New Years Eve

We have celebrated New Years Eve at my sister's house for the past 6 years, I think. It's a fun night with lots of good treats (usually everyone's left over hoilday treats, then everything just gets thrown away...you know, gotta start those new years resolutions) and good fun. We always write out new years resolutions and Mindy hangs onto them until the following year. So each year she pulls out last years paper and we all have to admit whether or not we held true to our goals for the year. I love it because I feel somewhat accountable for the goals I make and I actually think about it a little more so when the time comes, I'm not the only one that hasn't reached my goals. I've done pretty good the past few years. We'll see how this year goes. This year, per someone's request, I think she might even send out quarterly reminders of our goal. YIKES! Better get busy!

Scott and Julieanne introduced us to the game BLOKUS at Thanksgiving time. So I think everyone in the family got that game for Christmas. It is so fun and a little addicting. We played plenty of that all night long...

Meanwhile, who the heck knows what's going on downstairs. We usually don't check until someone comes up crying. Ryder got a disco ball for Christmas so he had a dance contest all planned out for the kids. The music was blaring and the kids had a blast. I think Lexi was the only one that crashed befor midnight! Definite good time-
Here's to good things in 2009...

Shelby's 9th Birthday

Can I possibly be old enough to have a 9 year old? Shelby's birthday was 3 days after Christmas and she has been bugging me about blogging her birthday. Finally...I'm getting to it!
Shelby is a really special little girl. She reminds me so much of her dad and she tries so hard to do what's right. She's a good student, a good reader, and a good friend. People are naturally drawn to her and tries hard to be nice to everyone!

Shelby's birthday was on a Sunday this year so she and I spent Saturday morning shopping and getting our nails done. That's exactly what she wanted to do. Then that afternoon we went to a movie with her cousins and walked to Red Robin for dinner. It was fun to share the day with her and family.

Our birthday tradition is breakfast in bed. So Sage, Lexi and I made Shelby scrambled eggs with bacon and toast and juice- that's her absolute favorite meal! Shelb is great. Then Sage and Lei had to serve her the rest of the day. They made her bed and helped her get ready for church.
In the meantime, I made her birthday cake. Look at that detail and frosting job. Didn't I do great! It actually tasted really good too. Shelby's favorite is Chocolate! She's just like her mom when it comes to treats!
We love you Shelb and hope you had a happy 9th birthday!

Christmas morning...

Christmas morning is so much fun! I think Shelby was the first one awake at 5:00, but she patiently waited upstairs until 7 am when we told her she could go wake up her sisters. I actually think she was too scared to go downstairs, for fear she might actually see something...! It's so fun to see their faces and their excitement. Libby is old enough now to have fun with it and want to "do it herself". She was lots of fun!

This is what we woke up to- a big snow storm! Shane's mom was going to come over but she got stuck in her driveway and wasn't able to dig out until later that day. On the picture below, you can kind of see Shane on his 4 wheeler plowing the snow- he LOVES to do this and will spend hours and hours outside on the 4wheeler. And he did just that after our Christmas morning festivities were over.

Our kids are so blessed and lucky to have so many people love them and want to share the christmas holiday with them. If there was only a way to truly teach them how lucky they really are! My favorite thing about christmas is just taking it nice and easy and enjoying the choas and quietness of the season. We are blessed to know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and to be able to celebrate that with our families is so wonderful. We hope you all had a Happy Holiday seaon and a Merry Christmas!

Christmas Day at the Hammonds

We went to my parents house christmas day afternoon for dinner and gift exchange and games. Jon and Jess and the boys were in town from Missouri and it always makes it a little more special when they come from out of town. We also had yummy food at moms. We had ham and potatoes and salad and pies for dessert! Always good food!

Of course, Uncle Jon is at the kid's table!

Since there's a lot of us it takes a while to go through all the gifts. We exchange as adults and the cousins exchange gifts and then we do with my parents and of course all the grandkids are each given more than their share.

