Savannah's Birthday Party

 We had Savannah's ocean-themed birthday party the third Saturday in January.  It's not uncommon for us to have the December birthday parties in January, since we're always too busy during the holidays.  It was planned to be at our home, but we moved it to the church gym at the last minute due to rain.  It turned out to be a good move, since we had a lot more space for the party.  

We set up a craft area on the stage where the girls painted treasure chests.  They got some sparkly marble magnets in their treasure chests.  

We set up a table on one end of the gym for lunch and cake.  I made the cake, with some fun shell chocolates and sour strips to look like corral.  The inside of the cake was a couple layers of blue.  I made homemade rolls, with red food coloring, for crab rolls. I used blue food coloring in the frog-eyed salad.  We also had blue jello with gummy ocean candy and whipped cream. I attempted to cut a watermelon to look like a shark.   We also had goldfish and some veggies.  All the food was pretty yummy!  

We had plenty of space to do some games in the gym.  They played with balloons.  We did crab walk, which Savannah won.  We did hot potato with a squishy toy that looked a little like a puffer fish.  Another game was a dolphin relay race, hurdling over mini waves.  We did a "save the sea turtle" race, digging baby sea turtles out of the paper "dirt" and racing them to the water.  They had to dig out all the sea turtles until each wave was filled on a poster board.  We also played a candy game - the same one we did with family over Christmas.  We brought all the candy and put them in bags. It didn't work as well this time, since they didn't want to trade very much.  They all took home some candy.  (No money in this game.)  Our last activity was a Lego building challenge, where they had 10 minutes to build an ocean-themed Lego creation.  

It turned out to be a fun party!  Twelve of her friends were able to make it, and everyone seemed to have a good time. It was lots of work to get everything ready and clean up though.  

January Misc

Just some miscellaneous things to start the new year... 

Owen and I had about 5 days on our own before the rest of the family arrived home.  Owen had quite a bit of basketball and I worked 3 days, but we also had time to do a movie marathon of Hunger Games, go out to eat, and build one of my Lego sets.  

Alex and I continue to do our monthly temple visits. 

Kai is spoiled when it's cold outside - she comes inside and enjoys sleeping on her bed. 

Jared is known for doing stretches and planks and working out at random times.  Alex joined him in his stretching one evening.   

 

Christmas Vacation - Oklahoma

We arrived at Alex's parents place on Wednesday night the 27th.  We had our 2nd Christmas the next day.  Papa John, Grandma, and Aunt Jane spoiled the kids with lots more presents.  Several more Legos were unwrapped, including Legos for Grandma and me.  Somehow they think I need Legos too... 

Alex got a bar of charcoal soap - a lump of coal!  It was cute watching the dogs get their treats.  Buster is hilarious when he crawls on your lap or starts howling.  We tried to get him to howl at the New Years count down, but he had a delayed response.  

We made a ton of popcorn, which surprisingly most of it was eaten there.  Owen and I brought a small bag of it home with us.  We always enjoy our movies and popcorn there.  

We also enjoyed our Braum's ice cream outings, which is always a must-do when we visit Oklahoma.  

Alex, Jared, and I went on some morning runs.  I actually did 3 days in a row of the 5-mile or so run down the country road.  Jared had one mishap on the 2nd day when he got bit by a dog.  He had run by the house the day before with the dog barking behind the fence.  However, the 2nd morning, the gate was open, and the dog came at Jared and bit him on the knee.  He's probably lucky the owner was out there, because Jared thinks the dog would have kept attacking if the owner didn't call off the dog.  He wasn't able, however, to keep the dog from attacking the first time.  Alex took Jared to the urgent care to get it checked out.  Luckily no stitches were required; he just got it cleaned out well and got some antibiotics.  Jared was back out running again the next day.   

We went to church on Sunday morning.  It was Savannah's last day of Primary.  They had extra things for her to take home - an embroidered handkerchief, a framed temple picture, and a couple other small things.  We made sweet & sour chicken and Mongolian beef for dinner, along with pies, cookies, and Martinelli's for dessert.  We stayed up to ring in the New Year.  

On New Year's Day, we made pancakes, bacon, and eggs for breakfast.  Alex took Owen and I to the airport on Monday afternoon to catch a flight home.  Owen had 3 basketball games the first week of January (still during Christmas break) which he didn't want to miss.  I also headed back to work that first week.  Owen and I had a connecting flight in Dallas.  We ran into some friends from our local town in CA on our same flight!

Alex, Jared, Weston, Savannah, and Kai stayed a few more days in OK and then drove back home.  Jared and Alex were able to trade off driving.  I was glad not to have to make that long drive back home!  We enjoyed our visit with family and just wish we would have had a little more time with them. 

Christmas Vacation - Dallas and friends

We headed to Dallas on Tuesday the 26th and stayed overnight in a hotel.  On Wednesday morning, Alex and I went to the Dallas Texas Temple.  We had been waiting for a chance to take Alex's brother Jim's name to the temple to do work on behalf of him.  This would have been Jim's temple, since he lived in Dallas.  We were glad to get the opportunity to do that.  This was also the temple where Alex received his own endowment and the temple I went to as a youth to do baptisms.  

