Gingerbread creation splendor

I love the creations that come to fruition during our annual gingerbread house building.  Plus, who doesn't love doing anything they possibly can--WITH CANDY!?  

Rhett and I made a candy house and candy family having a snowball fight. (Apparently, according to Rhett, the rolo head on the roof is Grandpa--cause he's crazy like that)

 Ha ha! Look at that scowl on Jess' face...I don't remember what that was about.  He decided to go rogue this year and he bought a KIT!  WHAT?  So anyway Jess and Kade put theirs together.  And it was lovely.

I was WAY impressed with Luke's sledding hill! His construction was awesome and all the ideas were his.  Loved it!

 Pretty.  I especially loved their cobblestone ('candystone') path leading to the door.

 Okay...so this needs major explaining...and I don't know all of it...but what I do know goes like this.  When they were in St. George...they saw some gingerbread houses displayed.  They talked about it after and thought one in particular was really great.  Then when they started constructing it (Mom doing the pretty cake you see on the right and Dad with the gingerbread man hanging on the left....) they realized they had seen two very different pieces.....  SO, they combined them.---it's a type of Morbid Birthday Cake---maybe Deathday Cake?  They're so funny!

Scott did Lehi's dream.  Complete with Great and Spacious Building and Tree of Life and Iron Rod.

First snow of the season

 Hooray for snow!!!

 The first snow of the season was a great hit!  It was beautiful, light and fluffy!  Max and Rhett had fun jumping on the tramp, sliding down the slide,  and swinging.

   

A regular summer day + the snow

And as always, Max loves eating snow like all his brothers.

A Christmas Carol with Grandma

Mom took the boys out to "A Christmas Carol".  

I wasn't there...so I don't know much about it. But I do know that it's adorable that they did this.  Seriously right?!

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.