this and that and special days.

We are already in April! And already this year has been very busy, but oh so wonderful. In March, Lola turned 8 years old and was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It was such a special day for her and she was so happy. I remember her smiling from ear to ear. It was very special to see that she knew it was a special thing she was doing for her life. Lola shares her birthday with her Grandpa and it was great to have them here to celebrate! We definitely felt the love from all our family and friends that came and that sent their best wishes for Lola on her baptism day.

Next came Easter. This year we tried something new and simple for Easter week. Every night we had a little mini devotional with the kids. Each night took us through the last days of our Savior's life. We had pictures, the bible videos made by the church and scriptures. We kept them simple because our kids are still young, but it was really surprising to hear the questions and comments that they had. We had some really good conversations. Teaching our kids about Jesus Christ, who he was and who he is and seeing their understanding and love for him grow just makes my heart so very happy.

And finally, a few weeks ago we had a ward temple trip that included a primary activity and youth baptisms. We did one of these last summer and it turned out so great that they decided to do another one this year. I hope we keep doing these trips because they give the families a chance to go to the temple with the whole family. And to be there as ward is always a great thing too. For the primary activity the kids rotated through stations where they built temples out of sugar cubes, took a temple walk around the temple, colored pictures of the temple, learned about being worthy to hold a temple recommend someday and received their very own pretend one and listened to King Benjamin.

Right now we are in the busy month of May which is usually soccer time. We have a few weeks left, but Dylan and Lola are loving it. I will post pictures for May soon!

little creations for here and there.

I sat down this morning to make a couple of printouts for the house. We did a big cleaning out of the girls' room last night and my plan is to have a grouping of pictures on one of the walls. I really love all the "chalkboard" creations that I've seen so much lately, so I decided to create my own! I used this great tutorial to help me learn how to do it.

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After painting and rearranging the family room I had an extra smaller bulletin board, so I decided to hang it in my laundry room. I hung up a few pages of homemade cleaning recipes and tips and tricks, but I also wanted to find a great "laundry quote" to hang on the board too. I found this one and it was perfect. This one is smaller - 4x6. Just something small. 

Christmas Traditions

Well, here it is. The Christmas post. And I must say that this year, Christmas was a special one. For the past few years we have stayed home for Christmas. It was getting too hard traveling in wintertime and trying to pack everything, etc. So over the past couple of years we have tried to pick and choose those traditions that we want to continue each and every year. There are so many wonderful ideas out there, but when I try to do too much I find myself worrying about the wrong things, and forgetting to just enjoy the beautiful Christmas season. 

One thing I tried last year was to have a little advent of activities for the family to do for each day in December. I included things that we already did like going to get the Christmas tree, going to the Creche,  looking at Christmas lights etc. and it didn't turn out too well. Because plans change, things come up, or sickness shows up. So this year I decided to not do that. Instead I made a list of ideas and activities that we always do and then a couple of things that we wanted to try this year. Then we have the list to decide when we want to do them. It's a bit more spontaneous that way. And that's why I said before that our Christmas this year was "special". I love the Christmas season and the special spirit that it brings. Trying to plan ahead and make sure that we were keeping up on our daily activities took away from that for me. This year was more laid back and enjoyable. Here are the traditions that we have kept up over the years. Some are from when Allen and I were kids and some are ones that we've started as a family.

Traditions:

(In no particular order)

1.    Attending the Creche together at the church - early December

       -We have had the kids perform a musical number and piano piece with the Monson family. Then            we enjoy all the beautiful nativities, family room, and Nativity photo shoot.

2.    Have kids make teacher and friend gifts - deliver.

3.    Kids winter concert at school.

4.    Letters to Santa

5.    Make and decorate gingerbread houses. (this one was new this year and has been added to our         permanent list!)

6.    Make the traditional Christmas goodies.

7.    Take the kids to get small gifts for each other. (They LOVE this and enjoy trying to keep them a  secret from each other)

8.    12 days of Christmas in a can for a family in need.

9.    Drive around town and look at Christmas lights while listening to Christmas music.

10.  Read the stories of the Christmas each night of December from our family "Jesus Book".

11.  Go to the Woodbury tree farm just outside of town and go hunting for the perfect Christmas tree.

12.  Have the kids put their own ornaments on the tree.

13.  The Sunday before Christmas we take around a mini loaf of cinnamon swirl bread to friends. For   those we don't get on that day we do the rest on Christmas Eve. We've to spread it over two outings to get those who weren't home the first night.

14.  Christmas Eve dinner of clam chowder and bread bowls. (Johns family tradition)

15.  Christmas Eve night we have the kids open one gift which is always new pjs. They go put them on and then we read the Christmas story together and play and sing Christmas carols on the piano together. 

