Wii had a great Christmas!

It's hard to believe that Christmas is over. The excitement hangs around in our house. We received a Wii for Christmas and the kids (and us adults) just want to play it. Last night we got a fun game for it that includes it's own foot pad. It's called Outdoor Adventures and has you stepping different directions on the pad to do what you are supposed to. I think this game will be part of my New Year's Resolution to get healthy. Man, it's a workout! I'll have to get a video of the kids playing it. It's so funny.
We have had a mostly wonderful holiday so far. Despite the snow, we made it to Cookie Day. It was great. Jake showed up from Utah. We had all thought he was coming in later that week, but he just couldn't miss Cookie Day. Which was good, because our cousin Kelly and her husband Kevin announced that they are EXPECTING! Wow! There was a lot of snow on our way home, but we made it home alright.
We went out to Souru Teriyaki for our annual Christmas Eve dinner. Just the five of us go and then we drive around looking at the Christmas lights before heading home. The snow stopped us from the lights, but we never miss the Teriyaki! Christmas morning was fun. It's always exciting to watch the kids open all that they recieved. Obviously, the Wii was a big hit. We were hosting my parents and my sister and her family at our house this year. We were so excited until Brandon took his morning shower. He came out from our bedroom to hear a funny sound in our garage. Our septic alarm was going off! I quickly called my mom (yep,32 years old and I still called my mom first!) and she said that we could ignore it for a day or two and just use minimal water. So we ignored it for Christmas and had a really great time. It was fun to have everyone here. We hope someday to have a big enough house to have both of our families here. We spent the next day at Brandon's parents house. We started with our annual breakfast at IHOP. It is usually on Christmas Eve, but some people were working so we changed it. We had a great time at the Kirkwood's house. It was so sad to leave that night knowing that we wouldn't see Meri and Dustin or Jake for quite awhile. But we had a great time with all of our family. That is one of my favorite things about the holiday season. We will spend New Year's Day up at Jeff and Lesha's house. WE're looking forward to that. On Saturday, we had people over to check our septic. The pump was broken and they could fix it on Monday. So after a weekend of yelling at the kids FOR flushing the toilet, it is fixed. And I have to say, money well spent. It was so annoying having to not flush or shower regularly. And all of our clothes needed washing and the dishwasher was full when it broke! Brandon is off this week, so we have plenty of time to catch-up and still relax a bit! -Pam-
P.S. I'll make a slideshow with pictures. We just haven't downloaded them all yet!

If you've already read the family letter, skip this!

Here is what we sent out in our Christmas cards this year. It was entitled the Kirkwood Christmas Pop Quiz. It's even longer in a blog than on paper (Sorry, Jeff!), but it gets squished a little bit on here. If you decide to take it, let us know how you did on the poll. I'm curious who only got 1-3 right?

Merry Christmas! I thought that we would test your knowledge to see how much you already know about our past year. So grab a pen( & paper, if you need it) and take a second to see how well you know us.

1. At the beginning of the year Brandon and Pam renovated their:
A. Kitchen
B. Family Room
C. Living Room
D. All of the above

2. True or False: In January, Brandon helped coach Riley’s football team.

3. True or False: In June, Brandon left the United States for the first time in his life.

4. During the summer, Pam and the kids raised how many frogs?
A. 40
B. 25
C. 26

5. Every week in Nursery at church, Evan
A. Sings songs
B. Pushes somebody
C. Plays with puzzles
D. All of the above

6. This summer we went to our family cabin how many times?
A. So many, I just can’t remember.
B. 3
C. 5

7. True or False: In September, Anna started A.M. Kindergarten.

8. True or False: In October, Pam and Brandon added a new member to their family.

9. In October, the Kirkwood’s caught a virus that almost did Pam in. What kind of virus was it?
A. Flu
B. E-coli
C. Computer virus

10. This year Pam, Brandon, and the kids wish you
A. a Merry Christmas
B. a Happy New Year
C. God’s Blessings
D. All of the above


Answers:


1. E- We did a lot to our house this year. We pulled up all of the flooring in our living room, family room and kitchen. We repainted and added a new stove and dishwasher. It was a lot of . hard work that many people helped with and it turned out wonderfully. .
2. False – Brandon helped coach Riley’s basketball team, not football. Riley really enjoyed it and is just starting his new season for this year. He did flag football in the summer and loved that, too.
3. True- In June, Brandon and I went to Victoria, BC for our ten year anniversary! We had a wonderful trip, just the two of us. It was so strange to be without the kids for 3 days. We had such a good time remembering the “old days” when it was just the two of us.
4. C- This summer, we took a trip out to our family cabin with my sister’s family and we decided to bring home some tadpoles. We brought home 40 tadpoles. We released 25 into the wild, but about a week later, I discovered that there was one still hiding in the cage. He is still doing well out there and brings our grand total to 26. It was so fun watching them grow and change.
5. D- Evan sings and plays puzzles every week in Nursery, but unfortunately, when we ask him what he did, he always says “I pushed somebody”. I began to doubt that it is true though, because a few weeks ago he claimed to push his friend Abby, but she was not even there that day!
6. C- We went out to the cabin a lot, but I could never lose count. It is always so fun and relaxing to be out there, and most times we are accompanied by lots of family members. We were out there for Memorial Day, July 4 weekend, the first weekend in August, Labor Day, and one last time in September to release the frogs. What memories we made this summer!
7. False- Anna started P.M. Kindergarten. She loves it and I enjoy quiet afternoons while Evan is sleeping. She has learned so much this year and enjoys coming home to tell us all that she has learned.
8. True- We found a stray cat in our yard and we turned it in to the shelter. This prompted us to start talking about whether we were ready for pet ownership and a few days later, we adopted Peek-a-boo. She is a now 4 month old kitten and she is so much fun.
9. C- At the end of October, we encountered a computer virus that nearly drove me crazy. To get rid of it, we had to take everything off of our computer and restore it back to its original state. Then we had to try to load everything back on. With Brandon just starting his MBA program, he was already stretched thin. I tried to help with whatever I could and between us both, we got things up and running in just a couple of weeks. Wow, not fun! Our household was much happier once it was fixed.
10. D- We have had such a great year! We are happy to have had many of you be a part of it and hope to see others that we missed next year. We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and pray that God’s blessing’s will be with you as we celebrate His Son’s birth and always.

