MERRY CHRISTMAS

Christmas morning is always fun at our house. Since we began doing the Hansen Christmas Eve party, our christmas day has become very quiet. We can sleep in. Last year the boys were up early, but they couldn't go into the frontroom to see what they got until the girls woke up. The girls slept in for about an hour after the boys had woken up. It drove the boys crazy laying in bed with us while we waited. This year, everyone was more on board of getting up early. I guess 7:15 isn't too bad. The kids have to wait in our room and line up youngest to oldest and then go out to the lit up Christmas tree.
This year we changed things just a little bit. We opened our Santa gifts first, then paused and ate a nice breakfast. Then it was back to opening up gifts from each other. We take turns so that everyone gets to enjoy seeing what everyone else got. We do a treasure hunt for the kids, it's like the main gift from Mom and Dad. Shelby and Shyann had already found theirs, but my parents showed up before Colby and Chandler had found theirs. Casey decided to put their clues in Webding format. They had to decipher their clues. Colby was so upset about it. They finally found their gifts and they unwrapped them. Then they showed off their gifts to their Grandpa and Grandma Hansen.

What was on the wish list this year?

COLBY

Ripstick

Zelda - twilight Princess Wii Game

Airsoft Gun

CHANDLER

Snap Circuit Extreme 750 experiments

Origami Books

Boom Blox Wii Game

SHYANN

Fur Real White Kitty

Hannah Montana Guitar

All Star Cheer Squad Wii Gam

SHELBY

Fashion Hair Doll

Purple-ish Metalic Nintendo DS

Polly Pocket Swap - N- Dress

We enjoyed time just spending the day with each other. We played our new games and watched DVD's. We had a very merry christmas and hope that all of our friends and family did, too!

(Sorry no pics, I took them with my DSLR and they haven't been uploaded to my computer yet.)

Hansen Family Christmas Eve Party!

We had one busy Christmas Eve. Casey's mom decided she was flying to Virginia on Christmas morning so she had us over for a dinner and gift exchange. We ate with her at 4:30 and left to go to the Hansen party at 6:15.

We had the Hansen party at my sister, Denise's, home in Syracuse. My brother-in-law narrated the nativity from the scriptures and the kids dressed up. (My mom decided to start doing this last year). The kids love being able to dress up. Five of the girls wanted to be angels. We ended up with a lot of angels and only 1 wiseman. Kambree I think was supposed to be Joseph (I'm not sure why), but she got a hold of pom poms and was hopping back and forth waving them in the air. She is such a cutie. With so many little ones, we have learned to just go with the flow.

Colby, Eric, and Michael made up the "star". While Chandler was King Herod.

All the cousins pulling a face while waiting to open gifts.

Grandma & Grandpa gave all the grandkids a hoodie this year.

Shelby got this cute Hannah Montana hoodie. Colby got this awesome one.
Chandler is soaring with Eagles in his hoodie.

And Shyann got this cute Hannah Montana.

We had such a fun night! The kids would keep running to the computer where Santa was being tracked. They had a great time seeing the different countries and videos of what Santa would have seen as he went into different places.

Missing

Sorry, I've been gone way too long. If it's not one thing with my computer it's another. So about a week after my virus was cleaned up, my internal hard drive started dying. We thought it would survive until Christmas break, but NOOOO! We had to get a new one (of course the warranty we had for the last one expired in November - just my luck). I had a great friend who invited me to use her desktop with my external hard drive so that I could finish my mom's calendar. Anyway, I am back up and running.

My sister introduced me to "facebook" this last week so that's another reason I've been missing. I've enjoyed catching up with people from high school.

I'm way excited about this season and holiday. I love the snow that has fallen and I hope it stays for a white christmas. I'll have to get some photos. It sounds like the snow isn't done yet, so I am sure I will have ample opportunities this week.

TAGGED!

So my computer got a horrible virus last weekend and my computer has been down. I felt soooo lost! Casey was able to save my computer and information. Beware of children who may click on those popups instead of closing them.

