yummys for everyone

The Christmas season is always full of hustle and bustle at our house.  Naturally, it can get extremely busy for me, and for the most part I embrace it.  I love the excitement in the air, the planning and thinking about gifts for my family and friends, the decorating, the Christmas cards, the parties, and so on.

The one thing that seems to grow each your though, is the number of goodies that need to be handed out to teachers, bus drivers, friends, neighbors and ward members.

The more friends my kids make, the more engrained we become in the community and the ward, and the more people we get to know, the more names are added on the Christmas goodie list.

Each year, I try to find something that I can make a ton of, and that is fast and easy.  Each year it gets harder and harder to do.

This year we decided to go candy sleighs for the all of the boys friends (21 total),

the sleighs were a HUGE hit, and they were really fun and easy for the boys to make.  Pretty sure this treat will be a keeper for next year.

and caramel, chocolate dipped pretzels for everyone else (about 250 total).

Believe it or not, after making 250 of these pretzels, we still fell about 10 families short!    I love that this means that we are making more and more friends, but holy crap, I was totally pretzeled out by the time all was said and done. 

Guess I need to try to find something else for next year.

I did have the two cutest delivery boys every though.  William and Luke loved delivering the goodies to our neighbors and friends.  They laughed their heads off and grinned the whole time. 
And lets be honest....who wouldn't want some yummy pretzels delivered to you by Batman and a grinning boy in  snow boots and shorts!

she decorates!

I went up to Mary's room about a week after I had decorated our house for Christmas...and I was so amused with what I saw.

She had totally decorated her room for Christmas in the most adorable, creative ways!  I love how creative Mary is, and how she is always keeping her mind busy creating and inventing.

She made these super cute snowflakes out of popsicle sticks, glitter, and paint.  They were hanging all over her room, and they sparkled in the light.  They were so fun!

She also made this cute Christmas tree garland that she hung around her room.

My favorite was her Christmas tree that she made out of scraps that she picked up at the Christmas Tree lot where we got our tree.

Mary also "helped" our Elf, Joey, out one night.  He had a huge zip line, sledding hill, and snow ball fight going on. It was complete with signs, little people, and snow made of marshmallows.  It was amazing!

Mary is an awesome little Christmas Elf!

sing we noel

William and Mary both had Christmas concerts in December.

Mary is in the TIS choir, and she goes to choir practice early morning three days a week.  She came to me wanted to join the choir, and she is have a great time doing it.  They had their first concert in December, and we made it a family event. 

We all bundled up and headed over to the High School to support Mary.
I was blown away with how good the choir was!  I knew there were a bunch of kids that can sing in the choir, but I was so impressed with how well all of the kids could hold their own notes with all of the different parts, get the timing right, do the dynamics and stay on pitch.

It was actually a really fun concert, and the choir did a great job!  I was so proud of Mary for wanting to be a part of the Encore Choir and for always being willing to try new things.

I hope she sticks with choir for years to come.  They is always so much joy in singing.

William's concert was also a family event.  We all bundled up again and headed over to Heber Valley Elementary to hear the 1st graders perform.

William was so adorable.  He would wave every once in a while, or flash his twinkling grin over to us.  They sang songs in Spanish and English.  It was so cute to see all of their little hand actions, dance moves, and visual aids.  It is amazing to hear these little 6 year olds singing songs in a different language.
As William was singing Silent Night in Spanish, I realized that he can now sing that song in 4 languages.  He knows it in English, Spanish- from school, and he knows it in sign language and German- from primary.
How cool is that!!!

William has always been a musical kid.  He can memorize songs very quickly, and I catch him singing to himself all the time.  He has shown a lot of interest in learning to play the piano, and I plan on starting him this year.  Dang, he is such a cute kid.

new traditions

I love traditions, and I believe that they play a huge part in tying families together and always having things to look forward to that are special and meaningful.

