Christmas, BINGO, Pass, Dance, Basketball

I have been slacking the past few weeks so here's my attempt to catch our Blog up to date.  The Saturday before Christmas we decided to take a trip down to Salt Lake to see Temple Square and the New City Creek Mall.  We stopped by the City Creek Mall first and walked around for a bit.  We quickly decided that was not a good idea since it was the last Saturday before Christmas--the place was PACKED!!!  We did go in a few stores one of them being the Apple Store.  The kids excitedly ran over and immediately started playing on the i-pads.  They knew exactly what to do with them, too--that's the amazing thing.  

 We went over and took a peek at the new candy windows they started doing again this year.  They were nice, but they don't compare to what ZCMI did years and years ago.  However, the kids thought they were pretty nice.

 We went over to the Church History Museum and checked it out.  They were pretty busy there, too.  However, there was a guy playing whatever instrument he has in his lap and the kids were pretty fascinated by it.  The guy even asked Josh to help him sing some Christmas songs that he played.  Josh was more than happy to do that and so were the rest of the kids.

This is what Noah thought of the whole museum:

After we toured the whole museum they had a kid section where they had different activities they could do.  Aaron and I sat down and let them do what they wanted as long as we could keep an eye on them.  After a few minutes I couldn't see Josh anymore so I wandered around until I found him.  He had put on some Spanish clothes and was dancing along to a video not caring if anyone saw.  Nice, Josh.....get jiggy with it!!

 They had a real size statue of Moroni the kids thought was interesting.  When you see it on the temple it doesn't seem like it would be this big!

 When we had had enough of the Church history Museum we went to leave only to find that Daniel had gotten tired of carrying his coat around and just dropped it where ever.  I sat with all the kids while Aaron took Daniel to try and find it.  Lucky for Daniel they did find it....grrrrrr.  Hopefully, Daniel learned never to do that again!

We wandered over the grounds of Temple Square to look at the pretty lights.  We even stopped by the fountain where Aaron proposed to me almost 13 years ago.  It's crazy how much life can change in 13 years and five kids later!

 For Christmas Eve we had everyone over at our house for a big ham dinner.  It was really yummy and nice to visit with everyone.  The kids had fun with their cousins.  We did miss my sister Jennifer and her family who couldn't come in from Ohio, though.  Afterward the kids got to open up their token Christmas Eve pajama present.  They were excited to finally be able to open something.

Crazy enough this year I decided to try and make pajama pants for everyone.  I got some cheap fabric on Black Friday and attempted sewing all the pants this year.  It ended up being easier than I thought it would be except on my pair of pants--my sewing machine died right in the middle of sewing them--grrrrr.  I ended up taking my machine apart to see what the problem was.  I couldn't see anything so I put it back together and it worked (not very well, though) long enough so I could finish my pants.  Here we all are in our matching jammies:

After opening the presents we went out and drove around looking at Christmas lights.  As you can see Noah was just super excited about going out and getting in a freezing cold car:  

Nice Christmas cheer, buddy.

When we got back from looking at the lights we had some hot chocolate and then tried to put the kids to bed.  We squeezed all the kids in the two main floor bedrooms to sleep for the night.  That way we could hear if anyone tried to sneak out--which they didn't.  I tried to split them up by putting Noah and Sarah in one room and the three older boys in the other.  However, after about 15 minutes of screaming that arrangement did not seem to be working out.  Surprising enough it was Noah and Sarah that were screaming.  Noah wouldn't leave Sarah alone which was making her pretty mad so I ended up sending Sarah to sleep in the other room with all the boys while Noah had his own room.  That worked a lot better because the screaming stopped.  The next morning at 6 am the kids were excited to see what Santa had brought them.  We had them wait around the corner in the hall until we were ready for them.  Then we said, "Mark, set, go!" and they were off:

 

Noah was still a little groggy so he needed 'wubs' (loves) for a few minutes until he could fully wake up.

 Everyone was excited to see what they got.

 Daniel wanted help with all his presents so he brought them all over to G&G T.

 Matthew finally got his train set.  He got help from G&G T to set it up.  He was so excited!

 Here's the aftermath of Christmas:

 It was a HUGE mess to clean up!!  Later that day when all the festivities were over, we had our nice family traditional Christmas dinner at Burger King.  I figured I spent all of Christmas Eve cooking I didn't want to do the same on Christmas day so we went to the only place that was open and affordable.  We have done this for years and love it.  I guess if it weren't for low class we'd have no class at all, right?!

