Christmas 2008

So Christmas has come and gone (as a matter of fact, it came at 5:30 in the morning)This is the picture I got when I turned on the lights to tell them to go back to bed. and what do I have to show for it..... well, a third garage full of empty boxes and happy kids. Today I was asked how my Christmas was. I replied," that my kids were happy, so I was happy." This year out of all the years I felt like we had not wasted our money on anything. I was very careful to think.... would this be a waste of money. There were times I put things back and decided it was not important or not needed. The only thing that really hasn't been touched much is Mandy's guitar. It might just take a while before she decides its a real cool gift. (This of course was more of her father's idea.) This Christmas .... In Ashley's words were, .... no freakin way, no freakin way. She actually was surprised by her Christmas. This was of course her new ipod. Mike and I looked at the list and decided two days before Christmas that she needed something else. Believe me it was worth 150.00 to have happiness in our home. Mandy got a cell phone, Jase a magic kit, rocket, spiro game, bike, etc. Ellie got a bike and a pogo stick. Brooklyn got some animals, blocks, bubbles, candy bracelets and her most favorite was a scooter. You can find her pushing her scooter and singing songs as she slowly glides down the hall. It is so much fun to see her grow up. Mike got a new sound system for his guitars, (thanks to parents,) and I got a new cricut and a saw. And let me not forget, ...we got a wii. This has been fun for all. Mike needs to work on his tennis game though. (he claims he is good at tennis but the video shows differently.So, another Christmas has come and gone but it was a very fun and not too stressful of a Christmas. Now, is there someone who would like to pay my credit card bill!

Leading up to Christmas...

There are so many things that happen in the month of December that lead up to Christmas. Jase was in the nutcracker.(no pictures to show because they were deleted.) He did a great job as a folk dancer. I loved seeing him get into his dance and his big smiling face. Also, to add to the Christmas excitement, we decided we would do a money tree to give to someone. Instead of mom and dad giving all the money, the kids would do chores to earn money to help put on the money tree. Every time they did a chore, they would put a mark on the paper. Each mark represented a dollar. The person who earned the most money, would be the one who got to put it on the door step, knock and run. Mandy won hands down but Ellie worked hard to catch her. It was fun seeing the kids ask for chores and work hard at doing them. It is too bad that it has to end. (the only negative thing is the fighting because someone was wanting to do a chore and the other wanted to do it too.)

Mandy and Ellie helped roll all the money to place on the tree. This was not an easy task.

After many attempts to leave it and almost getting caught by their neighbor and Mandy busting open the cellophane bag that it was in.(this was all on one attempt,) They were finally home so we could leave the money tree. Boy were we glad to get rid of it. We also dipped cinnamon bears in chocolate and decorated gram cracker houses to help pass the time away. Brooklyn had more fun eating the candy than decorating the houses. This is Ellie and Mandy's idea of a gram cracker house.

With December came the snow. The kids spent many hours rolling and throwing snowballs. Ellie spent more time rolling than anything else. The neighborhood boys enjoyed more throwing.

Mandy, Jase, Brayden, and Dammon enjoyed climbing on Ellie's snowball. To end the school break, Ashley performed with her choir at their Christmas concert.

These are a few of my favorite things that led up to Christmas.

Thank goodness for Thanksgiving!