It's a SNOW DAY!

Yesterday and today there is too much snow on the ground for the schools to be open. Yesterday, Anna cried when she found out there wasn't going to be school. It was her one day during the month that she can buy lunch and there was finally going to be something that she liked. I didn't know exactly what a big deal it was for her to buy lunch, but the tears came for quite awhile. When she calmed down, it was time for breakfast and when they finished, it was time to go outside. At that point, the snow wasn't packable enough to make a snowman, but we went over to my in-laws house for a few hours, and it was ready by then. Brandon took the day off so he could stay and play. He always misses out on those things. Half way over to the Kirkwood's I was wondering what the heck we were doing driving in that weather, but we made it just fine and only got stuck in our driveway arriving home. We stopped in the driveway to get some extra snow off and when I tried to pull forward again, I couldn't''t move. I had to rock it back and forth just a little to get it to move. Today, Brandon made it into work alright. I'm not sure what the weather is supposed to be like for next week but I know there might be more snow this weekend. I would be excited, but Saturday is Cookie Day, and it might mess that up. Cookie Day usually happens the last Saturday before Christmas. Lots of our family get together, usually at my in-laws or Brandon's Aunt Brenda's house. We spend the whole day in our Cookie Day aprons, making cookies and memories. It is always so fun and is one of my most favorite parts of the Christmas Season. I haven't gotten nearly enough goodies done yet, so I really want to have that day to get some stuff checked off of my list.
I am adding a poll to the sidebar for those who get our family Christmas letter. I will post the letter in a few days, so everyone can see it, but I want to give the mail a chance to get through first. I hope you are all enjoying this weather. One week and counting! -Pam-

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Oh, Christmas Tree, Oh, Christmas Tree...

...You are so lovely and annoying!

It was almost a week ago that we went to get our Christmas tree. And we still have many more weeks for it to be up. And we have a toddler and a kitten. Can you guess where I am going with this? It is driving me nuts! To his credit, Evan is pretty good with the tree. It only took him a day or two to figure out not to touch it or there would be consequences. The cat, on the other hand, has a learning disability. Not only does she like to eat the ends of the branches (good toothbrush?) but she also thinks all of the ornaments are cool the way they sway when she bats at them. I've seen her peering at the ones that are a little out of her reach. The last thing we need is for her to take a leap at them. The tree has already fallen over twice. We had a hard time getting it to sit just right in our stand. It fell over once before we even got the lights on it. Once it was decorated, we left the room and a few seconds later, Riley yelled "MOM!" It is now wedged in there with a big rock and some wood, but I don't think it could withstand Peeka jumping on it. I don't think the first person to have a Christmas tree had children or pets. We don't dare put any presents under the tree yet. But it is so sweet to walk in the room to find Evan just sucking his thumb and staring at the tree. Hopefully the holiday baking will go better than the tree has. Two weeks and counting! -Pam-

Make a Smilebox greeting

'Tis the Season...

Sometimes I get quite overwhelmed by the Holidays. All of the work that is involved in one birthday party. Brandon and I have already made our Christmas buying lists, fretted over our budget, argued about how much to get the kids, and planned how we can out-do our neighbors with decorations. We're pretty much done with all of the planning. All we have to do now is decorate, buy the gifts, get everyone to smile at the same time for one Christmas photo and think about Jesus for a second before we are on to the New Year... Sometimes it goes just like that, doesn't it? I like to try to get as much of that "stuff" out of the way so that we can focus more of our time on our Savior's birth. I am so grateful for this time of the year where I take more time to reflect on how closely I follow my Savior. I love that Christmas follows Thanksgiving. It's like we just had a warm-up for gratitude and now it's time for the big test. I hope that I pass. I've studied quite a bit this year and I think I know what I'm doing, but I don't want to be over confident. I've had many great examples of charity and gratitude in my life. I hope that I can live what I have learned. My big thing this year is trying to come up with a good way to teach the children to think about Jesus when they think about Christmas. I've had some good suggestion. We might do the idea where you have an empty manger and every good deed that your children do will get one piece of "hay" placed in the manger and you are trying to make a good bed for baby Jesus. We do always say a prayer on Christmas morning before they are allowed to touch the gifts. That is a tradition that I love, watching my beautiful children, with enough excitement to make them burst, bow their heads and kneel in prayer with appreciation for Our Savior. That is my favorite moment of Christmas! -Pam_