Christmas Eve Fever

We had someone who was very, very sick on Christmas Eve. He had what I like to call Christmas Eve fever. I remember as a child how long Christmas Eve was and how much I wanted to open everything. It was a time of snooping, peeking, getting frustrated and mad, and excited all in one. Peyton had Christmas Eve Fever really badly this year. As you can see in the picture below...he helped Andy open his birthday presents and lets just say in 2 minutes flat he had basically shredded the paper and destroyed our living and was ready for more. It didn't help that he got to open presents, it just ignited the flame. We had actually wrapped presents for Peyton and put them under the tree. However, we ended up actually putting them back into the orange bedroom that has a lock on it. We showed him this present that he got to open but he had to wait until bedtime. We also told him it was a toy so he wouldn't be really disappointed. Well the fever was too much and we knew he couldn't help himself...so we threw it up onto our high ledge that he cannot reach. After I did that, I decided that would be a nice place to display all of his presents next year! The torture just might be enough he would figure out how to pile and stack chairs to get to them! This present stayed there until evening. We then went to my mom's where I found Peyton searching desparately around the tree for any present with his name on it. He then encouraged some followersTo join him...Let's just say that Pam and Pop got them out of there. However, I do believe he peeked into one present! A child after my own heart...The problem is that I know all of the tricks. You can't hide stuff, you just have to lock it away. However, when he gets old enough to pick locks like I can, we might be in trouble! I think we have one more year of him not doing that! Finally he got to open a present for him on Christmas Eve. We had survived the day with minor side effects from the fever. The only way I know how to pacify it is to open a present and go to bed and wake-up Christmas morning. Then after shredding every present and being a little bit sad that there aren't any more, the fever suddenly leaves!

However, we were able to get it to lower just a little bit by the Christmas Eve present he opened! Isn't he cute in his new PJ's! Yes I had to sew the sides so they would stay up! :-)
P.S. -Another symptom is getting caught sneaking into Christmas goodies before lunch and dinner and leaving evidence on your face. This was the Muddy Buddies I made that someone was caught sneaking into that day!

This could provide a little diversion from the real things they want to sneak into!

This Christmas was one of the best ever because Peyton experienced and illustrated all of the joy that is present when a young child believes. I know I can never get that back, but I got to live through it vicariously and it was wonderful...Oh, to be young again!

Christmas Recital

Peyton had his first clogging recital on Saturday. We were a little worried because he had been sick all week. But after a few quick rehearsals at home and working on him not watching the other dancers, he did amazing. Andy and I were amazed at what a little performer he was. He was charming and cute and really quite the stage man. No nerves and really performed well. It was so fun to watch his hard work pay off. This is one of his little friends who he dances with. This is one of my students who Peyton got to know during the play. She also danced at Patty's recital and was amazing. She is a very talented girl and she is very sweet to Peyton...This is Peyton's little class. They are from Hamer, Terreton and Dubois. The other little boy is Jenny William's little boy and it was fun to go back to Patty's and watch them all dance.

After the recital they did a little present exchange. It was really cute because Patty read a left/right story and let's just say it was a little chaotic. Peyton even pegged someone in the head when he was passing and they weren't very happy, but I don't think he meant to, it was just hard to keep up especially with the little ones.


I was very proud of Peyton. He ended up getting a blanket and he asked if he could switch his present. I whispered in his ear to be big and he was fine. I saw a few of the kids crying probably because their present wasn't what they wanted it to be! It was a really fun night and we were very proud of our little toe tapper!

Christmas Party Before Thanksgiving...??

So we had a nice Christmas party before Thanksgiving. I guess I should explain why there is a Christmas party before Thanksgiving. My family always has a Christmas party that one of us is in charge of. This year it was Holly. She will not be here for the holidays, but it was her year to be in charge. She was up for Thanksgiving week and wanted to have her Christmas party. So we all meet at my house. Her theme for the party was to do some old-fashioned things we did when we were kids so that our kids could do it. It was fun. Dad and Jayson are relaxing while everyone tells a Christmas memory. I again heard some of my favorite stories about Christmas. However I'm still waiting for Austin's Christmas memory.

Peyton is working on something that we all did in Mrs. Murdock's class. You take crepe paper and wrap it around your pencil, then did it in glue and make your picture. We ended up making candy canes for a our picture.

This is where Holly is giving everyone a candy plate and getting a little emotional because she won't be here to watch us make the candy. (because we all know she didn't help! :-)

We also did the traditional left/right present exchange. Jay did the honors be reading and I think Dad just kept what he wanted and passed all the rest on.

This is the silence of the lambs snowflake that Peyton made. I thought he did pretty good for his first snowflake.

Pam, Ryan and Dad all made quite a nice long paper chain that ended up in Kyla's room. It turned out very cute.

Carson seranaded us with some Christmas carols...that his dad did not really appreciate. But it was pretty cute!

Holly and Granny are getting Adam going with the crepe paper candy canes.

Working hard with that glue stick!

Angie was put over the scissor patrol because we had a lot of under-age scissor users and Carson kept trying to steal them.

The chain gang!

Peyton's final candy cane picture...It turned out just like I remembered them when we were kids. Thanks for bringing back the memories Holly and Mom! The food was good too! We loved the cheeseball...looking forward to more!

Happy Halloween Weekend

So our Halloween started our really busy. I volunteered to be one of the room moms and was lucky enough to plan and attend Peyton's Halloween party at school. We had a lot of fun. We did pictures in our costumes and a whole class picture. Then each kid lined up for a picture by themselves. We printed out the picture for them to take home. This was the year of the vampire for Peyton. A whole bunch of boys decided they wanted to be a vampire. But Peyton just wanted to be one. Not sure where he got the idea from.