This year for Thanksgiving we spent it in Layton with my brother Rick and his family. Three of my other sisters (Tiffani, Misti, and Kandice) and their families made the long trek from St. George and joined us. I could tell you about their fun all the way up, but I'll leave it up to them to share their fun. Our family woke up late on Thursday morning, and we kind of messed around too long. So getting our chores done and getting packed we were rushed to get out of Grantsville at 1:00. Mike and I drove separate vehicles because I wanted to stay and go shopping with my siblings. About 5 minutes into the drive I remembered I had forgotten the strawberry jam. So I called and asked Mike to turn around and go get the jam. He grudgingly did so. By the time we arrived, everyone was ready to eat. (what a shock) It took four different tables to feed us all. But the food was great and we enjoyed every bit of food. After dinner the boys played some ping pong and the girls geared up for the after Thanksgiving specials. We did find some time to play a game or two. Unfortunatly I was on the "little" kids team who supposedly was really good. (whatever) Of course my team didn't win. While everyone went to bed, the girls had sugar plums dancing in their heads. Who could go to sleep. We spent all night trying to buy things on line. We got skunked on line so we headed to the stores to fight everyone and their dog. I didn't fair so well, but Kandice and Tiff scored. After being up all night and then fighting the crowds, we headed home to sleep. After hearing kids crying and doors slamming I decided the best thing was to head home to Grantsville. Rick instead took all the kids hanging on a rope down the way to go geo caching (however you spell it) I was able to get a couple of hours in and felt so much better. That night we decided to fight the crowds and go to temple square. We parked at Little America and then caught TRAX up to temple square. When we climbed onto trax it was so crammed with people that we felt like squished sardines. We arrived and some of us enjoyed the lights and atmosphere. After spending some time on Temple Square, we caught Trax again back to our vehicles. We then enjoyed a mighty meal at Chuck a Rama! Who could ever forget Brett going in, grabbing a BBQ drumstick and walking over to us to chat and taking a big bite out of his drumstick. One would wonder what is funny about this, but the fact that he didn't have a plate and his hand was covered in BBQ sauce tickled me. Also Brad gave the final Hurray by throwing up in the bathroom. I truly enjoyed being with my family for Thanksgiving. It would have been a little bit better if my parents would have made it. Maybe next year. I am truly thankful for the great family that I have. I would love to have shared the rest of the great pictures with you, but my daughter Ashley deleted every picture on my camera!(i'm not happy)

HELP!!

I took some pictures of the kids and of our family for our Christmas cards this year. I need your help. Which one do you like the best? I can change them to black and white or sepia. I can put in more than one too. I also want to know if you have any cute sayings to go with the picture. Sooooo please help me!


We're jumping for joy that it's Christmas!




Tossing you Christmas wishes!
Goodbye fall.... Hello Christmas!







We've been good.... NOT








This one could say: Hoping you get everything you wish for. This one I would do in black and white and cut out the neighbors yard.

Merry Christmas!

Last performance of family fun evening

This is the last performance of the night.
sing along if you want!

Talent Night

Last night for "Family Fun Evening" we had a talent night. It started out a little rough with kids insisting they didn't have a talent to share. (They knew ahead of time to prepare a talent and they chose to play and mess with the computer) We pulled the keyboard out and taught Jase a song in about 3 minutes and then told him to show what he had learned. He started off great and when he got to the end, he began to look for help from his sister who knows nothing about the piano. SO..... in agony he falls to the ground in despair!
Then Mandy played us a tune and then Ashley and Mandy gave us their version of chop sticks. (not the best that I have heard.) Mandy then showed us her gymnastic ability. I sure wish I had this talent. (never had it, did I Cheri)Then Ellie showed us her talent of gymnastics. For only taking gymnastics for 2 months now, she is pretty good!Of course everyone had to show their talents while Ellie did her talent. I do have to say that Brooklyn's got some sweet moves! The last part of our talent show was Mike playing the guitar. After he played some songs, Mandy wondered if he knew anything modern. We convinced him to play a Hannah Montana song that he learned awhile ago but hadn't played it for some time. He finished his talent with everyone singing with him. I will add that video later. Mike thinks it is time to work from home and needs the internet to do so. So I am being kicked off. To finish the night, we watched the video of our talent show. Jase's video was the winner of the night. He even laughed at himself. Hope you enjoyed the Wilsons' talent night for family fun evening.

Goodbye to Fall Fun...

Fall is such a fun time of the year for the kids. They love it when the leaves change color and they begin to fall on the ground. They will spend hours raking the leaves so they can play in them. I wanted to mow them up a couple of weeks ago and they were quick to let me know that it was not time for the leaves to be removed. So for a few weeks, I have put up with tons of leaves all over the grass so the kids had some type of entertainment. It was fun seeing them strategize on how to get the perfect pile for jumping into. Then when it was almost complete, Brooke would run as fast as she could and dive into the perfect pile of leaves. Then you would hear Jase and Ellie screaming and yelling at Brooke for ruining their pile that they had spent hours perfecting. A few days ago, Jase and Ellie came in and said they would rake the leaves and put them in garbage bags if I would pay them. I agreed thinking they wouldn't stick to it very long. They at least got 2 bags full and came in requesting their money. They got their money and in return asked for a can of pop in exchange for their money. ( I guess you can tell who won out on that great idea.) After seeing they were willing to bag up the leaves, I knew they had had their fun and that it was time to get the mower out and pick up all of the leaves. Today I looked out the window and saw no more leaves on the lawn, but tomorrow, we might have white stuff (SNOW) to compensate for no more leaves. Goodbye Fall... until next year!

