Our Merry Christmas

On Christmas Eve we celebrated with our traditional eggs, biscuits, and sausage dinner followed by opening presents from Mom and Dad. The kids all got much needed new pajamas.

Christmas morning the fun began at 7:30 a.m. Donald got some great new baby toys and he enjoyed the wrapping paper just as much as the toys!

Adrian was surprised by some Halo action figures! He loves that Master Chief came with a sniper rifle and the Arbiter had an energy sword. With money from his Call grandparents he bought a tank so Master Chief and the Arbiter have a cool vehicle to ride in.

Charlie got his much awaited Wall-E robot. He's been telling everyone for a couple months that this is what he was going to get. You plug Wall-E in to an Ipod or CD player and he'll dance to the music. Charlie loves being Wall-E's D.J.

Rock Band 2, from Grandpa Blodgett, brings joy to the whole family! The girls especially love singing and one of their favorites is Livin' on a Prayer. They also got some High School Musical doll sets.
I gave Dan a collection of family pictures in a frame and a scripture case. I made the scripture case based on the one his mom made him when he was 8. I can only say that she definitely wasn't a novice seamstress and I'm afraid I am so I hope this time it's the thought that counts. He got me some nice BYU shirts and a frame for a painting my Grandma gave me. I was also surprised by a new measuring cup! (I melted my favorite plastic one in the dishwasher a few days before Christmas.)

The day after Christmas we spent playing our new XBOX games from Grandma and Grandpa Weir, Legos Indiana Jones and Kung Fu Panda. We've also begun our World Tour with Rock Band and we already have hundreds of thousands of fans.

We hope you all had a Merry Christmas too!

One Week Before Christmas...

10 years ago, Rebecca Marie was born. She was such a fun Christmas present and I love celebrating her birthday. On December 12 we had her friend Mikayla sleep over. The two of them made brownies so we decided she should blow out candles while she had her friend over. She must have made a really important wish because she put her all into blowing out those 10 candles.
On Rebecca's birthday I brought Charlie and Donald to the school to watch their Christmas sing-a-long. Charlie loved sitting with Rebecca and her friends all through the program. Everyone did an excellent job. (On a side note, when the program was over Charlie stood up as every one was leaving and stomped his feet and yelled, "I didn't get to do my song!" I asked him to do his song for me so he sang, "Dun dun dun dun Everybody Dance Now!" I'm sure that would have gone over well with the entire school.)
After school we had friends over and made peanut butter popcorn and drank hot chocolate. We waited until Dad got home to open presents and she was so happy. I wish I could post the video but it's too long. I made her a collage of portraits of her lovely face. She got a dress with money from Grandparents. We also got her a cute shirt, a necklace with charms, and a Beautiful Bride Becky doll.

Here's the real birthday cake, chocolate chocolate! Yum. She's my kind of girl.

She wore her new dress to church today along with a new bracelet from her Aunt Jessie. (It fits her perfect and she loves it. Thanks Jess.)
Am I really old enough to have a 10 year old?! She's so grown-up!

Christmas Decorations

Not much to post right now, but here are some pictures of our decorations. It was time to post these before Christmas is over.


The Christmas tree in the light (of course you've already seen it in previous posts):

And in the dark:

Of course, the stockings were hung with care:

Our nativity set:

Donald really got into the spirit of things:

Special Day

We had a wonderful day celebrating our newest member of the church. Shari was baptized today. Shari's cousin James and Uncle Scott spoke about baptism and the fourth article of faith and Rebecca spoke about the Holy Ghost. It was such a nice program and so wonderful to see that special glow of excitement surrounding my sweet little Shari.


Shari said the water was nice and warm and she had a good feeling after she was baptized. It was so special to see her receive the Holy Ghost and I know she will be a strong member of the church and do all she can to follow the Spirit. We are so proud of our little Shari.