I have carried on a ton of traditions from my family that my children now enjoy, but I have also wanted to start some of our own.

This year, on the evening when the First Presidency of the church did the Christmas Devotional, I decided to make homemade cinnamon rolls for us to eat while we watched the devotional.

The devotional started, and I handed out the warm cinnamon rolls, turned on the Christmas lights, and we all listened to messages about Christ and Christmas.  I loved how it felt in our home that evening with the warmth of the cinnamon rolls, the warmth of the house, and the warmth of the message we were hearing, and I decided that cinnamon rolls during the devotional will definitely be a new tradition.

Another tradition I decided to start was setting up a puzzle during holidays. 
I guess I am not really starting it, because my family does that too, and did that when I was growing up, but I had decided not to carry that tradition on.

This year however, I had a random desire to do a puzzle, so I bought a couple, and just kept them out for a few weeks, working on them here and there.

It was so fun!  The older kids would walk by and start working on it every once in a while, and I noticed that it kept me occupied and helped my calm my mind when the stress of the holiday started getting to be a little to much.

Our Elf on the Shelf, Joey, even got in on the puzzle action one night, and finished one for me.!

The notes next to Joey are Ben's and Luke's Christmas gift requests from Santa.  Joey took them to the North Pole and gave them to Santa that evening.

 Definitely a tradition that will be a keeper from now on.

 

This has nothing to do with this post at all, but I just found this picture and I love it so much, I had to get it on here.

 

Luke and his buddy Luke Phillips were absolutely headed to the north pole with gifts of tools, nails, tape and paper for all!

 

oh christmas tree

A couple days after we got home from Boise for Thanksgiving, we decided to get our Christmas tree for FHE.

I had decorated the house for Christmas the day before we left for Boise, so that we could come home to a fun, decorated house. 

Coming home to that definitely threw us into the Christmas spirit, and we were all excited to finish off the house decorations with a fresh Christmas tree.

We went to a local nursery here on Main Street, that has great trees that seem to last a long time.
We all piled out of the car, and the kids eyes got huge as we walked around the tree lot looking at all of the trees. 

It was so fun to see the excitement in the kids.  They all gave their opinion on the tree we should get, and they all agreed that we picked the perfect tree.

They had barrels with fire in them for people to warm up by, and they also gave us free hot chocolate.
It made it more of an experience to buy the tree, and I loved it.

The older kids collected fallen branches from the ground and brought them home to make their own Christmas trees with to put in their room.  It is exactly what I did as a kid.  It was so cute!

We had a really fun and magical little outing getting our tree, and decorating it that evening.

Definitely my favorite decoration and tradition for sure.

thanksgiving 2016

This year for Thanksgiving, we decided to go to Boise and spend it with the Maynards.  Ben's brother Sam and his family were going to be there, and we don't see them much, so we thought it could be a great opportunity to see the whole Maynard clan.

It has been a really long time since all of the Maynards have been together, and we did a lot and had a great time.  It was so fun for the kids to be with all of their cousins too.

We crammed a lot in a little amount of time.

We arrived Wednesday night, and drove straight to a trampoline place.  A lot of the cousins were there, and the kids had a blast jumping all of their energy out and playing with everyone.

From there we went back to Lonnie and JoJo's house and crashed.  Thursday morning we went to a park and joined up with more of the family to play games.  It was FREEZING cold, so me and the two little ones didn't last very long. 

We spent the rest of the day getting ready for Thanksgiving dinner.  It was so cool to have every single Maynard minus Sierra there for dinner.  We got a family picture that turned out so well!!

I feel horrible that I hardly got any pictures for the trip.  We were so busy doing things, visiting and playing that I just didn't think to get my phone out.  Sometimes though, even though it stinks not to have pictures, it is just better to live in the moment.

Thursday evening Ben and I and our  kids, and a ton of cousins and Sam and Sherean and JoJo went to see Mohana.  It is an awesome movie!!!  I can't wait for it to come out so we can buy it.  We all loved it.