Funny Things That Brooklyn Says

Sooooo I have been gone to state with the volleyball team. When I returned home, Mike told me a funny thing that happened while he was home taking care of the kids. Brooke had climbed up to the computer and Mike asked her what she was doing. She replied she was getting on her blog. I about fell over with laughter when he told me this. I think that her sisters have influenced her a little too much. Then last night, we were having hard shelled tacos. One of the kids had asked to have some sauce (salsa) put on their taco. Well Brooke being the sauce girl that she is, requested to have some "sausage" too. It was funny to hear how salsa got changed from sauce to sausage. The funny thing is, she continued over and over to ask for more sausage. She couldn't get enough of it. It was so fun to watch her eat her sausage so I finally took a picture of her to help me remember how much Brooke loves sausage. Brooke is learning so many things so quickly. Unfortunately she picks up on what her siblings say. The other day I asked her to go get her shoes so we could go somewhere. After some time of looking, she came into my room and with a disgusted tone to her voice, she said, " I can't find my freaking shoes." It's funny to hear a 2 year old speak that way, but it's not funny when you know it's your kid and she probably has that word in her head for life. She always has so many cute things to say and she is always wanting to give the prayer. Whether it is on the food or family prayer, she has to say it. I have to say, she says some great prayers. I know some day that the cute things Brooke says will no longer be cute and they will be more of an attitude. But for now I will enjoy all the cute things she has to say even if it is "FREAKEN"

Just hangn around Lagoon!!!

I finally had a Saturday off from volleyball and it was such beautiful weather, we decided to take the kids to Lagoon for the last time this season. I was going to leave Mike and Brooklyn home, but Brooke was not going to miss Lagoon. (in her words, " I want to go to wagoon too".) She has her dad wrapped around her little finger so Brooke and Mike went too. Everyone in Utah must have decided they needed to go to Lagoon yesterday too. The lines were long everywhere we went. Ashley met up with some friends, one who happened to be "Luke". We watched them ride a ride together. Of course he had to put his arm around her so he didn't get squished by her so much. (Ya right Ash!) It was fun to have a Saturday to do something fun with the kids even if Jase threw a fit because his dad let him try to golf. He was given 3 balls to try to get them in the hole and missed all 3. He wanted to try again and his dad told him no. So he was mad and sat on the bench and grumbled and griped and wished that he was a giant so he could crush Lagoon. Thank goodness I was with Brooke enjoying puff the dragon roller coaster and the boats, planes, helicopter, swings, and many other rides. After Brooke and I had a blast riding all of these great rides, we met up with Mike and the other kids. Mike was sharing with me how Jase wanted to be a giant. A man who won a prize walked by and asked if Brooke would like his fuzzy dog that he had won. I said YES, and then gave it to Jase so he would quit wishing to be a giant who desired to crush Lagoon. He was happy the rest of the day. To top it off, we stopped at Wen....dys, Wen....dys, Wen....dys, Wen....dys (as Brooke would say) and grabbed us some dinner. What a great way to spend a Saturday!

Taking Misti's Challenge

I know you are sitting by the computer anxiously awaiting the addition to my blog. Well...... here it is! I took Misti's challenge to take the fourth picture from my photo album. I was so relieved that this is the picture that popped up! This picture was taken a week after Brooklyn was blessed. We didn't take many pictures of our family with Brooklyn on the weekend she was blessed, so I decided that before we went to church the next week, we needed to have a sibling picture taken. I was so happy to have Brooklyn in our home and to feel that our family was complete even if we only had 1 boy. It is hard to believe that more than 2 years has Flown by. I love my children and I am thrilled to be able to be their mom. (on any given day it could change. j/k) When I am gone on a volleyball trip I look forward to coming home to hold and laugh with my kids. (and husband) They make our house a home. I want my kids to know I love them and even if I get mad at them, it is because I care and want them to be the best they can be. So, to the Wilson 5 I love YOU!
(Ash wasn't too happy to have this picture blogged, because she looks so young. She was, and her dad thinks she looks great without makeup. I would have to disagree with him. Sometimes you have to grow up dad.)

My New Blog!!

Hey this is my new blog! My daughter Ashley decided that it was time for me to get my own blog! So this is it!