Let the Christmas festivities begin!

Friday, December 16th Samantha had a half time show for the Logan High School basketball game.  I took a video so we'll see if I can get it to upload.

Saturday, December 17th Nash had his last basketball game.  Apparently they lost...badly.  After Nash & Travis got home from the basketball game, we headed for Manti.  We had the Whitlock Christmas party on Saturday night.  We definitely felt Grandpa Charlie's absence.  It was a good, fun party though.
All 8 of the great grandsons got chaps.  A bunch of leather and buckskin was found after the funeral that Grandpa Charlie had been holding onto.  The leather was taken to my Grandpa Russ to make chaps out of. I didn't get Prestin, Kash or Talon in the picture.  The boys LOVED their chaps.  Especially my boys.  My boys wore them the rest of the night and part of the day on Sunday.  You should have heard all the boys change their voice, their vocabulary and their swagger.  I think Caleb has the best swagger!  They kept stealing Trav's cowboy hat to wear while they played with their chaps on!

All 9 great granddaughters got buckskin purses.  I didn't get Kenzie, Peyton, Brookelyn, Olivia or Savara in the picture.  The girls were thrilled with their purses.  Especially Samantha.  She had seen the purses as Grandpa Russ worked on them and kept telling him and me how much she wanted one.  They wore them around the rest of the night as they played dress ups!

Olivia and Brookelyn sure played cute together.  You'd never know these two were only 3 days apart and that Olivia was older.  Brooke weighs more, sits up by herself and likes to stand on her legs.  Not Liv!  They played really cute together though.

On Sunday we had the Christmas party with the Bowns.  Santa Clause came as we were finishing up dinner.  Caleb was excited to see him.  It was cute to watch him wait so patiently to get his turn.

 Sam was a bit embarrassed to get on Santa's lap.  Not sure why.

 Nash was a little shy too.  He got off as quick as he could!  I was lucky to get a picture of him!

 Brookelyn, as you can see, DID NOT like Santa.  I didn't figure she'd have a problem because she did so well with the Santa at the mall.  Boy was the a wrong assumption!

Despite not liking Santa too much, she did like her present.  She was pretty content to just sit and play with it all wrapped up for awhile.

Nash got a Nerf gun from the cousin that had his name.  (Yes, Samantha has been shot - it the face, by Caleb) with said gun since we got home.)

 Caleb got some new Legos.  He's already been building with them too!

 Brooke loved this little camera.  It talks, plays a bit of music and has blinking lights.  She sits and plays with it in her walker for quite awhile.

 Nash & Caleb also got little ATV's and a guy from Grandpa and Grandma Butter.

 All the great granddaughters got new night gowns from Great Grandma Butter.  They all look so cute!  Sam LOVES these jammies from Grandma Bown.  She has had several over her lifetime and she wears them until I take them away and put them in the too small box.  Even then she gets a bit miffed if I put them away!

These last pictures were taken on Friday night.  Trav's mom has a bear for every year since 1980-something.  The collection takes over the entire front room.  We have a picture of the other kids in with all the bears so I thought we'd better get at least one with Brooke!

Today was my last day of work until Jan. 3rd.  Tomorrow I plan to get the house cleaned and then I can do all my baking done on Thursday & Friday so they can be delivered on Saturday.  Got to finish the last little Christmas sewing too!

Phone Photo Dump

Yesterday as we were on our way home from Manti, I realized I had about 60 photos on my phone.  The more photos on my phone, the fewer text messages my phone can hold before I have to start erasing.  So, I texted myself a bunch of pictures.  I think I may have posted some of these before, but, oh well!

Little sister has recently discovered her tongue.  It's pretty funny to watch her when she gets it going.  Good, old fashioned, cheap entertainment!

Trav's mom sent this build a snowman thing home with us a week or so ago.  It's like a window cling, but stickier.  Yes, it's stuck to my door.  No, it hasn't pulled paint off.  No, Caleb hasn't torn it down since it went up.  Yes, Caleb has rearranged the snow flakes.  No, Samantha is not holding Brookelyn - it's a doll!

This is one from preschool from quite awhile ago.  My mom picked Caleb up after preschool & sent me this picture.  It's so cute.  He still has the bandanna and eye patch and loves to go around saying, "Hey matie!"  Cracks me up when he goes pirate!

Little sister with some more tongue action going on.  She thinks it's quite hilarious when we all start laughing at her.

Just being extra happy in the tub.  This was quite awhile ago too.  I got rid of the sponge after Caleb saw it in the bathroom sink & decided he wanted to pee on it.  Yes, it was in the sink & Caleb PEED on it.

I know I posted about Nash's staple incident.

Caleb got this hat when his preschool class went on a field trip to the fire station here in Hyrum.  He wore that sucker around for like a week!

My sister in law crocheted this hat.  I think it's adorable.  Caleb was modeling it for us & whipped out this "scary face" for us.

Brookelyn's 7 month photos

On Saturday I took Brookelyn with me to the boutique I was doing.  Lucky I did.  Everest Photography was there.  They are based in Logan.  I paid $5 for the sitting.  He took TONS of pictures.  I was able to jump online tonight & view all the pictures he took.  I could buy whatever pictures I wanted for $6 each - that $6 releases the copyright so I can print them myself.  I ended up buying 11 of them.  They are all adorable.  I saved all the pictures to a folder on the website & may go back & buy more.  I didn't get Brookelyn's 6 month pictures done, so we did 7 month pictures instead!  She was sooo happy the entire shoot too!

