Santa Came!

Yup. And he brought some really great loot! Thanks to Uncle Mastercard, we were able to get a few fun things for the kids this year. Now I need to hurry up and find a job to pay for it all!

Now buckle up and get comfortable because this is gonna be a long ride (or rather, long post).

For our 3rd year running, we celebrated the 8 days of Christmas. Each night (except the night that Grandma Cheryl stole the kids) we had a mini-FHE lesson centered on Christ, the REAL reason for Christmas, and then each child got to open 1 gift. I think this little idea of mine is finally paying off! The kids were much more involved this year and Payton gave us a pop quiz on day 7 and everyone passed with A+s! We talked about why His birth was such a big deal, the prophesies that came to pass leading up to and including the birth and His life, different attributes that Christ possessed, the symbols of Christmas, etc. It was fantastic and much more spiritual than our "old way" of doing Christmas!

Christmas week was busy as usual (the blessing/curse of living near so much family). On the Friday before Christmas, Payton had a sleepover to celebrate her birthday. She turned 12. It's still kind of freaking me out a little bit. She isn't in primary anymore. Crap.

Anyhow, she had some friends over and we made brownies and brookies (brownies with cookies mixed in - freaking awesome), popcorn and then watched New Moon. The girls stayed up until about 3 am so it wasn't too bad!

























Saturday we spent at the school helping to host a fundraiser for the 6th grade EcoWeek trip. Clint took our ping pong and foosball table to the school and we watched other people's kids for a few hours. I came home exhausted (the kids were too) from humiliating the boys at knock out. My arm was sore for the next 4 days...man I'm getting old!

On Sunday, Jay & Cheryl took the kids down to Denver to have Christmas with the extended Jacobs family.

Monday found Payton, Laney and I baking 300 sugar cookies and a few pans of fudge.

On Tuesday, we had 32 of our closest friends over (and some of their moms) for a cookie decorating and gift exchange party. That was quite fun! The older girls did the majority of the decorating while the boys played. But everyone went caroling and that was funny! We scared a few people when they opened the door just because of the sheer number of us! Then we came back the house and the kids had a gift exchange. I was surprised by how well it went. We only had 1 kid get mad about his gift being stolen, but he is only 3 so we kind of expected that!









































































On Wednesday, we just took it easy and cleaned up the mess from the day before.



On Thursday, Clint took the kids sledding while I went out to do some last minute shopping with all the other crazies. Then my side of the family came over for dinner. It was great fun!













































































On Christmas morning, the boys woke up to find themselves trapped in the basement. Clint and I stapled wrapping paper over the basement doorway to keep them out so we could sleep in a little bit. They woke up at 6 and played Wii for a few hours. Clint and I woke up at 8 and then had to drag the sleeping beauties out of bed.

Evidently, the kids were very good this year. They all got what they asked Santa for. They also got some things they didn't ask for.

Payton got teen magazines, fuzzy socks and cool hats.

Cole got a projector for his video gaming systems and movie watching as well as a subscription to Sports Illustrated for kids.

Cade got his Nerf Vulcan N Strike EBF25.

Corbin got Wizards of Waverly Place the Movie and a Wii Sports pack.

Laney got a Princess shopping cart.

Another Christmas tradition we have is the pickle. We don't set out cookies and milk for Santa (he gets enough of those anyway, right?) we set out a pickle ornament each year. Santa hides the ornament on the tree and whichever kid finds it first gets the pickle gift (an extra gift Santa leaves behind). This year, Cade found the pickle first and got G-Force (a movie).

Because the kids are always in my room on the computer, we decided to get them their own computer so they'll stay off mine!


I also found a really great deal on Beatles RockBand, and since we had so much fun playing it at Ian's birthday party, I just had to have one! It's been an absolute blast!

Clint got a navigation system and watch (that actually tells time) and he got me a new laptop since mine bit the dust several months ago and I just hadn't been the same.

After opening up the gifts and cleaning up a tiny bit, we had to hurry and get ready to head to the Jacobs for their annual Christmas brunch. It was yummy as usual with homemade scones and jam. The kids got a bunch more cool stuff and we came home exhausted (with a few sick kids to boot).

All in all, it was a fantastic Christmas week. I'm still recovering, but sure that I'll be pining for it all again here in just a few months!

The A Word

So we have been really bad potty mouths around my house lately and Laney has decided she is going to be the bad word police. Anytime she hears one of the unmentionables (stupid, hate, idiot, etc) she yells out "Hey, that's the A word!".

I'm not really sure who told her what the A word is or means, but she's been telling us that a lot lately. And it makes me giggle every single time!

Man, I have really cute kids!

The Chub Club

Ok blogworld - I'm officially making it officially official and public. I'M GONNA LOSE WEIGHT. In fact, I'm gonna lose weight while belonging to a group called the Chub Club (and still Jazzercising, of course). If you wanna lose weight too (and live locally) let me know. Below is the invitation I am sending out to friends:

Please do not take offense to this note/invitation, as that is absolutely NOT my intent! In fact, you should feel honored that we think you are cool enough to potentially join our VERY exclusive club (I totally felt like I was 10 years old again just now). I am inviting you because I know you're a mom and not many of us are thrilled with what that has done to our bodies!

