How do you get presents under the tree?

Isn't he cute!

The first time I tried to get Ben to wear church clothes, long sleeve white shirt and dress pants, he screamed, hyperventilated, and pulled at the clothes until I gave in and took them off of him. When I got out of the shower on Sunday, I looked over at Ben, and Brady had gotten him dressed in this! He didn't cry, scream, and I think he actually liked wearing it! Hooray! He looked so cute. Down to the "cars" shoes he was wearing with it!

Mommy Field Trip

Isabel's preschool teacher posted an activity on her blog last week. She let us know that Santa and some of his reindeer were coming to Weber State! Ben and Isabel were excited! I called Kandi, Tamina, and Jen to see if they wanted to join us. Jen wasn't able to come, but the others were! This is the best group shot I got of Isabel, Ben and Zoey. It was hard to Ben to not look at the reindeer. (Isabel kept saying that the reindeer were trying to eat her!)
Santa brought 2 reindeer with him; Snowflake and Blitzen. There were helpers outside the fence that gave the kids reindeer food, to sprinkle on the lawn so Santa would know where to land. (Such a cute idea!) The kids got green sparkly food!
After we saw the reindeer, we went inside to get pictures with Santa. They had this cute Grinch layout. The kids liked poking their heads out! This is Ben, Isabel, and Zoey.
We tried to take another picture with Tamina's kids......tried is a good word. I didn't get one picture where all of their heads were out! Still cute though. If I messed with photoshop, I could get a good one!
The line to see Santa wasn't long at all. We got there just in time! The only way Zoey would get up there was to have Kandi with her! Ben stood for this picture, but for individual pictures, he wouldn't do it. He sat on his bum, and scooted towards Santa. Santa help out a candy cane for Ben and motioned with his hand for Ben to come get it. Ben would just scoot on his bum a little closer. Finally Ben got all the way to Santa's feet. Santa reached to give Ben the candy cane and Ben couldn't reach it. Ben then motioned with his hand for Santa to bend down further to give him the candy. Santa said, "little boy, Santa can't bend over that far!" Ben finally reached up and got it from him. What a character. I really liked this Santa. He did a good job!
We managed to get a relatively good picture of all of the kids with Santa. Even Sam got to sit on Santa's lap! So cute! After pictures, we went upstairs to make a craft. They made a santa ornament for the tree, and a picture fame magnet for the fridge. Ben was definitely done after one craft! They turned out good though!
As soon as we walked out the doors of the bookstore, the kids saw the hill and ran over to it. They ran on it, rolled down it and just enjoyed themselves!
Isabel informed me that mommy field trips were way better than the school ones! Best part about this field trip, is that it was free! Hooray for free activities!

School Field Trip (Ogden Christmas Village)

We got to go with Isabel on her class field trip to the Ogden Christmas Village. We got to take Ari with us, and Tamina met us there after she picked up Adam from school. Above is a class picture with Ms Angela and Mrs Claus.
It was a pretty chilly day, but we were glad we had the 11:00 time to go instead of the 9:00am one. That would have been REALLY cold!
Aren't Isabel and Ari so cute! They love to pose for pictures!
They made sure that I took this picture, because it was the nutcracker house, and Grandpa Morgan loves nutcrackers! They wanted you to know that they looked at them there!
They were excited that they were as tall as the gingerbread men. (Ben wouldn't look and smile)
Isn't it so fun how they get along great with each other. This made me laugh, Isabel was hugging Ari while they were looking in the window!
Walking in the snow to get to the next house. (And yes, there was a sidewalk, but they wanted to walk in the snow!)
Mrs Clause gave them the tour. She explained about each house and even told stories. The one that we heard was Hansel and Gretel.
Isabel wasn't impressed with the tour. She was bored about 1/3 of the way through. She made sure to tell me that she didn't like this field trip either. And then, she got to sit on Mrs Clause's lap. That made it a little bit better. They got a sugar cookie and a bag of goodies. (There was a bendable elf inside, and she and Ben loved theirs!)
Ben wouldn't sit on her lap, but at least he would stand by her! Still no smiling!
Isabel was extremely excited to sit on Mrs Clause's lap! You can tell!
Here is Ari and Mrs Clause. So cute!
And check out Adam's smile! He was really excited to see her too!
The kids all sat down outside after to each some of their treats. Notice I didn't have a picture of Sarah with Mrs Clause....that's because she wanted nothing to do with her! This picture is cute of her though. If you look close you can see her saying 'cheese"! It was an ok field trip. I know Isabel would have liked it better if it was at night and all the lights were on. Oh well, at least she got to spend time with her cousins and mom!

