Merry Christmas

We slept in until 8:00! Our church is at 9:00, so we decided to wait until afterwards to open presents. I let them open their stockings once their church clothes were on. Church was only an hours worth of a lovely Choir program, then back home for breakfast and presents. 

We played with presents, watched a couple new movies, and were unexpectedly an hour late to the Van Leeuwen family party. Oops. More presents and food there, and then home to bed! 

Gift highlights this year:

McKinley: clothes, ukelele, polaroid camera.

Sawyer: clothes, Nintendo 2 DS, Pokemon game, ukelele, skateboard.

Hayden: clothes, Nintendo 2 DS, Pokemon game, drone, plasma ball.

Joshua: clothes, Nintendo 2 DS, Pokemon game, airplane, Paw Patrol.

Christmas Eve

We went to the Korth Christmas Eve party around 1:00 this year. Every one in our family got better and were able to attend. We had a turkey dinner feast, then opened up presents. Around dinner tie we came home, so Kent picked up some pizza on the way home. We watched a Christmas Story, ate pizza, and opened Christmas jammies. Then the kids had a sleepover downstairs. Except Sawyer, he slept in his room because he didn't want to sleep on the floor.

Visiting St. Nick

He was a little nervous at first, but eventually sat on his lap. He has been a good boy this year, and asked for cars and trains. He got a candy cane from Santa's bag. I think this is my first child to sit on Santa's lap.

Cutest lil Reindeer

Josh had his Christmas preschool program. They dressed up like little reindeer and sang some songs. Despite his adamant wish of not attending the program, he sang and shook his little booty with a smile on his face...after I took these pictures.

First try

My friend hand dips fondant in chocolate every year, and I was inspired by her to try it. I learned a few things to try differently next time. My chocolate kept freezing before the fondant was completely covered which left holes. Then the fondant expanded and oozed out of the holes. Still tasted good though!

Cello Concert

Hayden started playing the cello this year in the school's orchestra. He had his Christmas concert and did a great job!

MoTab

We got tickets to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert featuring Rolando Villazon. I took McKinley and my parents, and we had a nice dinner at Little America beforehand. McKinley's YW leader was one of the dancers, so it was fun to spot her. 

Naughty list

We gave each of the kids their own advent calendars to keep in their rooms this year. They could open one door each day and eat their chocolates and get excited to count down to Christmas.

Well....

these two just couldn't handle the temptation. 

I saw Josh being suspicious in his room, and caught him in the act of eating one of his last 3 days. 

So, I checked with the other 'little kid' who has very little willpower and discovered that his was all gone too. Who knows for how long! I think Sawyer may have even started eating the paper too!

Naughty.

Kindergarten check-up!

I can't believe it's time for this! Josh had his kindergarten health check up and shots on Tuesday.

Here is the before shots shot.

He made sure to tell me he did NOT like the shots.

But afterwards he got to go to McDonald's and get a Happy Meal and play in the playland, so it wasn't ALL bad.

Kindergarten here we come! In 8 months at least.

Dutch Christmas Eve

We tried to go authentic this year for Dutch Christmas Eve. Well, semi-authentic. He tried hutspot (a mashed potatoes, carrots, and onions dish), bitterballen (gravy meatballs), and olliebollen (fried donut things) minus the yucky raisins inside.

Sawyer thought the hutspot was "ok". Wouldn't touch the bitterballen. He loved the olliebollen though.

Hayden thought the hutspot tasted "good". But he seemed to really like the bitterballen. Didn't really love the olliebollen like Sawyer did.

Josh would not try a bit of it.

Kent wouldn't either. And McKinley was gone babysitting, but she ate a few olliebollen when she got home and liked those.

Sunrise

Sometimes getting up early to take those kids to school has it's benefits...

Magician

The city hosted a magician at the Gale Center today. Sawyer and Hayden wanted me to check them out of school to see it, but I just took Josh. Josh thought this magician was so hilarious. I was laughing so hard just watching Josh laugh so hard!

Sinterklaas and Black Piet

Look who we ran into at the Dutch store! Sinterklaas and Black Piet were visiting to our surprise! They gave me a dollar coin and McKinley got a candy cane.

Feast with the Beasts

We delivered our giant pumpkins to the zoo again this year. On Thanksgiving we got to watch the cute elephants stomp, smash and munch on the pumpkins. It was chilly though.

Later that afternoon we ate Thanksgiving dinner in Herriman with the Taggart clan. 

Terrific adventures

It has been Josh's week to take care of Terrific Tiger from preschool. They get to have all sorts of adventures together. Then Josh draws a picture of their adventures in the booklet and Terrific Tiger gets to go back to have more adventures with other kids.

He also made this cute little "native" costume at preschool for Thanksgiving. Nothing cuter!

It snowed!

This kid was so excited for the dusting of snow he saw when he woke up. He went right out and got to work shoveling the back porch. And loved every minute!

Hagrid's Hut

The kids talked me into entering a gingerbread in the 'family' category. We procrastinated way too long and got this entered in at the 11th hour! Hagrid's hut was pretty fun, but we need more time. And for some reason the fondant turned purplish when dyed with black food coloring. Next year they want to do Hogwarts castle! Yikes!

***Update- Miracle of miracles, we won first place in the family category! We won $100!!! 

The day after

Apparently this is what you have for breakfast the day after Halloween. Breakfast of champs! 

Happy Halloween

We have a Harry Potter, purple Morph, and Voledemort this year. The girl decided to be with her teenage friends. Pft! 

Kent drove Josh around on the little motor scooter, while Hayden and his friend Dallin, and Sawyer and the neighbor Tyson trick-or-treated with them on foot.

Last game of the season

Today was the last games of the season for these two. They were at the same time, but luckily at the same field. Josh ended up with 4 goals this game!

I missed Sawyer's game because I was watching Josh's, but isn't he a handsome soccer player? 

Braces

Today is the day! Braces! He's actually pretty excited.

Deadwood and Crazy Horse

On Saturday we spent most of the day in Deadwood. We did the walking tour around town. We ate lunch at the pizza parlor, then made it to Saloon 10 in time to see the reenactment of Wild Bill Hickock's assassination. 

Sitting in a miner car

Giant Pumpkin!

The actor who portrayed Colorado something or other.

The actor who played Wild Bill Hickock. 

On the way back to the hotel we drove near Crazy Horse. But we thought that was close enough so we snapped a pick and didn't go in. 

McKinley had a fever so we took her back to the hotel. Sawyer and Josh stayed there watching cartoons while Hayden joined us at the Alpine Inn for a nice steak dinner. Then the boys went swimming in the pool while I sat with McKinley in the hotel room. Luckily she was better by morning.

Mt. Rushmore trip

The boys are off track and McKinley has a little break for fall recess. The stars aligned and Kent was able to take a couple days off work too. So we decided to take a little getaway. We were deciding between California Redwoods, or Mt. Rushmore. McKinley thought we should do Rushmore this time so we could mark South Dakota off of our map.

On Thursday we packed up and drove around 10 hours to Hill City, South Dakota. 

On Friday we checked out Mt. Rushmore. It isn't tourist season right now, and the weather was in the low 70's, so it turned out to be a perfect time to visit!

We also drove the Needles Highway and Custer State Park. There were a few tunnels to drive through,

There were a lot of wildlife warning signs, but we probably only saw about 5 bison close up, and then a big herd from far away near the bison ranch area.

After the Needles Highway and Custer State Park drive we looped back to Rushmore to see them lit up at night. There is no night program running during the off season though. Then back to the hotel for the kids to swim in the pool, and Kent to deal with a migraine.