Winter Camp

Ben went on his first winter boy scout camp this weekend.  Nate was a good dad and went with him. They spent the night at Crystal Springs.  I was worried that they were going to freeze, but they both said it wasn’t too bad.  The highlights for Ben were going down the waterslide at the hot springs, roasting pizza over the fire, playing truth or dare in the tent, and having a snowball fight in the morning.

I had a bunch of Box Tops to count, so that was how the girls and I spent most of our time while the boys were gone.  On Friday night we watched random TV shows, including Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie (which the girls loved), and played Yahtzee.  Emily rolled two Yahtzees and won with 354 points.  Saturday, we had an Anne of Green Gables marathon while we finished counting Box Tops.  We’ve watched the movies once before, but the girls really loved them this time.  That makes me happy.  Sunday morning I was putting on make-up and Abby came in and started pinching her cheeks to make them pink.  She learned that trick from Emily who learned it from Anne.

12 Year Old Ben

Ben turned 12 years old on Saturday.  He had “the best birthday ever!”  The fun started on Friday night.  The girls watched movies in our bedroom while Nate and I watched The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers with Ben.  He loved the movie and we loved having some one-on-one time with him.  We kept up our birthday balloon tradition, but Ben was still awake at 11:30 when we snuck in his room to hang the balloons so they weren’t really a surprise in the morning.  Oh well.  It’s the thought that counts.  Since his birthday fell on Saturday, he got to open his presents first thing in the morning.  He got everything on his list.  We gave him a new Nerf gun, Nerf darts, a bathrobe, the LOTR Attack on Weathertop Lego set, LOTR piano music, and the Lego LOTR Wii game.  He got a new scooter from Grandpa and Grandma Nelson and the Shelob Attacks Lego set and a framed “Put on the Armor of God” picture from Grandma Reatha.  He couldn’t have been happier with his gifts.  He spent most of the day building Legos and playing his new game on the Wii.  We headed out for linner at Arby’s and then went to Toad’s for some laser tag.  Toad’s was super crowded, but we got in a couple of games of laser tag and some arcade time before heading home.  We finished the night with white chocolate macadamia nut FH’zookies with eggnog ice cream (a repeat of Ben’s birthday treat from last year) and the kids watched Despicable Me and had a slumber party in the movie room.  Ben was a little disappointed that we hadn’t worked any friend time into the schedule, but he got over it.  Sometimes I forget that it is normal for kids to think that spending time with friends is lots better than spending time with family.

Ben was ordained a deacon after church on Sunday.  He invited Nate’s parents and my mom and brother and sisters to come to his ordination.  There were six people in the circle . . . Nate, Bishop Briggs, Bishop Foulger (Ben’s scout leader/inspiration), Grandpa Nelson, Uncle Karl, and Uncle Shane.  We were going to have everyone over for dinner after, but with sickness and other commitments it didn’t work out.  We settled for a nice, low effort evening with our little family.  It was a big day for Ben.  He’s super excited to get to pass the sacrament on Sunday and to go do baptisms for the dead next week.  I’m looking forward to seeing him learn and grow as he takes on more responsibility.  I’m glad that he has Nate as a role model. 

We finished up birthday celebrations with dinner at Firehouse Pizzeria on Tuesday.  Logan is a long way to go for a birthday dinner, but the food was so yummy.  We had a great time and left completely stuffed.  We listened to a talk (Tour De Family) by John Bytheway on the way up and back.  It was a good way to pass the time and the whole family enjoyed/learned from it.

We sure love our Ben.  He is certainly never boring and he keeps us on our toes, but he is a good kid with a good heart.  We’re hoping he’ll be patient with us as we stumble through this new territory of raising an almost-teenager.  

Skiing

Nate took Ben, Emily, and Elise skiing on Thursday night.  On paper it was the perfect time to go.  It was an early out day at school and there was no school on Friday.  Plus, there was a brief break in the cold snap on Thursday.  It worked out mostly great.  Along with the warmer weather came one of the biggest snow storms of the year.  The wind and snow made for less than ideal skiing conditions for the first couple of hours, but the rest of the night was good.  The kids really love skiing with their dad and they are getting better and better every time.  There always seems to be a little drama when they go.  This time it was Elise’s cold hands/feet (again), Emily twisting her knee, and Nate leaving the girls in the lodge for 38 minutes (they kept track) to warm up while he and Ben did a couple of runs up the big hill.  Drama aside, they had a really fun night together.