After Christmas we ended up needing to get Matthew and Daniel some new shoes since Daniel and Matthew had worn holes clear through their school shoes.  Daniel used the toes of his shoes as his bike breaks (wearing holes through the tops of them) and Matthew drags his feet when he walks so he had holes in his heels.  After getting the new shoes, Grandpa T tried Matthew's shoes on and they fit him crazy enough. Matthew is a size 8!  Good grief the kid is only 11 years old.  I guess he is following in Aaron's footsteps!  It will be interesting to see how tall he is going to get.

 While we were down visiting G&G T, Grandpa T took Matthew out to help him snow blow since it had snowed quite a bit.  Matthew was beyond ecstatic!!  Helping Grandpa T with anything that you can turn on makes his day anytime!!

 Later on that evening it was our Bingo Family Pigout tradition.  My own Grandpa Terry (the kids Great Grandpa Terry's) birthday is on January 1st so we celebrate his birthday every year with a big extended family dinner and a raging game of  BINGO.  We have done this every year since I can even remember.  Unfortunately my Grandpa Terry (the kids' Great Grandpa) was not able to attend due to his deteriorating health.  He did turn 93 years old on January 1st.  However, since he really enjoyed this tradition we continue to do it and it is fun.  My kids really look forward to it every year.

 Matthew was Grandpa T's helper whether he wanted a helper or not.  Matthew was stuck to his side ALL NIGHT LONG.  We got lots of gifts that we will be able to 'regift' next year--that's part of the fun is seeing all the gifts that get 'regifted' every year.  We've had a few macrame going around for quite a few years.

New Years Eve we had a family over to celebrate the New Year.  We had a yummy dinner.  Then the adults played games while the kids played with each other and watched movies.  It was lots of fun!  Thanks Einzingers!!  You guys are fun!!

 For New Years Day we went down to Trafalga to try out our Pass of All Passes.  It was lots of fun.  They had a 4 D theater that we tried out.  It was a 3D movie that the seat moved along with the ride.  You had 6 different movies to choose from.  Not thinking it through, I chose the Haunted Mine movie first.  What a BIG mistake!!  Good thing we were the only ones in the theater because Noah started screaming at the beginning of the movie because he was scared.  Sarah was screaming, "I DON'T LIKE THIS MOVIE!!" through the whole thing.  I couldn't do anything about it because we were all seat belted in until the 8 minute movie was over.  Finally when the movie ended Matthew, Sarah and Noah were more than ready to get out of the theater.   Matthew refused to try it out ever again.  Oh well you win some you lose some.  If I had to choose again I would have chosen the happy aquarium movie.  Oh well, too bad I can't un-traumatize my kids.  IF we do get them to try it out again I think they will need some major bribery....

 After the theater we went over to try glow in the dark miniature golf.  There may or may not have been some major cheating going on, but at least everyone had fun.  About two holes into the game Aaron and I gave up even try to play because it took our full attention for crowd control with all five kids.  Good thing our kids were the only ones on the coarse!!

As you can see Noah was a major cheating offender, but he was being a 'big boy' just like his brothers:

It was a fun New Year's family Day.

Daniel has been doing basketball for the past two months.  He has fun with it.

For doing Jr. Jazz basketball he got two tickets to see a Jazz basketball game in Salt Lake this past Monday.  It was fun Daddy/son bonding time.

 

Sarah had her dance recital rehearsal last Friday.  She was so excited to get dressed in her costume and get make up put on.  She thought she was pretty fancy.  Tonight is the real recital so it will be interesting to see how much she has learned from last time which was about 8 months ago.

 Noah's learning how to work the system.  I went to put him to bed the other night.  As soon as I picked him up he said, "No bed.  I need wubs for just a minute."  How can you refuse that?!  The only bad thing was is every time I stood up to take him to bed he kept saying the same thing, "No bed.  I need wubs for just a minute."  The next night he tried a different ploy.  When I said it was time for bed he went and got his pillow pet and blankee and set his bed up on the coffee table in the middle of the family room.  I guess he didn't want to miss any of the action by going to bed in his actual bed.  What a crazy kid!

In the past three weeks we have had quite the variety of colds pass through our house as well as a nice round of pink eye.  It has been lovely.  Aaron brought the cold home right before Christmas and 'shared the wealth' being the nice guy that he is.  I got it next and so did the kids.  However, the kids got over it, but I still have it and it got really worse two days ago.  My ears started aching something fierce so I finally got an appointment with the doctor to discover double ear infections and a sinus infection.  I got started on some antibiotics so hopefully I will be feeling better soon.  Sickness is the worst part of winter--I swear!!  Hopefully, I will get better soon so we can have a happy and healthy New Year!!  All I can say is I am thankful our Flex Spending Account started over January 1st!!