Gotta love Kid participation...

....in carrying out Family Home evening. Tonight we had fun time during our weekly FHE meeting. Max gave a lesson (with a little preparation help from Dad) on what it means to pace yourself. Sometimes on Saturday morning the kids practice running all the way to the playground without stopping. Max told about how when he runs all the way to the playground he has to pace himself so he doesn't get too tired (its about a half mile.)
Meredith invented a new dessert to try so we made it tonight for our dessert.

Here's the recipe if you'd like to try it too. Of course we adjusted the ingredient amounts to taste.

It was very yummy but very messy and we have the pictures to prove it.

Grandma Lewis

My grandma passed away last Saturday. She had a stroke a couple of days before Christmas and was in a rehab facility recovering. It mainly only took away her speech, but she wasn't going to be able to live alone after this. She just went white on her way to the bathroom and she was gone. A presumed second stroke. She was 90 and had always lived alone until Christmas. What a lady. I was able to fly out for her funeral this past weekend. As I drove through Idaho Falls on my way to her house with my brother Tobin, I thought about how this would probably be my last time here. There would be no reason to come back. Floods of childhood memories ran through my mind as I realized it would be the last time I'd be in my Grandma's house as well. the House that she and grandpa built themselves. A trip to Grandma's house when I was young meant working in her garden, climbing her enormous tree, playing with cousins, eating lots of yummy food, and having Ice cream with Grandpa. Grandma was wonderful cook, a beautiful quilt maker, an expert at the piano and organ, and an extremely hard worker. She had a large garden that she worked every summer, even the last one. Almost every one of my cousins (15 out of 18) were able to come for the weekend. My sister and I helped prepare a big dinner for everyone in the immediate family Friday night. I thought it was fitting that the meal was almost entirely provided by Grandma' own hands. She was ever prepared in her food storage. We grabbed roasts from the freezer and the rest of her potatoes and carrots that were stored from her garden last summer. We seasoned the soup with parsley she had grown and dried. We made Neighbor Cake (a grandma classic my sis-in-law Becky blogged about recently) with fruit she had bottled herself. We even pulled some pumpkin and zucchini breads she had made out of the freezer for dessert. I learned a lot from my grandma. One of the best lessons I've learned from her is to work hard and be resourceful. She could make anything she needed out of anything she had. I'm grateful for her and her influence in my life and know her memory lives on in the little things I do each day.

Mer's Backpack

I finished a project! Mer's new school backpack. I got tired of the cheap store bought packs that rip or bust their zippers after a couple of months of use. Mer picked the fabrics from my stash and helped me design it. I'm excited that it turned out so cute. This one hopefully will last a while. I'm thinking she'll get tired of it before it wears out. We'll see.

Our Christmas Pictures

Now that it's officially 2009...here are some pictures of our Christmas morning. The kids woke up around 7:00 and sneaked a peek at the Christmas tree before coming to get us. While the kids waited for Doug and I to be ready they found the empty wrapping paper rolls and passed the time sword fighting.We lined them all up littlest to biggest... and then let them have at it.

Santa brought bean bags, scooters, a guitar, and cereal, and filled the stockings with lots of goodies. Luke loved climbing the mountain of presents and banging on all of them. Of course the big kids loved opening all his present in addition to their own.

Here's Mer with her new hot pink ipod and the canopy bed I made for her big girl dolls

Here are the boys with their new snakes.

I think it took us 1 1/2 hours to open all the presents. Thank you to everyone for the wonderful gifts. We spent the next couple of days playing and playing with new toys, lego, games, books, etc. , watching lots of movies, and seeing Mer's fashion show of new clothes.

We had a great relaxing Christmas. One of the most exciting presents we got for the whole family.... the day after Christmas we bought a "new" van. A 2007 Toyota Sienna. This has been along time coming, as we've watched our other one fall apart and had to fix way too much on it. I am really enjoying it as it's the newest car we've ever owned, I feel quite spoiled.

Here are a couple of shots from New Year's Eve. We ate Jello cake for dessert and went on a walk looking for the fireworks we could hear going off in the distance. The funniest thing was what everyone was wearing as we trapsed through the neighborhood with no shame. Jack in his one piece jammies and boots, Max shoeless in his new bathrobe (did we really let him go shoeless?) an Mer in jammies, jacket and black sparkly shoes. Jack was the winner, he and his freshly buzzed hair-do.

Oh yeah, we buzzed his hair for the first time. He wanted to be "bald" he said. When I was done cutting it he looked in the mirror with dissatisfaction and said "Mom I wanted it to be bald!" "Yeah" I said,"I buzzed it just like Dad's."
"But I wanted to have NO HAIR!!"
Sorry kid I'm not cutting it that short.
I think he looks so cute!
Max wanted me to do it half and half at first