2016 Going, Going, Gone...

2016 has been a great year for us.  We started out the year by playing in a lot of snow!  This was the most snow I had ever seen and the coldest winter ever.  January seemed to drag on and on but the kids loved playing in the snow and sledding.  Next we celebrated Logan's third birthday.  He is growing up so fast and can do anything his older brother and sister can do.  He is a fun-loving kid and makes everyone smile.  Also at the first of the year we found out we would soon welcome another member into our family. The kids were so excited we were having a baby soon.  At the beginning of March, we bid farewell to Tyler as he went out to serve the Lord on his mission to Kansas.  He has been a great missionary and we just found out he was made a District Leader over his area.  We also celebrated Colby's 5th birthday in March.  Colby is such a smart boy.  He is reading like a champ and loves Kindergarten.  He is also making a lot of new friends in school.  In April Russell exceeded his one year probation with the Logan Fire Department and was sworn in as an official Firefighter with the city.  At the pinning ceremony, the chief said Russell was in for the long haul now. In May we made it to the final stretch of school, attended graduations, and participated in a lot of soccer games.  We also celebrated the wedding of Calen and Rochelle.  We love hanging out with Cousin Calen and Ro.  June and July were a blur with lots of travelling and vacations.  Traci and Sean welcomed Johnathan into the world as the newest member of the Farnsworth clan.  Johnathan is such a happy baby.  I don't think I have ever seen him upset, he is always smiling.  The highlight of mine and Russell's summer was our trip to Hawaii to celebrate our 10 year anniversary.  We had such a good time together in Hawaii and are making plans to go back someday.  The kids told us that they wanted to go to Hawaii with us next time.  We shall see...  Also in June we celebrated the marriage of Clint and Haley.  They had a beautiful wedding at Fish Lake.  It was cool because the beautiful lake and mountain scenery was in the background of their wedding ceremony.  We love Haley and are glad she finally tamed Clint into getting married.  July and August was spent on Cove Mountain camping.  We didn't want to come home except for the fact that our bed at home is a little more comfortable than the trailer bed especially when one is 9 months pregnant.  School started again in August and this year Emily is in 2nd grade and Colby started Kindergarten.  They each love school and their teachers and are learning lots.   The highlight of our year though happened in September when we welcomed Charlotte into our family.  She is such a blessing to our family and we love her so much.  Another highlight of our year was when Emily turned 8 years old and decided to be baptized.  Seeing her baptized and making important life decisions and covenants was such a special thing to me.  It was definitely a proud parent moment.  She was so happy and excited to be baptized.  We continued to have fun as a family of 6 now throughout the months of October and November.  We celebrated Halloween and Thanksgiving, got lost in the Corn Maze, went deer hunting, and ran the Turkey Trot.  We did all these things while excelling in school, and watching Charlotte grow up right before our eyes. We also ended the year by playing in a lot of snow!

 I can't believe how fast the year has gone by.  I seems like we blink and another year has passed.  We did accomplish some of our goals this year though.  We paid off the van but then bought a new truck so we are not debt free yet. We bought the piece of property next to us for our RV pad and garden and instead of going to Oregon we went to Hawaii.  So I think we made some pretty good progress financially but can definitely do better.  We did pretty good with FHE this year.  We started out really well and had it every week but then things got busy.  But even in the busy times, we manage to have FHE a few times.  The kids really love it so we need to do better.  I also accomplished one of my goals of reading the scriptures.  I was able to finish the Book of Mormon this year.  Granted this was something I didn't start until October but I did it.  I am really happy with my efforts because I have not read the Book of Mormon all the way through since I was in Seminary in High School.  I learned a lot of things reading it this time through.  This coming year will hopefully be a good one as well.  We are excited for the future.

New Year Eve Adventures

We rang in the New Year with the Farnsworth Family. Jen had a great idea for the weekend of New Years Eve, she wanted all of us to come to her place and have a great time and that is what we did. We started off the day by driving down to West Jordan where they lived and met the family there. Grandma and Grandpa Farnsworth had Christmas presents for everyone, so we took some time and opened up the presents they got us. The kids were definitely spoiled my the Grandparents. 

