Merry Christmas

Here's hoping that everyone has a wonderful couple of days before Christmas. I love hearing Christmas music wherever I go and all the yummy treats that show up, getting Christmas cards from people that you don't hear from or see often and wrapping up the presents and putting them under the tree. I always love those last couple of days to finish things up and then Christmas Eve when its all done and you relax and enjoy special traditions with your family and loved ones. May you all have a Merry Christmas wherever you are!

Jen's birthday cake

Since it's been pretty quiet and I don't have anything new this week I decided to go back a few weeks ago to Jen's birthday. I wanted to make her cake this year but I wanted to do something different. So I learned how to make these flowers out of fondant. I made them a few days ahead so they could dry. I'm not sure how many I actually made but there was probably close to 100. I then covered them all over the cake. It actually turned out looking pretty good. It tasted pretty yummy too!

Jen's solo at Christmas concert

Jennifer had a solo part at the choir concert on Tuesday. Thought I would share it with you. It was much better in person--but this is the next best thing. The song title was "Not that far from Bethlehem." She was really nervous but did a really great job. I knew she had a solo at the beginning but I didn't know that she would have the microphone the whole time and sing small parts throughout the entire song. Jacob bumps my arm in the middle so sorry about the not so good taping job! Be sure and mute the music on the bottom of the page in the play list box so that you can hear the music on the video.

Happy Birthday Jennifer

Happy 45th Fred and Mariam

Happy 45th to Fred and Mariam on Nov. 22nd--Nathan's mom and dad have been married for 45 years. What a great example you are to us! We all hope to follow in your foot steps. Thanks for all you do.

Happy Thanksgiving

What a nice Thanksgiving we had. Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Johnson and Robert and Bethany and their kids. They all traveled to be with us. It was a good time. Yummy food and family--2 great things to be thankful for! Hope all of you had a great day as well.

Jacob's Thanksgiving program

Jacob had a program and a feast at preschool today. They sang some songs to the parents and then they all had a feast together. They had made some Thanksgiving books and they read them to us after the feast. His teacher does such fun things with his class. Jacob thought it was great.

Jared's Book Report

Jared did a book report this week. We worked on it all weekend. This morning about 15 minutes before the bus came I was checking that he had done everything and realized that we didn't turn the paper over. Yup, there was more to do! Guess what-- can write a poem and define 10 words, print them out, cut them out and glue them on the box in 10 minutes or less. Note to self --always turn the paper over and check to see if there is anything on the back!

Just catchin up

So things have been busy but nothing noteworthy. Just been keeping up with everyone's activities and homework. Nathan has been discovering a little free time since he got released from the bishopric. He sang a beautiful solo in church today. He got lots of nice comments. Jonathan was voted in as the vice president of the SHO Club (students helping others) at school. Jennifer is looking forward to her birthday in a few weeks. Only 6 more months until she can get her learner's permit. Joshua got ordained a deacon last week and passed the sacrament for the first time today. He did a good job. Jared has been taking an art class after school one day and Jacob has been keeping himself busy with preschool. I have just been trying to keep everyone where they need to be. One thing that I do every week is cut coupons from the paper and then match them up with what is on sale. It takes a lot of time but I just love a good deal. Last week I headed to the grocery store with my coupons and ad in hand. I knew I was going to get some good deals but I wasn't prepared for how good it would really be. I got my groceries and the checker started adding everything up. I handed her my coupons and I watched my total start dropping. Before she started deducting my coupons my total was 120.82. I paid 14.71 for the 45 items I had purchased. I walked out of the store feeling pretty good. That was the most I have ever saved. Nathan teases me about my coupon clipping--but he was actually pretty impressed this time around.

Josh turns 12

Happy Birthday Josh

Josh is now 12. Wow, it is hard to believe. Just in case you are wondering what his cake is--it is supposed to look like a Lego piece. It looked a little better in person than it does in this picture.

Happy Halloween

Another Halloween has come and gone. The kids this year were Jacob, Jengo Fett from star wars- Jared, Obi Won Kenobi from star wars-Josh, a nerd-Jen, Fairy- Jon, Spiderman. Halloween in Arizona is fun because everyone sits outside on their lawn chairs while the kids trick or treat. Nobody has to wear a coat so you can see all the kids costumes. They all had a great time and have been sorting and eating their candy all weekend.

My first fall harvest

Just thought I would update on how my garden was doing. I harvested my first fall vegetables--radishes! Here's hoping the other stuff will do as well.

Jacob's trip to the Pumpkin Patch

Jacob and his preschool class went on a trip to the pumpkin patch. He had so much fun, decorating his pumpkin, riding on the hayride, doing the hay maze.

A trip to Bisbee Arizona

Copper Queen Mine--Bisbee

The kids had fall break last week so we decided to go down to Bisbee to visit the Copper Queen mine. You get on a little train and they take you underground. You stop and get out a few stops along the way and the guide tells you about different things in the mine. The guide that we had was the last mine worker out of the mine in 1972. All of the guides there were miners at one time. The kids loved it.

A look back to 1998

I have been going through my older scrapbooks and trying to scan pages etc so that I could save them to a disk. I got to 1998 and realized that it has been ten years this month since we have moved to Arizona. I posted a few pictures of what our family looked like then. I can't believe how much the kids have grown and how fast the time has gone.

