What? Sometimes I can update my blog.

Tristan played AA comp soccer this year and loved his team!  He's staying with the same team next year.

Hudson played T-Ball. It was kinda painful, to be honest. This is a picture of him in the outfield. He seems really ready to catch the ball, right?

Oh, wait.. he's going out for a catch. He thinks that pouncing on the ball with your whole body is part of catching the ball.

Action shot.. at bat. Notice his eyes are closed!

Preschool graduation. Wow.. our last one. ever.

All smiles.

Until this. He's not super into it.

Oh but wait, he was asked to do a special presentation of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?

Ok... you know you want to take that face home.

All ready for kindergarten now.

Dance Festival today! His grade did, "Who Let the Frogs Out?" I'm not sure what he's doing here. Maybe getting in the zone for his dance.

He was gettin' down, but maybe his frog eyes are a little low? What? He doesn't need to see to have those sweet moves.

Jack dance festival. Money.

Tristan's last dance festival. He acts happy about that, you know, because he hates dancing, etc, but secretly I think he's sad.

The whole 6th grade. I know this picture stinks, but they don't exactly warn you ahead of time that it's going to be a photo opportunity.

Parties and Christmas

We have made lots of friends since moving here and it's been great.  We were invited to a fun Halloween party, for adults.  Of course, Brian had to work, so I went alone.  I didn't even dress up.  These people go ALL OUT.  I would have to start planning my costume months ahead of time.  Our friend did this:

 See what I mean?  This one is from the same party, last year:

So funny.

Anyway, after the Halloween party, we were invited to a 40th birthday party.  I went alone, again.  Brian had to work. 
Then we were invited to a neighborhood adult Christmas party to play games.  Brian had to work.  I went alone. 
Then we were invited to an ugly sweater Christmas party.  Brian had to work.  I went alone.  Just so you know, it's less fun going alone.  I'm not even sure why that is.  It's not like I stand around talking to Brian, so it shouldn't matter, but it is less fun. 
Brian only works 10 days a month.  Weird that it ALWAYS seems to coincide with something.

Last year on Christmas, I was sitting in church with the kids alone because Brian was working and a family tapped me on my shoulder and asked if I was spending the day alone.  I said yes and they invited me over.  The wife was kind of embarrassed because they only had leftovers to eat, but it was great for us.  We were kind of lonely on Christmas with no family. 
This year I knew it would be the same and cornered the same family and said, "Soooo... Christmas.... your house?  Same time?"  It was great.  We had a nice dinner and everyone stayed in their jammies the whole day.  We woke up at 4:45am to open presents with Brian before he had to leave. 
I was asking a different friend what they were doing for Christmas Eve and he said they had family coming over. I was going to invite them over, but instead I said, "Oh that's great."  He asked what we were doing and I said that we were just staying home.  Thus, he felt, I'm sure, obligated to invite us over.  We went and it was great.  The boys participated in their first Nativity. 

Coleman opted out of the play.  The other boys participated under duress.

Yes, the shepherd in the camo bathrobe is picking his nose.

Why is one shepherd without his robe?

During the reading of the Nativity story, all was proceeding well, until Hudson had apparently had enough.  He starts flapping his arms uncontrollably and wiggling like crazy.  The grandma in the front row said, "Oh.. oh.. we have a shepherd coming undone!"  He had had enough of this! 

At the party they had a smelling game.  They had 6 jars that you had to smell and guess what they were.  When I first started, I knew I'd be terrible at this game.  How I longed for Anne's sensitive nose.  There was one that the hostess told me that every kid smelled and said, "Ew!  That smells gross." Except for my kids who said, "Yum!  That smells good!"  It was a really fun game that I'm going to try to do another time.  Turns out I have a masterful smeller and got 6 out of 6.  No one else was even close!  Yes!  I won bragging rights and a bag of Chips Ahoy.  Ok, Brian did help me on one.  I couldn't decide if it was Coke or Pinesol.  Weird that they would even smell a little alike. 
They were:
1.  A bleach cleaner
2.  Molasses
3.  Coke
4.  Cherry Syrup
5.  Sesame oil
6.  lemon pledge

Brian's mom sends the kids the 12 days of Christmas every year.  They open a small gift for 12 days leading up to Christmas.  Hudson liked this one the best:

Yeah, it's a toothbrush and toothpaste.  I wouldn't have thought to store them in my belt loops, but that's just me.