16.  Just before bed on Christmas Eve the kids bring out their quilts that I made for them when they were born to pick out their "corners". A place on the floor in the living room to sit and open their presents. (Chamberlain family tradition)

17.  Cookies and milk and a letter to Santa.

18.  Stockings before presents.

19.  Kids open their one present from "Santa". This is usually a gift off their wish list to Santa. We use different wrapping paper and different tags for these gifts.

20.  Listen to Herb Albert and the Tiahana Brass Band while we open presents. 

21.  I play "Santa" and hand out the presents to the kids to open in their corners. We take it slow and let them open their presents, let them walk around to see what was opened in a different corner, and enjoy the sounds of excitement for what they got and what they got each other.

22.  Cinnamon Rolls and breakfast casserole for breakfast Christmas morning.

23.  Yummy Christmas dinner and pies and goodies for later. 

24.  For books each night we read Christmas themed books to the kids before bed. They each get to pick one.

25.  Make snowflakes out of paper.

Wow. That was fun to rethink over our Christmas fun this year. It's nice to have Christmas day to have a messy living room, let the kids enjoy their gifts and enjoy each other, make and eat yummy food, and watch Christmas specials. It really is a special time of year to do fun things with family and friends. And to celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. Each year as the kids get older we can see how much more they understand the reason for the Christmas season and why it feels so different from the rest of the year. I'm always sad to put the Christmas music away because I really enjoy having music about the Savior playing each and every day and having the kids singing along to it. It's a good thing there is Primary music. :) We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and are enjoying this new year so far. I can't believe that January is almost over. The kids are excited about Valentine's Day already! 

Just for a bit of current news and happenings around here: Dylan has his first Basketball game tonight and he is so SO excited. He LOVES to play and practices all the time out in the driveway. I am his assistant coach and it's been fun going to practices together. It sure has brought back a lot of memories of going to practices when I was in AAU and played in high school!

The girls started gymnastics last week and they are loving it. It has been so fun for them. I'm very grateful that they have the opportunity to do gymnastics. Although, my couch is now being used as a trampoline/vault/tumbling mat. But oh well. It's good for them. :)

P.S. I forgot to mention what I got for Christmas.  My loving and rad husband got me a KitchenAid stand mixer. Oh bliss! I have wanted one for years and he has been wanting to get me one for years, but it just wasn't doable. But oh how he surprised me this year! I have a smile on my face every time I use it. Even when I'm cleaning it! Thanks babe. :)

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camping...finally.

We finally did it!  The kids have been hounding us to go camping all summer. And we just hadn't been able to yet, because of so many other things going on, but we finally did it. Friday we went out to Kamiak Butte with the Monson's and it was so much fun and Isaac was a little ball of dirt within 30 minutes of getting to our campsite. The kids were ready and excited to help setup up the tents and get their sleeping bags in place. Allen and I have decided that the time has come to add a bigger tent to our camping supplies. It took us a bit to get the sleeping arrangements figured out, but the kids love sleeping together in their tent! There is also a playground at the park area and we walked the trail to get to it. Along the way we found a little amphitheater where the kids performed several "shows" for us.

Because it is so dry this time of year, we could not start a fire, but we could do charcoal, which was fine since it wasn't that chilly out. We had yummy foil dinners and then s'mores and dutch oven peach cobbler for dessert. YUM.

Me and the kids got to the campsite earlier, so after we got the tents up we colored and played card games while we waited for everyone. "Slamwich" is a super fun game!

Isaac was holding his orange crayon too, just seconds before I could get this picture taken, but he put it down before I could get the shot.

The boys found the water hole, which was probably good because they sure needed a hose down!

Isaac roasting his first marshmallow. He was so funny walking around with it, banging it on the ground, sticking it in the ash, and pretending to roast it. It looked pretty interesting when I found it on the ground a little while later.

Waiting for a yummy mountain man breakfast. 

Isaac and Dallin loved playing in the back of the truck. Except I had trouble getting him out for breakfast.

anticipation.

The last few days have been very HOT and it doesn't look like it's going to cool off for awhile either. Something that I noticed this morning as a result of the heat as I was watering the flower beds was the growth of my hollyhocks. I noticed a little pink peaking out! I am so very excited for these flowers to bloom. My anticipation for them has now heightened more than ever! It's amazing to watch as flowers grow from starts or seeds into beautiful parts of nature that is so lovely to look at at. So I don't really mind the heat too much since it's bringing all the flowers and garden plants out for us all to see.