After that we all bundled up and headed to Temple Square to see the Christmas lights. Ever since we went for the first time as a family last year we were all excited to see the lights again and make it a family tradition. It was way cool because the only person missing was Tyler. The kids loved seeing the lights and going inside to see the statue of Jesus Christ and hear the program. Mom got Jen, Traci, and Tiffany matching beanies, go Wonder Women! 

We always love getting pictures of grandma and grandchildren and also of the cousins together. We are missing the youngest few children, but here are the oldest of the cousins. It is crazy how time flies with how fast they grow. They all had a good time spending time together.

We loved seeing the Christus statue and hearing the message.  

When we go to the Salt Lake Temple everyone has to get the famous family picture with the temple in the back ground. So here we are:

Friday was a quick day of seeing the temple lights and heading home so the next fun adventure can begin the next day. On New Years Eve we headed back down and this time we stopped off in Kearn's at the Olympic Oval ice rink to have fun ice skating. Everyone was excited to go. Emily could not wait because she said she wanted to show us how good she is getting and did not need a walker. Colby and Logan wanted to go because he had never done it. As for me it has been a long time and I wanted to see if I still had it. Here we are all together at the ice rink getting ready to go.

Funny stories to remember: When we first got there, everyone was ready to go, except for Charlotte. She decided to have a massive blow out in her diaper. Tiff tried to change her there then she said "I need to find the bathroom; it is everywhere!" Fun starting adventure number one. While she was doing that, we found Bill and his kiddos. I asked Chase if he could take Emily around while I took Colby and Logan around the rink. Emily was so excited to go with someone else other then her parents or a walker. She wanted to be a big kid and show us she is getting better. I would have to say she did and awesome job. Chase held her hand for a couple of laps and then she was on her own. She would come flying by us and say, "Mom, Dad, look how fast I am going and I have not fallen yet!" She did go the whole time with only falling once. GO EMILY! I forgot how ice skating used so many muscles in my legs. It was way awkward trying to remember how to skate while balancing Colby who has never skated. He was a trooper though. He was trying his best to get the hang of it. There was a family leaving and they had a walker they let us have. He tried that out and he was a pro at it. He would go really fast and forget that his skates could not stop, so they slid in front of him and he would fall on his butt. He would try to show off by moving his feet side to side of back and forth. He is a skater boy that is for sure.

Logan was funny he was so excited to get on the ice he did not know he needed a hand or he would slip on his butt. I just had enough time to catch him before he went out on the ice by himself. At first he did not expect the whole slippery feet motion, so he was a little scared but once we had a hold of him he was off. Tiff and I would hold his hand or shoulders while he marched his feet the best he could. He also tried the walker and did a better job with it also like Colby. He would take one lap and have to rest because his little legs were wore out after one lap. I don't blame him it is a quarter mile loop each lap. As he was resting, he found this little piece of ice section and said, "Look Mom I am skating!" Tiff and I had fun taking both boys out and watching them have fun. 

Another fun story. I was out with Colby and I was getting a little bit more comfortable and confident skating, so I decided to see how long I could skate backwards. I flipped around and was watching Colby skate in front of me while I was also trying to pay attention to what was behind me. As I looked over my should I saw a lady behind me so I knew I needed to turn around. Needless to say I thought I had time to turn around, but my rusty self ended up hitting her and falling to the ground. I fell and as my butt hit the ice down she went too.  I tried to balance her, but it was too late and she crashed also. We both laughed and I said, "Sorry, I thought I had time to turn around." I got back to Tiffany and I had to tell her I fell for another women and she fell for me. If I remember right Tiffany did not fall at all while she was there. What a Pro and a natural ice skater.

We all had a great time at the ice rink and I think it needs to be a new family tradition every year.  The kids especially loved getting together with their cousins and showing off with each other.  We were so glad that Logan was finally over his sickness so that we were able to go party with everyone.