After we went back and checked out of the hotel, we took the kids over to see the temple grounds. After that, we met Jim's girlfriend Monica and Monica's mom for lunch.  It was nice to catch up with them.  

The last picture is from Oklahoma when we met up with 4 of Alex's high school buddies.  It was a nice little reunion for them, as they hadn't all been together since high school.  

 

Christmas Day

We did Christmas morning with Baba and Papa.  I attempted to scale back on the amount of gifts. I warned them they might only have 1 present, but I still got them a couple of books and an ornament.  Weston got his Charmin toilet paper instead of a second book.  Jared made a gift for Owen and Weston in wood shop at school - a Lego storage box with Lego Bro etched in the wood.

I made cinnamon rolls and eggs for brunch.  We got to chat with Nathan again just before dinner.  Everyone joined in for another big feast for dinner. We also decorated sugar cookies and later had cupcakes to celebrate Jesus' birthday.  The cousins did their gift exchange, and Baba and Papa gave their gifts to each of the kids.  My favorite thing was doing our traditional candlelight singing and reading the Christmas story.  I actually played the piano, so I didn't get many pictures during the singing.  Another favorite of the night was Audrey sharing a video she put together which was really touching.  It highlighted one thing that everyone had done this year that was challenging or made them grow or something new (a Give Me This Mountain moment).  Micah and Alison's challenge made everyone cry as theirs was saying good-bye to Micah's dad who recently passed away. 

We had a great Christmas - it was good to spend it with my parents, my sisters, and their families.  We weren't sure if Alison and Micah were going to make it, since they had been struggling with sickness going through their family.  They were delayed a couple days but still made it in time for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day celebrations. And somehow we managed not to carry any sickness to Oklahoma with us.  

Christmas Eve

We went to church on Sunday morning.  We sang Gesu Bambino with all our family during the sacrament meeting of Sam and Audrey's ward.  Since church was only the first hour on Christmas Eve, we also then stayed for the sacrament meeting of Daniel and Ashley's ward.  

Later, we had a big feast for dinner at Audrey and Sam's house.  We got to video chat with Nathan for a little bit, but I felt bad for him because they didn't have anything for dinner that night.  The member meal that was supposed to come that evening didn't make it until lunch the next day.  Their stove ran out of fuel or something so they couldn't cook anything until they got that re-filled the next day.  I was feeling guilty for our big feast when they had nothing.  

We had a fun Christmas Eve.  Audrey and Sam have a tradition of doing a puppet show.  They give about 30 minutes for everyone to make a puppet of one of the characters or props in the story.  Then Sam reads the story while doing a live video feed to FaceBook.  There's no practicing and only a short time to make the puppets.  This year was Charlie Brown's Christmas.  

After the puppet show, the tradition is to do a candy game, which is pretty hilarious.  Everyone brings a wrapped candy bar or candy, which also has an envelope with a random amount of money in it.  It's white elephant style for choosing a candy to un-wrap.  The unwrapped candy can be stolen up to 3 times before it's locked (the person gets to keep it without being stolen again).  At the end, everyone then opens their envelope to see what money they received along with their candy.  We had some creative wrapping, with at least one of them wrapped multiple times.  Noah had to unwrap several layers (and I didn't even get the final candy on video).  Hazel opened up gummy hotdogs, which were hilarious.  Papa actually stole those from Hazel, and then Evelyn stole them from Papa.  

Savannah wasn't happy to lose her Sour Punch straws right at the end to Ashley (who went first).  I ended up offering my "Sour Patch Kids" candy to her in exchange for Watermelon Sour Patch, but when Ashley realized that Savannah was really sad, she just gave the Sour Punch back to her.  It turns out that my "Sour Patch Kids" was just the box with other candy inside.  So Savannah would have been really upset with the contents.  I had tried to give Ashley the "Sour Patch Kids" but she knew what the contents were since they were the ones who wrapped that one up.  The joke came back around to her!  She actually wouldn't take any of the candy back, so I ended up with a Million Dollar chocolate bar AND the watermelon sour punch, and Savannah got the Sour Punch Straws.  Alex ended up with a giant Reeses Peanut Butter cup bars.  I'm not sure what candy ended up where, but there was also a giant Kit Kat Bar going around. 

Alison and Micah both ended up getting a $20 bill with their candy.  The whole thing was quite hilarious!

Christmas Vacation - Seaworld

We spent one day at Seaworld with Audrey's and Ashley's families.  We pretty much started off with a roller coaster ride, which turned out to be too much for Savannah.  It was called the Steel Eel, and I didn't like it very much either because of the steep ups and downs.  Savannah was pretty much done with rides after that, but we managed to talk her into riding one other one.  The Wave Breaker was a little more mild, and she liked that one.  We watched several shows the rest of the time.  Here is a compilation of the sea life shows.  We also watched a Live Nativity, with lots of singing, some live animals, and doves released at the end of the show.  It was really good. I liked the Christmas lights up throughout the park too.   

Seaworld Shows

The picture of Savannah and Mason is the START of the ride - she was still smiling at that point, because she had no idea what she was in for...