For about the 10th time in 3 years, I’ve decided I need to lose about 25 pounds before February. I’ve been trying to figure out what I want to do about it. I can’t be anorexic because I love food. I can’t be bulimic because I hate throwing up and I can’t get addicted to meth because I like my hair and don’t want to be a picker. So I decided to go the more boring route and I considered joining Weight Watchers (again) BUT I really don’t want to pay $10/week to go listen to a boring meeting. I have already purchased all their gear (cookbooks, point calculators, scales, etc.) so then I thought maybe I’d just go it alone – Kamikaze-style. Then reality struck and I remembered that I am a total self-sabotage-r! I know myself well enough to know that about once a week I’ll have a bad day and eat an entire cake. I actually NEED the weekly meeting and another pair of eyes checking the scale because I let myself off the hook too easily! I NEED accountability!

So I borrowed an idea from my mother-in-law and put my own twist on it. It’s called the Chub Club and we’d like you to be part of it with us. Now you may be asking, what the heck is the Chub Club and who the heck is "us"? The Chub Club is an "exclusive" accountability group. We are going to meet once a week and be accountable to each other. I am hosting this with Michelle and Sarah (who are both also trying to lose extra funnel cakes from their mid sections). We will meet a Sarah’s house, so it’s the same scale every week, on Fridays at 9:30 am beginning September 11. During the first week, we will do our initial weigh in so there won’t be any money leaving any pockets that day (see below). We will also set the “official” ground rules. They will be something like this:

1.) If you have gained weight during the week, you will pay $1 for each pound gained (we’re not doing ounces because I think that’s goofy and seriously, who says “I weigh 142 pounds and 7.5 ounces anyway?). Whoever loses the most weight that week wins the pot! We only pay money if we GAIN weight, instead of paying every week to go to some other meeting with people who don’t love and adore us as much as we do each other. AND this way we are incentivized by money instead of chocolate! It’s a win-win-win, right?
2.) If you skip a week (not planned in advance) there will be a monetary penalty
3.) Those who disclose the current weight or goal weight of other members will “pay” dearly (probably be on the receiving end of a swirly or something totally embarrassing like that)
4.) Crying will also be monetarily penalized (ok, maybe not but we’ll see)
5.) If the meeting lasts for more than 1/2 hour, Adrienne's head will explode because she hates meetings and has other crap to do on Fridays anyway (as I'm sure do all of you!)

If you want to join us (and we hope you do and I haven’t made you mad enough to spit just by inviting you) please let me know! You can use whatever kind of eating plan you want (does not have to be Weight Watchers) or you can go Helter Skelter and not have a plan. We are only getting together to be accountable to one another, to bask in each others' glory, to share tips and tricks we may have learned and to not take ourselves too seriously!

Oh, and if you commit to join our Chub Club, we need you to commit to being there EVERY WEEK. Otherwise, we may just skip the weeks we know we consumed half the carton of Haagen-Dazs and that won’t be fair to those ladies that have been angels.

Side Note: If you don’t want to lose at least 15 pounds, please disregard this message and consider yourself uninvited, as we consider you a skinny-mini and this is the Chub Club.

Hope to hear from you soon! We won't think too poorly of you if you're a skinny-mini (since we will be soon too!).

Hoping my boobs aren't the first to go,

Adrienne
on behalf of Michelle & Sarah & Myself

City Park Pool

I was lucky enough to get our family some City Park Pool passes this year. We typically go at least once a week. My kids love it there, especially when friends join us! I don't usually take many pictures because I leave the camera where it is dry and safe, but finally snapped a few at the pool this week. Here are Corbin and Cade swimming in the "deep end".















For some reason, Delaney was not at all interested in having her picture taken and would dive under water each time I tried.





























Cole with an uncooperative Laney.
















Cole loves going down the "big" slide. It has a pretty big, steep drop that the kids like.




















Corbin prefers going down the "orange" slide. This one is a little more chill with it's winding loops. He is pretty hard to see in this picture because he's back in the shadow of the slide.




















Corbin is too short to go on the slides, but he takes a swim test every time we go to prove he can make it off the slide and to the stairs without drowning. He does look pretty little in the water!





















This is a pretty standard picture of Cade at the pool. He loves his goggles!















Payton was there too, but for some reason, she was never around when I had the camera!

I did get a quick video of Laney's swimming skills. She is doing so well. She can swim about 10 feet unassisted. She knows how to come up for air (she always swims under water), but she sometimes forgets to get back on her belly and use her arms, so she kind of gets "stuck" in the water and doesn't get far. This video is mostly of her just diving in because we were in the shallow area and she just kept popping back up instead of doing much swimming.

Berthoud Day

We haven't been in a few years, so I took the kids to Berthoud Day on the first Saturday of June. We got there a little later than I hoped, but we were still able to find a pretty good spot on the parade route. The kids got tons of candy and goodies that were being thrown out.

They were waiting pretty patiently for the parade to begin.





























Delaney loved holding all of the candy for everybody! And of course she grabbed quite a few pieces for herself!






















Photo op in front of a cool, red truck.

















Playing with all the inflatables.





























































Climbing the rock wall. Corbin wasn't thrilled and wanted down almost immediately. Everybody else reached the top!