Midnight Snow Fun

It finally snowed and stuck long enough for the kids to play in it. Had we waited till mourning, it would have all be gone so it is a good thing we went out in the night to play in it.

Kenzie was being weird and throwing snow on her own face.

Jordyn  liked gathering up the snow.

 Eli being silly.

My "angel" Alexis making a snow angel.

 Kenzie playing in the tree.

 Don't even guess how many pictures we took in order to get one with Jared's eyes open.

Kenzie's Birthday

I can't believe that my little girl is now 8. She is gettting so big and I don't know what to do about it. I asked Kenzie what she would like for her birthday breakfast and she said muffins and fried eggs. I think it is weird that she likes fried eggs cause the yolk is runny but she loves them and always asks for them. So, I got up early to make sure she got her special breakfast before she left for school.

 Jared was gone at a basketball game and so we enjoyed Kenzie's birthday dinner with out him, however, he was able to have lunch with her at school. That made her day, and he even walked all over the recess yard with her.

 She loves manicotti and so that is what I made for her.

We had a big birthday party with her friends later on in the week. I was babysitting these boys during the day so they got to help me prepare for Kenzie's party.

Each of the boys helped me with making the birthday cake.

Then they helped me decorate. One would hand me tape, one would help pull out the streamers, and another would guide me on how low or high to put the streamers. To quote from Isaac, "Go up...a little more, oh that is just perfect!"

Most of the girls came home with Kenzie on the bus. Once they got home, it was a tornado of giggly, silly girls, running all over my house. I reigned them in and we began the party. The kids are always hungry when they first get home from school so we had our cake and icecream first. I let each of th kids decorate their own cupcake. First I handed out star bursts and they smashed them down flat and then we shaped them into flowers. Then we frosted the cupcakes and added leaves with the frosting decorator.

Here, Mack and Stacie are concentrating on the decorating process.

 The whole party showing off their finished cupcakes before they dig in.

Opening presents is must after having your treats and so we did. She got a cute lady bug towel, two pet shops, and a dress-up makeup kit.

Here is Mackenzie with her friends,

Alexis,Reece, Stacie, Brooke, and Keara

 Mackenzie wanted to have her friends play twister and so we started right in with that after presents.

We ended the evening with the kids playing dance central on the x-box. They all loved dancing to the music.

I planned on playing hide-n-seek in our house with glow sticks but when I went to go get them, the store didn't have them any more. I asked about them and the store worker said that they had a whole bunch over the holidays but they must have run out. I asked if any might be in the back and they said, "Oh, well if they aren't out, then must not have them any more." I was frustrated because they wouldn't even go and look. Oh well, the dance central was a hit and so I shouldn't be mad. Kenzie just wanted planned the whole party and so when we didn't do it, I thought she would be sad but she wasn't.

Kitchen Face Lift

We've been in our house for 2 1/2 years now and the kitchen is on our list of things to change. It is functional in many ways but it feels dated and dingy. I have many other things that I would rather spend our money on like new carpets (30 year old, brown carpet...yuck!) windows (drafty and our heating bill is not great!) and fencing (little kids playing in our yard on a busy street scares me, especially with Jordyn now wanting to go play outside.) So the kitchen is not going to get changed out. But...could it get some makeup put on it? Yes!

 Each of the drawers and cabinets have this western etching.

 I bought some wood puddy and filled in the etching and then sanded them down so that it looks like you have just flat panelled drawer fronts.

Then I primed and painted them cream.

 Then I distressed them. Jared and I thought that distressing them rather then leaving them plain cream would be better because you wouldn't notice dirt and finger prints as much. We also spray painted the handles silver but after putting them back on, we thought they might have actually gone better when they were the aged gold and brown color. Oh well! (So far we have only spent $10.00 on the kitchen make over, but I am a little annoyed that the money was spent on the silver spray paint for the handles and we are not sure that we  even like how it looks. )

 These are the new cabinets that we put in when we first moved in because we installed the above the range microwave. I love how these turned out. It is easier to distressed things that already have detailing. We started with just painting them cream.

 Then I took some gel stain and rubbed the creases. Afterwards, I took sand paper and scraped off paint here and there.

