One Day Older

Happy Birthday Carson. One day older and wiser too (that is the important part.) Carson turned 7 years wiser today. It was a full day, Stake Conference, special birthday dinner (again I bet you can't guess what we had? If you picked chicken pillows you are right again. If you didn't don't worry there are 4 more birthdays that I will cook for this year and I am willing to bet that chicken pillows will be the answer for all of those, so keep trying.) presents, and cake and ice cream. I believe he enjoyed every minute of the day except maybe the last 45 mins. of stake conf.

Don't you just love the Clone look?
Star Wars will it ever get old?

We Love You Carson, thanks for being such a great kid. Happy Birthday!

Carrie Underwood - How Great Thou Art

This is my absolute favorite hymn. She does a great job, enjoy.

Hailey is officially...

a teenager! On the 16th Hailey turned 13!! I totally forgot I had a blog and that I should post. One of the things she wanted was a cake from DiviniDee Cakes. My friend Dee Dee owns the shop her cakes are amazing. Here is Hailey and her amazing cake. (If you look closely there are little chocolate gymnasts all over the cake.)

Her Brothers could care less about the candles they were just ready to dig in.

The rest of the details included her favorite dinner of none other than....You guessed it chicken pillows, and of course presents!!

Happy Birthday Hailey, we love you.

*Snow, Tubes, and Grandpa's 4-Wheelers*

Another part of our trip to Utah included a stop in Manti to visit Grandma and Grandpa Thomas. And if there is snow it is a must to go tubing behind the 4-wheelers. Never mind the fact that it was only 7 degrees and that the snow was harder than Hailey's head, we did it anyhow, for that my friends is the Thomas way. After all it is all about the memories we make together. Cody, Melissa and their two boys Nixon, and Jaden drove up from Spanish Fork to join us in the fun, cold, snow.

Snow Covered Slopes

Chase, Trent, Jacob, and Garrett (behind)

One of Trent's passions in life is skiing. So when there is a break in school the itch to ski usually drives us to Utah as it did this year again. As of last year we had all 5 kids up and skiing, now if we could just get them all on the same skill level we would be set. However, when that becomes the case I believe that I will be left behind. Jacob did great again this year, we thought maybe since he was a year older he might make it through the whole day. Nope at about 3pm on his way up the majestic lift he fell asleep again. This was a repeat from last year but I was not with them this year to get pictures. Trent had to slump his arms and head over his poles and ski him down the hill. This was quite amusing to others skiers on the hill. Carson has become our speeding bullet. Notice he has a helmet on. He has no fear and goes straight down the mountain. I spent day 2 chasing him and let his Uncle Michael chase him on day 3. Chase finally got to ski with poles this year. As soon as he masters those he will be caught up to the big kids. Garrett and Hailey started mogul school with Trent this year and both did very well. Garrett even followed Trent down several double black diamond runs. All in all we had a great ski trip.

Jacob out cold at the end of the day and a shot of him in ski school, Carson and Hailey pictured above. Me I am behind the camera of course.

Lights at Temple Square

One of my favorite traditions growing up was to visit Temple Square to see the lights on my birthday. Now that I live so far away it obviously does not happen but this year I was able to take my kids to see the lights, although not on my birthday. It was cold and snowing and we almost didn't get the big green machine back onto the road (we parked on a very steep and icy hill) but by golly we went and enjoyed ourselves. The kids really liked all the nativities from around the world that they have displayed, they were new for me as well. Jacob was for some reason at awe with the inside of the tabernacle. Maybe it was the warmth inside who knows. Carson liked that the fountains were "all foggy". The rest of us just loved the large trees filled with lights. A great opportunity to reflect on the birth of our Savior and exactly what it means to us.

Carter Family Christmas Party

The day after Christmas we drove up to Utah to ski on all the wonderful snow that nobody who lives there wants. While there we were able to go to the Carter Family Christmas Party. It was great to see all that were there as we haven't seen most of them for a good, oh let's just say 8 years or so.

John and Boston with the coveted candy dots from Walgreens.

Kimberly and her girls.

Skip's gang had their roof up and stable first I believe.

Part of the completed gingerbread neighborhood.

The kids had a great time making gingerbread houses, that is once we got the roofs to stay up. There were many ingenious way thought up to accomplish this. Once the houses were done we moved onto well....more candy of course. This brought back long ago memories for me. As I remembered a year when my Aunt Bonnie and Aunt Sue made two large Santa head pinatas for a family Christmas Party that we broke in my Aunt Bonnie's basement. It was fun to see our kids doing what we had done so long ago. Thanks Aunt Sue for your time and effort to put this together.

We had some little swingers...

some a little more dangerous swingers...

A line of waiting swingers...

And the big final swinger.

Candy candy candy!!

Kerrilyn to the rescue (Jacob wasn't quite so sure about the scrambling masses)

Garrett got a piece of the pinata (A tradition he and his cousins down inMexico have).

The halftime show.

And a few faces that I had never met. Little Mason and Jarod. Okay there were a whole lot more I had never met everyone under 8 would should be included, but I can't remember all their names. At least for the most part they all look like their parents so I knew who they belonged to.