January 2015

Just something I found on Pinterest that made me smile :)

On January 5th, Christian needed to get a tooth filled at the dentist. He still clubs to go and watch movies while wearing the "pig nose."

Gas prices have been amazing! It's been near four dollars and I never thought we'd see it go below two dollars again.

After Christmas but before New Year's faith started feeling sick again. This time it wasn't only her stomach, but she was extremely tired.  She couldn't go back to school after Christmas break and we took her back to the doctor. She missed church on the 11th and our sweet home teacher, Rick Decker, brought these smiley face brownies and card to help her feel better.

when the tests came back, we found that she had mono. She ended up not being able to go back to school until the end of February!

Even though mornings were awful and she never had any energy, we did get her out a few times in the afternoons. On the 17th we visited Krispy Kreme to get her out of the house.

January 19th we made racial unity French toast breakfast, learned more about Martin Luther King Jr., read the Sneetches to remind us not to discriminate against anyone who is different from ourselves, Buddy made an MLK suncatcher out of crayon shavings & waxed paper, and I worked these Samoa brownies into the day's theme by saying they had many different skin tone colors (a stretch, I know).

Our Groundhog day celebration sucked this year because of my lack of planning and all we did was watch the movie, so I was glad we made this a fun holiday!

Tammy knew that we like these puzzles and gave us one she'd picked up on a trip awhile back. The kids put it together on the 25th.

I picked up some kippers at the store remembering that my dad and I sometimes shared some when I was young. Christian dared to give it a try it and said it wasn't as bad as he expected, but had a cat food aftertaste!

Due to Faith's illness, we didn't do a whole lot in January this year :(

Elf on the Shelf 2014

We had lots of fun with Hermie, our Elf on the shelf, again this year. The kids came home to find that he was delivered in a package and had busted out of the box! He also enjoyed some popcorn, hung around in the kids bathroom and worked out a bit.

He checked up on baby Jesus, made snow angels in flour and cuddled up to his good buddy by the front door.

Christian had a hard time finding him being crazy in a pair of underwear stuck to the play room ceiling fan! The silverware drawer and master bathroom cabinet were both good hiding places, too.

He cut some snowflakes, waved goodbye to us but then showed up in California! Love that he put that free shower to good use :)

We didn't see him when we left our hotel room on the 19th, but he made it home to hide in the master bedroom tree and then ride a pterodactyl in Buddy's room.

He was pretty sneaky when he dressed up as a shepherd and goofy in faith's room wearing a knee-high sock.

We knew he would head back to the north pole and not be there on Christmas morning, but Christian and Faith woke up to a great surprise – – Hermie had taken selfies and added them as wallpaper to their phones!

Rest of December 2014

In December I made ornaments for our primary teachers with pictures of their class in them. I have one year in as primary secretary and I'm still enjoying it :)

On the 23rd we went to Lee's Mongolian (where we were reprimanded for taking home second bowls which we always used to do 😡), then went to the Ogden lights.

I put together these friend & neighbor gifts this year which I thought turned out really cute.

The kids were upset that we didn't make a zillion cookies and treats, but I couldn't find the time after practically living in California all month, ha!

On Christmas Eve we went to my mom & dad's where Skittles showed off her new haircut.

We ate appetizers and meatballs, the played some games.

Christmas morning the kids found that Santa had brought a new Disney Infinity, arrows and Faith got this backpack which she'd seen at Disneyland.

The kids got each other some small gifts.

Skittles got some bully sticks.

We actually got a white Christmas!

We were spoiled by my parents, as usual.

This was the cutest gift from my mom and dad:

We were spoiled again at Braegger's!

This was a game that projects ghosts on the walls and you have to shoot them with a laser gun!

After a day of too much excitement, the kids crashed.

It was mainly because they got up at like five in the morning and had to wait until I got off work at 6:00 to open gifts.

Christian was ecstatic that Chili's ribs returned to Tammy's New Year's Eve party this year!