After we went skating, we headed back to Jen and Rick's house to eat and bring in the New Year by playing games and having fun together. This was a perfect year for all of us to get together because we will not be together for a few holidays. Traci and Sean are moving to Texas. Sean got a teaching job at a school in Marshall, Texas and they will be moving there by the end of January. Tyler will be on his mission still next year and who know where Jen and Rick will be. As for us it all depends on my work. I work the next few Christmas's and who knows what other holidays I work the next few years. So this was a big fun get together. Once we were partied out and it was getting late, we got back on the road to Hyrum. We brought in the new year in the car, but it was cool because we got to see the fireworks in some of the cities as we drove up the road. What a great weekend full of fun. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

Sledding Fun

What does one do when one gets new sleds and snow for Christmas and Christmas is on a Sunday?  One goes sledding the next day of course!  We got a total of about 18" in about 24 hours on Christmas.  The day after Christmas we loaded the sleds and the kids in the van and headed out to go sledding. We drove around to find the perfect area, but we were shut down at the Salt Hollow park due to the parking lot being full of snow. The Millville Elementary hill was too small.  The kids were getting anxious and wanting to sled so I called a friend and asked him where the park was that had the big bowl.  He told me where and we were off. We got there and it was a lot of fun. 

The park we went to was the Cliffside Park.  There were sledding hills everywhere!  Even though there were a lot of people there was still a lot of room to sled. The kids got new sleds from the Stewart family and they were excited to try them out. We tried a small hill at first to get them warmed up and then moved on to steeper and longer areas of the bowl. 

There was so much snow that it came up to Colby and Logan's knees in some areas.  We had to blaze our own sledding paths through the thick powder but that made it all the more fun.  We all had a blast.  These kids have no fear either, they just jumped on their sleds and went down.

Logan wrecked pretty good on his sled when we first arrived.  He was riding down head first when he ran straight into a powdery snow mount at the bottom of the hill.  He went face first into the snow and because he was wearing sunglasses, the snow just caked under his glasses and he couldn't see.  We was yelling and, being the great parents we are, we just told him to get up and brush himself off.  Then when I went down to help him, I realized his whole face was just caked in snow.  We felt bad...  But no injuries other than a brain freeze!

We probably went down those hills over a hundred times.  It never got old.  The more packed the snow got, the faster we slid down the hill.  Below is an awesome time lapse group of pictures Tiffany took as all of the kids and I went down the hill at the same time.  As you can see there was a little collision...  First Emily biffs it in the snow, then Colby and Logan run over her and carry her the rest of the way down the hill, and then here I come to finish the job off and run into all of them.  It was so funny but don't worry, no one got hurt in the process. 

We couldn't leave Charlotte out.  She had her first ride on a sled with Tiffany.  Strapped into her baby carrier, she rode down the hill with Mom and crashed at the bottom too.  And as typical to Charlotte's style, she slept through the whole thing!  She startled a little when a little bit of snow splashed onto her face at the bottom.  Oh well it was fun anyway.

After sledding on the littler hill for a while, we moved over to a steeper hill.  The first time Emily and Colby went down it, they came back up saying this was a much faster hill than the other one.  We played around for about 2 hours before we realized Charlotte was getting cold cheeks and Logan's arms were pretty much frozen where his coat and gloves didn't cover.  (We got him a new coat the next day.)  We decided to call it a day and head back home and warm up with some hot chocolate.  What a fun day. 

White Christmas

Merry Christmas!!  Well Christmas finally came and the kids were so excited.  For about a week before Christmas Colby began practicing driving his sleigh of reindeer.  He put the kitchen chairs in a row, attached his jump ropes as reins and went to town telling the "reindeer" to go faster and higher.  I guess he was practicing to be the next Santa! (That and he had been watching The Santa Clause movie.)

We have also been working really hard on doing good deeds for our secret family members.  Each time we would do something nice for that person, we got to put a straw in our manger.  As you can see, we were able to fill our manger with straw and our Baby Jesus was able to sleep snugly on Christmas Eve.  My first baby doll, Ralph, was the lucky one chosen to be our Baby Jesus.  

Unfortunately, we were not as lucky as we had hoped and Logan ended up getting the Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease from the Morwood cousins.  He spent the last few days quarantined to his room while Russell and I disinfected the entire house and all of the toys.  We made all of the kids wash their hands multiple times a day; in fact, all of our hands were red from washing so much.  Merry Christmas to us we got to have sick kids on Christmas!  My main concern at the time was preventing Charlotte from catching the disease.  Luckily so far she hasn't and neither has anyone else besides Logan.