Abby and I had big plans of what we were going to do while they were gone.  Our first stop was to get haircuts.  Then we were going to do some shopping and go out to dinner.  The storm started just as we were leaving and by the time we got to our hair appointment, I realized that we probably should have just stayed home.  The roads we so bad that we tossed all of our other plans out the window.  When our hair was done, we headed to Jody’s house.  We stayed there for a couple of hours and seriously considered just spending the night.  In the end, we decided to brave the roads and come home.  I don’t think I got past 35 mph on the freeway.  There was so much snow on the road that I couldn’t see any lane lines.  Luckily, Abby wasn’t the least bit concerned about our safety and she jabbered on and on the whole way home.  I was glad she was there to keep me company and keep me calm.  I was double glad when Nate and the kids made it home off the mountain an hour later.  I love the feeling of having everyone safe and warm under the same roof when it is wintery outside.

Year in Pictures

2011, 2010, 2009, 2008

12-12-12

All of the other triplicate dates of the last decade have come and gone without any particular notice in this house, but I decided to make 12-12-12 a cool day.  Maybe it is because 12 is my favorite number, or maybe it was because I knew it was our last chance for a triple date in our lifetime, but I was determined to make it memorable.  Nate and I made a list of 12 things to do to make the day special.  It turned out to be a great family day.  We were completely worn out by the end of it, but we had lots of fun.

1) French toast: This wouldn’t be so special for kids whose moms make breakfast every day, but since I’m not one of those moms, it was a treat for our kids.  Nate was home from work, so he made his super yummy French toast to start off our day.

2) Sprite: Having pop with a meal is rare in this house and the only time the kids get one in their lunch is on a field trip day, so having a can of Sprite in their lunch bags was very cool. I liked that 12 ounces fit the 12-12-12 theme perfectly.

3) Dentist: Nate scheduled our dentist appointments months ago.  I was bugged that we would be doing something so lame on such a cool date, but rescheduling six dentist appointments is no easy task (I tried).  Then I remembered that some of our loony kids actually like going to the dentist, so we just added it to our list.  Clean teeth are good and our kids still get excited about the little toys they get from the prize machines at the dentist’s office.

4) Movie: We picked up Arthur Christmas from Redbox for the kids to watch on the way down to Salt Lake. We only do DVDs in the van on really long trips, so it qualified as out of the ordinary.

5) Gardner Village: We took the kids to Gardner Village to do their Elf Scavenger Hunt.  It was a bonus that there were 12 elves on the list.  We had fun finding them all and stopped into the Naborhood Bakery for some cookies when we were done.

6) Scheels: Nate had heard about how cool this store was and wanted to check it out.  The kids were not disappointed.  There were lots of fun things to see: the fish tank, the talking presidents, and the giant sculptures. The biggest hits were the Ferris wheel, all of the animals, and the guns.  Ben loved the guns.  He was pretty sure that Scheels was the kind of store where James Bond would shop.

7) Arby's: Chicken Bacon Swiss, Roast Beef Sandwiches, and Curly Fries.  Mmm.

8) Temple Square: We did a quick trip through Temple Square to see the lights and nativities.  I never cease to be amazed by how much time it must take to string lights on ever single branch of those trees.  We stopped in the tabernacle just in time for the acoustic demonstration. It’s impressive that you can literally hear a pin drop from 100 feet away.

9) Macy’s candy windows: We walked over to City Creek Center to check out the candy windows at Macy’s.  There were only six displays, but they were incredible. As an added bonus, we got free samples of hot ice cream from Farr’s on the way there.  Yummy!

