A few missed from Santa's boot camp

So I forgot to put on a picture of the kids watching the movie, nice we could get 22 kids to watch and stay put for a few minutes at least!

Accidently deleted Jeremy Buckners picture so here's his cookies :)

Can't forget my sweet Max!!

Santa's Boot Camp!

So Pete and I decided we wanted to do a "Santa's boot camp". My sister's sister-in-law does one with her nieces and nephews every year on the 23rd of December and we thought it would be fun to try our own out. We invited the kids that were still here for the holiday's from our ward. We had quite the turn out...22 kids!! WOW it was crazy but lots of fun! We also learned as you do the first time you try something that we need to make some changes for next year if we are celebrating Christmas here next year too. All in all I think it was fun and I hope the kids enjoyed it! We taught the kids how to catch Santa and also got to decorate some sugar cookies for Santa, although I'm sure they won't make it until Christmas eve. We though it would take about 2 hours to do the obstacle course and decorate the cookies. It actually only took an hour so for the other hour the kids watched a movie. All the kids were good, we only had a few time outs :) Here's the bunch... I got most the kids pictures with their cookies however Jack Heaton didn't want to decorate and was more interested in the Santa course! I know of a few more I missed, sorry parents of who I missed! Sorry no pictures of the course, I had to man the kitchen while Pete did the course. Enjoy the pictures!!!

Before the MESS happened! We were prepared though!! :) Don't mind the Halloween table cloth, don't have a Christmas one :)

For my mom, I'll put everyone's name down! Aiden Holman

Tommy Holman

Emma Day

Jackson

Megan Buckner

Jaxson Day

Trevor Collette

Mia Croshaw

Jackson Croshaw

Finn Shculler

Molly Yonker

Annie Call

Lucy Schuller

Nathaniel Jensen

Charlee Yonker

Dillon Yonker

Samuel Jeppson

Ashlyn and Corbin Collette

The younger group guess I missed Jacob Huxel (bottom right in camo shirt).

Doing the "boot camp" part... push ups. Tell ya what kids are funny trying to do push ups and sit ups!!

Candy bar Christmas game

We had a fun Christmas party with a few friends and played a pretty fun game! So to play this game you need some candy bars wrapped in newspaper a few times and taped really good. A bag of shredded paper, dice, a hat, gloves, and a scarf. You will also need a really good vacuum cleaner. In a circle you put the bag with candy bars inside. Each person tries to roll doubles. First person to roll doubles puts on gloves, hat, and scarf and tries to find candy bar and starts to unwrap. Then if someone rolls a double the person trying to get to the candy bar drops everything and the next person puts on all the stuff and starts until someone else rolls a double. If you get the candy bar unwrapped you get to keep it. Oh man this was fun and messy too! I highly recommend it!! Stacey and Scott made the haul with two each, and I got one too! Although everyone thinks I cheated to get mine, but if you know me I never cheat!! Here's Kara's try at it. I got a picture of everyone but me and Adam... sorry Adam!

Pete's try... poor guy only got a couple tries, not very lucky in rolling doubles! :)

Justin got a few turns.

Scott's the king of rolling doubles, and works quite well with gloves on :)

I vote Hollie cutest in that hat! :)

I vote Stacey "scariest" in this hat!! ha ha J/K I do LOVE this face! You can tell she's having fun!

Here's where it gets messy!

Jack, Jack and Will having fun with the shreds of paper!

Stacey's loot!

Scott's prize's

Okay so we also did a white elephant game. I got my camera out a little late cause boy was it a funny one!!! Adam got ours slippers made of pads...

but I guess Justin wanted them more, and he ended up with them. I don't think any of us will forget these white elephant gifts. Hollie and Adam have quite the sense of humor however I'm not going to share that story, its one that will just have to stay with us :) Such a fun night, thanks friends for being so great!! We are so lucky to have such great friends out here to keep our minds off missing home and family! Love you all!

Christmas Happenings

Jack and I's try on a gingerbread house. It does taste pretty yummy and is almost all eaten by now. Jack hasn't had any and wonders who keeps eating it. We just say Santa's elves must be sneaking in to taste it :)

My pictures are all out of order but I'll try to explain. On the 14th we went to Lake Farmpark for their Christmas lights show. We went on a sleigh ride through the park of lights. Jack and Max LOVED it! Then we got to make a toy with Santa's elves... Jack picked a pirate ship of course! He helped build it and then painted it. I'm not sure its even dry yet because he used probably a gallon of paint!! Then we got to see Santa and the boys sat on his lap. Jack loves Santa and gave him a big long list of things he wanted. Max was looking worried but did okay with me smiling at him the whole time.

Here's his pirate ship!

Building his pirate ship with the elf, boy did he LOVE using the hammer and drill!

Sorry the pictures are blurry (camera sucks!) Here Jack is waiting in line to make his toy.

So much going on Max was loving it and checking out all he could.

An UGLY Christmas sweater party! I don't have a picture of the whole group but it was pretty funny! Hollie and Adam had this fun party and I'm thinking this needs to be a tradition (even though we only have one more Christmas left together with our fun Ohio friends). Oh man were there some UGLY sweaters... LOVE IT! Here's Adam and Hollie.

Justin and Stacey's whole family dressed for the party!!

Matt and Taylor Hall. My vote for ugliest sweater was either Adam or Matt. So funny!

Here's ours. My mom and dad's old sweaters. Well dad might still wear his :) Thanks for sending them out mom! What a great party with fun friends!!