Anyway, I'm back. My sister tagged me a little while ago so I'm just getting around to it.

5 things I was doing 10 years ago:

1. Staying home with 1 cute little boy!
2. Cleaning a very large home (it was my in-laws home in Kaysville while they were in Boise).
3. Preparing to find our own home (his parents were getting ready to move back).
4. Praying for my dear sister as she was going through chemo.
5. Playing with a cute little boy!

5 things on my to-do list today: (luckily this is easy because it's Sunday)

1. Go to church - set up nursery
2. Tithing Settlement
3. Watch a movie with the kids
4. Reading with my children
5. Walk the dog

5 Snacks I enjoy:

1. Chocolate
2. Ice Cream
3. Chocolate
4. Chips and Salsa
5. Chocolate anything (Did I say chocolate already?)

5 things I would do if I were a millionaire:

1. Pay off my Mortgage
2. Finish the basement
3. Decorate my house and buy a piano
4. Travel anywhere and everywhere
5. Give money to family and church (and spoil my children)

5 Places I've lived:

Taylor (born and raised there until I got married)
Ogden (2 apartments)
Kaysville
Layton (previous and current home)

5 Jobs I've had:

Babysitting
Claire's Boutique
Weber State (student aide)
Weber State (dept. secretary)
MOM (the best!)

5 people I tag: (unfortunately, I have few blog friends)

Jeni, Trish, Jackie, Kayla,

New Family Member

In September, we adopted this poodle mix. He is completely poodle, but has a dark skin so he's some mix it just doesn't show. It is very difficult to get a picture of him because he's terrified of the camera. It took a lot to get him in these two pictures. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do the dog thing just yet, I mean all the kids were finally in school, but Casey found him. We were just going to have my niece casually watch for some small dog like my parents. Casey loves my parents little dog (it's a maltese-poodle mix). So he just said if Marinda comes across something at the shelter have her call us and we'll check it out. I was a bit shocked! Marinda called a couple of weeks later and said the "Super Adoption" was going on the weekend of Sept. 12 and we should check it out. I was doing salsa with my younger sister so Casey and the kids went down. I told him before I left to remind the kids it was ok if they didn't find something we'll just keep watching for one. A while later Casey e-mailed me a photo of this little guy. Then he called me and asked what I thought. I said he was cute. About 30-45 minutes later he called asking for vet info. I said "you got him?" Casey had really liked his personality. So we have "Buddy". He is 4 years old and is a really good dog. He is my shadow, literally. I cannot walk out of the room without him behind me. The kids love him!

Crazy Beautiful Weather

The weather has been in the 70's all week. Yes, we have a storm coming in, but it's been years since we've seen weather like this in Oct-Nov. We took our time getting the sprinkler lines blown out so that's what Casey did Saturday. Chandler and Shelby couldn't wait for one more run through the sprinklers. I told you, the weather is crazy. I didn't think it was quite "swimsuit warm", but is it worth the argument? They had a great time.

Happy Halloween!

Our Halloween Tradition.
Each year (for the past 4-ish) we have attended my older sisters ward Trunk or Treat in Kaysville. It is huge! My kits pumpkin buckets are almost completely filled within a half hour time frame. Since it's usually so cold, we run home and empty some of the candy out and hit a couple of neighbors then come home for some hot chocolate. The kids are only out for maybe half an hour around the neighborhood. However, this year was a different story. The weather was beautiful and warm! My sister's trunk or treat started an hour earlier which was nice because it was still light outside. Chandler's friend asked him to go trick or treating around the neighborhood with him so we dropped them off at his house. Casey took the other 3 out and about the neighborhood. They were gone for about an hour and a half. Never have they been able to go out that long before. They had a great time! Colby wanted to go to a home up the street that does a spooky garage called "Cave of Death". Casey said this family put a lot of money into animatronics. It was amazing and it spooked Colby. His goal for being spooked was met. Apparently, Casey got some fun ideas for decorating our yard next year while out and about with the kids. Stay tuned to find out what happens next year!

