Daddy's Birthday

Daddy making his 'Thank You' donut.

January 29th began birthday season at our house with Kenny's birthday. In the 2 months between January 29th and March 26th (my birthday) we have 5 birthdays. Due to the fact that there is so much cake in that short amount of time we have begun the tradition of decorating donuts for Mommy and Daddy's birthday. I wasn't feeling to well on Kenny's birthday so we didn't do much, but I did buy donuts and frosting for decorating. The kids enjoyed decorating their donuts and letting Kenny decorate one as well. Sometimes I think it's more for the kids than anything.

Gracie proudly displaying her donut.

Ben's turn for frosting.

Hannah just getting started on her donut.

Sarah's getting old enough she can make a masterpiece.

This year was especially hard because money's tight and with 3 kids birthday's coming up there really isn't money for our birthday's. Not that we mind so much, but it would have been nice to have been able to get Kenny something. All he got was donuts and loving kids, and that was good enough. Happy Birthday Kenny! Hopefully next year will be better. :)

Ben's Basketball

We had the opportunity to put Ben on a basketball team this year. A friend of ours from church who has twin boys Ben's age called me back in December to see if Ben wanted to play basketball. Luckily for us it was super cheap and we were able to put him on the team. His team consists of 8 boys and 3 girls, all kindergarten age. It's been perfect and he has really enjoyed it. Another good perk of the whole thing is that Kenny gets to be the assistant coach. It's something he enjoys being a part of and Ben enjoys getting some Daddy time.

When we signed up we were told the league was for kindergartners and some first graders, depending on experience. We thought this would be perfect because our team was all kindergartners who have never played and have NO experience. Our first game, which was the beginning of January, was against a team of 1st and 2nd graders who clearly had played before. I felt so bad for our little team who didn't get to do much of anything during the game. As the season went on it just got worse and worse. Apparently they didn't have enough teams sign up so the combined league so our team of kindergartners got to play teams as old as 4th graders. Not an ideal situation, but it did help our team learn more and become better than they probably would have otherwise.

Warm-ups before the game. Ben's going in for the shot.

I've included some pictures of one of their games. I didn't get many good pictures, but there were a few decent ones. This game was on Tuesday January 26th. They were playing against a team of mostly 2nd grade girls. The game started out rough, but shortly into the game the other team decided not to play so seriously and let our team have a shot. They didn't just take the ball away at every turn and even let our kids get the rebounds sometimes (that's very hard to do with the huge height difference between some of the kids.) I thought it was very nice of those girls and it sure made the game more enjoyable.

Kenny giving the team some pointers before the game begins.

Ben dribbling during the game.

The Little Kids

AJ (Our friends boy whose 4 months older than Gracie) Gracie, and Hannah

They're great friends and so goofy.

Cheering for the other team after the game.

Sarah Kate and her friend Clarissa. What a goof ball.

Ben practicing his shooting after the game.

Crazy Hair Day

Well it's Crazy Hair time again at school. I told Sarah Kate last year that I'd come up with something great for this year's crazy hair day. Surprise, I didn't. I'm so horrible, but I wasn't in the best of moods and well, I really just didn't want to. So the night before I stayed up late trying to think of something to do. This is what I came up with:

She liked it. It made her happy and I guess that's all that really matters. She didn't win, but she knew she wouldn't and she was OK with that. She had fun and the kids in her class liked it.

I was kind of excited to do Ben's hair. With it semi long and curly I thought of all these things I could do. A Mohawk, a spikey do, and other crazy things, but he didn't want any of it. He wanted his hair to be crazy like it is when he twirls his finger in it. So that's what he got. He also had a great day. He didn't win in his class, but he loved it and thought his hair was totally crazy.

Here's Ben twirling his finger in his hair. Crazy kid!

New Year's Sledding

Hannah headed down the hill.

Sledding in Grace was awesome. Karen and Cory rented a snowmobile and it was a life saver. My in-laws neighbors let us sled in the hill behind my in-laws house so we had this huge hill that we didn't have to climb up. We stayed out for hours and hours, without that snowmobile there's no way the kids would have lasted as long as they did. Luckily, Grandpa came out and took some pictures of us. All the kids had a blast and we even took baby Daniel out. He had fun sledding and riding the snowmobile, but he didn't last more than 30 minutes due to the cold and wind.

Ben going down with baby Daniel and I.

Surprisingly this is a smaller group coming up behind the snowmobile.

Daddy and Hannah's turn.

Daniel's turn on the snowmobile.

We decided to rig a coat rack in the hot tub room for all the wet snow clothes. It worked wonderfully. It kept all the clothes in one place and allowed them to dry. Way to go Kenny!

New Year's Fun

Gracie looking cute in her New Year's hat with her red juice mustache.

Aunt Sarah and Daniel waiting for the party to begin.

We spent New Year's in Grace this year. It was so much fun to be with so many family members just hanging out with nothing to do. All of Kenny's siblings were in town except his sister Mindy who thought she needed to stay in Salt Lake and have her twins (I think she should have waited. JK!) We all missed them, but were happy for Mindy and Jeremy.

Hannah waiting very patiently to make some noise.

Gracie helping her cousin Carlie get her hat on. What a good girl.

The rest of us had a lot of fun in Grace doing nothing at all. We had a New Years Eve pajama party for the kids at about 10:00 on New Year's Eve. They had a lot of fun counting down to the New Year and then popping confetti and blowing noise makers. I love making memories with family that my kids will always remember. After we put the kids to bed the adults stayed up waiting for the New Year. It was nice to catch up and just spend time as adults without kids.

It's party time. Here's the kids popping confetti all over the place.

Making noise and messes. What fun.

Sarah and cousin Maddi after the party.

That night we got word that my sister-in-law had gone into the hospital to have her babies. She had wanted New Year's Eve babies, but instead ended up with the New Year's babies for her hospital. Lilly and Landon were born at 4:45 and 4:48 in the morning. We were so happy to hear of there arrival. The next day my in-laws took off to Salt Lake, in the middle of a snowstorm, to see the two new additions to the family. While there they picked up Mindy's 5 year old daughter Savannah and brought her back to the party.

The proud parents. Mindy with Lilly and Jeremy with Landon. Congrats!

While the grandparents were gone we all just hung out and enjoyed each other. We went sledding (see the other blog) swam in the hot tub, ate yummy food and played the Wii. The rest of the weekend was pretty much the same. A lot of playing in the snow having snowball fights and building a huge snowman, eating, playing, trying to get kids to nap (yeah right) and just enjoying each others company.

Hot Tubbing.

Cute little Dan bouncing in his seat.

Nikki and her friend Jordan decided to build a snowman. They wanted a big one, but didn't realize how hard it would be to put the huge snowballs on top of each other. After trying by themselves and failing, they recruited most of the males in the house to help. They decided to roll the ball up the stairs and then onto the snow. Brilliant!

Just hold it there Jordan while we pack snow around it!

The finished snowman with his original builders. Good job guys.

The last night we were all there the adults decided to go for a sledding trip in the dead of night. So about 1 in the morning Kenny and I, Karen and Cory, Nikki and her friend Jordon, Gary and Michael all headed out so sled. It was a blast. I'm sure for any cars that drove past us we looked crazy, but we all had an awesome time. The guys even decided to get the canoe out and try and pull it behind the snowmobile. There are crazy men in our family, but it was all in good fun. I wish someone had been smart enough to bring a camera to capture our craziness, but even without the camera we had a great time. Another memory to never forget.

It was a great weekend and we were so sad when Sunday came and everyone had to go home. I can't think of a better way to bring in the new year.