Moon Dough !@#$

Moon Dough, Moon Dough all around,

On the table,

On the ground.

Moon Dough, Moon Dough squishes in my toes,

It's in our hair,

And up a nose.

 Moon Dough, Moon Dough is the best gift ever,

It won't dry out,

It lasts forever!

Moon Dough, get yours today!

Tanner's New Bed

You didn't think we could just make one twin a rockin' awesome bed and leave the other one sleeping on a boring old bed frame on the floor did you?

Introducing Fort Fillmore, the coolest bed a 6-year old boy could ask for!

 It comes equipped with a moving boom crane, trap door, ladders, windows, book shelves, hooks, split door, and is wired for lights on the upper and lower levels all controlled with a switch within reach of the actual bed.

 The lower level has a work bench and white board wall and is big enough to someday fit another bed for little brother.

Tanner in the trap door.  Now he can't wait to go to sleep at night.  The only problem is when Tanner and Ashlyn have sleep overs, they can't decide whose bed is cooler to sleep in!

What a nifty dad we have!

Christmas Aftermath

It seems anticlimatic to end our Christmas posts with what we got when I have made such a big deal about trying to focus on a Christ-centered Christmas.  So let me just put in a quick report that we finished all 25 things that we had planned to give to the Savior.  My days felt more filled with the Spirit and I was absolutely stunned to watch my children get so excited to do service for each other, neighbors, and strangers.  My heart was filled on the day that I had a list of chores with a list of how much each chore paid.  That day the children could do as many chores as they wanted, and all of the money that they earned was donated to an organization on their tithing slip.  I don't usually pay my children for chores, so I didn't know how they would feel about being asked to donate it, but they were so excited to earn as much money as possible and donate it, that it made my heart swell.  I am so proud of my little family.  I love them so much and I love my Savior.  It was a wonderful Christmas season.

 This was one of my favorite presents.  It is an amazing portrait of the temple taken by a childhood friend.  I love it above my fireplace.  And all of these pictures were taken courtesy of my new Sony Cybershot digital camera.  I love it!

 Charlotte loves her new scooter car.

 It turns into a walk along.  Am I crazy for encouraging this little trouble maker to walk?

 And Charlotte loves Ashlyn's new dog named, "Big".

 Ashlyn loves Big too.  She asked Santa for a stuffed animal dog, but she had no idea what she was getting herself into.  She loves it so much we had to haul the big guy from Grandma's house to Grandma's house Christmas Day.

 Ashlyn was so tired she tucked herself in for a nap yesterday.  When I went in to check on her this is what I found.

 There she is!

 Ian is in love with his new train set and was mad at us for leaving on Christmas Day because he just wanted to play trains all day!

 Most of Tanner's Christmas consisted of Lego sets.  This was a race car lego set that he got from Grandma Julie.  He was so enamored by it that he could hardly sit through Christmas dinner because he wanted to make his lego cars.  He had such a ball putting them together!

And of course Santa always brings bath stuffs.  Ashlyn and Tanner used color tabs to turn their water BLUE, so that they could pretend that they were in Hawaii.

Thank you so much everyone for the wonderful, thoughtful Christmas gifts.  We are so spoiled!

Santa vs. The Tooth Fairy

Ashlyn lost her top front tooth a while back and the other one became loose right after.  I thought, "Great, right in time for Christmas, she can sing All I want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth for everyone and it will be so darling."  Ashlyn had other plans.  That tooth wiggled and wobbled and hung by a thread, but she would not pull it UNTIL Christmas Eve.  She wanted to see what would happen if Santa and the Tooth Fairy met.

Well, let me tell you, it wasn't pretty.  The Tooth Fairy must have gotten here first because there were cookie crumbs and a note by Ashlyn's bed from the Tooth Fairy.  The note said, "Dear Ashlyn, Thank you for the Christmas Tree cookies, they were delicious.  Love the Tooth Fairy"

Then when we got upstairs to check out our Christmas booty, there was a note from Santa that said, "Dear Fillmore Kids, Thank you for being so good this year, but who ate my cookies.  Love Santa"

That's right, the Tooth Fairy ATE Santa's cookies!  We are lucky we got any presents at all!  I don't think Ashlyn will be pulling that stunt again!

Christmas Day

What a wonderful Christmas day we had.  Here are a few of the highlights.

Santa snuck into Ian's room to deliver his "Buster".  Buster was a stuffed animal dog that was a favorite of Ian's.  Because he loved him so much, he dragged him around everywhere and eventually lost him, so he asked Santa for a new Buster this year. (Note:  The old Buster made his way home through a series of hitchhiking, peeked in the window and saw that he had been replaced.  He then donated himself to a child's daycare center where he now resides as the tyranical and sadistic leader of a group of toys...or was that a movie I watched?) 