Here's my kids, Chandler's friend, and Michelle's 3 younger with Keith (the doc).

Casey and I have also been dressing up the last few years, this is definitely the simplest we've done!

The graduates! (Thanks Colby for taking the photo)

We hope you all had a fantastic Halloween!

Autumn Photo Shoot

My sister asked me to take some photos of her kids in the canyon with the autumn leaves. Of course I had to take the opportunity to take some of my own kiddos. The leaves were beautiful. We drove up Trappers Loop and off towards Snowbasin. Here are some photos I got.

Shelby and Isaac playing around.

Typing Test (FOBTY 9/25)

So, I was excited to see this test on the Sweet Shoppe Blog Quizzer. I have always loved to type! I am much faster on a regular keyboard than a laptop. Here is my keyboard score:

82 words

Speed test

Color Genius.... I Think Not (FOBTY 9/4)

So I did another From Our Blog To Yours quiz. This was kind of a fun kick start getting back into school. Go check out your color IQ at:

http://www.crayola.com/promos/64boxBirthday/colorQuizzer.cfm

I missed 22 colors. Who knew there were "kids choice" colors.

From Our Blog To yours 8/28

I used to be a really good speller, I guess I need to work on it a little.

Your Common Spelling Mistake Score: 80% Correct

Your spelling is excellent. You don't fall for common spelling pitfalls, and you spell almost everything correctly.

Do You Make Common Spelling Mistakes?

From Our Blog To Yours 9/18

I'm playing along with a Sweet Shoppe Design Blog Challenge. It was to take a quiz "Could You be a Vampire?"

You Could Be a Vampire... If You Had To

Like most people, the thought of being a vampire has crossed your mind. But you're not sure if you'd do it, even if you could. Living forever doesn't sound half bad, if you could live forever with the people you love the most. But do vampires even love? And would the vampire version of you even be you? It's all too much to contemplate. Luckily, the chances of you ever becoming a vampire are astronomically low. What you would like best about being a vampire: Living forever What you would like least about being a vampire: Blood stained teeth

Could You Be a Vampire?

Gotta Play Catch Up!

Sorry it's been a while since I've posted. Life's been crazy busy -- imagine that! I've been lining up volunteers for Colby's classroom, making an "All About Me" poster for Chandler, and volunteering in Shyann's class Wednesday afternoons for an hour. I must say I LOOOOVE Uniforms! (So do the kids)

Colby's teacher asked me to find parent volunteers who would be willing to come in and talk to his class about different countries they've lived in or visited. That's been pretty fun. I had a mom who works at Clearfield Job Corp who was able to bring a group of boys in from the Marshall Islands. They did a dance for the 6th grade. It was great! My new niece was able to come and talk to his classroom about Australia. And another mom was able to talk about the places she lived in Mexico. He has asked me to continue finding parents through the end of October now.

Chandler's been busy with a few projects. One fun report he had to do was called "Shoe and Tell". I plan to make a scrapbook page about it because it was so cute. It was a report where the shoe had to talk about Chandler and the things they've done. Then his "All about me" poster was a research thing. We had to find out newspaper headlines and other information from the day he was born. Surprisingly, not all headlines were about Y2K.

Shyann's class has been easy, reading with kids. The class captain had scheduled me for every week, but I'd only asked for the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays. When she scheduled me for each week, I was ok with it because I hadn't heard from Shelby's class captain. THis past week I finally heard back from her so I talked to Shyann's teacher and told her I'd only be able to help out every other week. She was so ok with it!

This last week and the week before, my friend, Kayla, invited me to come over and scrapbook. It's great because I get two pages done each time. I'll post some layouts later.

Well lots more is happening, but I've got to upload some photos

First Day of School!

The moment has come... all my kiddos are in school full-time. It was actually a very sad moment for me Sunday night, but it's all good now. Yeah, I know school actually started on Aug 25 and you'd think I'd have time galore to keep up with the blog. However, I have had a line up of projects that needed done; a pantry to organize, a fridge to scrub, volunteer work to organize, etc.