We had a fun night of eating and playing games, and then noisily ring in the new year!!

Christmas Vacation 2014

On December 11th Christian went with his scout troop to the senior center. They sang to the grandparents and brought cookies.

Buddy had made his cookies with my mom while I was chaperoning Faith's Honors English field trip to watch Scrooge at Hale Center Theater the day before.

It turned out that Tony was so jealous of my visit to Disneyland, that he planned a last minute family vacation and only told the kids the day before. Even though Faith felt sick the morning of the 14th, she powered through and got on the plane.

We found a great deal on a motel, Park Vue Inn, on the Hotel Tonight app. It's where hotels offer last minute deals to fill up the rooms that would otherwise be left empty. We dumped our DelSol reservations and only paid $89 per night. This place even had parking and hot breakfast included.

We checked into the motel and headed over to Disneyland to pick up our passes. We had gotten tickets after Tony wrote an email after our last visit because so many of the biggest and best rides were closed, including Indiana Jones which Christian was so looking forward to because he was finally tall enough. Much to our surprise, they offered us free two-day park hopper passes, each.

At the ticket booth, Tony asked how much it would be to purchase a third day, and they said it was impossible to add to free passes. When the employee punched it into the computer, he said "Whoops, I clicked the wrong button and accidentally gave you three-day passes. But if you tell anyone , I'll deny it ;)"

It was late afternoon by this point, so we rushed out to Huntington Beach just in time to enjoy the beach and a spectacular sunset.

We ate dinner at Souplantation again, but this time Buddy filled up on dinner and could only got one ice cream cone.

On the 15th we spent the day at Disneyland.

We split some Monte Cristos for lunch and Faith felt pretty good until early evening. We headed back a bit earlier than we hoped, but figured she would feel better by morning after a good rest.

Unfortunately, she felt worse :( We spent the 16th in the hotel room and took her to see a doctor at an after hours clinic. She had an asthma attack while there and said she couldn't breathe, but her oxygen level was high. They couldn't find anything wrong with her since the urinalysis and strep tests came up clear, and figured it was just a stomach virus.

She felt a bit better on December 17th, so we spent time at both California Adventure and Disneyland.

Christian had, of course, found something at every souvenir shop along the way that he just had to have and we told him that he could keep all these things in mind and select something at the end with his money. He was particularly desperate when he saw a bubble gun just outside of the little mermaid ride. He started bawling and throwing a fit, and just as we were starting to exit the store, the clerk asked if he could just give Christian one! Obviously, not a great thing for correcting his behavior, but he was sure thrilled with it. Not only was it super fun, it was a Disneyland miracle!!

We all shared a giant smoked turkey leg for lunch that day. Faith kept having episodes of not feeling well, so we would sit on a bench or trade off taking her back to the hotel room to rest.

The 18th was similar in that Baby didn't feel great, but still had some fun at the parks. That evening, the kids picked their souvenirs with the money given to them by their grandparents and Tammy. Faith chose this gorgeous hoodie with silver glitter park attractions,

and Buddy chose this magic set from the magic store on Main Street. At first we tried to steer him towards something that had Mickey or a Disney icon on it, but he really loves magic and ended up enjoying and getting really good at the tricks for this set!

We also had to get our traditional fancy caramel apples :)

December 20th was the last day of our trip, so we got ready and headed to the airport. Unfortunately, there were not enough seats on the flight for us to get a ride home. 

We drove around and finally found a beach which didn't have scary looking homeless drug addicts wandering around it, and it just so happened to be a dog beach where pets could be off leash. It was fun playing on the beach and also watching all of the dogs splashing in the surf and playing in the sand.

Went back to the airport and tried to make the next flight, but bad luck struck again. We ended up having to drive the rental car home, which was extra bad because Faith started feeling worse :(

Even though the traffic was practically at a standstill up to Vegas due to being a Friday late afternoon/evening, after that we made good time and got home by early the next morning.