It's sledd'n time!

SLEDDING.IS.AWESOME!

It was such the perfect day for sledding. There was no wind, and the snow was fresh!  Woo Woo. We decided to try out a new hill by our house.  It's awesome...only it's also like a giant bowl...so mostly every just crashes into each other at the bottom.  BUT--besides that--it was awesome :)

Something that is miraculous in kids, that you don't see in adults:

They make friends in an instant!

About 20 minutes after we got to the hill, about 5 different groups of kids who didn't know each other before that day, attached themselves together to form a giant train going down the hill.

Of course they crashed and burned at the bottom of the hill.

And of course they laughed about it and tried again and again.

I want to be more like them.

Kade was awesome and used his sled as a snowboard...biffing it a few times, but surprisingly not too many!  Snowboarding on a sled is not easy (I tried...and bit it hard 2 times....the 3rd time was a bit more successful but my last time--I bruise easy :)

Rhett was risky and tried going down backwards time and time again. (which...as I mentioned before--scary and dangerous on account of the whole 'bowl' affect)

"okay--now BOYS, stand still up here, I wanna take a quick picture!" But see that little guy at the bottom...I wasn't 'quick' enough for him.....wait for it...

wait....("kade-luke--DON'T move!")  wait...

BOOM!  (it was so hard to get this lil shot...)

 It's like they wanted to SLED and not get their picture taken or something?  weird.

They're so special.

Date Night with Georgia Friends!

Once upon a time there were 8 great friends.  They lived in Georgia, all serving in the US military.  Then one by one they all left the military and moved to Utah (well, except the Galans--but New Mexico's kinda close :)  And then they all got together often and hung out and had a great time living happily ever after.

 Crazy right?  Anyway--we did make some incredible friends during our time in the military and I find it insane that so many live so close!

The 4 couples met at Texas Roadhouse (mmmmmmmm) for dinner, and laughing and catching up!  Then off to Seven Peaks Fun Center for LASER TAG and general AWESOMENESS!

Intensity during the skeleton pirate shooting game...they're not messing around!

DDR!!!  I really do love that game!  Along with our group playing Deal or No Deal (ha ha--I was such bad luck!  I should never ever play that game!)  Also we took turns in the laser room (picture mission impossible and smokey rooms with lasers--it's rad.)  

And several rounds of Laser Tag (I may or may not be the worst shooter of the bunch...okay...it's 'may')

And headed back to Kelly's house for dessert and hanging out.  

Fun, fun, fun!

Pencils are dumb

So you know this adorable little guy?  So he stabbed the roof of his mouth with a pencil 

  He was holding a pencil and tripped off the bottom stair!—jabbing it into the roof of his mouth as he hit the ground!!! Luke and Rhett saw it happen and called me downstairs.  There was minimal blood but the wound was really large.  Probably ½ inch by ¼ inch wide.  He recovered well and was acting normal soon after. (Even opening his mouth repeatedly to show a shocked mother how bad it really looked.... )

Then when Jess got home that night from Scouts I showed him the picture and he got really worried (on account of the possible problems associated with jabbing a hole clear through to the sinus and what not....) so we called the Nurses line wondering if we should take him into the doctors before the next morning.  They said the location of the wound mattered but that bringing him in the morning would be fine. 

I was worried but knew he had to wait, and asked Jess to give Max a blessing.  He did and in the blessing Max was told that his body would heal well.  

The next morning when we went to the doctor, you could barely see it.  It had connected back together and was a little white but not infected or anything.  When the doctor looked at the picture from the night before he said, “This is extremely better then that photo shows!” He said it in a way, that seemed like he didn’t believe that the picture was taken so recently.  Max had  NO problems with it at all.  

I KNOW the priesthood is God’s power on the earth.  Max has been my little proof child of that.  

Real Thanksgiving at the Winns

Hooray for living by family.  We had our 3rd, and final and official Thanksgiving with Jess' family in Evanston.  When we head up there we always stay a chunk and this one was Friday-Sunday.

