McKenzie is in double digits

McKenzie's birthday was on a Sunday, as well as being a family party this year which meant that it was a pretty low key day for this amazing girl.  Cambrie helped me stay up the night before so that we could cover everything in pink balloons and pink streamers.  Waiting for her at breakfast was a crepe, smoothie, and sweet party sunglasses.  

We opened presents after church and the girls were introduced to the "Heavy, heavy hang-over thy poor head.  What do you wish with a bump on your head?"  I was shocked the girls haven't heard of this game before, and I got a silly sense of joy watching them play.  

Bob came to watch McKenzie open her presents too. 

 She received a medal rack to keep track of all of her gymnastics medals, fencing for Bob, and a fun silk robe for when she preps for her gymnastics meets.  She requested lava cakes for her birthday cake, and those are probably the easiest birthday cakes ever to prepare.  The candles stayed up better in her ice-cream than the ooey, gooey cake.

The next day McKenzie and I went to go get our nails done.  I didn't take a picture of her in the salon, but she looked pretty adorable while the stylist did her nails and pampered her a bit.  

Here are 10 things I love about McKenzie:

-She's a sweetheart

-She works so hard at gymnastics

-She wants to be helpful, and makes my life easy

-She quite literally has too many friends to play with them all

-She has a pretty adorable smile

-She always wants to make the right choice

-She can put the boys to bed when they won't cooperate for me

-She's willing to be adventurous

-She loves being pretty with her hair, make up, dresses, and tiaras

-And she's a great example to me of patience and kindness

Happy birthday sweetheart!

Skiing Daxton

Immediately after driving home from Utah, we went up to Keystone for a family ski trip.  It is so much easier staying up in the mountains when we've got kids to get up and down! 

 We decided that it was going to be the season that we teach Daxton how to ski.  Last year he loved it when I carried him down the hill, so we decided we might as well give it a shot.  The first day on the mountain was a refresher course for all of the kids.  Daxton hung out between our legs as we familiarized him with how it felt to have those skis strapped to his feet.  

After lunch time we decided that we were comfortable enough with his skills that we'd take him to the top of the mountain.  He loves the tippy top because that's where the snowfort is!  Overall it was a successful day for everyone, even if it was a little cold.  

The next day was colder.  We went up to the top of the mountain pretty early and it was a mistake.  Daxton was cold and crying as soon as he hopped off the lift.  It's a long way to the lodge from the top and he didn't have the strength or will to deal with it.  I carried him the whole way down just trying to get him somewhere warm.  After lunch he and McKenzie stayed in the lodge while the four of us went and found some great tree runs.  We didn't stay out too long, but felt like it was a good time to call it a day.  Back at the lodge Daxton asked to go out again.  We stuck on the bunny hill and that's when things really started to click into place for Dax.  He wanted me to use the leashes and let him go on his own.  He had the biggest smile on his face!  I couldn't have hoped to see a happier kid than that on the hill.  

After three runs the other kids were done on the bunny hill, but Daxton could have kept going.  This bodes really well for the rest of the season.  I'm so proud of that kid!

Twisting candy canes

"First we made root beer candy canes and pina colada and then cherry candy canes.  We pulled and twisted the candy canes.  I liked the ones that looked like lollipops just without a stick."  Kelton

"How we made candy canes was first we had to boil the water and sugar to 295 degrees.  When it finally got to 295 degrees we stirred it around a tiny bit to cool it off.  Then we picked it up and put it on a chilled marble slab.  There is where we put the flavoring.  We stirred it on the slab until we were able to touch it without burning ourselves.  

She brought it over to a hook on the door where we had to pull it down and around the hook until it turned white.  We had to move very fast.  

We hurried and brought it over from the hook and put in the color.  We didn't want it to stiffen up before they were shaped so we had to hurry while making the cane shape.  

Our first batch, the root beer, did not turn out well and were not very pretty.  But they tasted great!  The pina colada and cherry were a lot better.  The grown ups had to do the hook because it was so tall.  So because of the that the kids were able to make the shape of the candy canes.  Some looked like candy canes, some looked like squiggly blobs, and some were just a mess.  