10) Boondock's: The kids each got a free game of laser tag as a prize from their school fundraiser, so we stopped in to redeem them.  I forgot to take our Happenings coupon that would have made mine and Nate’s admission half price, so I decided to just help Abby with her gun.  It was a good choice.  Their guns are a bit trickier than most and she wouldn’t have done so well on her own.  We had $20 in arcade credits from Nate’s work party, so we let each of the kids spend $5.  Abby blew through hers in no time.  Emily and Elise took FOREVER to use theirs.  It was a major time warp.  We won enough tickets to get three little bags of Skittles.

11) Krispy Kreme: This stop was originally #5 on our list, but when we stopped at 2:30 they were completely out of glazed donuts.  They said that they had a bigger response than they expected to their BYGO free offer.  We didn’t make it back until 9:45 to pick up our 2 dozen hot and fresh donuts. 

12) Wendy's: Our last stop of the day was to get Jr. Frosties from Wendy’s.  I’m pretty sure that eating them was the only thing that kept the kids awake for those last few miles.  They were all completely exhausted!

Elise's New Bike

Elise won a bike at school yesterday.  A couple of weeks ago they had the kids fill out a little packet about school lunch (just a few coloring/activity pages) and the kids who turned them in were entered into a drawing.  Not very many kids turned theirs in, so the odds were in her favor.  She was pretty confident that she was going to win, but I kept telling her not to get her hopes up.  I guess she showed me.  Lucky girl!

Halloween 2012

We had a pretty low effort Halloween at this house.  We had listened to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on the way to and from California, so the kids were totally okay with reprising the Harry Potter Halloween theme from last year.  I felt a little lame after the fact for having them wear the same costumes two years in a row, but it was really nice to not have to buy or make costumes this year.  We were slackers and didn’t do a family party or anything else very special this year.  We’ll call it our reset year.  We did carve pumpkins.  The kids all had very strong opinions about what they wanted to carve and did the bulk of the work on their own.  They needed just enough help to keep me busy moving from one to the other all night (except Emily who did hers on her own from start to finish).  When everyone was done, I carved my quality pumpkin in three minutes flat so it could make the photo shoot on the porch.

Emily and Elise were awake at 6:30 on Halloween morning.  Since we had an hour to kill, we did cute Gryffindor nails to go with their costumes.  The kids had the Halloween parade and class parties at school.  When they got home, we ran down to Lee’s for their trick-or-treating event and then waited around for it to be time to go trick-or-treating.  I took the kids to a few houses in our neighborhood and then we met up with friends.  Ben and his friends ventured out on their own while Wendy, Claudy, and I went around with the girls.  They were troopers and we covered lots of ground.  It was unseasonably warm (70 degrees) and the girls got really hot in their fleece Hogwarts robes.  They are already planning on having lightweight costumes next year so they won’t overheat.  It will probably snow. :)

The kids got tons of candy.  They all had a box of “candy sticks” that looked just like candy cigarettes that I used to buy when I was a kid.  I showed them how I used to pretend to smoke them and followed up with a quick reminder that “I don’t care if you pretend to smoke candy cigarettes, but never smoke the real ones.”  I might have created a monster with Abby.  She came in Thursday morning “smoking” a Kit Kat.

Snowman and Blanket Fort

We had an early snow storm last week.  It corresponded perfectly with an early out day for the kids.  Abby and her friends wanted to play in the snow and recruited me to help them build a snowman.  Being the lazy mom that I am, I delegated that honor to Emily.  She wasn't thrilled about it, but she had fun once she got out there with them.  I got a picture of their finished snowman just in the nick of time since Abby's friends knocked it over four seconds later. 

Despite her initial reluctance, Emily apparently didn't get her fill of snowman building with just one.  She made her own mini snowman on the front porch.

The cold weather kept the kids inside for most of the weekend.  Nate was a cool dad and helped the girls build a blanket fort to play in.  They even suckered him into letting them sleep in it on Saturday night.  He moved the piano benches in for extra support and made them a bed out of some foam pads.  They thought it was the coolest thing ever.  Abby moved into Grandma's bed before she fell asleep and ended up on the couch.  Probably a good thing since it was pretty tight quarters for all three girls and she is infamous for being a sleep kicker.