My Crazy Life!!

Our really big girl has now lost her first 2 teeth! It is just so crazy how they keep growing and growing. It is sometimes like she is so small yet so big at the same time. Maybe I talk about this all the time but it is something that I can't seem to get over! It constantly amazes me that I am just watching them grow up so fast and I want to slow it down or sometimes fast forward through a rough stage. Parenthood is such an interesting journey. I am grateful for the joys that it brings me! I am especially grateful to look back and see how far I have come. That is why it is necessary, without the extreme joys and challenges that our children bring to us how could we grow. Today this is what I am appreciating. I love my crazy life!

Our Christmas!

We had really the best Christmas season this year. We did almost all of our school work through a Christmas curriculum that we got called Discover Christmas. It was a beautiful countdown to Christmas with lessons everyday about different traditions and how they originate from Christ and remind us of Christ. There were daily scriptures, crafts, recipes and activities as well. We got it from www.bookofmormondiscovery.com/index.html. It was so helpful for staying focused on Christ this year. It had reading and writing for Kyndal to do and it was so much fun to learn about where our traditions came and how they are supposed to remind us of Christ.



We learned about why we decorate with ornaments and then made some.


We learned about where candy canes came from and why they are red and white. Then we made some candy cane reindeer.


We learned about the star and the importance of the star.

There are so many things that we have lost understanding of around the traditions that we have so this was such a great reminder of the meaning behind all of it. It was so special to focus on the birth of our Savior. What a special time of year!!

We also had a great time visiting with family. We spent Dec 23 at my parents house with all of my siblings. Enjoying the cousins and playing games together. The 24th was there again with my parents, siblings and cousins, including all of our 15 kids. Then on Christmas day we had nice relaxing present opening, some slowly in the morning, then with Nana and Grandad in the afternoon and then some in the evening with cousins and Grandma and Pa. We also had both sides of our family over for Christmas dinner. What a celebration with 27 of us here. It was really so much fun and we are grateful to be able to spend this special day with all of the special family that we love. It was such an amazing Christmas.

Kyndals Birthday

I know it has been a while but I finally got these pictures onto the computer. Here is the great birthday party that we had for Kyndal. Well, I thought that it was great and the kids did too, I'm not sure about the parents as we ate an abnormal amount of candy! Our candyland party is the first themed party that I have ever done and it seemed pretty easy and low-key but really fun. We did a little scavenger hunt with using the candyland board as our map. I printed off pictures of the characters from online and hid them around the house with little signs pointing to the next area of candyland. Then the kids won candy for building their gingerbread houses or other birthday prizes from each of the characters.

Then we made gingerbread houses that I had already put together with graham crackers. We had an abundance of candy and icing and the kids had fun. I loved to see how the personality of the kids differed in how they built their cakes. Some were putting on as much candy as they could possibly fit on. Others were very carefully coating the whole thing in icing first and then it looked so pretty and white the candy was limited. There were a few that were very careful, planning and keeping their house organized. Those ones were fun to watch, very precise placement of all the same candies along the area so that it was neat and even symetrical. It was really neat to see!

This cake was actually really easy, the top are our lollipop cookies. They are time consuming to make but turn out really fun. Recipe found here:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Play-Dough-Cookies/Detail.aspx

The kids all making gingerbread houses.

My posing girl. She is so much like her Mom sometimes, it makes me laugh!