 Fun at Grandma Kris' annual Christmas party

 Zac is sure that the key to fortune is introducing a toy to first graders and convincing them that it is the bomb and that your not cool unless you have it.  Take Zhu Zhu pets for example.  Sadly, Santa set up the Zhu Zhu pets tracks too close to the fire place and Christmas morning they had melted!  At least the house didn't burn down!  We are seriously watched by angels.

 The annual putting together of the toys

 Snowmobile Rides with "The Cousins".  Ashlyn said, "This is really a good thing to do on Christmas, because this sled is full of hay, it is just like a manger."

 Again, Again!

 Waiting up all night for Santa makes for some tired children...

Yes, tired "children" in deed.  This one fell asleep at 7:30pm Christmas night.  I guess staying up until 4:00AM on Christmas Eve wears a guy out.  Zac got to bed at 4AM and then the kids called us on the cell phone at 4:30AM to see if it was time to get up yet and open presents.  It wasn't.  But that didn't stop the phone calls.  They called about every hour after that until we let them up at 7AM.  Ah, the excitement of Christmas.

On the Tree with Four Days to Spare!

This year I was inspired by a friend who makes the same ornament with her kids' portraits every year.  It makes her tree look so pretty and gives it some fun and meaning.  So when I saw this idea, on a blogsite (can't remember which one, I look at too many), I knew I had to make them!

I got some 1.5"x1.5" blocks from the local craft store.  On one side is the kids' portrait from the year, on the other is a picture of a milestone from the year.  Then on the other sides, I have their monogram, and a list of milestones for the year.  I retroed back for Tanner, Ashlyn, and Ian.  It took some time, but I thought they turned out so cute!  And the kids love looking for them on the tree.

 My only problem is I want to be able to see every side of them when I hang them!

Aren't they so cute!

The Betterified Snow Run

The stomach flu that I experienced over the weekend wasn't very fun, but what was fun was that to keep the kids quiet and away from mom, Zac took them outside and betterified the snow run that we made a couple of weekends ago.

 Can you see how tall and long it is?  That is a ladder at the back for the kids to get up.

We have become a neighborhood attraction.  The things we do to make our kids popular.  I guess the stomach flu was worth it in the long run, because the kids have yet to be bored and it is already day 2 of Christmas break!

Jesus is a Butterfly

As part of our Christ filled Christmas this week, I got out my New Testament pictures from my gospel art kit.  I let each of the kids pick a picture that they wanted to learn about and then we read the story on the back.  Ian picked this picture and told me, "Mom, Jesus is a butterfly!"  I guess he thought that the billowing cape that Christ is wearing looked like butterfly wings.

I have been thinking about what Ian said a lot today.  I have never made that connection before and don't know if the artist intended to make that statement, but Jesus certainly is like a butterfly and what a beautiful message.  He came to this earth and died for our sins, was wrapped and laid in a tomb, then reemerged as a resurrected being in full power and glory. 

The above picture is an artistic depiction of the Second Coming, at which time, (we read on the back of the picture), those who died in righteousness will also be resurrected and will meet Christ.  I am so grateful that Christ became a "butterfly" for me, and look forward to that glorious day of his Second Coming, when I too can reemerge with my family of butterflies.

How blessed I am to have such wonderful children who are so close to the Savior to teach me and buoy me up every day!  Merry Christmas to everyone.  I hope you are all able to feel the Spirit of the season in your homes this week.

Our Christ Filled Christmas

Isn't this the most amazing nativity that you have ever seen?  This is the one that my mom had in our home when I was growing up, but she only had the Mary and Joseph.  So, because her birthday is in early December, and when we lived in Utah, we lived by the Hansen Classics studio that makes this nativity, I gave her a piece at a time every year for her birthday until she had the whole set.  THEN to surprise me this year, she gave Zac and I the WHOLE set for our Christmas present.  This is what it looks like in my special display case.  This is why I love this nativity so much: 1) Jesus actually looks like a baby, not a toddler. 2) Mary is holding him lovingly.  and 3) Look at how tenderly Joseph is kneeling with his arm around Mary gazing at the baby.

Sigh, I just love it.  Thanks Mom!

It was the perfect gift as we have tried to really focus on Christ each day during our Christmas advent.  So far we have filled an angel tree wish, delivered a secret santa gift, watched the Christmas devotional, watched the nativity movie, looked at the nativities at the Museum of Idaho, brightened someone's day, said hello to someone who needed a friend, smiled at a stranger, learned a Christmas song about Christ, made a nativity craft, read scriptures about Christ's birth, written thank you notes, taken gifts to teachers, neighbors, and friends, and driven around the temple grounds.  It has been an amazing holiday season so far. 