Festival of the Trees....Sam's Tree

My mother-in-law, Tracie, has been helping the Sunset Jr High cheerleaders do a tree for the Festival of the Trees for the past few years, and last year she asked me and Kandi and Krystle (my sisters-in-law) if we would like to do a family tree this year. We decided that it would be fun, so we got a tree ready. We picked the theme 'A Family Christmas', and went from there. Here is what the tree looked like. ( I found it hard to get a good picture becuase of the lights from all of the other trees, and I'm not a professional photographer :))
There were Santa heads, nativitys, stockings, jingle bells, pointsettas, shiny red leaves, and lots of ornaments that looked like ones you would find on a family Christmas tree. It looked a little 'country-ish'. We actually did a set-up to go with it. A rocking chair with blanket and pillow, a fireplace with stockings, a fischer price nativity scene, fake presents ;) and a treasure chest filled with Christmas books.

Here is a close-up of the fireplace. I thought it was cool because if you just wanted the effect of the fire but with no heat, you could do it. If you look closely at the tree you can see red jingle bell garland. I loved it. It is on top of the fireplace too.

Here is a close-up of under the tree. The tree skirt, nativity and treasure box filled with books. The kids loved helping me find all of the books. Ben loved playing with the nativity, just like he does at home.

Tracie asked if we knew anyone at Primary Children's hopsital to whom we could dedicate the tree to. I didn't know anyone, and then Tamina had Sam and he had to be there for 3 weeks, so we dedicated the tree to him. We had a cute collage of pictures and his story there at the front of the display. If you look at the 2nd picture of the post, you can kind-of see the easel with his picture in it. We had fun making the tree. We might even brave making one for next year. It is for a good cause :) This was one of the kids favorite trees there. It said 'Maui Christmas!' They definitely get points for creativity!

You Can't Catch Me.....

We went to feed the ducks and geese last week up by Weber State, and they were a little aggressive. The kids loved throwing bread to them, but the geese were the same size as them and would come after them because they knew there was food. I got this cute picture of Ben running from the geese. He was saying, "Oh no geese! Scare Ben." He and Isabel spent most of the time on top of a bench they had there so the geese couldn't get them :) I just thought it was a cute picture!

Fun with Felt

The kids and I loved the Halloween Advent Calendar so much, that I thought I should do a turkey one for Thanksgiving. The kids get to take a feather off each day and put it in one of the pockets, until the turkey is completely bare of feathers on Thanksgiving day! I had to make 28 feathers to accomodate the change dates for Thanksgiving each year! I love how he turned out. The letters I did aren't my favorite, but the rest I love! I made the turkey puffy, like a stuffed animal and just saftey pinned him on. I originally tried to velcro him on, but he kept disappearing...... The feathers are all made of felt, but I cut fall-ish looking material to sew on top. I left about a 1/4 inch around each and made little cuts to make them look more like feathers. I love how it turned out. (Somethimes I wonder if the things I see in my head will really look cute...this one worked I think)
I have the felt out, and decided that since I have a ton of orange felt left over from these past 2 projects, I should make something for the kids. I covered a heavy piece of cardboard with orange felt, making their own personal flannel boards. Then I cut out a bunch of easy shapes, so they could use them to create stuff with.

