Ward Christmas Party

Now that this is over, I can ENJOY Christmas! I'm on the activities committee in my ward. I think it is a very fun calling, but I must say it is a very busy one when you have as big of a ward as we have. One of the other girls on the committee was in charge of decorations, and I think she did a FABULOUS job! You'd never guess how small of a budget we did this activity on.

I was in charge of feeding 300 people, which I was a bit nervous about, but we ended up even having extra food and it was quite yummy. This was Santa's corner of the world.

Part of the program was the primary children singing a couple of songs. Somehow Avri got in on the action (even though she won't be in Sunbeams for 3 more weeks). She had no clue what was going on, so she was turned around the whole time, just watching the other bigger kids.We put everyone on Santa's lap. At first Mercedes just starred. We couldn't get her to look at the camera. Then this was her next reaction:

We had fun (busy, but fun) and this ward is fabulous about helping with cleanup so we were only there a little over an hour for clean up. It went very smoothly.

Winter Strikes

I felt like winter hit me in the face this morning. Yesterday was 50 degrees and it rained all day, in the middle of December!! I thought to myself "This is awfully warm for December." Well, today it is 10 degrees outside!! And you guessed it, because of the rain yesterday everything is a solid sheet of ice. I had to go out visiting teaching this morning, and I got there quite late because we had to drive slow, but even more than that, the doors on my van were iced shut! They are the automatic kind, so I could just pull harder to break the ice. So I had to climb through the front into the back and pull each of the kids through the same way (trying not to get our tan seats dirty with their shoes) and then buckle them into their seats. This was all fine, but the worst part was trying to scrape the ice off the windows!! It would not scrape off! So I tried chipping away enough that I could see through a small portion of the windshield (I know that's illegal, but we were already late!). Then we slowly drove all the way there. I thought the drive and heating up the car would help the door situation, but no such luck. I don't think we'll go out again for a while. And now I'm motivated to let Kendall organize the garage so that I can park in there. Poor Kendall will just be stuck outside. :(

Kendall's Surgery

Kendall had his surgery on his Esophagus yesterday and it went very well. The doctor went in and found that he has an extremely tight ring in his esophagus, about 1/2 the diameter that it needs to be. So they cut it up a bit and stretched it out for him and they are quite confident that this should take care of his problems. His gastroenterologist here is much better than the one in Utah was, so we are happy about that fact. Here is a nice gross picture for you. The one on the right is what the diameter should be, the one on the left is what his looks like in that place where the ring is.
It was just an outpatient surgery and the only effects that he has had have been from the sedation. He's a little forgetful, but I think he's getting better. This morning he forgot his badge for work that he needed, so he turned around to come home and get it and when he was almost home he got back on the freeway to go back to work, then realized that he still had never made it home. He's been funny, but medicine has always done funny things to him. He has so many funny stories!! In fact, once when we had first started dating he was drugged up and he actually cat called at me through the window in his house.

A birthday to remember

We had so much FUN at Chuck E. Cheese's!! The one in Utah was kind of run down and ghetto, so I didn't think we'd have that much fun, but none of us really wanted to leave. They even had ski-ball, so I was happy. The kids rode on ever ride (probably twice) and the fire truck about 4 times. They played all of the little kid games. Avri was TERRIBLE at ski-ball, but Talmage actually got a better score than Kendall.

Mercedes was just happy to be along for the ride. She is such a good little third child!We got our pictures sketched by a machine,ate pizza (Talmage didn't actually eat it, he just licked the Parmesan cheese off of it) and the kids got to meet Chuck E. himself.
Avri says that he is her new best friend. They won 177 tickets so we got some completely worthless little prizes that the kids loved and we can't wait to go back again! Then we came home and Skyped Grandma and Grandpa in Utah and Uncle Ammon, and we opened all of his presents.
What a spoiled child he was. We got him a big wheel that he can really only ride inside for a while. We had cake and ice cream and had way too much fun. It was totally relaxing and fun and the best birthday yet!

Happy Birthday Talmage!!

Where it all started 2 years ago today! He was born at 1:45 am after 2 1/2 days of hard labor and weighed 7 lbs 3 oz and only 18 1/2 inches - my smallest baby. But it only took him about a week to catch up and pass the girls in size. That kid hasn't stopped eating since the second he came out!At one years old he was quite the little charmer with his dimple (only one) and huge baby blue eyes.

His first birthday party. He wasn't so sure that he liked the hat cake that I made him, but he sure loved the ice cream!!

