Day 7-3

I've been lazy and haven't even gotten out the camera for our festivities.

Day 7
Coloring Gift Tags

Day 6
Final letters to Santa

Day 5
Drive around and look at Christmas lights

Day 4
Cookies for Santa.

Day 3
Deliver goodie bags

I'm kindof ready for this elf thing to be over:)

Day 12-8

On Day 12, the elf left a note on the couch for the boys to find in the morning, when they got up for school. This is what it said:

"Turns out, I'm needed at the North Pole, so I'll be gone for a few days.
Here's an idea- You should skip school and go somewhere for a few days too!
I hear your Grandma & Grandpa Dial are visiting Idaho,
so that's where you're going to go. Your bags are packed and the car is loaded.
Are you ready?......... Set... GO!!
See you Tuesday. Have a blast. Love- your elf"

I totally blind-sided them and it was awesome!  We drove all day Thursday and stayed in a Hotel in Pocatello that night.  We wanted to be all rested and looking nice for that morning because...The best part of the whole trip was that Grandma & Grandpa didn't know we were coming!  I had one of my brothers do some spying for me, and he found out they were just hanging out for the morning at my Grandparents houses, so we just showed up. My grandpa happened to be standing at the window when we pulled up, and I heard him say "Why, I think that's that bunch from Arizona"  approximately 15 seconds later, my Mom ATTACKED us at the door. It was totally awesome!  Dang I forgot how cold it can be. 23 degrees was a shock to my system! Now were home and on the home-stretch to christmas!

15 hours in the car is a LONG time!

Meeting our new cousin Alexander. He's only a day old.

Dude! It snows here. I forgot that minor detail.

They were determined to make a snowman! It didn't work (obviously!)

They got to "help" feed Uncle Verl's cows.

Playing with cousins & Grandma

Chase was all to happy to shovel the driveway.

Day 14 & 13

Day 14 was Christmas Craft Time.   These are Tanner's, Chasetin's & Sienna's.

Day 13 was new cocoa cups. We drink a serious amount of hot cocoa around here, but don't ever have any cups. So now they each have their own!

Day 15

Today was a Who- Holiday Celebration.

See on Thanksgiving Day, Scott woke up puking, and stayed all day in bed. It was the saddest thing! So today we decided to have Thanksgiving Dinner all over again, but with a fun twist.


We had Roast Beast, Kerfluffal Stuffing, Who-Hash (mashed potatoes), Mt Krumpet Rolls, Who-Berry Relish, Grinch-Bean Casserole and Grinch-Punch (lime sorbet & sprite). For dessert we had Betty Lou Who's Award winning pumpkin pie. 

It was so yummy:)

We interrupt ...

...your regularly scheduled Christmas programming to let you know that Tanner was this Month's "Student of Character"  and the best part is that he didn't even know!

 

Here is what his teacher had to say about him:  "Tanner has been such a great student to have in the classroom because of his tremendous character. He has so many wonderful qualities like caring and helping others, dependable, friendly to all, respectful to his friends and teachers and honest. I am very proud of Tanner and feel very fortunate to be his 1st grade teacher. Keep the great work!"

GOOD JOB BUDDY!!

Day 17 & 16

Day 17 we went to Bass Pro Shop, sounds exciting right??  Here's the thing though... they have the place so decked out, it was amazing!  They have a carousel, santa's village, shooting galleries, rc car racing, and lots of other stuff to do, plus the decor was just incredible. The best part was it was all free!

After that we swung by the Mesa Temple, we hadn't planned on staying at Bass Pro Shop as long as we did, so we were all a little wiped out, plus it was getting a little chilly.. We did a quick walk around saw the lights and called it a night!

Day 16 was Hot Cocoa and Arthur Christmas!

Days 20, 19, 18

On Day 20, we went to the park to play. The elf even told us to skip homework!

Day 19, the elf sent us $10 and told us to go buy new Santa Hats

Day 18, Scott found these Rice Krispie House kits at Walmart. We had fun making them and more fun eating them!

 Here they are planning out their creations while Scott & I make rice krispie treats

 Sienna has obviously, already eaten half of her candies

21 days

Did you get some of our cookies?  (And if you did, I promise none of the ones Sienna made where delivered! She had a lick/decorate method of applying frosting!)

