Delightful December 2012!

Wow! How did we get from December to May so fast?!? I don't know, but I didn't want to forget about all those months, so here we go.....Before we even got anywhere near Christmas, some exciting things had happened...
Nathan gave his very first ever Power Point presentation--it was on the country of Israel and the celebration of Hanukkah (which I still have to look up the spelling for!!) He did a great job!! Here is his teacher getting ready to give him a high five for a job well done! : )

Then, I took Alan to see the midnight release showing of "The Hobbit" in 3-D--'cause I'm a cool Mom like that!! Actually, I had no idea it was coming out! Alan told me his friend was going and asked if we could do that and to his amazement I said "Sure!" It was my first 3-D movie--the people looked really weird, but otherwise it was pretty good!! Here we are in our cool 3-D glasses!

Next up, band concerts by Alan and Scott. Alan's was at the high school auditorium (he plays the trumpet) and the picture I got of Scott's was of the in-school performance because I couldn't get a picture of him during the evening concert--he hides in the back with the drums and other percussionists!

Who can resist the classic Christmas picture of the children all dressed up? Not me!! So here it is!

Getting close to Christmas we of course had our annual Christmas cookie decorating adventure--I'll leave out the details about the fussiness that was going on behind all these wonderful smiles and we'll just pretend that it was as jovial as it looks!! : )

OK, then onto Christmas festivities. 
First, we had to go find our tree (which actually happens in November--the weekend after Thanksgiving--but I'm including it with Christmas festivities).
Found just the right tree!

Now to cut it down. Alan gets it started and Nathan finishes up--I don't think Scott took a turn this year.

Then, we needed to get it back to the van.

Next, it was time to get it off the van and into the house--I helped a little ; ) but Alan hauled it to the porch--after telling me to get a picture of him hauling the tree! : )

Then, we decorated.......

Then we put cookies out for Santa--lucky guy!!

Then we put food out for the reindeer--

they work hard, ya know!!

The next day was exciting and exhausting--

as it is every year!! : )

Nathan was all excited about his Christmas Kit Kat! 

Nathan scored some Minecraft goodies--Minecraft on the PC from Mom (after convincing the VISA people that I was OK with the purchase from Sweden!!!) Enderman hat compliments of Grandma C and Creeper--with a nice, tricked out ride : ) -- and shirt  from Aunt Laura.

Nathan also got some cool building toys

from Grandma and Grandpa C...

 Scott scored a new basketball hoop (that took Mom like two weeks to assemble--outside--in the freezing cold!), a sweet snare drum and a Kindle! 

Alan got (another) new iPod  some cool Legos from Curtices, more Legos, a sweater and camera from Thompsons.

Finished Lego product....

Handsome boys.....

Lucky, lucky boys!!! While the gifts were certainly exciting, I feel mostly appreciative of the fact that our Savior was born on the Earth and set a perfect example for how we should live. He then suffered for our sins and sacrificed himself so that we can be resurrected. We are so lucky to be able to live as eternal families!! I'm a lucky Mom to get to have the opportunity to live with these handsome young men for all eternity!! : )

November 2012

November was pretty status quo....

except for the part where Alan comes home and says,

"Hey Mom, I wanna try wrestling".

"Sure, OK, hon.....what, wait a minute, 

what did you just say? Wrestling? 

Where'd you come up with that?!? Isn't that where they wear the ear muffs and leotard?!? Really?!?"

"They're not ear muffs, they're called head-gear. 

And it's a singlet, not a leotard!"

"Uh, right, head-gear--isn't that for braces? Singlet--is that really better than leotard?!?" Whatever--it'll keep him physically active after school? Great, let's sign up!! : )

I was completely humbled and had to shut my mouth after picking him up early before practice was over and watching these guys!! I was hot and sweaty and tired after just watching for 5 minutes!!! 

Their workouts were intense!! 

And here's one of my favorite pictures EVER--

wrestling face!!! Awesome!!

Look at that game face--so serious--I love it!!

Here's the outfit! 

And then one day he comes home and says

"Mom, can you cut my hair?"

"Uh, absolutely, son!! I've just been waiting for you to ask!

Don't move, I'll get the clippers right now!!"

Holy cow! OK, who is this young man and what happened to my baby?!?

So then we had some fun playing in the leaves.

Who's that with the wet sucker?

Must have been watching a little Charlie Brown?!?  : )

Cuties!!

Then there's the pumpkin smashing!! Nathan decided to take it on himself this year!

Check out that stick (small log)!

And that swing--from way over the head!! And those poor pumpkins! (Notice how he has no coat on--we had this ridiculous, warm spell--so nice!)

All except for Nathan's special little pumpkin, which was spared! It was hard to say good-bye and leave it outside. But we decided he would like to stay with his friends, so that would be OK. We'll get another one next year! : )

Before signing off, wanted to throw in a few of the pics Alan took on his caving trip with the Scouts....
This is looking outside from one of the caves..

Here's chimney rock, where they climb out of the cave 

 This is looking down into the "valley" where the cave opening is

And that brings us to the end of November.

Outrageous October 2012

HUGE month for Alan!! He turned 15!! Oh my gosh, how is it possible that my baby is 15?!?! Here's the birthday boy...

Here he is in his new sweater that he loves!!

And here he is with the friends he had over for a party...

And after all the partying was over, we of course had the family over for some pumpkin carving. 

Yes, this is in my living room--we just didn't all fit in the dinning room this time...

Finished products--the pumpkins, not the boys--we're still workin' on them! : )

I'm also going to put in the trick-or-treating pictures here because we were supposed to go trick-or-treating on October 30th (I'll never know why we don't just go on Halloween!!) but the weather was going to be bad (or so they thought), so they post-poned it!!! Can you believe it?!? Who post-pones trick-or-treat?!? I remember trick-or-treating in the snow, the rain, tropically warm temperatures, you name it, we were out there!! Post-poning trick-or-treat, who ever heard of such a thing?!? I almost protested, but I worked too hard on Nathan's sweet Steve from Minecraft outfit (OK and I count on the candy haul), there was no way we were going to miss it. Then the final irony--the weather was as bad, if not worse, when they actually had trick-or-treat than when it was originally scheduled!!!! Go figure! Anyway, here's the sweet costume and the boys showing off their hauls!

Scott was some weird skeleton, zombie thing...too gross to post! And I think that's it for October. Maybe I'll get November up before, oh, I don't know, Easter maybe!!! (insert rolling eyes emoticon here!)