Talmage with his crayon birthday cake last night, right after I finished it. He tells everyone that he is three and that he has a "colors" cake.
It's just amazing how fast time flies. My kiddos are growing up way too fast, and I'm sure I have no idea how fast it goes!!

Big trouble in little packages

It's official - Mercedes is a bum-scooter baby. I always thought that babies who scoot on their bums were just hilarious, and now I am fortunate enough to have one! She continues to be my very funny child. She is starting to figure out how to sit up from being down on the floor and she is getting better about getting on the floor when she is sitting without flopping and hitting her head. She has also figured out how to open drawers (low ones, like dressers and things) so she scoots herself over to them and opens them and takes things out.Other news, I was lucky enough to have all three of my kids get sick on the SAME DAY!! We woke up Friday morning with 3 sick children. I'm really grateful that they got sick together because that means we don't have to pass it around for months like we did all last winter. So we will have a few days of coughing and snotty noses and hopefully it will all go away after that. Hooray!!

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a fantastic Thanksgiving weekend just hanging around at home! My grandma and grandpa came down from Michigan to visit, but they stayed at my parents house. We spent quite a bit of time all together, but when we were tired we were able to retreat to our own house to rest. We ate and prepared food all day long on Thursday. We also did a couple of Skype calls to Kendall's family as well as my brother and my Dad's brother and sister and their families. So any family that we weren't with, we saw and talked to at least.

The day after Thanksgiving we did NOT get up early to go shopping, but we did go later in the day when everyone else was tired, so the lines weren't too long and things weren't very crazy. We went to the Dollar store and let each of the kids pick out what they wanted to get for every other member in the family. This was a great idea, and a nightmare to actually do. Avri was not understanding that we were not shopping for her. She threw some big fits thinking that we were telling her that she was not going to get any presents, and it was kind of ridiculous. We then went to a tree farm and found a tree and cut it down with my parents. We are trying to save a little money this year, so we are going to use their fake tree. We spent that night and the next day decorating both trees. We only broke ornaments at our house, and had to pull the kids out of the glass a couple of times, but there wasn't any blood.

Here is a not very good picture of the tree and the hoodlums who decorated it! We also went out to dinner on Saturday with my grandparents and that was fun for everyone. Finally a meal that we didn't have to prepare OR clean up!! Those are my FAVORITE! Saturday night we got our first snowfall! So we woke up Sunday morning to a white world and that was very exciting for the kids. After nap time on Sunday we went over to my parents to sled down their hill. (Is sledding a Sunday appropriate activity?) But by the time everyone was awake and all the gear was on it was totally dark. So the pictures are dark, but the kids had way more fun than I would have ever guessed! Here is Macie in her first snow!! She wasn't out too long, but she thought it was great.Here are all of us girls, cheesing it up! Well, at least Avri and I. But Macie's look cracks me up!Daddy is so good at playing, he seems almost tireless!

Last year Talmage was still kind of little for the snow, but this year he trekked up and down the hill so many times, and all by himself while it was dark! I couldn't believe him! I don't think that he went down the hill the same time twice, either. He went down on his tummy, on his back, sitting, kneeling, backwards, forwards and every other way he could think of. Then he'd haul his own sled back up the hill and Kendall would push him down again.

Avri and Mom made snow angels, but when I tried to get Talmage to he just cried.
While Talmage kept sledding Kendall helped Avri build a snowman. It actually fell over before we even left my parents' house that night, but we didn't tell Avri that.

While the older kids were outside Mercedes was enjoying some time all to herself with Mom and Grandma and Aunt Amber. She was quite happy so we got a bunch of pictures of her. She is such a little elf. She has the Dietz ears that go back for many generations, poor girl.

We then did something that is becoming a tradition for Sunday nights, a movie picnic. We make dinner and eat in front of the TV while we watch a movie together as a family. To save the carpet we get out a big blanket and call it a picnic and the kids think this is so much fun. Well, we decided to do it at my parents house this time and we watched the old Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. It occurred to me a few days ago that my kids don't know the classic stories of Christmas, so we introduced them last night.

The only other thing that we did this weekend was Harry Potter marathon. Kendall and I are finally reading books together again, and we are working on Harry Potter 5, which we started ages ago, but didn't ever finish. So all this Harry Potter made us want to see the movies. Over the weekend we watched 1-4, and we still have number 5 waiting for us. We watched every night into the late hours, and anytime the kiddos were sleeping. I always said that I would never be Harry Potter crazy, but I guess I should never say never.