We came back and found some pies that had not been eaten...and pretty much took care of that. :)

Mary and Alina finishing off the Cool Whip

Friday morning we headed over to the YMCA where I did my killer interval workout and the kids and Ben and more of the family swam and played racquetball a rock climbed. 

From there, we crashed for a while, and then headed over to Dan and Kristen's house for dessert and to meet up with the Robertson's.  Ben's best friend Doug Robertson was there.

I ended up leaving early with some of our kids, who by this point were crashing hard.  We just hung out and watched shows the rest of the night.

Saturday morning I went back to the gym, and Ben went shooting with his dad and brothers and Doug and some other guys.

After we all got back, we packed up and headed out.

It was a really good trip, and I loved that our kids got to have so much fun with the Maynard cousins.  They don't get to see all of them very often, and I think it is so important for my children to know both mine and Ben's parents, siblings, and their families.  I was very close to my extended family on both sides growing up, and it had a huge impact on who I am today....for the better.

On the way home we stopped and grabbed our new phones.  We just switched from Verizion to Sprint, and there was a Sprint store on the way home.

Mary got her very first phone at that time...just a few weeks shy of her 12th Birthday.   We all got iphone 6s's.  I am pretty sure Mary didn't stop smiling the entire way home.  Love that girl.

I think we pulled of a pretty great Thanksgiving....Maynard style.

what a ride!

Obviously, I am WAY behind on my blogging.  Don't worry, New Year's was this past weekend, and yes, one of my resolutions is to blog more often. 

Anyway, this post takes place back in November.

Devin and Nichole had their twins this year, and they decided to bless them on a weekend that Kelsey happened to be visiting, and my mom, Kelsey and I had planned a little girls weekend.  The blessing was planned last minute.

To make a very long and frustrating and emotional story short, the weekend was pretty much a bust because of miscommunication with several people, and Devin ended up being mad because he didn't know our girls weekend was planned well before his baby blessings. 

It was pretty much a disaster in several ways, and I wasn't sure if I should even go to the baby blessings, because of such bad and hurt feelings.

I decided to just go, and be supportive, and try to move forward.

So, we got our family up super early, rushed getting everyone ready and out the door, and started the drive to American Fork. 

I checked to make sure we had enough gas as we pulled out, and I was definitely freaking out because we were running a little behind, and I didn't want to make things worse than they already were.

Well, somehow, some way, we ran out of gas in the middle of the freeway.

I honestly couldn't believe it.  The horrible irony of it all.  Ugh!

Ben called the police to see if they had an officer close by with some gas, or an officer that could pick him up and take him to get gas at a station.

An officer showed up, asked us what was happening, and we explained that we were out of gas.  He then told us that he would PUSH US WITH HIS CAR to the next exit where there was a gas station.

Ben and I just looked at each other like "what?"

But, we were late, I was freaking out and we had no other choice.

We figured he would push us really slowly and we would just make our way to the exit.

The officer ended up pushing our car with his car going 65-70 mph!!!  No joke.

People were taking pictures of the whole thing with their phones, and starting as they drove by.

The officer has his lights on, so that made it even more of a spectacle.

It was so shocking and so crazy to us, that all we could do was laugh.  Ben was busting a gut the entire way to the exit.  He just laughed and laughed and laughed.

The kids were totally confused and didn't know what to think, but Ben and I couldn't stop laughing.

It was amazing!

The officer got us all the way to a gas station, where we thanked him, filled up with gas, and somehow made it to the blessings just in time.

I still have no idea if what the officer did was any kind of legal or by the book, but dang, it made for a great ride, and an even better story!

woes about moles

 

I am blonde and blue eyed with fair skin.  For the most part, I am just fine with that...until it come to moles.  Oh the joys of moles.  Lucky for me and my genetics, I have a bunch of them.  And because of my fair skin, and my zillions of sunburns (
which I honestly do try to prevent) , I have had several moles and marks removed that COULD be cancerous.  None of which have been malignant, thank goodness!