They were delicious.  I want to do it again."  McKenzie 

Discovery moments

Somehow Cambrie and I were discussing typewriters the week before we left for Utah.  I told her that my mom used to have some, and probably still did.  I would type the occasional school report on them just for fun.  Cambrie was so excited and in disbelief that Grandma would have something so "old!"  I laughed and said that we could probably get them out when we went to visit.  When my mom pulled these out of the closet, Cambrie's eyes lit up.  She and my mom had so much fun typing, learning, and playing with them.  

Cambrie even wrote a letter to her friend Ayla.  

I love seeing the two of them like this.  

Another activity that totally made Cambrie's day, was learning how to pour paint with Ivie.  Ivie and Richie are family friends and have been living at my parents' house for awhile now.  Ivie loves to paint, draw, sketch, and create.  She's been making these canvases for various gifts and was gracious enough to teach all of us.  It was awesome.  It's a super simple process but you can never quite predict the result of what you've put together. 

 It was hard for the perfectionists among us to watch our paint sliding all over our canvas and not be able to do anything about it.  The boys just thought it was awesome watching it slide around.  The paint took almost two days to dry enough to stop shifting, and every time we looked at them something had changed.  We're really happy with our results though.  I think we just might be making these again.

Willow art at USU

My memories of walking around Utah State include seeing large sculptures placed all over campus: the french fries, the giant metal sticks, etc.  I never knew the name of any of them, but they were still interesting to look at as we wandered from class to class.  There's a new art installation up on campus now, a huge willow fort.  It was so intriguing.  Artists and students gathered all of these willow branches then wove them into this creation.  There are windows, rooms, door, and just a great flow.  Even though it was absolutely freezing that day, I'm glad we went to check it out.  The kids played tag and hide-and-seek.  They said it reminded them of Hobbledown Park in England, and I think it would fit right in. 

 

Peeking out through some of the windows.

Daxton exploring

Trying to get all four kids in the same picture...this was surprisingly challenging. They kept moving!

But don't worry, I held still for my picture.

Isn't it great?

Good old fashioned sledding

"I shared my new sled that I got for Christmas.  And we had fun going down the hill.  I went on top of mom and we went far.  And when I rolled down the hill without the sled I stopped and a dog licked my face.  It actually tickled."  Kelton

It warmed up just enough that we were able to go sledding at my mom's house.  Luckily there's a fabulous hill just around the corner so it's a quick and easy walk.  We used Kelton's sled and took turns sliding down the hill.  Each time we tried going farther than the time before.  

Daxton didn't mind waiting his turn, he simply rolled down the hill time after time.  

There was also a jump which ruined some of our plans, and both girls had pretty sore bottoms from rough landings.  

We tried standing on the sled and snowboarding down, but that was pretty tough.  

We learned that the best way to go fast and get some distance was to "penguin" down the hill on our tummies. 

   Yea for warm (ish) snow days.

My Dad's 60th

Last night we combined two parties into one. We had our cousin gift exchange, but more importantly we celebrated my Dad's 60th birthday. Camille had come prepared with a fun game for everyone to play. She put random questions inside of balloons and we took turns popping the balloons to discover the question inside. The questions were things about my Dad's life such as what you had to be a wizard or a ninja, how many surgeries has he had, and where would you like to visit most their Hawaii or Lake Powell? 

If we got the answer right then nothing happened. If we got it wrong however the person whose turn it was had 3 minutes to study our family tree. Camille would ask them a question about him and if they got it right they were off the hook. If they got it wrong then they got pie-faced! The kids wanted to get the questions wrong because they really wanted to eat that whipped cream! 

After the game we went downstairs to watch a slideshow of my Dad's life. My mom pulled together some fun pictures of his childhood and some of trips they've taken. I hadn't seen about 80% of those photos. It was fun to see and hear about so many stories I didn't know. All the grandkids got a good laugh at everyone's hair and all of the pictures. 

We finished up with cake and a round of happy birthday. These kids have a pretty great grandpa. And I grew up with a pretty great dad.

Since we had everyone together, we decided to quickly open up all of the Christmas gifts from Grandma and Grandpa.  I think the marshmallow shooters were some of the biggest hits of the night.

But then again, the man crate we bought for my dad was a pretty close second!  It was duct-taped like crazy, then he had to use a crowbar to open up the wooden crate.  It was definitely a challenge and made us laugh!

He was pretty covered in sawdust once he was done.