This year we decided the kids needed a change of schools. Chandler had the opportunity to attend a Spectrum school and the other 3 were accepted to a Charter school.

Shelby, age 6, 1st grade

Shelby is so excited to be in the 1st grade. I separated her and Shyann this year. She likes her teacher, Mrs. Moss (who's from Spain and is teaching them Spanish), and since she's a social butterfly hasn't had a problem making friends. She thinks it's pretty cool that she has a lunch box, but was way excited about Pizza Hut Day on Wednesday. The charter school has uniforms (awesome), but still has fun deciding what to wear and how her hair will be done. She gets to decide what she wants to wear after school and still comes up with her wonderful fashions.

Shyann, age 6, 1st grade

Shyann is having a great time in 1st grade, too. She thinks it's pretty neat that she gets to eat lunch at the school. She's not much of a lunch eater so for the first couple of days her sandwiches ended up coming home with her so now she has a more simplified lunch. She really likes her teacher, Mrs. Broceno, who will teach them some Spanish. There's a little girl from our ward in her class and they have since become good friends.

Chandler, age 8, 3rd grade

Chandler struggled this year about going to a different school. He was excited that he was going to learn more and in different ways, but worried about the loss of friends. He's made up for it! He loves sports and most shirts he's worn so far have some sports something on them. He just joined a "running club" at his school and is really excited about this. They do it during recesses and a few minutes before school gets out. They can walk if they want, but of course, he's excited to see how long he can run. Today he just did a "shoe and tell" report. He had to report like the shoe was talking and give some info about himself, it was cute.

Colby, age 11, 6th grade

Colby is so excited about being in 6th grade. The charter school made a wing on their new Junior High building for the 5th and 6th graders. He has a great teacher, Mr. Alarcon, who is from Spain. He was so happy to find out they were getting lockers this year. He can't wait to learn Spanish. He came home and already had a few sentences he had to say to us. He's had some interesting things that he's had to do. He's going to have a fun year and I think this change of schools was the best thing for him so far.

The happy crew (just as their ride pulled up).I sure hope you kiddos have a great year! Good luck!!!

We're Back!

So as I mentioned in a previous post, we went to McCall, Idaho for a family reunion last week. We left Monday afternoon and after 7 hours in the car, we arrived at the cabin. Casey has two brothers who own cabins up there.

We went on a hike on Tuesday. The first part of the trail was the Lily Marsh Trail, which was a mile, but we extended the hike to an overlook which was another mile (more rocky and steeper). The first part of the hike was actually more of a walk with LOTS of mosquitoes. Casey and two of his brothers decided to mountain bike on a biking trail, then luckily, they went and got the cars and met us at the overlook. We would not have survived walking back to the cars.

Getting ready to start the trail.

This is the overlook of the lake. (Sorry, I'm not good with remembering names of places).

Wednesday, my sister-in-law had planned some fun games and contests for the kids at a park. They did a 3-legged race, potato sack race, wheelbarrow races (adults participated after the kids - nope, no pictures.), and a bubble gum blowing contest. After the fun, the guys went to get their boats and did some waterskiing and "surfing". The kids stayed to play on the beach.

Shelby finally gave up trying to do the wheelbarrow race the right way. She made up her own way of doing it. (Pulling didn't make it go any better). Casey's niece, Madison, trying to help Shyann. Shyann had a hard time getting Madison across so Grandma ended up helping with one of her legs.Shelby and Shyann trying to do the 3-legged race. They were so funny as they would trip each other and then try to help each other back up. Needless to say, they didn't win.

Chandler doing the potato-sack race.

On Thursday morning, we went on another hike to "Goose Creek Falls". That was quite the trail. Now remember, my kids really only started hiking the week before. That means we did 4 hikes in less than two weeks. (Great motivation if you need kids to go to bed easily.) These falls were pretty, but we didn't actually make it to the lower falls, I guess the trail is stepper and really rocky. We didn't feel safe taking all the kids down that trail. That afternoon most people went waterskiing again. A couple of kids, me and another sister-in-law ended up staying behind.