With Miss Sunny June

Just look at her grin!

This hat was of of theirs:

The girls were too funny together.  Sunny kept pulling the hats off.  She was like, "Here.  Let me help you.  You've got a little somethin' on your head!"

I love the raised eyebrow:

Christmas Festival at AWHC

About a week ago I got the Val Pak coupon package in the mail.  There was a flyer announcing the American West Heritage Center's Christmas Festival.  It had a bunch of things listed that would be going on.  I thought it sounded fun so I saved the flyer thinking I might take the kids.  Come Friday I decided we'd brave the weather and go check it out.  Since I took my donation for the food pantry we each got in for $5.

In the mail building where we bought our tickets they had a chocolate tasting.  It was kind of a goofy thing calling it that.  For each wrist band you had (we had 4) you got to pick 1, yes 1, item on the table to have with some chocolate.  I picked a 1x1 piece of fudge.  Nash just wanted an Oreo without any chocolate.  Sam picked an apple slice with caramel.  Since Caleb was zonked out in the stroller we picked out 1/2 a chocolate chip cookie for him.  Yes, I could have spent another $2 and gotten another 7 items from this fantastic "chocolate tasting", but I did just feed my kids and it did cost me $20 to get in.  Now if it had been something awesome, like a chocolate fountain and strawberries, I might have given it a bit more serious consideration.

This picture was in the main building.  Caleb was passed out COLD.  He was so excited to go but he was pretty tired too.  He fell asleep on our way there and didn't wake up until just before we were ready to leave.  Brooke is bundled up pretty good -you can see some eyeballs- (and stayed under her blanket until we walked back to the Expedition).

You had to walk around the entire farm to get to the different buildings that had stuff going on.  There was a wagon ride, but we couldn't ever manage to catch it when it was loading passengers.  I was ok with that though because I didn't want to unload a sleeping Caleb & try to carry Brooke.  I also didn't want to sit and wait in the cold with Brooke while Sam & Nash went for a spin.

We ventured out to the wood working building.  You could purchase any of the things in there that were for sale.  It was kinda cool to see inside that building because we hadn't ever been inside it before.  As we were walking out Samantha realized the giant piece of wood by the door was actually a coffin.  I think it creeped her out a bit!

We stopped in the barn for a gander at the live nativity scene.  The kids could dress up like shepherds if they wanted to.  Neither one wanted to though, so we were off again.

In the livery barn they had several vendors.  We chatted with my friend Mandy (who does Make it with Mandy night through On the Avenue).  The kids got to see Santa & Mrs. Claus while we were in here.  This was a GOOD Santa.  I was impressed.

After we were done at the livery barn, we went into the Mercantile.  It was kinda cool to see what was in there as I hadn't been in that building before either.  You could buy any of the stuff they had for sale in there too.  But, much like the rest of AWHC, I felt like everything was over priced.

After we left the Mercantile, I was able to find my way to the 1917 farm.  There was suppose to be candy cane making in here.  I was excited to see that.  In fact, that was the reason I decided to go!  I thought it would be really cool to see.  Once we got inside there were gingerbread cookies for the kids to decorate.  Now, when I say gingerbread cookies, I'm not talking a decent size cookie here.  I'm talking the size of a quarter....literally.  This is when Caleb finally woke up.  The little man had one cookie I helped him frost.  Then, when we went in the other room and were waiting for Nash to finish stringing his popcorn & cranberries he decided he wanted another one so Sam went with him to get one.  They came back & he ate it before he decided he wanted a third.  So, I told Sam she could take him back in to get one more.  A few seconds later the poor kid was crying.  Apparently the girl in the kitchen told him he couldn't have another one.  Now, I get why.  But seriously?  He's 3 and your cookies are the size of a quarter.  Not to mention we only saw about a dozen people in the 2 hours we were there.  It's not like they were going to run out of cookies.  So, I was annoyed.  I had to finally convince Nash that it was time to go (he was really into stringing that popcorn & cranberry string!).  Caleb finally quit crying once we were out of the farm house and headed back to the Expedition.  Poor kid.  I think he was slightly traumatized.  I don't think it helped that I made these cinnamon/apple sauce gingerbread men cutouts the other day that aren't cookies, but rather air fresheners.  I keep telling him they aren't to eat but he does anyway!   Guess I need to make some gingerbread cookies for the poor kid!

So, after about 2 hours, some freezing time outdoors, and traumatizing Caleb over quarter sized gingerbread cookies, we headed home.  I think the kids had a good time.  It was nice to get out and do something.  Since there weren't a ton of people it wasn't crazy insane like I thought it might be either.  I would have taken them today (during the day when it was warmer), but I was doing a boutique all day & knew Friday night would be our only chance!  Today was the Hyrum Holiday at Hardware.  I took the kids last year and they had a great time.  I wish we could have made it today.  Guess that will have to go on the list with go to SLC to see the lights on temple square when dad comes home!