Fun, Eggnogg Yuck, Christmas Party, Frowny, Hayride, Santa, Snow

We have been having some fun this last week.

The fun really started after Family Home Evening last week.  For our refreshment I had made some home made eggnog.  The kids all love eggnog so I made a gallon of it.  When they got started drinking it they got a bit carried away especially Noah.  Noah saw his older siblings have a few glasses and he felt like he needed to keep up.  If he didn't get any extra then, there wouldn't be any extra later so he went to town.  Aaron and I only had one small glass, but the rest of the kids finished off the whole gallon.  Unfortunately, that proved to be too much for poor Noah's tummy.  A few minutes later he ended up barfing a little bit.  When we got him cleaned up he barfed a huge amount all over the floor.  YUCK!!  It was so bad I didn't even know where to start cleaning it up.  I sent him to the shower to get cleaned off.  Unfortunately, he barfed again all over my carpet in my bedroom.  Double YUCK!! We were out of carpet cleaner so while Aaron ran to the store to pick some up, I got to work cleaning it all up.  GROSS!!  Sarah had to hide because she was a sympathetic barfer, too.  Since I didn't want to clean up any more barf then I had to I made her go far far away from the mess.  I think we will be taking a long break from home made eggnog to say the least!!  Bleh--pun intended haha!  Just to make sure it was really too much eggnog and not really a sickness I kept Noah and Sarah home from school the next day to be safe.  They were just fine that whole day.  I can say with a surety that it really was too much eggnog.

Last Thursday was Matthew's favorite field trip of the year.  The Learning Center got to go on a field trip along with the functional skills class.  They went out to lunch at Wendy's and then over to the dollar store to pick out Christmas gifts.  They all drew names in class for secret Santa gifts so Matthew got to pick out his secret Santa gift as well as presents for all of us--his family.  After the field trip they went back to class and wrapped all the presents.  He was so excited to bring them all home to put under the tree.

Last Thursday was our ward's Christmas party, too.  The primary kids got to sing for part of the program.  It was fun to watch them.  Here's Sarah and Noah:

Daniel kept moving around so here's a picture with Daniel in it before he moved to another spot while they were singing:

It was a fun night, but crazy for me.  Aaron was helping out with serving the dinner so I had to help all five kids get their own dinner.  I don't usually view myself as a control freak, but trying to help all five kids get their own dinner was kind of crazy for me.  Once we were settled with dinner, though, things got a lot more fun.  I am happy to say that we didn't have any crazy embarrassing stories happen to us like we did last year which was a relief.  You just never know with these crazy kids of mine.  Phew!!

Don't you love finding weird pictures on your phone after your kid has played with it?  Here's a gem I found today.  I can't tell who it is.  All I can say is I know it's not Matthew since he is the only kid who doesn't have blue eyes.  It could have been any of the other four kids, though.  Who knows?!

Late Thursday night Josh informed me that he had an ugly sweater/white elephant gift exchange party Friday afternoon.  D'oh!!  Nothing like the last minute!  I wasn't able to find a decent ugly sweater, but I did find an ugly Christmas T-shirt, though.  Phew!  I also had an extra white elephant gift laying around he could take (we had just had a white elephant gift exchange in young women the week before so he just took the gift I got ;))  Josh was able to wear his ugly t-shirt and came in 2nd place with the ugly sweater contest.  He had lots of fun at the party.

Later that night I was able to go out on a girl's night with a friend.  It was a much needed break.  It was fun to go out to dinner, do some Christmas shopping and see a movie all the while having adult conversation.  Wahoo!!  It was fun and it has been a while since I have come home at 1 am.  Aaron was even nice enough to let me sleep in the next morning until 8 am.  Daniel started basketball Saturday morning so as soon as Aaron left to take Daniel the kids woke me up.  D'OH!!  Oh well good thing I love them!!  Thanks Erin for a fun night!

Sarah can be prone to dramatic outbursts which seem to be worse if she is tired.  The other day she was throwing a bit of a tantrum as Aaron walked in the door after work.  Now if our kids are throwing a tantrum I always sing, "If you chance to meet a frown, do not let it stay....".  Now that makes Sarah even more upset when she hears that.  (She hears it pretty often.) Well Aaron walked in to find her crying when he walked over and started singing, "If you chance to meet a frown...".  He then picked her up to turn her frown upside down.  If she was crying while she was upside down that meant her frown was then a smile--haha!  She was not happy about that to say the least--but the rest of us were amused.  She still had a frowny face after Aaron put her back down if you were wondering--haha!

Saturday we went on our annual hayride ride to see the lights at Layton park.  It was pretty busy, but we had fun trying to stay warm while we waited for our turn.

I didn't realize my camera setting was on a delayed flash until I tried to use it.  I ended up blinding everyone instead.  Whoops!

Me and Josh were sitting on the edge of the hayride:

It was chilly, but a perfect night for a hayride.

It was fun to see all the lights.  Last time we drove through, I didn't get to see everything because I was driving.  I was able to see everything this time which was fun.  I managed not to blind everyone in this picture:

Afterward we got to visit with Santa.  Here's Noah rattling off his list while being a wiggle worm:

Sarah's turn:

Daniel's turn:

Josh thinks he is too big for Santa's lap, but he humored me anyway:

Matthew was very excited to rattle off his list:

Santa was a good sport in dealing with our crazy crowd :)!

Noah suffers from the last child syndrome.  I guess I shouldn't say suffer, but rather enjoys it.  He has mastered the art of the puppy dog eyes which as the last child pretty much gets him whatever he wants.  Like I said I don't think he really 'suffers' from the last child syndrome, but rather enjoys it.  The other kids just groan and complain that he's spoiled.  I just say everyone else has worn me out so he can get away with anything because he's the last of 5 kids--haha!

How can you say no to a sad face like that?!

We had a crazy snow storm that last two days.  It was so bad that I had to go out and teach myself how to use the snow blower.  Most of the time it can wait until Aaron gets home, but this time it was too bad.  I must say that it was kind of fun.  I can see why Aaron enjoys snow blowing!  The storm was so bad that Matthew's after school program got canceled yesterday and the school district had two hour delayed start this morning since it just dumped snow!  Noah was overjoyed.  Since the school had a late start this morning that meant kindergarten was cancelled.  Noah had been begging me to go out and make Olaf the snowman.  As you can see I can't say no to his puppy dog face so we went out and played in it this afternoon.  We made some snow angels:

Noah walked all over my angel and his angel so you can't quite tell what they were, but if you look close you can kind of make it out:

Unfortunately, the snow was too powdery to make a big snowman.  We were only able to make a tiny Olaf with three very tiny snowballs:

Noah seemed happy about our tiny Olaf so we called it good and came back inside to warm up by the fireplace.