22 days

 When no one was looking I put the box in the fireplace, then left a note on the front door telling the kids that the elf dropped it down the chimney and to look there.  Tanner has decided that tonight, Chasetin is going to watch the fireplace, He's going to watch the front door and Sienna's going to watch the tree, cause we are going to figure out just who this elf is!

In the box was a note saying that Santa says "Hello, but to remember that Jesus is the real reason for the season" There were also some paper presents in there that were for us to use for Family Home Evening and then there was the Elf's favorite Ice Cream for our treat (It's Christmas Cookie and it is SO GOOD AND SO SWEET!). At this point Tanner was convinced that I was the elf, but I told him the elf called me before hand to prepare a family home evening lesson and he seemed to buy it!

We had a lesson on Gifts that WE could give to Jesus. We hung them all on the wall.
I got answers like "Listen to Mom and Dad" "Not fight" "read my scriptures"

 BUT  this one was my all time favorite from Tanner. (He sneaks into his uncles room on Sundays when we are Grandma's house and plays Halo, even though he knows he's not supposed to)  The hilarious part was that after I wrote it down, he said "Aww, man... why'd I say that?

23 days!

 Our ELF left us this present on the door step this afternoon:

 (I've enlisted the help of Chasetin in delivering these boxes because he's still kindof grieving the whole Santa thing:( So he went out the back door, rang the doorbell in the front and then ran like crazy and did a really great job acting totally nonchalant! )

Inside was a letter that said:

23 days, are you excited yet?

How were the jammies? Comfy I bet!

I have a new task for you- 

Look what I found, 

These plain boring ornaments

Just lying around.

I say we decorate them, 

What do you think?

Paint them or fill them or glitter them too.

There's so many choices,

It's all up to you!

Love- Your Elf.

And some clear glass bulbs:

They had a blast painting them. 

Both boys looked at each other and said at the same time "Lego's!!" and ran off to fill one each with legos!  Sienna (after painting her mouth)  took painting her ornament very seriously!

There's 24 Days until Christmas!

I'm probably crazy, but I've come up with a plan for each day in December. Some are small activities, some are bigger things, some are service projects...etc.  This morning was a Christmas Breakfast at our Church, it was a Polar Express theme and the kids were excited to wear their pajamas. I bought them each 2 pair for Christmas (on black friday for $4!!)  So I thought that I'd give them a new pair to wear today.  The "Elf" left them in a box under the tree (the only present under there), with this letter explaining what he was doing:

Inside the box was this little letter and their jammies! (Don't laugh at my poor rhyming abilities)  Or course, They didn't even notice it when they woke up and then Tanner started crying cause he wanted Star Wars, not Batman... but I think they'll get the hang of it eventually....Such is life!

 

It'll be fun to see how sneaky I can be in delivering these packages from the "Elf"

Little League

I complained on facebook a while back that we had entered the "Little League" phase of our lives and I already hated it. When I get handed a list of things I need to purchase ON TOP OF the $80 I paid to have my kid on the team, I start to stress. But now that the shopping is done (pants, cleats, shoes, belt, bat, balls, glove, etc....most of that listed as OPTIONAL, but deemed necessary by Scott & Chase) we can enjoy the season. It started out that practices were from 8-9:30 on school nights. I thought that a little late for my 9 year old, but now that games have started we don't practice any more, so that problem corrected itself.   Chase's team is the "Wildcats" and they wear the University of Arizona colors.  He so excited about all of it, that he's in his uniform the minute he gets home from school (just because) and is talking NON STOP about baseball.  Once the weather cooled down (and got down-right cold and one point) attending games was much more enjoyable.

Chase did really good, and really improved. He got a couple of hits through out the season, but he learned that if he doesn't swing, then most likely he'll get to walk and then run the bases. That seemed to be more fun than taking the risk of striking out. We'll have to work on the for next season!

 "Fall Ball" as it was called is just a learning/practice season for "Spring Ball" which is like real full fledged Little League. He's already begging me to sign him up!

Here's a video of his first game and his very first "hit" if that's what you can call it!!

One last summer Hurrah!

Before school started (umm... over 4 months ago) we took one last weekend trip to the cabin up at Mormon Lake. We always have fun exploring the forest.   This picture of Sienna cracked me up!

 

We found a ton of bones. Some very large creature met a pretty terrible end right there about 100 yards from our cabin door. Yikes!

We always go explore this old rusted out VW bug, it was old and rusty when Scott was a little kid, coming here.

We also found a tire swing, it's not ours, but we enjoyed it anyway.  Thanks to whomever hung that up!