Sounds of Christmas

One thing, out of the long list of things, that I love about Christmas, is the music. Christmas music is the best!! I have my car radio set on the Christmas station and I just sing along all day (my boys love it;) This year both Zack and Matthew performed their own Christmas music.

Zack had a concert at school and he is our own 'lil drummer boy. They sounded awesome!

Matthew and his group K.O.N. performed at the Ward Christmas Party and they did really well. We have video of it but I didn't post it because the video was not very good quality so here is a picture of the band with Santa.

I love Christmas time! It is the BEST!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Tree Trimming

Once upon a time I had a dream that I would have the most perfect Christmas tree in my home with beautiful, shiny bulbs on it, all matching in color with beautiful ribbon wrapped all around. It would be my own personal Macy's tree and it would be stunning! Well our first few years of Christmases my tree was very color coordinated and it was lovely (unfortunately I do not have pictures) but since having kids my tree has taken on a different kind of look.

Now my tree is filled with ornaments of Pikachu, SpongeBob, Batman, Darth Vader and many other colorful characters.

It is filled with ornaments from all over the world, places we have traveled to, where we have vacationed and things that we have done. It is filled with ornaments of Baby's First Christmas, Our New Home and our first Christmas together.

It is filled with homemade ornaments that my boys have made us over the years, adorning pictures of them from the past.

Every time it is time to trim the tree a rush of memories and good times come back to us as we take each ornament out of the box. It is truly a walk down memory lane and brings us to laughter every time.

My tree might not be the perfect "Macy's" tree but it is one of love and memories of a family that loves one another. To me that is the most perfect tree ever!

Finally 12!

My baby is 12! Wow! When I look at old pictures it really just seems like yesterday when my boys were small. I remember cuddling with Zack and his sweet chubby cheeks and roly-poly body. Now I hug him and he is a lean, rock hard, muscular young man! They change so much but he is still my sweet, kind, hard-working, considerate and loving kid! I am sure those are adjectives he would not want me to use to describe him but instead use words such as tough, strong, cool, handsome, awesome and studly (which he are these also). He will always be my baby though:) Just look at that face.....love it!

Zack celebrated his birthday by having a party and it got me thinking how different birthday parties are at this age. Gone are the days of the "theme" parties that took alot of creativity and prep time. I use to have so much fun planning those kind of parties and would start months earlier in planning and now we plan parties at the last minute! I fondly remember the Blues Clues party where all the kids were Blue searching after the clues to find a prize, each having their own Handy Dandy notebook and taking turns sitting in the 'thinking' chair. Come on...how cute are those hats that I made?
There was also the pirate party that was so much fun and the invitations were a treasure map. The kids had fun dressing up as a pirate and going on a treasure hunt, walking the plank and eating sailboat hot dogs. And look at that cake I made. Wow, what happened to that Mom from the past that actually took more than a day to make a cake!


Well those days are in the past. Now this is what we get - a bunch of friends coming over, playing ping-pong and pool, jamming on guitars and drums, jumping on the trampoline and eating, eating, eating! Pretty much just going wild but having a great time together! You gotta love boys....I wonder if next year I can talk one of them into a Spa birthday party??? I think not.

Halloween

Well Halloween has come and gone and it is becoming the holiday that does not need much prep time. My boys were very easy this year when it came to dressing up and they figured out what they wanted to be on their own. I did not give them any of my creative ideas, not that they would have listened anyways. Zack decided on his own that he wanted to dress up as a nerd. OK, thats easy and then he went one step further and thought it would be 'cool' to be a beat up nerd. Yeah...thats cool!! lol I told him that he should prepare himself for people saying "Zack, why did you not dress up?" and of course their were some that did not disappoint but most people, to be funny, said instead "That's a great costume! You dressed up as your brother!" Ha Ha (Poor Matthew) It is a good thing that Matthew has a high self esteem and a good sense of humor!

And we are not sure what Matthew was suppose to be so we just called him "purple haired boy". That was his costume....he dyed his hair purple! What?? I think he was dressing up as one of the band members from Blink 182 but I am not sure on that. Oh well they both had a great Halloween and enjoyed themselves...Matthew going to Fright Fest at Magic Mountain and Zack trick or treating with friends. They might have not won any costume contests but they did have a great time!!