Russell worked on Christmas Eve again this year so we opened our new Christmas PJs on the 23rd instead.  We even let Logan out of his room to open the presents.  We made the poor kid wear gloves and sit on his own special blanket but at least he was with us. 

As you can see the kids really liked them.  Colby was the funniest.  His pajamas said "Bear Hug" and pictures a bear hugging him on the shirt so Colby went around to everyone yelling "Bear Hug!" and then would practically knock us down giving us bear hugs.  He was so crazy!  

Here we are in our new pajamas ready for bed on Christmas Eve eve night.

Christmas Eve was spent very low key.  I don't even think we got dressed.  But then why would we, we were quarantined to our house so we couldn't go any where.  We spent the day watching Christmas movies and relaxing.  Logan's spots were looking much better so I let him come downstairs and watch the movies with us as long as he stayed on his special spot on the blanket and had his gloves on.  

That night we all wrote our letters to Santa and set out the cookies.  Emily asked for Rollerblades and church shoes.  Colby asked for more Star Wars Lego's and a new tire for his bike.  Logan asked for a remote controlled car and he also wanted snow.  The kids all laughed at me as I wrote Charlotte's letter.  I wrote, "Dear Santa, I have been the best kid ever.  Much better than my brothers and sister.  Please bring me some diapers because I really need them.  Thank you and Merry Christmas.  From Charlotte."  For some reason the other kids thought that asking for diapers was a pretty funny request.  I thought it was very practical.

The kids finally went to bed after their excitement lost to exhaustion.  Then next morning we woke up to find that Santa had indeed found our house and got in even though we do not have a chimney.

He filled our stockings as well as our front room with gifts and candy.  There was no way we could keep Logan in his room on Christmas so he put back on his gloves and came out with the rest of the family.  If we get sick, so be it, it was Christmas.  Germs take a day off on Christmas, right?

Emily and Colby both got spoiled with new bikes.  They both also got what they asked for Rollerblades and Star Wars Lego's.  Emily also got a huge book about all things American Girl dolls as well as a few other little things.  Colby had a blast with his Lego's and spent the rest of the day putting them together. 

Logan and Charlotte also had a good Christmas.  As you can see Logan got his remote controlled car and had a lot of fun driving it around all morning.  He also got a tent and sleeping bag which was perfect because we just put all of his stuff in his tent and he spent most of the day in there too.  Charlotte's first Christmas was really fun.  She didn't really know what was going on but we had a good time showing her all of her presents.  She got a baby doll and of course some diapers!

We played all morning until the kids started complaining they were hungry.  We got dressed and ready for the day and had our traditional Christmas breakfast.  Ham and eggs and cinnamon rolls with egg nog.  After breakfast it was time to open the presents under the tree.

Colby and Logan got more Lego's.  Colby's favorite present was his very own pocket knife set from Emily.  Logan also got his own Book of Mormon and scripture case for church since he will now be going into the Sunbeams!  

Emily and Charlotte also got some nice gifts.  Emily got new church shoes and a new watch from her brothers.  She has really enjoyed this watch and tells us what time it is just about every minute of the day.  Because the watch has a stopwatch feature, she has been timing herself with everything she does too.  I also got some really great gifts from Russell and the kids.  I got new snow boots so that now my feet won't be cold in the snow (Yeah!) and new kitchen knives.  All of my knives are really dull and crappy so now we have some really nice ones finally (Yes!).  Emily got me a Snuggie which is something I never though I would use but I use that thing All. The. Time!  In fact I am wearing it right now as I type! 

Russell's only wish was for a new concealed weapon holster.  He wanted an in-waist one so that he could tuck in his shirt.  So he got what he wanted.  He also received new shoes, a belt, a watch, and a new pillow from the kids.  The belt he got was picked out by Colby.  It is a reversible belt that is brown on one side and camouflaged on the other side.  Colby said this would be perfect because he could wear it deer hunting!

I think this second picture is so cute.  Each of the kids gave each other a Canyon Colt hat.  They were excited to get a hat to wear on Super Spirit Fridays.  They have been wearing them ever since.  

And finally, Logan got his wish from Santa, it snowed!  I don't mean just a little skiff here or there, it dumped 16 inches during the night and continued to snow all of Christmas day.