And last, here are all the kids, posing with a Christmas gift.

Alpine Nativity

Since we've moved, we've missed the Brea Christmas Nativity.  We'd heard about this one and finally ventured to check it out.  Of course I got no pictures of the ACTUAL nativity.  You park in a parking lot and then get into enclosed horse trailers that they close up and drive you to the location.  Yes, you read right.  You ride, on city streets, in a horse trailer.  You know, laws in Utah seem to be more like suggestions. 

Boys in the horse trailer.

 

 

 

We only rode in it for 5 minutes, so it's not like we went far, but how would we know?  We couldn't see out.  I managed ok, but felt claustrophobic on the way back.  I was pushing old people and babies out of the way to get out at the end. 
We invited our friends, the Detjens, to come with us.  They have 2 boys Tristan's and Jack's ages.  They also have a girl a little younger than Jack. 
When you get to the mystery location, you're met by a Roman soldier, on a horse looking for baby boys under the age of 2.  Then we met all the characters from the nativity as we climbed up a BIG hill towards an amazing barn. 

In the barn they had shops (like they would have had in Bethlehem) and performers.  It was quite brisk outside, AND my party consisted mostly of boys so we kind of hustled through.  At the end, in their own separate building was the nativity scene.  Complete with brand-new newborn baby screaming.  :)

On the way back to the horse trailer, we tried to take a family picture.  I'll just post all of the pics and you can see for yourself. 

This one is ok.. oh wait.  My eyes are closed.  Those are camels in the background.

This one's ok... oh wait.. now Brian's not looking.

Hudson and I are leaving this photo.

Let's all pretend that Coleman doesn't look like someone you'd be afraid to meet on the street at night.  The mustache was for No Shave November and the hair was... I'm not sure.  Since then he has thankfully shaved and gotten a haircut.  He got his braces off too. 

Jack's Baptism

Last month we were finally able to have Jack's baptism.  It seems like Brian always worked on the stake baptism weekends and our stake is not really into letting you have your own baptism.  Since Amy was coming for Thanksgiving I got special permission to do our own.  I gave Amy payback the privilege of giving the talk.  She has to practice her baptism speech anyway, now that she's primary president. 
Dad and Jeri drove up with was great for several reasons.  One of which is that Jeri played the piano, so I didn't have to play and lead the music at the same time.  That was going to be a trick.  It was nice having it be just our meeting.  It was not nice having to fill the font up ahead of time.  It takes THREE HOURS!!!  I thought they must have been joking.  What's it filling with?  A straw?  But, sure enough, it takes three hours.  Since the baptism was at 10, I went down at 7am, while Brian got kids ready, then we traded jobs.  We had several family friends come and after we went to Chuck-A-Rama.  I know, you're thinking that Chuck-A-Rama wouldn't be your first choice.  I hadn't been since I was about 8.  I was going to do a whole catered thing myself, but with that, the baptism and Thanksgiving it all got overwhelming.  A neighbor suggested Chuck-A-Rama and I thought she was joking.  But she said, then people could sit where they wanted and we wouldn't have to reserve a room or hassle over splitting up a bill.  Bing!  And you know what?  It was good and the kids thought they'd died and gone to heaven.  An open dessert bar?  All the soda and ice cream you can eat?  Yes!

Arrow of Light

Tristan earned his Arrow of Light and graduated into Boy Scouts.  He was excited when I told him that night, that it was the last time he ever had to wear his cub scout uniform.

We are proud of him.  He worked on it, sometimes under great duress, but got it done.  As soon as we get one graduated, Jack goes in.  Jack went into cub scouts in August and really loves it.  It suits his personality. 

Halloween 2012

Since Christmas is over, I thought I'd post a Halloween picture.  Ok, I don't clear out the camera very often.