Fall is Here

Why is it that our house is the only one on our street that has leaves all over?? I think fall is here but it is only at our house! It could be because we didn't trim our trees thoroughly this last year and they are very full. Every time we clean up the leaves it only takes a matter of an hour or so before the yard and front walk are covered again. It is driving me crazy! I am waiting for the Santa Ana winds and hopefully they can blow them all down in one gust!

The other day I was out raking them up into piles and it made me think of a wonderful memory.........My parents lived in Page, Arizona for a few years. My Mom is not one to really love the desert scenery but she was fine living there as long as her home was complete with green grass and trees and not the rock yard with cactus. Well she got what she wanted because they had a big yard at their house and it was beautiful and green and had many trees and roses. In fact sitting in front of their house it was hard to imagine that you were in the middle of a desert! My Mom and Dad love having a clean yard but one time when the whole family was gathering up there--my Mom being the grandmother that she is---thought it would be fun to collect all the leaves for a week and rake them into big piles so that when the grandkids would get there they would have a blast playing in them. She was always thinking of little things like that. Something so simple but a sacrifice on their part, having to keep their yard full of leaves, gave hours of entertainment for the grandkids. Who knew they would have so much fun playing in them? Well she did---she is a kid at heart and always will be and that is why she knows how to have fun and also why my boys have so many great memories from the many moments with Grandma. What was really fun is that my brother's family arrived a little after we got there so the boys hid in the leaves and when their cousins arrived they jumped out and scared them....good times!!

Well, fall is here and the leaves will continue to fall...I have just come to the decision that it is part of our fall decor. There are still plenty to fall and add to the decor of our 'festive' home...

At least Zack still enjoys playing in them.........................

Mustang Matthew

Well the day has arrived! Other parents look forward to it with anticipation but I have been dreading it....Matthew passed his driving test and he officially has his drivers license! Today was his first day driving to seminary and school ALONE....surprisingly a very emotional one for me. You think that I would be ecstatic, no more waking up at 6am to take him to seminary, no more carting him around to his many activities. But I am not ecstatic:( I know that I will still be waking up to see him off (we will see how long it lasts) to send him off to school with a prayer and a "I love you" , I enjoy our mornings together when it is just him and I. But I will miss the time that we have together in the car, learning about his day, hearing the latest news and laughing together...sometimes that is the only time we have to do that! My boy is growing up and this is such a huge leap into complete independence for him!

I was such a sap this morning. After saying a prayer this morning with him (it was especially long) and walking with him outside and giving him my last minute counsel and a step by step overview of his path today from home to seminary, seminary to school and then home again.....like he doesn't know the way or something! I gave him an extra long hug, yelled out an "I love you!" and watched him as he pulled out and continued to watch until he turned off of our street, acting as though I was saying goodbye forever...a tear rolled down my cheek. I miss him already! You better believe it that I will be saying alot of prayers today and I will have my cell phone on me at all times. It is really hard to let go and send them out there in the cruel world and to the cruel world of drivers, which some of them I refer to as 'idiots". Sometimes it is very hard being a parent.....

Rock-O-Lanterns

One tradition that I never really did as a kid and one that I don't do with my boys is carving pumpkins at Halloween time. It has never appealed to me. The last time we did it, here at home, was when Matthew was 3 years old and Zack was not even born yet.

HALLOWEEN 1996

Zack has had the opportunity at school to carve a pumpkin so at least he has experienced it. But this year I decided I wanted to carve pumpkins and I wanted the boys to enjoy doing it with me. So I took them to the store to pick out their pumpkins, (Pumpkin patches charge too much for pumpkins so we hit Smart and Final), and they really helped by being excited to do it. Zack had more interest in it but Matthew went along with my whim just to please me.
So I purchased the pumpkin carving kit, complete with scary patterns to follow and I had already picked out some that would be cool. But little did I know that the boys had their own ideas for their pumpkins and they designed their own pattern. Whatever!!
We had a great time cleaning out the pumpkins, nice and slimy and scraping the sides. Matthew was not really into this part so Zack and I handled the pumpkin guts.
We even saved the seeds so that we could roast them later. (By the way....the roasted pumpkin seeds were delicious---YUM!) To say the least it was pretty fun and not too messy. The boys were excited at how they turned out:)
We did not end up with your typical jack-o-lanterns........Zack made his the symbol for the band Blink 182 and Matthew did the name of his band on his pumpkin. So that is why I have appropriately named them our Rock-O-Lanterns!