Gingerbread Village

It's gingerbread house time!  Since I have enough kids who want to be completely hands-on for our gingerbread house project, we decided to try something new this year and build a village.  Each kid was able to design and build two houses.  The original idea was that the village was going to be attacked by giant gummy worms, or gummy frogs, or abominable snowmen.  That idea worked great since we had a lot of broken house pieces that needed to be puzzled back together.  I was super impressed by the ideas each kid had for their houses, and how well they put them together.  Even Kelton was determined to do a great job and put on every single shingle on his roof by himself. 

 Daxton slept for most of the creating, which was frankly a lot easier than having him eat all of the building supplies.  When he woke up however, he was very surprised to see a bunch of little friends for him to play with.  

We beat every record this year and finished our village by 8:00pm.  I was so happy we weren't up until midnight finishing.  

Dantley and Cydney also finished theirs pretty quickly.  They did Godzilla destroying a city. 

 Alysha made Spiderman hanging from the side of some apartment buildings.  Both she and Bruce were up until midnight finishing theirs.  (Don't have a picture of Bruce's Florida home).  But it was worth they effort, they both looked great.  

Somehow Cydney's photography skills can even make frosting gingerbread trees look romantic!  

Cambrie was thrilled that we were able to add the abominable snowmen to our city.  They definitely top off the whole thing.  Great job kiddos!

The Nutcracker

This year we talked the Rogers into joining the Stratfords up in Ogden for the Nutcracker.  I knew that some of my Stratford cousins were going to be there, but I was so delighted to see not only the Mark Stratfords, but also my Grandma and all of the Kennedys!  We took a long time making our way to our seats because we just kept chatting.  While we were chatting I looked over and saw McKenzie trying to nap on the bench in the lobby.  I admit, at that point I didn't have very high hopes of her being able to make it through the entire performance without falling asleep.  Cousin Matthew to the rescue!  He had wisely stopped at a gas station on the way to the ballet and picked up a couple bags of candy.  He gave one to McKenzie with strict instructions to savor every bite to make them last the entire performance.  They were miracle gummies and she made it through the whole thing. 

 It was Ballet West's debut year with their new costumes and scenery.  It was enchanting.  I loved the changes with the the waltz of the flowers costumes, the flying sleigh, and the little puppet theater.  While much of the choreography remained the same, it felt like an entirely new experience.  Neither Alysha nor Cydney have been to the Nutcracker since they were kids, so for them it was entirely new.  I wish we would have taken a picture with the whole crew, as my mom and Camille were there too, but alas we'll just have to use our memories!

Thanksgiving dinner

Fast forward now to the feast we all earned after our morning run.  We look pretty good all cleaned up when we're not sweaty huh?  

The spread.  We may or may not have eaten most of the vegetables sitting out before we officially began dinner.  We were a bit peckish!  

Happy kids!  

Happy adults.

While Jeremy and I were eating our kids started coming up to us asking to be excused.  We glanced at their plates, saw they were more or less cleaned off, then let them go play while we kept eating.  Daxton came up last and wanted me to look at his volcano.  One look at his plate is all it took for me to realize why the other kids' plates were so clean....they scooped everything onto his plate!  He was so happy with the size of his volcano that he had no idea he was being used as the scapegoat!  Cute kid.

Thankful 13

Cambrie told me that she wanted to run a 5k.  5ks are easy to find on Thanksgiving so that was our goal.  One little text later all of the Rogers were signed up to the 5k too!  Thursday morning we were up bright and early to line up for the start of our race down at Thanksgiving Point.  The forecast predicted snow and we were crossing our fingers that it held off long enough for us to finish our race.  

Cambrie and I lined up near the front.  She wanted to run the whole way and maybe even place in her age group if things went well.  

She did so well on the run.  She never stopped, even when it started hurting a lot.  Her pace stayed nice and steady even up the hills.  I was so proud of her for doing something so hard.  She finished with a time of 30:30.  It was a great time, we just didn't count on some other rock stars crossing that finish line ridiculously fast.  

We were the first of our family to finish so we walked down the course to cheer for the rest of the Roger Gobblers.  

The best part of the post race celebration, in Cambrie's book, was the pumpkin pie waiting for her.  After she stuffed her face we all drove back to the house to pick up the other racers.  The kids wanted a go at the medals and pie too.  

They lined up for the kids race (is was a bit more that .5 mile), and we cheered them on.  

It started raining during their run so we didn't linger long outside.  But look at those smiles from those kids!  Kelton almost lost it during the run because suddenly the wind blew some stink his way and he did not like that one bit.  Regardless, he ran the whole time. 

Their hard earned hardware.

They also really appreciated the pie and cocoa waiting for them at the end.

The parking garage may not make the most picturesque background for a group victory shot, but at least we were dry!

 The Roger Gobblers in all our glory.

Johnson family pics

We had a rather impromptu photo shoot up in Logan.  After our photo spot scouting, we found Benson Marina which ended up being a fabulous location.  Daxton was just waking up from a nap-rats-but woke up enough to at least look in the right direction for the photographer!

Alan's fam.

Camille's fam. 

Grandkids

Our growing Johnson clan

Wind Caves

We all love the stories where the hikes that begin as just .75 miles one way turn into a 4 mile loop right?  When we first decided to take the kids up to the wind caves that's exactly what happened.  We thought the kids could totally handle a 1.5 mile hike and we wouldn't be carrying anyone too long.  Imagine our surprise and relief when they totally handled a 4 mile hike and had a great time.  I never heard a single word of complaint!  That's amazing. 

 

We told McKenzie and Kelton that if they wanted to goof off, they just had to stay ahead of us.  I had no idea that I wouldn't see them the entire hike because they were moving so fast.  My mom went up there with them and reported that they had a completely different experience than we did.  They found a flat rock that became their tablet.  They used their tablet to take pictures, record videos, and play games on their hike.  That rock kept them entertained for more than three hours!  Definitely a magic rock. 

We borrowed a backpack from a neighbor to carry Daxton if he needed it.  He didn't.  He wanted to walk the entire way.  Well, when he's moving, happy, and having a good time we couldn't deny him that.  He would stop in the middle of the trail to pick up rocks then throw them down the hill.  He liked using sticks to hit just about anything he could see.  He was so happy.  

Up at the top the kids were not disappointed with the view.  They loved the caves.  

They loved the views.  

And we didn't lose a single one off the edge of the cliff.  Hooray.   Ok, maybe we were close... 

The walk back down was quick, painless, and we still had smiling kids.  It was great.