Jared and I are not sure that we like the lower cabinets very much. It is a change from the western brown cabinets and so to us it is an improvement, but we are not sure that we will keep it. The upper cabinets, we love. So, once we put up the brick back splash and install our new flooring (part of redoing the carpets, we are doing this level in wood floors) then we will see if we will change the cabinets. I have been looking at pictures on pinterest and I really do like the look of two toned cabinets. I saw a kitchen that had both cream distressed cabinets and dark blackish distressed cabinets. I might do that on the bottom ones. We will see. So, in the end, we have only spent $10.00 on our kitchen makeover and it is great. We already had all the paints from our other house projects and so in the end, we love the change and that it was cheep. It took some sweat equity but hey I am home anyways.

New Years Eve

We had so much fun this year at our New Years Eve party. We invited our closest friends over and bonus, my sisters, Sharon and Nancy, came over as well and my parents too. Everyone brought over snackes and we all enjoyed eating. The kids all had a blast together too. It is nice to have friends whose kids are the same age and so there is never a dull moment.

This is Kory and Annie. Kory grew up with Jared and Annie was a roomate to my roomates the year previous to me going to college.(Understand?) We met up and became instant friends. Miles is their little boy and he was getting sleepy. It was, afterall, a late night.

This is Doug and Sarah. Doug was Jared's roomate and Sarah was my roomate and we grew up together in Washington.

Here are the kiddoes enjoying their Root Beer floats just after the " midnight" count down. It was only 10:00 here but we told the kids it was the new year and after their treat, we put them all to bed.

Then...the real party began! We pulled out the Martinelli's and got crazy!

We played the X-Box together. We broke up into teams, the North vrs the South, and did the Sports party play games. You got to compete with one other person per event and in the end, the team with the most points wins. It was pretty fun. Then, we pulled out Dance Central and learned some dance moves to the song Poker Face, by Lady GaGa. This is a little peak at our fun.

And then we ring in the new year with a kiss.

Christmas

We had to prepare for Christmas by putting out a plate of cookies for Santa. We got home pretty late from Aunt Sharon's house and so all the kids ran to get in their beds. But...you can't forget the cookies, so Kenzie ran down the stairs from her bedroom to remind us of that. She grabbed our special cookie plate and Jared went and put some cookie dough on a cookie pan. (We have cookie dough in our freezer so that we can cook up fresh cookies when ever we want.) Kenzie poured the milk and set the plate up just as she wanted it to be. Jared assured her that he would put the cookies on the plate as soon as they came out of the oven. She hurried off to bed so that Santa would be able to come.

Jared and I busied ourselves with "stuff" and completely forgot about the cookies. Jared realized a couple minutes too late. They were burnt. I told him Santa would still eat them...he strongly disagreed! So, he threw away that whole pan of perfectly black cookies and started over. This time, we put the timer on it and managed to cook a perfectly light tan cookie. I'm pretty sure Santa enjoyed those cookies, cause Jared tested a few of them.

Every year I hang up the stockings that Sharon and I made for my family and I finished Jordyn's this year. It is okay but I am also a bit annoyed when I look at the ballerina because she doesn't seem to fit with the look of the other stockings. I might make a new one but we will see.

The milk maid is my stocking that my mom made for me when I was a little kid and the whole inspiration for the creation of Jared and kid's stockings. I am so happy to have my stocking hung up next to everyone else's!

The girls in their new pajamas. Jordyn was in great need of pajamas. I didn't have any for her. Not one pair. She usually wore a onesie to bed but with the kind of winters we have, she needed a few nice warm pairs of pajamas to get through it.

We were awaken at 5:30 in the morning not to excited children but to a phone ringing. My sister, Sharon, was due to have her baby on January 5th, 2012 but she had contractions all night long and they were 10 minutes apart. She was going to drive to the Rexburg hospital (45 minutes away) to have her baby so she didn't want to miss it and have the baby in the car. She had invited me to come watch the birth, but in the end, I chose to stay home with my family and celebrate Christmas. So, we went back to bed and got up when the kids woke up at 8:00.

I didn't get any pictures of us opening presents but we had a great time. The kids all got pillow pets from Santa...Santa coordinates with parents but not with grand parents and so now our kids have two sets of pillow pets to snuggle up with at night. They love them! We had a nice breakfast and then left for Church at 11:00. Sacrament meeting was so nice. The primary children sang Christmas Bells are Ringing and Away in a Manger. It was so sweet to listen to their sweet little voices. They definitely brought in the Spirit. Afterwards, a family in our ward played the part of a family having Family Home Evening. They read the story of the Savior being born and interspersed between their scriptures, the choir sang Christmas hymns. There is a friend of mine in our ward who sings like an angel in the opera. She had a solo that was so amazing to hear. Her singing brought tears to my eyes and I am not really a cryer when it comes to music. Definitely one of the best Christmas programs I have ever been to!