The food was WONDERFUL, with the highlights (as always) being the sweet potatoes and pie's--but Andrea's salad was a huge hit too :) (that was a little joke on account of the fact that she brought it to Grandma Veda's--no one touched it, and then again on Friday--with no takers again-HA!  She was a hoot about it.  But really--who has room on their plate for green salad on a day like Thanksgiving? Love you Andrea)

Speaking of Andrea--she's a kids dream cause she'll play their favorite games!  Here she is playing Clue--Harry Potter with the kiddos.

Emily and Lucas playing Battleship--adorable!!! (have I mentioned I love being by so much family?)

A little bit more of DDR!  Woo Woo!

Jess and Riley--and all the kids-- cleaned the cars!  Which was AWESOME!  The winter's a doozy with all the kids tracking snow and rocks and mud into the fan all the time--plus with every one's favorite things cluttering up the seats from the drive up--it was sooooo nice to get in afterwards. 

Thanks Jess.  

Luke making his specialty Luke-Aronie and Cheese with Grandma.

 LEFT OVERS!!! YAY!!!!  Also Andrea's so so pretty.

Andrea taking Max out for some fun....ha ha ha!  The second picture cracks me up...it was dark and I didn't see the picture until after it was taken--Andrea happy--Max super sad.  I don't remember why--he got over it, but it's a funny picture regardless.

Ahhh--cousins watching Planes (lame movie btw) together. Adorable!

1st and 2nd Thanksgiving 2013

One of the greatest things about Holidays by family, is that you get to celebrate them soooo many times!  We had our first Thanksgiving with Mom, Dad and Scott the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Here are the boys 'helping' mom prepare the turkey.

On Thanksgiving Day, Jess' mom was going to do a small Thanksgiving for her parents and we'd all come up for a Thanksgiving at her house on Friday.  Jess and his sisters went to visit as well that day (so fun to just have the siblings there without distractions (cough, cough...kids...cough).  So that day me and the boys just played and had an AWESOMELY WONDERFUL Thanksgiving.  It started with helpers for the stuffing and pie's I was making.... 

and whipping cream helpers....

And while I cleaned up, they drew a picture of a tree and leaves so we could write down all the things we were thankful on it until Christmas (which we did okay with for a few weeks even! :) But the tree was rad.

Then after Max was down for a nap we partied hard.  We played Dance Dance Revolution (I love this game).  Luke chose to play 'Life'.  Now, so often as adults we get out all the snacks and chips and candy and just ruin our appetites for other meals by gorging ourselves right?  But I never let my kids do that (setting healthy habits and what not...) but we threw that to the wind and seriously...it was so fun to just let them snack and eat and play and laugh.  Nowhere else to be, just playing.
I honestly loved it so much!  

Then Rhett chose Ultimate Hide and Seek--Sardines style!  Which was rad because it was dark by then and we turned off all the lights in the house--each of us equipped with a flashlight, and hid.  (Sardines is my favorite cause--how fun is that to all hide together in the end!)

It was one of the best Thanksgivings ever.

Kade's 10th birthday

Isn't he such a big kid?  I mean seriously!  He's so grown up and big and 10!!!  Wowza!  I just love this boy SOOO MUCH!

Kade’s birthday was a little bit sad this year.   The Saturday before his birthday, Jess and I had planned to take Kade out to Seven Peaks Fun Center for some arcading and LASER TAGGING.  We had our babysitter all set, and then.....Rhett threw up….  So we decided to move it to Kade’s actual birthday so we wouldn't have to leave Rhett.  Kade was bummed about it, but understood.  (Rhett threw up like a gajillion times that evening and Luke started in on it too so it was a good call)

But then the next evening…me and Mom started our turn with throwing up.  Kade woke up bright and early on his birthday--and I was able to pull it together enough for him to open his presents.   Mom apparently heals faster then me (probably on account of her voodoo oils J) and did sooooooooo many great and amazing and nice things for me that day.  She picked up donuts in the morning so Kade could bring them for his class. I didn’t want to make the cake feeling so gross, so I ordered one from Maceys and Mom picked it up for me.  She got Max and Rhett lunch and…ahh—seriously—she was so so great.