So we truly had a white Christmas this year.  There was so much snow that our Stake President cancelled church even though it was Christmas.  Church was only going to be Sacrament Meeting anyway but now it was cancelled.  I didn't think anything got cancelled for snow reasons in Cache Valley.  Not that we were going anyway with Logan being sick but still.

In the afternoon, Russell, Emily and Colby braved the cold and went out to shovel the driveway and sidewalks (OK and play).  Luckily our awesome neighbor, Brad Lee, came over with his snow blower and helped us out or we would probably still be trying to shovel that much snow off our driveway.

The snow even filled up our window wells!  Russell had to shovel that snow away from the windows too so that it wouldn't melt and go inside the house.  Well thank you Logan for wishing for snow on Christmas.  We got plenty!

And finally, here is a cute picture of our Charlotte Baby on her first Christmas at 3 1/2 months old.

We had a great Christmas this year despite being sick.  We hope all of you did too.  Merry Christmas!

There's a Grinch in the Crowd ...

December is also a time for Christmas parties. We travelled down to St. George for our annual Morwood Christmas parties.  This year Clint and Haley were in charge of our family's Christmas party and they came up with a really  fun Whoville themed party. We all dressed up as Who's from Whoville for the party. There was even a contest for the best Who hair and a Chair of Cheer contest for the best dressed Who. It was pretty fun to see all of the funny hair and costumes.  Here is our Who Family:

The Grinch even made an appearance at our party.  The grandkids were not so sure about him but the rest of us laughed at him and were glad to meet him.

Here are some more Who families. The Bassett's went all out with their costumes.  They looked so funny in their ugly sweaters, tree skirts, and fancy Who hair.  But I thought the Hughes' had the best Who hair of all and you can't beat the Grinch as the best dressed Who:

Even Mom and Dad got into it by posing for a picture with the Grinch.  Dad and the Grinch got a little too friendly and we all laughed at them.  OK I'll let the secret out, the Grinch was really Klint Hughes.  He made a great Grinch and when he walked in the house, we all just started laughing saying we had found the winner!  In the end however, the winners of the Who hair and Chair of Cheer were Chrislyn and Drew.  Nice Job you two!

Emily and I were not out of the competition because this was our awesome Who hair.  My hair stood up in a funky ponytail with braids on the side and I braided pipe cleaners into Emily's hair to make all of her little braids stand up all over her head.  The boys hair was spiked up in the middle and on the sides and Russell made himself some fun suspenders.  We thought we looked pretty cool...

At the party we ate dinner and played some fun games.  We had a Grinch word search and played "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" Jeopardy with Pin the Heart on the Grinch and a bean bag toss mixed in.  Our team won of course and there may or may not have been some cheating...  It was a really fun party.

The next day we had the annual Morwood family party at Santa Clara Elementary.  The kids love this party because they get to see all of their other cousins as well as Santa Claus. 

First though, we ate soup, had a snowball fight, and all of the kids put on the Nativity.  The boys were shepherds (and crazy ones at that) and Emily was an angel.  Emily wanted to be Mary really bad but she said they just draw names to be fair and her name didn't get drawn.  Oh well an angel is just as good.

Then it was time to meet Santa and get a present.  Each of the kids were so excited to see Santa and ran right up to him when their name was called.  Even Charlotte seemed to like Santa and didn't even cry.

For their gifts they each got something they love.  Emily received a new water bottle that she could decorate herself.  She was excited to bring it to school and use it there.  Colby got what he asked for, Star Wars Lego's.  Logan wasn't sure what his present was until we showed him how to play with it.  He got a Crocodile Dentist game that you push down its teeth until the crocodile snaps down on your finger.  He played that game with everyone for the rest of the night laughing each time the crocodile snapped.  Charlotte received a cute little Baby's First Christmas ornament.  She loved it.

These parties were really fun to go to and see all of our family again.  It is so nice to get together.  The only bad thing is that we found out when we got to St. George that all of the grandkids have had Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease.  We were really upset that no one told us but we did our best to keep our kids away from the ones that have had it.  We didn't know it they were still contagious.  Well you win some and you lose some.  Hopefully our kids don't get it...  We will see.