 

A couple months ago though, I got this crazy, nasty, lumpy, disgusting, black mark on my leg, about the size of a pencil eraser. 

 

It started out as a tiny purple dot, and in two weeks, it had quadrupled in size and turned black, lumpy and raised.

 

I went straight to the dermatologist, where he said it was most likely one of two things.  Skin cancer, or this crazy blood vessel mutation thing. 

 

He then told me that he needed to get a really deep and wide sample of the growth to send in to the lab.  He wasn't kidding.

 

This is about the size of a silver dollar, and so deep he dug into my muscle.

It took almost 3 weeks to heal up enough to stop bleeding all the time.  It was nuts.


After he dug to China in my leg, he sent the "sample" in to the lab, and I got to wait 10 days.

It was a LONG 10 days. 

Lucky for me, it came back benign, and I didn't have to have further surgery in my lymph nodes and in my leg to check for spreading melanoma.

It was a close call, and a good little slap in the face that our health is never a for sure thing.

One mole/mark down....about 100 to go.

Rock on.

 

bookworm

Ever since I can remember, I have loved to read.  I have read so many series throughout my life.  I have always really loved murder mysteries.  One of my absolute favorite things to do is to curl up with my feather pillow, down blanket, and fuzzy socks, after everyone is asleep, and pull out a good book and read to my heart's content.

I have been very surprised that none of my children have shared in this love.  None of my kids dislike reading, but none of them really love it either.  I have tried with each of them, to find a series of books, or a certain topic that would catch their interest in reading, but nothing has worked so far.

And then Molly came along.

This little girl of ours LOVES books.  I find her curled up in the corner of our room where a few pillows are, and she will have a huge stack of her picture books next to her, and she will be reading away.  She is always asking us to read books to her, and she has several of her favorites memorized.  I love that she loves books....and she can't even read yet!

I really hope this passion of hers sticks forever.

reading to her baby

favorite blanket, favorite cup, favorite baby, favorite horse, favorite place, favorite books.  I love it!

halloween

Our Halloween turned out to be a great day/night.

The kids had a fun Halloween parade during the day at school, and got to wear their costumes to school.

That started the day off right, with excitement and fun in the air.

 

The kids got home from school, played with friends for a while, and planned out their trick or treating routes, and who they would be going with.

 

We ate our spooky dinner of mummy hot dogs and spider Deviled eggs, Mary took off with Eden and her friends to a Haunted House, and when Ben got home, I took off with the other kids to go trick or treating.

 

The kids looked adorable!



A sneaky crook, a shadow man, a creepy Five Nights At Freddy's character, the strongest Batman ever, and the cutest pink puppy you've ever seen.

 

Luke AKA Batman

Mary the robber

William: Five Nights At Freddy's

Sam: morph suit man

 

Molly: cutest puppy ever!!

Luke with his buddies.  Left to right:  Luke, Ian, Bechkam and Boston

 

the evil crook stealing money from an old man (Jett Cherry)

Aside from a few hiccups with the littles, trick or treating was a huge success!  We started off with a massive group from the neighborhood.

It slowly whittled down until I was just with  my own kiddos and Karli's two littles.

After taking the younger kids around for a while, and dropping them off at home with loads of candy, I drove Sam and his two buddies around for another couple hours!

They trick or treated until they literally dropped.  The were exhausted!  They were to the point where they would knock on a door, and then sit down on the porch until someone opened it.  It was hilarious!

Sam and Blake

Sam came away with 9 POUNDS of candy!  No joke.

Mary arrived home around the same time as Sam, with loads of candy as well!

With all of the kids candy combined, we now have a total of 29 pounds of candy in our house.

Definitely a successful Halloween!!!

Good times, good times.