. I loved Carter's comment in the car after the game "Were you nervous with all the people in the stands" and Ashlynn stating "Nope, it was fun!" They are definitely two different kids, but I love them both.

Ashlynn and her friend Riley after the performance with their glow necklaces.

This is a horrible picture, but I had to post a group photo for my blog book.

Our Labor Day

The kids have been eyeing the Boondocks every time we pass it. They have been asking when are we going to go. I think they have forgot that we have been to the Boise Boondocks several times. Since it is here in Utah too they were convinced it was different. So, we decided to go on Labor Day with every other person in Davis County. It was the busiest day they have ever seen so far this year. We still managed to have fun and enjoy ourselves. Carter and Ashlynn got the hang of miniature golf. Carter even got a hole in one and Ashlynn was just glad to get the ball in the hole.

We also did some track racing. This place did have a Rookie Track that Carter could drive the car without any help. He thoroughly enjoyed being a driver! After racing we played some arcade games and scored some googly eyes, tiara and a Lego set. Then we headed home to watch the Boise State Game which ended the night with a big victory over Virgina Tech. We still support our Broncos!

Kite Festival