Isabel made a house, a man sleeping in a sleeping bag, a christmas tree, etc

Ben made a train and put people in it. (I put the 2 rectangles down and he did the rest)

They played with them for quite a while which let them be close to me while I was working on stuff! I'm thinking this will be a great church toy too! It's quiet!

I glued a pocet on the back and put their names on it. This is to hold all of the shapes. My next thought is to get some notecards and draw ideas (tanagrams?) and see if they can make them. That part could take me awhile. Until then, they can play with these! Isabel thinks they are magic because the material sticks without glue or tape :) Mommies are magic!

5lb hand Turkeys

Well, it's Thanksgiving time and the weather has been kind-of blahh so that leaves me and the kids inside for most of the days. Here is what we decided to do for the grandparents this year for Thanksgiving. Personalized hand turkeys. (Ignore Isabel's hair in this one, I did it right after the picture ;))
I got black beans, nerds, elbow macaroni, spaghetti, colored rotini, fruity & chocolate cheerios and elmers glue. The kids got their own glue and went to town.

Here are Isabel's turkeys. She cut them in half and one is now proudly hanging in grandma Tracie's front room window so everyone can see it. (Only about 1/2 bottle of glue, I had to put them on cooling racks to dry so they wouldn't be glued to the table!)

And here are Ben's turkeys. He gave the one on the right to grandma Tracie, cause he wanted to hang the bean one on our fridge. It is currently being held up by 5 magnets :) He used the spaghetti noodles to poke the turkey all over....what a kid....

I had to make one too. You know, to show the kids what to do :) Actually I like doing little things like this! Mine is hanging on the fridge too, the kids insisted!

So, we gave grandma Tracie hers, and when we skyped grandma and grandpa morgan on sunday we showed them the others. (No way we are mailing those suckers, they weigh at least 5 lbs :) jk) Fun times for all!

Last Camping Trip

Isabel told grandma Tracie on Monday that since daddy and mommy didn't have to work on Saturday and since Ben wasn't sick and she didn't have soccer, that it meant that we were going to go caming in Mantua. When Tracie told me the news :) I informed Isabel that if we did end up going camping, it wouldn't be to Mantua, it would be to Knolls because it would be way warmer in Knolls. Well, Isabel's wish came true! We went camping friday and saturday out at Knolls. Ben absolutely loved the dirt bike this time. He didn't want to get off!

He didn't want to get off the 4-wheeler either! They love riding with dad. Knolls is fun because there are the sand dunes (little and big) and there is a train you can ride out to see. We even rode out to where it was flat and made shapes with the 4-wheeler tracks. The octagon didn't really look like one, but I tried :)

Isabel insisted on a fire, which is ok with Brady cause he is a pyro at heart! Here she is with wood she found.

Brady took them to find more wood for the fire. The people who were camping next to us had brought a scarecrow from their house. They put it on top of the hill and burned it. It reminded me of the burning of the witches.....

The other fun thing about Knolls is the sand. The kids love it and so do I. They can just go play and dig wherever. Brady buried the kids last time, and Ben freaked out. This time they both loved it. Here is Brady digging their holes!

I thought this picture was way cute of them both buried :) Just like a landscaper to 'plant' his kids..hahaha Brady then gave them both a shovel and told them to dig themselves out. They loved it. Ben stayed in there a long time!

Isabel then decided that she needed to bury Brady up to his armpits! Ben tried to help, but he was still digging himself out :) This is how big the hole she dug was. Pretty deep huh?!

I absolutely love this picture. I just need to photoshop it. Hopefully no one notices becuase the picture is small :) They loved standing next to each other buried to see how tall they were!

Ben loved being taller than Isabel! Sand keeps them entertained for hours! We only had 2 issues camping this time. Ben stepped on a hot coal and burned his foot, and he got bit by a bug on his arm, and we know what that means with Ben, a staff infection. Oh well, at least we know how to fix it!

We had an awesome time camping. Glad Isabel talked us into going so we could enjoy outdoor fun before the snow comes!