One of my favorite things this christmas was taking my kids to go buy the gifts for their cousins. It was fun to watch them try to find that "perfect" thing that they thought their cousin would absolutely love. I think they were all pretty right on the money with thier ideas!

I'm sure this Y flad will be hung proudly outside my parents house. They really are True Blue!

Shea went and saw Twilight with my sister, his wife, Mindy and my brother in law Ryan has continually given him a hard time about going to see it. Not sure Why?, but anyhow, he gave Shea this poster of Edward to hang in his office at work- it was pretty funny!
Christmas this year was great! Quiet, snowy and fun times with our family! I love this time of year and hope that we can cherish the memories until next year...

Chrismas Eve with the Jensen

Hard to believe that Christmas has come and gone, but we had such a great time celebrating the holiday with our family. We started Christmas Eve with the Jensens. I shouid always take a picture of the foo because it's always so good and something different. We did a breakfast for dinner and had these fabulous blueberry french toast with blueberry syrup and eggs and fruit salad- YUMMY!

The cousins love being together. All of them! It's so great when they all play because they all get along and seldom do we have problems. I say seldom because yes we do have problems, but for the most part they all enjoy being together. The girls are all taking piano lessons so for our program they all played a Christmas song that they had learned. Such cute girls!

And of course, if there's music, there's dancing. And if you could only see those dance moves-WOO HOO! They make me laugh!

Then we exchanged gifts with everyone and the kids had a great time. I love watching their faces and their expressions of excitement. It's so great! Nanny and Poppy are always so generous and love them and appreciate them so much. Probably the highlight of Lexi's christmas was this skate board she got from Nanny. I'll be sure to post when she breaks another arm because I know it's bound to happen again! She rides that board all over the kitchen and when it hasn't been to cold outside she has bundled up and gone out on the driveway to practice. She is nuts! She's asked a million times to go to the skate park and so I guess that's on our list of things to do this spring- YEA!

Shelby Sage and Libby loved all of their gifts but most of all they all just love being together. Later we went into the theater room and watched "Fred Clause" and then headed home to get ready for Santa. It was a great Christmas Eve!

Breakfast with Santa

My parents invited us all over this last Saturday morning for "Breakfast with Santa". My kids were so excited. Lexi had Mrs. Clause come to her school class and she just couldn't believe that she was going to see Santa too. I love this excitement! We had fun sitting on Santa's lap and telling him what we wanted for Christmas and then we had breakfast that my mom made for us all. It was so fun for the cousins to all be together and for all the adults to sit around and laugh and have fun together! Hope this turns into a family tradition!

Christmas Piano Recital

Shelby and Sage had their Christmas piano recital this last week and they both played really well. I told them both that I'd pay them $5.00 per song if they would have them memorized for the recital. So they both worked really hard to have them memorized. Their teacher still had them bring their books up front so they may have cheated a little, but I knew that they had those songs memorized! Good job Shelb and Sage! I know they're glad to have a break for a couple weeks.

Happy #2 Libby

Hard to believe that 2 years have now come and gone since our little Libby entered our lives. She has been an absolute joy to an absolute pain in the rear (I'm her mom so I can say that). But oh how we love her! She loves books, her big sisters and her mommy! She definitely LOVES her Daddy and is always the first one running to him when he walks in the door from work. She loves to snuggle with him!

We've celebrated her birthday a few times already with extended family so her actual birthday was pretty low key. It included going to Sage's basketball game, to shopping at Sam's Club to dinner at Cafe Rio. All of her favorites!:) I was kind of feeling bad that we didn't do a cake or anything for her and then the doorbell rang. Sage had been at the neighbors playing games and she brought home with her a plate of cupcakes- PERFECT! Shane put 2 candles in a cupcake and we sang and Libby loved it! Thanks Owens! I guess that's what happens when you're the 4th child and your b-day, along with 2 of your sisters, is around Christmas.

Happy Birthday Libby- we love you!