ANYWAY, it made me so so sad not go on the birthday date with Kade, but so happy that Jess wasn’t sick (yet) and could take him out.  They did have a GREAT time too.  They went around the arcade systematically to see which games paid out the most tickets.  Jess said Kade was just so so so happy the whole time.  They won like 2,500 tickets too!  Kade bought a gift for all of his brothers with his tickets (he’s sweet like that) and a big plush mace (with which to beat his brothers with :)

Jess in the mean time was loving being with Kade so much but trying to hold it together as he was coming down with the Fun Bug as well.  They picked up Papa Johns Pizza on the way home and came home to a bunch of sickies who only wanted soup….

Anyway—nobody was hungry for cake-not even Kade, so the evening was spent with him reading his new book from Grandma Winn (House of Hades) and me laying next to him like a slug.  

The next evening we lit the candles and had his birthday cake from Maceys.

A couple of weeks later Andrea took Kade out for his birthday--she's a rad aunt like that.

Kade's 10th year:  He did tons of sports--soccer, wrestling, gymnastics, swimming; he just finished Lego League which was so fun for him, and he loves being in 4th grade (a large part due to the bajillion field trips)!

He loves any chance to babysit the other boys when I'm at gymnastics, he'll surprise me and change little Max's diapers now and again, he LOVES when we let him steer the car, he likes being able to stay up the latest (even if it's just 15 minutes longer then Luke), he still reads all the time, play video games and bacon.  What he doesn't love is sharing a room with all his brothers-on account of his cleaning up their messes a lot.  He's such a responsible little guy.  He's a 30 year old trapped in a 10 year old's body with his maturity level and conversation style.  But also.....not. (see below :)  

He's quick, and witty, and a genius like his dad-- and SO inquisitive!  I feel like my responses to him are an eternal round of,"You know, I bet your dad would know that." or, "That's not true!...Is that true?" 

He tries to make everyone happy.  If a brother is sad, he tries to help.  If someone is crying, he's the first to throw himself to the floor and pretend he's hurt to try and cheer that brother up (so much slap stick around here!)  I LOVE hearing "Mom, do you want to cuddle?" during a movie, or seeing him care for his brothers soooo well and so often.
If Max gets mad at me for something, Kade is the first kid he runs to for
solace. :)

We'll find him creating games for all the boys to play and being silly.  He really enjoys playing with his younger brothers. Whether it be making a snowman, jumping on the tramp, or building forts in their room, he loves them and tries to take care of them.

He also fights with his brothers....the moments are few where he and Luke DON'T have their arms around each others necks (not in a hug) trying to drag the other to the ground.  (So glad for those wrestling lessons :/)..most of the time it turns out happy....sometimes-not so much :)  

Boys will be boys. 

Right?

Here's a pic with just 1 of the 1 trillion guns that he makes, out of tinker toys, every time we go to Grandma Winn's house.

He's way cool :)

(Kade taking time to "taste" his food at Rodizio Grill-ha!) He makes me laugh all the time.  He remembers every funny thing from every movie and cracks me up with his movie quotes a lot--

plus he's silly--I like that.

He's a boys boy!  (snake in jar)

Also he's adorable in every way and I am soooooooo grateful to be his mom!!!

Brody's baptism--and How Jess Rolls

So our adorable nephew Brody was baptized in November.  HOORAY!!!  

The service was lovely and Emily did an awesome job on her talk (there were like a bazillion baptisms she was in charge of the talk for and she rocked it).  Afterwards was a big family luncheon and lots of people and fun and talk and the what-not. After it calmed down a bit, it was so nice to let the kids play (they formed the "Winn-derson" club last time they got together--ha!  This time the 'Winn-dersons' went to the park with Justin and Melodie to boot.) and just relax out on the front porch during one of the last warm days of the season.

And enjoy some football for the men-folk.  

(This picture is so funny to me for some reason.  4 men, crowded around a solitary laptop, watching a football game, transfixed, and baby on the ground.  I just love it. Later Kade came up and was watching it too. He's getting so grown up.)

Afterwards--Jess was exhausted from not sleeping well the night before.  The only place he could find that he'd be out of the way was here.  In an itty-bitty spot under the stairs--half-way out. 

Ha!  That's how he rolls.