Christmas 2015!

Christmas 2015 was so much fun! Jay, Brynn and girls came down to join us and add children to an otherwise boring, old people Christmas. Christmas Eve dinner was a delectable feast with Jay and Brynn in charge and Supe and Beacher, Moss and Christie, Juge and Lance and Weed and Derek assisting!  It was so good! Earlier in the day JJ visited and shared tales of his travels in Europe. After dinner the cousins played and the adults visited to round out a wonderful evening.  After that we opened a few Christmas presents, got things ready for Santa and hit the sack.

Christmas morning we started out with the Christmas story on the bed and then enjoyed the opening of the presents and emptying of the stockings!  Supe, Beacher and Grandma joined us.

Then we took Grandma Kurtz and went around to visit all of the local kids.  We didn't get to visit with Lou and Juge until later because of snowy road conditions up their way.

The Smiths

The Borrowmans

The Weavers

The Randalls

The Lillywhites

The day after Christmas was a blast - the party planners of the family (not me) organized a Minute-to-Win-it party at Weed's church.  We had a little Christmas concert first with Kennis playing the piano, Brenden singing in Chinese and Brynnli and Tavin playing violin/viola for us.  

Then we retired to the gym to have our crazy competitions while the younger set played round about. So much fun! Thanks to all for a wonderful, fun family time for Christmas!  So thankful that we know these associations that we enjoy so much can last forever because the Savior made it possible.

Gaige joins the double digit gang with #10!

It is wonderful to see our once very small and early born Gaige growing into an amazing young man of 10!  We joined a little celebration with him for the last birthday for the year (other than Grandma Poulsen, Sandee and Ross).  Happy birthday Gaige!  We love you.

Here's a little blast from his past.  It was fun to look back and see Gaige growing up when I was putting together a birthday card for him.  He was, and still is, such a cute, energetic kid with amazing athletic skill as well as being a great student.  (And it was amazing to see Grandma Kurtz with red hair, Paul with more hair and me with brown hair!  Those 10 years have certainly changed us too.)

Emergency stand ins

Weed was out of town and Derek had to work, so Grandpa Smith and I were the emergency stand ins for them at Zade and Tasia's school award assembly.  They both got awards.  Tasia was also one of the narrators in a little movie her class made about putting "first things first" which was one of the 7 habits they have been emphasizing at their school recently.  It would be nice if it was possible for me to just go to each and every wonderful thing all of my grand kids participates in, wouldn't it?  Tasia got a certificate for putting first things first and Zade was the 2nd place winner for the 2nd grade in the school poetry contest!  Way to go kids! So proud of both of you!  Too bad someone was in front of Tasia while she was receiving her award.  She and Zade are both in the top line-up.

#63 - time for a new birthday suit!

Since we were gone on the actual day of Paul's birthday, Sunday evening turned out to be the best time for the most people, so that's when we had the official #63 birthday celebration!   Paul's mom took us to lunch on his birthday and he got lots of calls from siblings and kids that day too and he really enjoyed talking to so many people who love him.  He got an early visit and present from the Randalls before the day of.  Several of the kids put together and got him a new suit; something he's been wanting.  His usual saying about looking good in something is, "It's the stuffing!"  In this case the suit is really enhancing the already great stuffing!  Love and thanks to all!  

Pine Valley anniversary/birthday get away!

We were too busy to celebrate our anniversary when it happened, so Paul set up a little get away to for us to a friend's cabin in Pine Valley.  It worked out to be on his birthday, so that made it a double celebration!  We had a great time relaxing indoors and outdoors.  We had hoped there would be enough snow left to cross country ski, but ended up hiking in the what was left instead.  It was a great time in one of our favorite places.  So thankful and blessed to be married to my best friend.  He's the sunshine of my life.  

Next up - Noah #7!

Noah comes next in the December line up of birthdays.  The grand parents headed to Cedar City for the celebration.  He seemed pretty pleased about his home made pizza dinner, his yummy cake and about each and every present!  And he was even OK with sharing his KitKat bar with the siblings!  Happy Birthday Noah!  We love you! 

The BIG #16 for Brynnli!

Our December birthdays started of with a big one this year!  We actually celebrated a day early because she was going on her first date on the real day...what more could a newly turned 16 year-old want?  It was a fun night and she got lots of good stuff, including a PHONE...another thing every kid wants now days.  Brynnli is such a good example in leading the rest of our pack of grand kids.  Can't believe she's old enough to date and will be driving soon.  We love you Brynnli!  Keep up the great work!

The phone was hidden under an unrelated football (to add weight and disguise the real present) and the facial expressions of Brynnli and Kennis tell the story very well!  

Thanksgiving and Christmas tree harvesting

This year was the in-law year for Thanksgiving, so we did it small scale with the Randalls and Grandma Kurtz in Enoch.  We had a wonderful feast and then enjoyed getting some indoor type exercise playing Wii bowling, archery and cycling, etc.  It was a fun time!  So glad the Randalls rescued us from a very quiet day at home.  That evening we joined the Weavers for pie, pie and more pie.  After we ate all we could hold, the kids had fun with cousins and the adults had some fun too. Then it was home to rest up from enjoying too much of good things!  (I was so busy eating and being grateful I didn't take many pictures.)

Even though we didn't get to see everyone for Thanksgiving, over the week we did play games and have hot chocolate and chocolates with Ferf and Ryan, get technical support and enjoy visiting with Moss and Christie and kids and play games and eat more pie with the Borrowmans and Smiths.  So, we saw all of the local herd at least.  

On Saturday with Weed and kids we went and harvested Christmas trees on Cedar Mountain.  It was a pretty quick harvest since it was cold and it was pretty easy to get stuck on the snowy roads.  We ended up helping someone get unstuck and then they helped us get unstuck later down the road.  Luckily Weed's truck was a non-stick vehicle!  After the harvest we headed down to a park in Cedar to eat our lunch freezing picnic style very quick like.  For such a fast harvest, we got some pretty nice trees and came away grateful, as always, that we don't live where we have to deal with the snow on a daily basis.  It's really pretty and fun to see...but way too cold too live with for months at a time.  

Fun with grand kids!

Brenden was excited to show us his 1st Place flag football trophy and we were excited to get to attend his last soccer game of the year!  Way to go Brenden!

I'm not sure they would call it a good time, but we took the grandsmiths on a freezing hike to a pretty place while they were spending a little time with us while their parents were out of town.

We had fun around the house with Spot It, Risk and checking out the Desert Garden.  Bean has a great time entertaining the kids and they have a great time being entertained by him!

November birthday fun!

We stared off the celebrations with a surprise dress up like old people birthday party at the park for Ryan's 40th!  The cousins like getting together for any reason!

Sweet Eliza was happy to get some new Care Bear friends when we wished her a happy #3!

And Zion was happy to play at the park and get lots of new stuff, but not so happy to have to get close to an on fire cupcake!

Wish we could have been there for Brynn's big day too!

Love you all!