I wish you all a Christ filled holiday season!

Snow Much Fun!

The conditions a couple of weekends ago were so ideal for our annual family snow extravaganza.  After 10 years of igloo building, and the accompanying thrown out back, Zac swore he would not build one this year.  So instead, we killed our backs making this totally awesome sled run.

It comes complete with a staircase in the back and a wicked jump at the end.

Tanner and Ashlyn made these adorable twin snowmen!

And Ian and I made a totally RAD snow stegasaurus. 

 (Rad is still a cool word right?  I spoke at my sister-in-laws Young Women Mutual night a couple of weeks ago and I tried to be cool and said LYLAS... you know, "Love Ya Like a Sis"... and they looked at me like I was a total idiot.  One girl even said, "Oh you just look so sad when no one knows what you are talking about.  When did I get old?)

Christmastime!

Just thought I would share a few of the sights of our wonderful Christmastime so far...

Gingerbread Houses!

(Zac is so sad, because he spent HOURS making a really immaculate roof lines and a floor plan to match the house we hope to build when we move... he never actually did get around to decorating it, but it had an amazing roof.  The kids destroyed it the next day. :(

Our tree with the stockings hung by the chimney with care.  It is a tradition for me to make our stockings.  I had a fun time sewing Charlotte a stocking this year with two of my sisters who also added a new stocking/ baby to their families!

Isn't this nativity gorgeous!  I absolutely love it.  I love how Mary is loving that baby and how Joseph is touching her so softly.  It was a wonderful early present from my mother-in-law, especially fitting as we have really tried to focus on Christ this holiday season!  And it fits so well in the cabinet above my kitchen sink.  Thanks Mom!

This is how Christmastime feels at our home...

Why are we always the best at the silly ones?

And this is how we want everyone to think we always look.

And a darling Christmas sign I made at HPFE, otherwise known as Homemaking!

Twas the Week Before Christmas

Twas the week before Christmas,

And from the West to the East,

No one was terrorizing the house

Quite like this Beast.

There was no box she didn't explore,

She ripped ornaments off the tree

and threw them on the floor

 Next she derailed the fancy Christmas train,

She ripped off the tree skirt repeatedly

Making her mom insane.

Christmas catalogues she tore up next,

Mom spent all day,

Pulling wads out of a mouth filled with chewed on text.

 No picture turned out for a Christmas card,
When dressed up just so,
She screamed long and hard.

And we all heard her exclaim as she rode her horse out of sight,

Sleep while you can, I've got two top teeth comin' in

And I'm gonna be up all night.

President Monster and Tarzan's Underwear

Zac has my camera!  I finally have a minute to blog and Zac has my camera in his truck... in Billings, MT!  So instead of posting all of my adorable seasonable pictures, I will just have to settle on a few of my favorite Ian moments from the week.

1.  We have a Disney Book advent calendar that our wonderful Grandma Kris gave to us years ago.  There is one little Disney Christmas story book that you can read each night and then hang them on a tree.  Ian chose a Tarzan book and after flipping through it and soon became disgruntled with me.  He pointed to Tarzan and said, "How come HE gets to wear his underwear all night and YOU make ME wear a pull-up!"

2.  We watched the Christmas devotional together as a family.  After wonderful talks by Presidents Uchtdorf and Eyring, Ian asked, "Is it time for President Monster to speak now?"

I can't get enough of my kids.  How do you keep kids from growing up?

Santa Knows Our Names!

If you have kids, you have to try this!  It is free and secure.  We did it and it is amazing.  The kids were enthralled.  Click on this link HERE and it will take you to a place where you can personalize a video for your child from Santa!

Happy Holidays!

Our Gift to Christ

I bought this cute little advent calendar a couple of years back and I love it.  It is now one of my kids' favorite Christmas traditions.  Last year I spent a pretty penny stocking it with little prizes and candies.  This year I decided to try a different approach.  I really wanted to make an effort this year to keep Christ as the focus of our Christmas.  Every day when the kids wake up, they open up a door on the advent calendar.  Inside each door is a candy per child and a strip of paper that tells us what our gift to Christ for the day will be.  Our challenge today is to say "hi" to someone we have never said hi to before.  After we have all completed the day's gift, then we put the strip of paper in this pretty box that is wrapped like a gift.  On Christmas Eve night, we will put it under the tree for Christ.

Some of the things on my list include viewing that nativities at the Museum of Idaho, shoveling the walks of the church, watching the Christmas devotional, and some just as simple as smiling at someone who needs a smile, or sending a thank you note.  I am really looking forward to a Christ filled Christmas.