Jack was a motocross guy.  I was relieved because originally he wanted to be MC Hammer and I was stressed about making the costume with no pattern.  He was insisting on a gold, double-breasted jacket.

Tristan is bacon.  Duh.  Who doesn't like bacon?  This was his first holiday without being in school.  He didn't seem to mind.  We went and watched the elementary school parade.

Hudson is batman.

This was a feat of epic proportions to get them all to look at the camera at the same time.  Here are two outtakes:

"Hudson, put that down.  I can't see your face."

"Jack, face forward at all times.  Just in case Hudson looks this way too and I can take a picture."

Football 2012

#14

 Jack played football again this year and his team did well.  They finished the regular season undefeated and lost in the first round of playoffs.  Losing was a mixed blessing.  Jack was really ready for the season to be over, but no one likes to lose. 

 We spent many hours on the field cheering Jack on.  He practiced for 6-8 hours a week and his games were 1.5 hours and he had to be there 45 minutes early.  And when I say "practice" I really mean run until he can't run anymore. 

 Last year Jack played offensive line and this year was switched to defensive tackle.  He's a great player, but still a little small. 

Before we left for the playoff game.

 Jack has mad skills with the eye black.  It's cool to make your face look mean.  Can you see Tristan photobombing behind the glass door?  I was mad that he was ruining the picture.  And then Hudson...

Hudson didn't want to be left out.

Catch all

We sent Jack to a BYU football camp this summer.  He hated it. 

You would think it would be exciting to practice and play on the Cougar Stadium field.  Evidently not.

Jack

While Jack practiced I took Hudson and Tristan to EVERY museum on BYU's campus. 

This was at Thanksgiving Point which is near our house.  Mom was visiting and we decided to go on the way home.  If I remember correctly it was really smoky.  There was a fire close by.

There is a woman in my ward, Angela Johnson, who is quite a famous sculptor (sculptress?).  She made all these statues of religious scenes and they were having a display at Thanksgiving Point.  Some of the statues are small, but a lot are huge!  Bigger than life-size... and all incredibly beautiful.  This one is Christ walking on the water.

I took pictures of all the sculptures, but only put a few on here.

We toured the Thanksgiving Point Gardens with Grandma.  The waterfalls are beautiful.

Hudson doesn't want to be left out.

The kids talked me into renting a golf cart.  A first for us.  This is Tristan trying to drive it.  I think he almost ran Grandma into the lake and almost ran me over doing it.  Jack was a much better driver.

This was at Brian's sister's wedding rehearsal. 

No joke, I said, "Jack smile."

Coleman is growing his hair out.  He's only ever worn it super short.  He wanted to see if it was curly. 

As you can imagine, Hudson was running around crazy.

This is me pinning Jack's Bobcat pin on him.  Most of you know, I cut off my hair and surprise to those of you who didn't.  I love it and I'm super happy I did it.  This was Jack's first pack meeting.

What?!  Who earned his Bobcat badge and a belt loop at his first pack meeting?

Tristan getting some award. 

Jack doing a skit.

Tristan doing a skit.

We had a huge, fun-filled summer.  I haven't even sorted most of our pictures.  I need to post pictures from our 2 week trip to California and all the other things we did.  Most of the problem is I have 2 cameras and a camera phone.  I have pictures on all of them.  These were all from 1 camera.  School has started and home school has been very overwhelming, but I called the teacher in charge of us and complained and she said we were doing WAY too much.  Apparently we don't have to do all 8 subjects every day.  We do between 5-6 now.  Hudson starts pre-school on Thursday and I'm really excited for that.  He's bored and sometimes he drives me nuts.  Jack is in third grade and happy and well adjusted.  He's playing football which is a major commitment.  He practiced 5 days a week at 6am for most of August.  He's practicing 3 days a week, 2 hours at a time and has a game every Saturday.
Tristan is on a soccer team and has 1 practice a week and a game on Saturdays.  There are a lot of homeschooling offerings around here, like activities they can go to, I just have to get it all figured out. 
Other than that, we're happy and healthy.  :)