10 years in Arizona

General Conference Sunday

Did everyone enjoy conference as much as we did? I just love staying home and relaxing while conference is on. My kids must be getting older. I was able to have it on and actually listen to all the speakers without a lot of interruptions. It was nice. We saw Grandma and Grandpa Kitchen in the audience of the 2nd Saturday session. Jennifer spotted them during one of the songs. We kept rewinding it just to make sure. After the second time we were positive it was them.

Jared's 3rd grade musical "Nuts"

Jared had his school musical this week. He was one of the clouds. He did a really good job.

Which one do you like best?

My sister told me about this site so I gave it a try. You can put your picture into different faces. I am taking a poll on which year everyone likes the best! By the way, if you want to try it out go to yearbookyourself.com.

Just for fun

Brooke White Comes Home

Jennifer meets Brooke White

This weekend Brooke White did a benefit concert. In the afternoon she signed autographs and Jennifer and her friends went in hopes of meeting Brooke. They all got her autograph and a picture with her! The news was there at that time too and they were all on the news that evening. How exciting for them. That night she had a free concert in the amphitheater. I went with her and we took our blankets to sit on. One of Jennifer's friends had gotten there really early and had saved places front and center. It was a real thrill for all those girls--and their moms too!

Walk like an Egyptian

Joshua had his Egyptian wax museum at school this week. They each had to research an Egyptian God and then make a costume for it. He was Thoth. They made the classroom into a museum and the kids would come around and listen to them do their speech.

Crush

I had to share this picture that Jennifer has hanging on her door. She has had it up there for several months now. She made it look like they were standing in front of the Mesa Temple. My sister Lisa said she wanted one of her neices to marry David Archuleta. I just wanted her to see that Jennifer would gladly take that offer. She has had a crush on him since last year's American Idol Season. Of course with his new single and music video "Crush" it really has her swooning. How many of you remember your first teen idol crush? I confess mine was Donny Osmond.

Garden

So I started planting my garden this week. I don't have a very big garden, but it seems to be enough for me for now. Maybe when I get better at knowing when to grow things I will expand. It is so strange to me to be putting beans and peas in the garden in September! I also planted a few different lettuces, green onions, radishes and I plan to add some carrots. I did a lot of research on which plants will grow this time of year. If you think that it is strange to be planting in September--my next planting will be in Jan/Feb. This week I will plant my flowers. They will last until May or June and then it will get too hot. Although this year some of them actually survived the heat because of the location I planted them. This picture is from a few years ago, it looks quite a bit different now. I will post more recent photos when there is something more to see than dirt.

Joshua

Joshua had an interesting rash appear this week. I kind of watched it for a few days and then decided that I better find out what was up. The doctor diagnosed it pityriasis rosea. You can follow the link to read about it. It's really kind of a weird thing but something I had never heard of or seen before. Anyway he is dealing with it fine and its not contagious or anything--just interesting.

http://www.aad.org/public/publications/pamphlets/common_pityriasis.html

A few pictures

Just put these pictues on since they are the only pictures I have taken in the past 2 weeks.

What have we been doing?

I haven't posted for awhile. There just hasn't been anything very exciting going on. So what have I been doing. Let's see-- I have been making a cloud for Jared's school play, an Egyptian costume for Joshua's Egyptian wax museum, a page to go in the preschool scrapbook for Jacob, helping Jennifer finish her project for Young Women in Excellence, and taking Jonathan to numerous doctor appointments. It all becomes quite a juggling act sometimes. We did have a great time watching the last 2 BYU games. We don't get all of them so its fun when we do get one on TV. The weather is starting to cool and I actually felt fall in the air. Its still a little warm in the daytime but its starting to cool off in the evenings and the mornings are nice. So soon I will be planting my fall garden and putting new flowers in my flower beds. Does anyone have any good book recommendations? I am hoping to have some time to do a little reading now that Jacob is back in preschool full swing.

What we did on Labor day

We decided to go to the Superstition Mountains for Labor Day. The story goes that there is a goldmine hidden in the mountain but anyone who goes looking for it never comes back.




We rode the train around the ghost town that is at the base of the mountain. It had a real working mine back in the day. We spent a few hours exploring and then we had to have an ice cream cone when we were done. We all had a good time.

Jacob goes back to preschool

Jacob could not figure out why when everyone went back to school he couldn't. So, finally this week it was his turn! He was so excited. He went back to the same place he went last year. The only difference is he goes 3 days a week instead of 2. Yeah for mom--oh, and Jacob too of course. Just one more year and then he is off to Kindergarten. He enjoyed watching the Oompah-lympic games--so he calls it- Actually, we are all going to miss watching it--there were some great moments.

Happy Birthday #1 Dad

Happy 40th Birthday Nathan

It's hard to believe but Nathan turned 40 this week. It just happened to be his day off so that was an extra bonus. He and the boys went to the midnight showing of the new Star Wars Clone Wars movie. They had a really good time. We all went out to dinner later that day to finish off the celebrating.

Some photos from our Olympic party

Jennifer and Jared enjoying their dinner. Here is a picture of the fortune cookies Jennifer made.