New Year's in Blanding

The Great Sledding Hill near 4th reservoir! We spent three days there sledding, it just kept getting more and more icy, used garbage bags on the second day and by the third day they were riding each other down the hill! It was one wild hill.

Sophie riding Maggie down the hill, they seemed to like this better than the tubes we had brought.

This is us getting to the sledding hill, they all wanted to be together and not leave out any boy cousins. The girls were relegated to another vehicle. This was a slice of heaven for Jaxson, being surrounded by boys and doing boy stuff all day long.

Davin spent most of his time with someone on his back, he is one tough cousin.


New Year's eve at Stuart and Manette's place. Went outside to light fireworks in the snow. Grandma stayed inside where the noise level was more to her liking.

The Year of the Snuggie!

Guess what Grandma LaRee gave us for Christmas!

Jaxson cannot live without his and even wears it as a cape, sort of looks like "Yoda" when he is running around outside with his light saber. We are very snuggly warm and nobody fights over the blankets.

Skiing Again!

We waited for the first snowfall of the year before we went in to rent cross-country skis for the kids. I know it will snow every year, just had to see it before I was ready to spend the money on the skis. Got them all a season rental and they were very excited for our first outing. We got to spend the afternoon in Paradise in a glorious snowfall. (Blake stayed home with a horrible cough and fever.) We all skiied to the top of the steep hill that we loved last year and sped to the bottom. Then after we tired of being on the skis, we got the sleds out and built a great jump and laughed our guts out going down that hill. What a glorious start to the ski season. Hoping for tons more snow.

Christmas Tree

We ate pizza in Preston, Idaho, watched the bed races down main street and then headed up the canyon past Mink Creek to find a Christmas Tree for the living room.

We were with the Thomas clan and had lots of help from them in keeping the kids all together and enjoying the trip.

Blake and I went deep into the woods to find the perfect tree that was hidden high up the hillside. Just as he was about to touch the saw to bark, Olivia came up the hillside with her cousin saying that they had found the perfect tree right on the road. It had two trunks and was very tall, but the kids all insisted that this was the tree they wanted. They weren't too thrilled when they were invited to help saw the huge thing down. Hauling it to the truck took the whole family, plus some. We pretty much rubbed all the needles off one side by dragging it and walking on the branches.

The kids wanted the tree in the living room this year...

tried that, and couldn't get into the room from the front door. So we hauled it around to the family room, cut off a couple more feet and there it is. Realized that we need more ornaments for a tree that big. Think we have broken quite a few over the years and usually we only have a small fake, prelit tree!

Thanksgiving Dinner

Spent Thanksgiving Day with the Broadhead Family in Bountiful. The smoked Turkey was fabulous and we played a bit of 500 with Jaxson's new football. Jaxson tangled with Ainsley's trike and there were many tears. The ball ended up in the street quite a bit, but the kids had a blast just being with each other.

No Need for Talking

The other night at dinner Jaxson was being grumpy and didn't want to talk. He poked me in the side and pointed to his burger! Guess he had a rough day.

Reality at our House

Okay, so I have been a bit obsessed about a few sewing projects lately and had borrowed a sewing machine and a quilting machine. (my machine skips most stitches and won't even zig-zag) I have both machines set up on the table and the kids claimed the countertop for homework. So when it came time for dinner there was no place to put our plates. I told Jaxson we could have a picnic and he set it all out for us, starting with the tablecloth. It was actually quite fun, but I am not proud of the reality that I was too tired and didn't care enough to clean off the table or counter top so that we could eat like normal people. The kids loved it so hopefully that is what they will remember and not the messy house.

This was also Jaxson's celebration dinner - He passed off the red books at school and can now start reading the orange ones. It was a big day at our house, after reading those red books with each of the 4 kids we are done with them. Jaxson chose spaghetti for dinner and ate 5 servings before he was satisfied.