The Goose Creek Falls (upper)

On Friday afternoon, some of us didn't want to go sit at the beach again so we did some crafts with the kids while the guys went and hit a bucket of balls.

Here they are making keychain-beaded animals.

That night, we had a paper airplane contest. There was a kit with a ton of different plane ideas. I did not even attempt one, I don't follow paper plane instructions very well. I couldn't help most of the kids with the folding instructions. Casey got his made though!

Hiking Anyone?

So a couple of weeks ago, Casey got a "wild hair" to start taking the kids on hikes. I grew up doing hikes all the time and really enjoyed them, but we've never really done many as a family. We took a couple of last minute hikes, one being to Adams Canyon. Apparently there are some beautiful waterfalls in this canyon, but when you decide to go at 7:30 pm, you're not going to make it to the first falls. Oh well, I got some great pictures along the way. Here's just a couple.

Casey and the kids (missing Colby who was already in Idaho) going into the Canyon.

The river in Adams Canyon.

The sun set as we came out of Adams Canyon.

Gonna Be Gone

Just wanted to give everyone a quick update. We are spending time in McCall, Idaho this week for a family reunion. I won't be posting until I'm home.
Also been reading "Breaking Dawn" and loving it! I actually had a hard time sleeping that first night because I was obsessing over what was going to happen next. (That's what happened the first time reading "Twilight").

Dinosaurs, Water, & Rides, Oh My!

What a busy week we have had. Monday night we went to Dinosaur Park in Ogden with two of my sisters and my Dad. We had a picnic dinner and then walked around the park. The kids had a great time looking around at the different dinos and then playing in the park. At one point, my brother-in-law took a dirt side trail, while we had the kids go around from the other side, needless to say, they had a great scare. Chandler happened to be first in line and my brother-in-law said he jumped across the path to the fence (wish I'd seen it).

Inside the building they have this animation of a t-rex trying to get to this mom's babies. The sounds scared a few of the kids.
Playing at the playground:

Thursday night, Colby's orthodontist rented the Roy Aquatic Center for his patients. They served a chicken dinner and then we were able to play in the water. It was great being able to spend time with each other.

Friday was our Stake Lagoon Day. We got there as soon as the rides opened at 11 and stayed until 11 pm. I only got a few pictures of it because I had put the camera in the swim bag when we went too Lagoon-a-Beach and when Casey took the bag back to the car, he forgot to grab the camera and put it in our backpack that we carried around the park. Neither of us really wanted to go back to the car to grab it. We had a really fun time! The first ride they went on was "music express" because the Colossus was still opening. I talked Shyann into going on it with me. When we finished, Casey asked if anyone wanted to go on it again and Shyann said "I'll do it!" We were surprised. Of course after a few of the bigger rides, Shyann was ready to spend time in Kiddieland. So when we got off of Tidal Wave, Casey took the others to Rock-o-Plane and the swings while I took Shyann to Kiddieland. We had an awesome time. The girls have a friend that we ran into around 8. Her parents were ready to go home (they only had a non-ride pass) so she hadn't been able to ride too many rides. So we kept her with us the rest of the evening while they went home.

Sitting on the train.

(Shelby, Me & Chandler)

Casey and Shelby on the Wild Mouse (I HATE this ride)!

The kids had a great time and were worn out by the end of the night. That's the goal sometimes, right?

Visiting Grandma & Grandpa's

Sunday night we loaded up the family and headed out to my parents. Casey had to work on Grandma's computer. I took the opportunity of taking some pictures of the kids and the cattails. When I told Chandler I wanted to take some pictures of him by the cattails he said, "Why would someone cut off cats tails?"

Shelby:

Shyann:

Chandler:

Colby:

Enter the Blogging World

I'm going to attempt the blogging world. I'm so excited to be able to share our family memories with all of our friends and family. Hope you enjoy!