New family pictures

We've had a few candid family shots taken recently, so I thought I'd post them.

This picture was taken on Saturday the 27th. We hiked out to the face of the Mendenhall Glacier with our good friends the Daltons and the Rosenbruchs. Wendy took this picture for us, and it turned out great...even with coats on!




This is the picture we sent out with our Christmas cards. I didn't want a picture with our coats on, so we went out to the glacier in September, before it got too cold.

This picture was also taken by Wendy. This is our family at our ward's Christmas lu'au that was on the 5th of December. The videos of us all dancing are further down the blog.

Christmas traditions

Ever since I can remember I have eaten strawberry waffles on Christmas morning. It is a tradition that as far as I know is carried out by everyone in my dad's family; including his six sibling's families, my 37 cousins and since more of them are married with children than aren't now...however many of their families too. I of course, shared this tradition with my husband and children and we enjoyed strawberry waffles on Christmas morning. Maybe sometime, I will try and come up with how many spouses and children my cousins all have, but for now...it will just be numbered as a lot. =)

Sledding and a frozen lake

Darwin and the kids went sledding on Saturday. I was sick, so I stayed home in bed the whole day. Anyway, he took them up to the Mendenhall Glacier. It has been SUNNY and between 3 and 23 degrees for 9 DAYS now! It is absolutely beautiful. The lake at the glacier is frozen solid, so after going down the hill for awhile, they all walked across the lake up to the face of the glacier. It is amazing...the glacier. I'm sad I missed it, so we will have to go back out when we are all well again. (Caleb, Isaiah and I have had the pukes)

MaNiC mOnDaY

POP QUIZ: ARE YOU USING YOUR CAMERA WEEKLY?

Today's theme is to test your photo taking abilities and to see if you are putting those cameras to work. This Manic Monday will have three pictures to it...If you haven't been using your camera lately, then you will just have to post this saying, "MISSED EVENTS OF LAST WEEK, WILL TRY TO DO BETTER IN THE FUTURE."

That is right, this is like a pop quiz!

First picture: Any picture of your choice taken between December 6th-9th
Second picture: Any picture of your choice taken between December 10th-12th
Third picture: The 12th picture you took on Thanksgiving Day

Make sure you list the date the picture was taken and a little caption describing the photograph

This picture of Brooklin was taken on Dec. 5th (cheating by one day...does this count??) at our ward Christmas party. We didn't take very many actual pictures, because we were video taping the whole thing.

This picture was taken on Dec. 10th. The kids were decorating a gingerbread house.

Picture #3

"MISSED EVENTS OF THANKSGIVING, WILL TRY TO DO BETTER IN THE FUTURE."
(We ate at our friend's house, and she took all the pictures, and I haven't put them on my thumb drive yet.)

Kung Fu Fighting!

We bought a PlayStation 2 in Dec. of 2002. We bought it because of one particular game ... EyeToy Play. We were introduced to the EyeToy game by Darwin's sister Lisa while we were visiting Idaho for Christmas. We played her playstation every other night, because it gave us all such a work out, we were too sore the next day to play it again, and had to give our bodies a break. We left his parent's house and headed to my parent's house, and we didn't have a playstation, so we went to Toys R Us and bought one...and the game. We came home and played it with my family. My parents came home one night, and from their car they watched us through the window. They didn't have any idea what was going on in their living room. All of us were sitting around watching one person standing in the middle of the room flailing their arms around wildly. We always said it would be fun to video tape someone playing EyeToy, but we never did it.

Fast forward to this week...Dec. 2008. We dusted off our well used copy of EyeToy Play, and set up a bunch of lights. We haven't played this game for at least a year. We were all having a great time. Then I suddenly remembered that we never did get any video of us playing the game. We have this GREAT video camera, called a Flip Video. I ran into the other room and snuck up on Darwin playing the Kung Fu game on EyeToy. He knew that I was taping him after just a few seconds, but that didn't stop him from playing. He wanted me to try and beat my old score, so he could tape me, and these are the videos. Enjoy! Oh...I did beat my old high score, and if you have the high score, it takes a picture of you for the leader board...that is what I am doing at the end of the video. Posing for my picture. =)

...Oh so soft and cuddly!

Do you remember these!!

Monchhichi, Monchhichi, oh so soft and cuddly!

I was at Safeway...the grocery store weird enough...and they had Monchhichis for sale! I so couldn't believe it! I went to get milk and bread, and came home with a little piece of my childhood. It was so funny, I kept touching them in the cart, because I couldn't believe they were in Safeway and I could buy them! I called my mom immediatly to tell her about them. One year I even dressed up as a Monchhichi for Halloween. I wore a brown sweater, brown pants, I put my hair up in a ponytail on top of my head, and my mom made me a bib and I even painted my nose brown (if I remember right). I've added a picture below of me when I was seven or eight holding a Hershey bear and my Monchhichi. MOM, if you even try to post a comment about why I was laughing in this picture, then I will have to beat you to it. =) I was laughing my head off in the picture because my mom said smile, and instead I.... well I cut the cheese...and I thought it was totally funny, especially because I was sitting on a wooden rocking chair and that seemed to amplify the sound.

Gingerbread House

The kids made a gingerbread house (from a kit) last night. I remember doing Gingerbread houses with my family when we lived in Arizona, but that is the only time I remember doing them. I think this is the first one we have done with the kids.

Our Hair Kid

Brooklin is a hair kid. I'm not actually sure what that is, but one of my seminary teachers used to call kids that...but I think when he used it, it was to let them know that they were getting on his nerves. Anyway, I digress. Brooklin loves to do things to her hair. She has TONS of hair, and it is curly. One of her favorite things to do is brush it out in the evening, and see just how big she can get it. She also likes to make herself look like a poof ball head, and then put it all in front of her face, and then put her glasses on over it, so she looks like a very puffy Cousin It. Her friend has some video of her dancing to music looking like that, that I hope to see on facebook soon (Wendy).

Tonight, she came up with a new way to have fun with her hair. What a goof ball!

Ward Christmas Party

This is going to be quick, but we had a ton of fun at our ward christmas party tonight. It was Aloha themed, and each organization did a dance. Primary did Hawaiian hula, Young Womens did Tahitian, Relief Society did Tongan, and Elder's Quorum did Fiji. Oh, and the Young Men did Samoa, and the High Priests did New Zealand...but I didn't take video of them, since none of us were in them. We had a ton of food, and then did our program. The videos follow this post. Who knew we would all learn so many Polynesian dances AFTER leaving hawaii?! There are a lot of Tongans and Spanish people in our ward, so they all just taught us the dances. It was really fun.

Isaiah singing a solo

Isaiah sang his heart out!

Caleb, London, and Isaiah doing hula to Pearly Shells.

London is second behind the girl to Isaiah's left, and Caleb is in the back of the next over from London.

Darwin dancing Fiji style

The Elder's Quorum did a dance from Fiji. It was funny, they were supposed to have music, but someone forgot it.

Melissa doing a Tongan Dance

The Relief Society Sisters did a Tongan Dance....check out my feathers!

Brooklin dancing at our ward party

Our ward's Christmas party theme was Aloha. Each axillary did a different dance. Brooklin's was from Tahiti. She did Awesome!