Children

Children are like sponges. They absorb your knowledge, they sap your strength, they soak up your resources, and drain your energy......but with one BIG squeeze, they give it all back!
Anyone else feeling like this while the kids are home for Christmas break?

Johnson family Christmas Party

This is kind of a special party for my husband. His Johnson side doesn't get together very often. I think that happens to a lot of people when a set of grandparents pass away. I love this side of his family. They are always so friendly and kind. I genuinely enjoy spending time with these people. Jared's mom organizes it every year and we are all really thankful that she does.

Jake and Kellie



Jordan and Noel

This little boy is maybe 3 weeks younger than Gunner. My son would NOT leave him alone. You can tell he has older brothers. This first shot is him trying to hit him in the head with a shoe. Don't worry, no one got hurt during this camera taking.

I'm pretty sure he is trying to squeeze his brains out.

Gunner is in mid cough here but he was squeezing him and just being irritating. I couldn't help but laugh. Does that make me terrible? The little kid just took it. I finally had to pull Gunner away.

I love Christmas time for so many different reasons and family is definitely one of them.

Homemade Christmas stuff

Some of my favorite gifts growing up were homemade. I loved the dresses my mom would make me and the warm blankets. I wanted to do that for my kids this year. We made Colton a blanket when he was about the same age as Zach. We just took a cartoon sheet that he picked out, put one of those soft t-shirt flat sheets behind it, and tied it. He loves that blanket and Zach has been begging me for one. So I figured this would be the year considering I had to borrow a quilting frame for an Activity Days service project. He chose Mario Bros. I actually really like the bright bold colors. Anyway, he was happy and that is all that matters.

My kids love Avatar the Last Airbender. I saw a tutorial on freezer paper stenciling and thought I would try it. I can't believe it worked. It was a little time consuming but my kids LOVED their shirts. I think they turned out pretty cool and you might see me use this again for shower gifts. The hardest part is cutting out the detail. They were supposed to be pj tops but have turned into everyday shirts. I got these t-shirts for $2 and added white sleeves. It was cheaper than buying long sleeve t-shirts. This way they got to pick the exact color they wanted. The bottoms took hardly any time....really easy pattern.

Colton asked about his own stocking this year. Jared and I had different traditions growing up. He had an actual stocking and we used our own sock from our drawer. I wasn't sure what tradition we would adopt but Jared won out.....not that he was trying to. I liked the idea of fitting small presents in the stocking. I decided the night before Christmas Eve I would use the scraps I had and sew some stockings. This is what I came up with. Not your traditional stocking but very much on line with what my boys like. They loved the idea of the pocket. Colton was excited to see what Santa would leave in that pocket. They were happy. So again, I was happy.

Golightly Family Christmas Party

I look forward to this party every year. It is the one time that most of my aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. come to celebrate. My family is HUGE. More people come to this party than the reunion. I love seeing my cousins and catching up with all of my family. Usually there is lots of food followed by a program (put on by my grandparent's children's family) and ending in a pinata. Look at this mass of kids. This was just the first bunch. There were 3 pinatas with 3 age groups.
Every time I look at this picture it cracks me up. He is working so hard to break that pinata open.

My niece sang "Santa Baby" and played the guitar for our family's portion of the program. She did awesome. I'm not sure if I could have done that now let alone at her age.

The theme was a luau. We had haystacks and a huge table of deserts.

I love my grandma and grandpa. They make me smile. I feel so blessed to still have them in my life. They are amazing people.

Who knew?

Who knew sugar cookies and air blown popcorn could be SO delicious?

Temple Square

I have pretty much decided I don't want to make this a tradition. I was more irritated than inspired. The last time we came, we took the train......which we should have done this time. I was afraid the baby would hate the long train ride. Parking was a nightmare. We weren't very smart and decided to go on a Wednesday.......which means tons of teenagers because of mutual. If I was a teenager, this would have been the night I wanted to "check out boys"....or whatever they call it now a days. Since everything is phone and facebook, I'm not sure how kids interact anymore. I realize that one day I will have irritating teenage boys so I will try to enjoy them while I can. I swear three different pairs of boys knocked into me because they were goofing around and fighting. Despite my bad attitude, my boys really liked it. I asked if they had fun and they quickly responded with a big , YES! Their favorite part was throwing a penny in the water and making a wish.
Don't get me wrong, I love seeing the lights and feeling the amazing spirit that surrounds the temple. I think I want to wait until the kids get older. Who knows how I will feel next year. I always looked forward to seeing the lights as a kid. Maybe I won't be such a Grinch next year.
I'm not exactly sure why Zach thinks this is an attractive smile but he has this cheesy fake smile in about all of his pictures.

I love my little stinkers. They sure make me happy!

Thanksgiving and other stuff

I Love our little trouble maker. He seriously keeps me on my toes. I unfortunately have my washer and dryer in different rooms. This is what I found when I came into load the dryer. He thought it was the funniest thing ever....he just giggled. Thanksgiving was nice. We actually decided to go to both parents this year...not sure why. I have zero pictures of my other two boys because they were down stairs playing with cousins the whole time.

Gunner is upset that Jared took him away from the stairs. My sister has quite a few stairs just past her entryway and he was in heaven. We don't have stairs at our house so not only did it keep him busy but he was having fun learning how to go backwards down stairs.

He had so much fun at my sister's house that he conked out on the way home. What you all don't understand is this NEVER happens. He hates car rides. We usually hear screaming at least half the car ride.

We didn't pull out our camera at Jared's family's house. I think we were just too tired at that point. My mother in law started a gingerbread house tradition. I didn't think my boys would be all that interested this year but they loved it. It is still sitting in their room on the dresser. Gunner has climbed up the drawers and sneaked all the candy he can reach.

Everyone told me I needed to get this crawl on video. It seems the norm to me because he has been doing it so long. He walks now but he got SO fast doing this crab crawl.

Ouch

So I have decided to start a workout routine with my husband. My nephew bought this program and let us use it. So far so good. The first week made me want to cry. Both my husband and I were walking a little funny. It wasn't until week 2 that we started to feel better. We are starting week 4 which is supposed to be the rest week. That is a lie. This week is just as hard as the first 3. We aren't using the eating plan because my nephew couldn't find it. We are seeing results but I'm sure it would be better if we were following the diet. My arms are getting toned and my waist is coming back. It makes me excited and motivated to keep going. Wish me luck.......I still have 67 days to go!

M

I know I'm a little late in posting this. The winner picked the letter M and this is what she got. I hope she likes it! I have seen some "TV stars" (if you can call them that) wearing very similar necklaces........Kendra Wilkinson, Ali and Jillian from the bachelorette, and a few others.
I am taking custom orders for Christmas but only until Dec. 8th. I know I don't have a lot in my shop but I can make pretty much anything you dream up. So if there is something you have in mind for a loved one and I don't have it, I would be more than happy to help create something really special. Happy shopping people.......I'm just about done!
http://www.madebytaren.etsy.com/