I made some little skirts for the girls and Jared got me this nice wool dress coat. It is so warm and I feel very pretty in it. He chose very well.

(Yes, that is my slip showing...very embarrassing! I hope that it wasn't showing all day at church.)

Eli had to jump in on our modeling. He wanted to show off his new church clothes too and his guns.

The big present this year that Santa brought for our family was an X-Box 360 Kinect. The game came with a Kinect Adventures game and Santa coordinated with Aunt Heidi, Jared's sister who had us this year for Christmas, and she got us Kinect Sports. It is awesome! Thank you so much Heidi!

My favorite one is the boxing. Speaking of boxing (like my segway into this next sentence) Jared was playing with Eli and apparently it gets you so hot that Eli felt like he really needed to remove his shirt. Anyways,  Jared thought that he would take it easy on the little one and so he didn't punch much. Eli knocked him out, so he thought, "okay, I am going to try a little harder." He did but still got beat by Eli. So the third round Jared decided that he was going to go all out, no mercy! Eli still knocked him out and now Jared will never live that down. So funny!

The kid's favorite game is the bowling. We actually planned on bring the kids bowling sometime during the break but once we started playing this, we thought, never mind!

We even let each one of the kids create their own avatar on the X-Box. Eli chose to wear sun glasses, Lex chose butterfly face paint, and Kenzie chose tiger face paint. I love seeing their personalities come through on their avatars.

Jordyn enjoys her little leap frog she got to match up with Eli's. She plays with it all the time.

My parents and Byron and Jemayla came over for dinner which consisted of lasagna and manicotti. It was a yummy dinner and great company.

Byron and Jemayla wore these funny hats over that they got for Christmas from Heidi, I think. They are awesome hats!

Funny enough, Sharon never ended up having her baby. I think she decided that she didn't want to be in labor and that she was not going to have a Christmas baby and so the labor stopped. Can you do that? I guess you can!

Christmas Eve Dinner and Family Home Evening

It is a Weber family tradition to have our big Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve. That way, we can have dinner by candle light and after we eat, enjoy a nice family home evening reading, singing, or acting out the nativity. This year, Sharon, my sister, hosted the dinner.

 We were able to have all the siblings from here make it, which is hard sometimes because both Nancy and I have our in-laws close, so we split our time with them. It was great to be all together. My Mom and Dad came, along with Sharon's husband's parents,Dick and Terry, and Nancy and Trevor, and Jared and me.

Our Family Christmas Eve of December 2011

 After watching a movie on the Nativity, we let the kid open presents from Grandma and Grandpa Weber.

 They each received a really soft pillow pet and blanket. Kenzie got a cow, Lexie got a giraffe, Eli got a dog, and Jordyn got a sheep. The kids loved the pillow pets and now proclaim to me every night that they can't sleep with out them.

Grandma and Grandpa Weber visit for Christmas

Every other year we go up to Washington to visit my parents for Christmas. This year, they drove down here to Idaho Falls to spend Christmas with us and help out Sharon, my sister, who was going to have a baby. Nice! We didn't have to pack up stuff for all the kids and we still got to spend Christmas together. 

Here are a few pictures of us hanging out with the grandparents.

Think this is a sweet picture of my mom with my little girl. I love how they are looking at each other.

 My dad had a cup of pebbled ice and kept giving little bits to Jordyn. I don't know why most of my family likes to chew on ice but I pretty much despise ice. No way will you see me put that stuff in my cup. It is annoying to get a drink and have the ice come sliding out and hit you in the lip or make your drink all watery tasting. Nasty! But anyways, Jordyn enjoyed getting her little bites of ice from Grandpa Weber.

 We were setting up the tables for our Christmas Eve dinner but first we vacuumed the floor. So this picture was funny because Mom, Sharon, and Dad were holding their legs up so we could get underneath them.

 Dad had to try out the vacuum because we were all told it is quite the work out to push it.

 Three generations: My mom, me, and my four kids