We did a lot of fun activities at his party. We had a fun treasure hunt that led us all over the school. Then did a monster mash musical game. We did a Halloween cup toss. Attempted to decorated a paper plate pumpkin, and also decorated cupcakes. I don't know how kindergarten teachers do it...It required a lot of energy. All in all pretty good for my first party! I even told them a few fun Halloween lies...like the witch's finger breadsticks that I cut off of a witch and the mean pirate who hid their treasure. They believed everything I said...right??? ha!

Peyton liked the decorating the pumpkin cupcake. Then he wanted to wander around and see what everyone else was doing. As you can see we have a lot of busy little kindergarteners.

Our afternoon got even busier because I volunteered to help decorate for the Hamer carnival. We went home, cleaned up a cute little vampire, and then headed back to the school. The carnival was great and it looked very nice too!

The first thing that Peyton wanted to was the bungee run. This is for a little bit bigger kids, but Peyton loved it. You basically run and then it jerks you back...doesn't sound really fun.

Peyton did the pop toss and the dime toss. Andy and I got into the dime toss because were trying to win the book "The Mouse and the Motorcycle". After I tried and tried and won other things, Andy finally after a few tries, actually won the book. I then tried a Koosh toss because I could win these bugs that would crawl up and down the wall which they didn't after I won them...but we had fun anyway. We had two other places we had to be that night so we hurried through as much as we could

Peyton got a carmel apple and bit off all of the caramel. Then he did the sucker pull and won a prize.

We decided to forgo the vampire costume for the night because we had a wedding to attend and also went to the Halloween concert at BYU-Idaho. The theme for the concert was a Super-hero theme and Peyton loved it. We had a good time. Then we went home.

The busy Friday was over and Halloween came. We spent the morning getting our chores done and taking funny pictures of us in scary teeth. And yes we also look a little scary but we were having fun.

Then we got our little vampire ready again to go trick or treating. He was very excited to go especially after a few trick or treaters came to our door. He was very cute and wanted to put all of the candy in their baskets. Andy then took him out to get his loot. I stayed home and handed out candy and read a book...how nice!

Andy said Peyton was very brave and went by himself up to all of the houses. He only got scared out one house that decorates with a lot of spooky things. But he still liked it and had a good time.
As you can see he looked pretty spooky! He didn't like wearing the makeup but I thought he was a pretty cute little vampire.

This will show the fruits of his labors Halloween night. He got a pretty good haul.

And he ate candy until he was sick...ha! Actually he is pretty good and only has a few at a time. He was so excited though and it was very cute. What a fun weekend we had.

Today (Sunday) we just kind of had a nice day at home. I made Pumpkin Cinnamon rolls and we stayed in our PJs all day. It was a nice weekend! Busy, but fun and nice!

Bigger and Better Than Ever...

So this year we grew our own pumpkins and didn't hav to buy any. I must say I was very proud to have grown these big babies...however you kind of forget that maybe they might be hard to carve. Let's just say that these bad boys were a little difficult to work with, but we had a lot of fun and really enjoyed what we came up with. Peyton of course is still a little too young to be doing is own carving. He started out wanting the biggest pumpkin, until of course he had to actually pull out the guts. You can see that he ended up switching to another pumpkin that was a little more his size and that he helped picked the design for. Of course Andy carved it. I told me how funny it was that he picked the design and then he says he is bored and leaves while Andy carves the pumpkin. But he ended up thinking it was very cool. He then had to immediately find a way to light the pumpkin.

I was also able to finish my first one about the same time Andy got down carving Peyton's pumpkin. I went with my witch theme again and since it was such a big pumpkin, I decided that I would add some words at the top. I ended up turning it enough that it actually looks like the witch's hat. It is pretty cool if I don't say so myself...

This is what my witch looked like lit up!

This is Peyton's spooky pumpkin!

We did our traditional eating the guts picture. Peyton always thinks this is so funny!

One of the pumpkins was so big, Peyts could fit his head into the opening in the top. This is the pumpkin he originally picked out but thought it was too hard to get the guts out, so he switched to the smaller one!

This is our traditional family of pumpkin heads pictures! We do this every year. After we finish carving, we put them put like they are our heads. Andy's pumpkin and mine are so big, we had a hard time hefting them up. I believe that is why my gullet is sticking out! ha!

Peyts was trying to look like a mummy!

I like my witch's head! It goes with the sign on my door at school that read, "Who needs Halloween, I'm a witch all year!" ha!

Andy's is the heaviest...he needs a little bit more on that bad boy!

This is what his looks like lit up! It is pretty cool and spooky. How would you like that thing looking in your window?

These are all three pumpkins lit up. Keep in mind we still have two more to finish...

This is my second one and it was so big that I carved three designs on it. I thought it turned out pretty cool, but I definitely got sick of carving pumpkins. Peyton took our one that looked like a butt crack pumpkin and painted it. He seemed to have the most fun with this. I forgot to get a picture but I will...it was a funny pumpkin. It grew into the fence and it made it have a design. These pumpkins were so heavy and so thick we had to scrap the insides for quite a while!

This is what my final pumpkin looked like lit up. We had them all out on our porch and lit up and then we realized it was freezing cold, so we had to haul these bad boys all back to the garage...it was not cool! But it was a fun night of carving!