Christmas Traditions

Like other holidays, Christmas time is filled with many memorable traditions. Some of our favorites this year were:

Christmas Countdown: Reading a Christmas book for each night of December. Usually I wrap the books and then the kids open one a night. A new tradition I started this year is to purchase a new book each year to add to our collection. The new book will be opened and read on Christmas Eve. This years new book was:
Gingerbread Houses: We have a sweet adopted grandmother who gives my children a gingerbread house each year to decorate. In addition to her gift, we choose one Family Home Evening night in December to decorate graham crackers into whatever the kids choose. This year we ended up with:
a nativity (courtesy of Shaelynne),

a skate board ramp (courtesy of Justyn),

a journal and snowmen faces (courtesy of Alexys and Kathryn),

and a Christmas train (courtesy of Zachary).


New Ornament: Each year the kids receive a new ornament to hang on the tree.


Baking Day: We also picked one day that was filled with baking Christmas goodies. We then delivered them to our neighbors. This year our plates were filled with Toffee Bars, Peppermint Toffee Bars, Peppermint Bark, Spearmint Bark, Fudge and Eggnog Fudge. Yum!!!

Christmas Lights: We also enjoy one evening of bundling up warm and driving around to look at all the Christmas lights in the valley. Then it's home for hot chocolate and a Christmas movie.

As we completed each of these activities and enjoyed the magic of the season, I couldn't help but wonder why we don't have magical traditions that last all year long.....

?????

Where do they come up with these things?

Henry always gets "Cars" stickers from speech therapy. I find them everywhere: on his carseat, on the cupboards, on the walls, on his clothes.

This one was a first:



We can't wait until this little guy finally decides to start talking to us. I'm dying to know what's going on inside his head.

I love this thought:

They definitely grow up too fast!

Happy Halloween!!!

Boo! From our family to yours!

Hope your day is spooky and super fun!!!

Family Pictures

Ken's cousin Jeni agreed to take us over to Twin Falls for a family photo shoot. She has such amazing talent, and worked well with our family and taking the pictures that we wanted.

To see more photos, go to
http://paperpiecing.typepad.com/paperpassion/2009/10/twin-falls-idaho-family-photographer.html

Swine Flu

As it turns out, we have had the swine flu for the last week. Zachary came home sick on Thursday, Justyn got sick on Saturday, Kathryn got sick on Sunday, Henry on Monday, Shaelynne on Tuesday and Alexys on Wednesday. Zach went back to school on Monday. Justyn went back to school the following Monday, Kathryn went back on Tuesday, and Shaelynne on Thursday. Henry is doing well today and I'm guessing that Alexys will be home one more day and then back to school on Thursday. So, each of the kids, except Zach, were sick about 7 days total. High fevers and very sore throats with a very rough cough. The funny thing is that the vaccinations that the schools are supposed to get are scheduled to come in next week. One less shot my kids have to get. :)

SIck Day

We have a house full of sick kids. Darn!

I really wanted a week off of therapy and the other run-around nonsense that seems to fill my day. BUT, this wasn't quite the vacation I had hoped for.

So we are all home sleeping and listening to Primary songs and getting the yucky taste of medicine out of our mouths by eating sugar cookies. :)

Wanna know what I did this weekend?

My Biology 100 class is online. This means that I do not have a lab each week. Instead, we are assigned to find our own lab. The requirements are: we have to contact a local Biologist and make arrangements to spend 15 hours in volunteer work collecting data alongside the biologist. Then we write a 10 page paper about the research we collected. Ken suggested I contact the local Fish and Game Department.

Sure, why not?

They were very kind and willing to help me out in my research. My choices were: working a big game check station that weekend, pulling fish nets in Oakley reservoir the end of October, or hiking about 20 miles in the mountains around Thanksgiving to help pull test tubes. So, should I choose cold, colder, or coldest? And notice they are all so....fish and game-ish.

So I chose....



Saturday was opening day of deer hunting season and so we set up a check station where all the hunters, successful or unsuccessful, had to stop and let us gather information from them. Since I have NEVER hunted before in my life and know NOTHING about big game, this was a real educational experience.



They checked their teeth to determine their age. Most were yearlings.



Then they removed the lymph nodes from their necks in order to send off to be tested for Chronic Wasting Disease, an illness not currently found in Idaho but a fun excuse to slice all their necks open and dig around.



Then they measured their zyphoid fat by slicing into their breast area. This tells how fat and happy they were before death. Because of the wet spring, the deer this year were VERY fat. Average is about 18 mm. This particular deer measured 31 mm.



If they were yearlings, they hung them up and weighed them. They looked pretty roughed up at this point due to all the cutting that had just happened to them.



This is Regan, the official Biologist in charge, matching the tag with the license. I'm doing what I did best the entire weekend....FREEZE! and watch! I did very little actual touching of the dead animals.

Other data they also collected included measuring the antlers and taking a tooth sample if the animal was older than 2 years old.



This is what I did most of the time.... I asked hunters to fill out a survey! Easy and CLEAN!
(Though when Ken picked me up Saturday night he said, "Wow, you Stink!")


This is me and the biologist I worked with all weekend. She was great! Do you like my official Fish and Game uniform? (Honestly, the worst part of the whole experience was having to wear the button-front uniformed shirt...blech, ucky!)

Now, I just have to write the paper!

I wonder if a campus class with a lab would have been as much fun.... ;)