Thanksgiving

Here is a link to some pictures of our fun Thanksgiving weekend:

http://weir12.blogspot.com/2008/11/thanksgiving.html

It was extra special because my dad was here from Qatar. We started our Thanksgiving holiday on Wednesday. I drove out to Provo to visit my sisters Katie and Melinda and my Dad. We managed to find a pretty dress for Shari's baptism day. It's black velvet with a satin bow and she looks so grown up in it. I know it might be a little contrary to the bridal gown most girls in our ward get for their baptism day but she liked it and it is something she can wear throughout the winter. Wednesday night my sister Shari and her family arrived which was a wonderful surprise. They had been planning on spending Thanksgiving in Elko so we felt really lucky.
Thursday we went up to Kaysville to enjoy a Thanksgiving feast at my Uncle Alan and Aunt Tere's. They really know how to celebrate! It was so much fun and included much eating and playing of Rock Band. The kids all had a blast playing with cousins and my Aunt Tere has the most fun toys in her basement.
Friday everyone came out to our house for another day of fun and eating. I thought I'd end up being so worn out but I was just so happy to have everyone visit. Happiness must generate some extra energy. The party ended at around 4 when we found out Molly received her mission call and it was waiting at the Gough's house in Provo. The Gough's and Dad and Melinda had to hurry home so they could open the call!
It was so special to hear Molly's reaction to Santiago, Chile!! I'm so excited for her and glad we still get her here until March 11 to help her get ready. Congratulations Molly.
Saturday we had to say goodbye to the Kurtz family which was sad. We jumped right into getting the house cleaned up so we could get out the Christmas decorations. They look wonderful. I love Christmas. I'll be posting those pictures soon.
Saturday evening Donald was acting sick and kept me up most of the night. Sunday him and I stayed home from church and today I rushed him to the Dr. He has croup again. Ugh. Right now he's actually sleeping so I get to rest a little myself. For my rest I get to empty the dishwasher, clean the kitchen a little and fold the clothes. So relaxing.
I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving too.

Montana Trip

Last weekend we traveled to Montana. We left on Thursday after work and spent the night in Idaho. We stayed at a hotel with nice rooms. The best feature (according to Dan) was the large plasma TV's in the rooms. The kids enjoyed having their own room; Rebecca even said that the roll-out bed was more comfortable than her own bed. Donald didn't enjoy the hotel much, but that's probably because he had spent all night strapped down in his car seat instead of crawling around. Shari was really excited about the hotel breakfast. She was so excited, in fact, that she decided to eat enough for three or four breakfasts.

The next day we finished our drive to Hamilton. It was a long drive, but the combination of a portable DVD player and individual headphones for the kids made for a quiet trip. We were up there for Grandma (and great-Grandma) Blodgett's funeral. We went to the family home for the afternoon and visited with aunts, uncles, and cousins. That night we went to another hotel and swam for a while before bed.

The funeral was on Saturday. It started with a family meeting. Dan's dad said a few words at the beginning and then invited people to share their memories. Everyone was kind of emotional, and only RaeAnn managed to say anything. Dan offered a family prayer to end that meeting. The funeral services were nice and gave the kids an opportunity to learn more about their great-grandma. They especially liked to hear how much she liked swimming and music. The cemetary service was next at the Hamilton cemetery and was followed by a lunch back at the church. The whole set of ceremonies was nice and gave us all an opportunity to remember Grandma. It's nice to know that she is back with her husband and other family members, but we will miss her. We are also really glad we got to go visit her last summer when we were able to.

After the ceremony, we went to Blodgett cemetary with the rest of Dan's family. It was nice to visit there and see his mom's gravesite. All of the Blodgett cousins were there, so we got a picture of them (Judy Gail was sleeping, so she missed it).

Sarah also decided to take a picture of all the brothers and sisters that were there (Craig and Brett weren't able to go).

The next morning we got up and started the long drive back home. We ended up making a lot of stops for bathroom breaks, but made it home eventually. The highlight of the trip home was lunch. We stopped at a restaurant in Idaho Falls. The food was good, and the kids had fun playing Mad Libs on their placemats. Of course, our favorite part of the meal was that the restaurant was called "Shari's Restaurant."

Just for a Laugh