Monday, December 31, 2012

New Year's Eve!

We rang in the New Year with our traditional party at Grandma and Grandpas.

The cousins engaged in a little nerf gun war ...

Willard instigated the war

Ben was more than happy to join the fun

aim, shoot!

Ben even tried to hold JJ's DS hostage.

we played bingo...



dipped treats in a chocolate fountain ...




struck some silly poses ...




and made a little noise!!



HaPPy NeW YeaR!




Good Times with Friends

During the week we headed down to Saratoga Springs to visit the LaPray family.

The boys played in the snow on the hills in their backyard!


A little table top ping pong!

Gift giving!
Since they have officially become "Utards" we gave them the Utah version of Monopoly!



We played our usual game of spades and this time the girls DoMiNaTeD!!
HooRaY!

Snow Fun!

It is always fun to have some snow to play in while we visit Utah.




Christmas Day


This happy boy got a lifeproof i-phone case, software, an apple TV ...

and some cozy red socks!

This girl was thrilled to unwrap concert tickets to Taylor Swift ...


clothes and a gel nail kit!

This guy was excited to get a bat mobile, the bat cave and the Lego City Police station.




Cousins in Christmas Pajamas - Thanks Grandma!


His cousins gave him a chick-fil-a calendar - perfect!

Grandma got all the girls a pair of Toms

Sam giving Willard his gift.


Checking out the Peg Super Heroes that I painted for him :)

... and finally a few cute snapshots





JJ and Sambo - All they want for Christmas is their 2 front teeth!

Santa's Sleigh Mishap


On Christmas eve, as we headed over the Sierra’s to Utah a driver alerted us that our Skybox had opened up a few miles back and that they had seen all of our presents fly out of it!
Our hearts sunk, as we thanked them and turned back to see what was left of our carefully chosen and wrapped Christmas presents just hours before Christmas morning.
Near Boomtown, NV another driver had already stopped and had been gathering what they could find.  I saw them handing shredded, smashed packages to Steve.  I wandered along the side of the road to look again.  I saw crinkle paper, bits of plastic, candy, and smashed packages all over.  (I must have been in shock, because I didn’t even think to take a picture)  Ben ran across the freeway to look in the median.  Cars were flying by us and since lots of the gifts were from Santa we quickly put what we had found back in the Skybox.  Luckily we were close to Cabela’s, so we stopped and bought some cables to secure the skybox for the rest of the drive.  It was about 4:00 PM and I sent an SOS text to my brother and parents.  I knew they were seeing a movie, but I wanted them to get me wrapping paper so that I could salvage the magic of Santa for Sam.  When they saw the text they called and asked for a list of other things I had seen smashed and then set out to try to find replacements.  My amazing elves!  Most of the smashed stuff I had seen was Susie’s stocking stuffers and gifts.  So they headed to Ulta, getting there just 5 minutes before it closed, and bought the last gel nail kit on the shelf!  The salesgirls could not believe what had happened and wanted to help fill Susie’s stocking so they gave them a bag of freebies – so sweet.
We arrived in Mountain Green, UT at 2:00 AM and quickly got the kids settled in bed.  Then we gathered the troops to assess the damage.  Almost everything had serious road rash, some things were completely missing, and some things were broken.   It could have been so much worse - think Legos all over the freeway.  So we felt thankful to have been able to salvage most of the gifts.

Here are a few pictures…


Almost all of the gifts looked like this - gift bags were destroyed.

This is what was left of a gift that had been a  plastic popcorn container filled with yellow crinkle paper, candy, and gift cards for a date night.  Somehow all that remained was shreds of the gift bag and the gift cards!  I had seen the yellow crinkle paper and bits of the the plastic popcorn container all over the road.

Both Susie and Ben had made me something fragile.  Susie's survived but this is all that remained of the vase Ben had made me in his Ceramics class.  So sad.

My mom and me re-wrapping all the Santa presents.

Holiday Preparation

Creating a Gingerbread House



Baking Cookies


Decorating the Christmas Tree


Making Gifts

Peg Princesses and Super Heros



Nativities