Christmas 2010

Oh, where to even begin. I can't say this was my favorite Christmas ever. In fact, I was so sick throughout the entire week, that I spent most of it in a drug induced coma. But, for the sake of my blog, I will do my best to remember what happened this Christmas.

Our family home evening before Christmas consisted of making a sugar cookie mess. The intent was to make them and save some to set out for Santa, but after decorating an eating a few, the fun was over and I threw the rest of the cookies away. Aren't I a Scrooge?

Mitchel also spent the entire week before Christmas very sick. He missed Mon-Wed of school. On Tuesday though, they perform the Christmas concert for the kids at school and it is the best program of the year. Since he had practiced so hard during the month, I made him get up and go to at least that so I could film it. It ended up being a wonderful concert. Every grade does such a good job of teaching the students the songs and they perform them perfectly. I love it!

Max's 1st grade sang "Santa brought me Choo-Choo Trains" and "I've Been Waiting for Christmas." Wonderful!

Here is Mitchel looking half dead, but the 4th grade sang "When Christmas Comes to Town, from the Polar Express" and "I Want some Silly Bands for Christmas." The Polar Express song made me cry. Loved it!

The Harker's have a tradition to get together on the 23rd of December for the annual cousin gift exchange and soup eating. By then, I was pretty sick, so I think we all had fun?

Here are the Harker cousins with one or two missing.

Christmas Eve was spent at Jeff and Suzie Miller's house. We ate, and ate, and ate, sang Christmas carols, played the chimes, and did the nativity. Again, I was mostly in a coma, but I think it was a good night.

Acting out the Nativity was always my favorite tradition as a child, and I love now seeing my own kids do it. I had a shepard and two wise men this year. Miles didn't want to participate yet.

Christmas morning, somehow Santa came, even thought no one left him any cookies to eat. He brought....

Legos and a Kung Zu pet for Max.

A scooter and Batman for Mason

An electric Snap Circut set for Mitchel (really cool!)

A new trike for Miles

I didn't even get one picture of all the kids in front of the tree. While making Christmas breakfast, Mason threw up, I was still feeling like crap, and Mitchel and Max were coughing all over the place. How Miles didn't get sick, I'll never know, but I am so grateful!

Next it was off to Grandma and Grandpa Miller's.

The hit gift was "Pillow Pets!" Each grandchild got a different one. My boys love theirs and now carry them all over the house and sleep with them and have many pillow fights with them.

That night we all just went home to play with the games and toys we got. I went to bed for a long time. The next day, Sunday, all of us but Mike stayed home from church. I slept most of the day again. Seriously, I was wiped out! Finally by Monday I figured it was time to get my act together and clean some stuff up a little. To this day (New Years Eve) I am still coughing, but finally feeling back to normal.

So, Christmas happened. I hope that as time goes on I'll only remember the good parts and not remember being in my death bed. But it was still a good time spent with my boys and hopefully it was a good one for them!

18 months...nursery here we come!

My baby officially turned 18 months on Christmas day.

Miles is turning into quite a little character! He fits right in with the rest of my crazy boys. He loves to run and chase them all, wrestle, make messes, and drink lots of chocolate milk. Seriously, I think he is addicted to the stuff. He loves to carry around his blankie and it's still a struggle to get him to let go of his binki. His new game is run away and hide. He is quick too! He has figured out how to turn the water on to the bath tub, so I always have to make sure the bathroom door is closed. We are looking forward to church in this new year now that he will be able to go into nursery. We are hoping that the Sabbath really does turn into a day to worship, learn, and listen, instead of carry, chase, and try to make Miles not scream.

Miles is so full of life and energy. He never stops moving. He also is the messiest eater on the planet. The crazy thing is that he still isn't talking yet. Oh, he babbles lots of things, and he can understand everything I am saying to him. But for some reason, he doesn't want to form any words of his own. Should I be worried? I don't know yet. He is such a cutie though and makes us laugh a lot. He also is a trouble maker and makes me do a lot of extra cleaning and picking up. Oh well. I'm glad he is getting older and more independent. I couldn't do the newborn thing again. I am getting prepared for the potty training stage soon, and once that's over, it will be smooth sailing right?

Anyway, happy 18th month birthday Miles. I love you, crazy boy!

December stuff

This month has just flown by. I can't believe Christmas is this week. Life has been busy as usual, but we have found the time to have some fun as well. A few weeks back, we had a major snow storm that dumped about a foot of snow on our yard. As a result, the boys spent quite a bit of time sledding down our hill, despite the fact that it was 10 degrees outside. Getting Miles into all his snow gear was exactly like to was for Randy's mom in "A Christmas Story." It took forever to get on the snow pants, boots, coat, hat, and mittens. Then after being outside for exactly 5 minutes, he had had enough and wanted to come back inside. Another fun thing we did was build gingerbread houses. In the past, I've been too cheap to buy one of those precut ones, and instead usually used graham crackers. But this year my boys talked me into it since we found one that included 5 different buildings for only $10. Luckily, the day we were going to make the houses, I read my friend Laurie's blog. Her family had also attempted to make a house earlier in the week. Unfortunately, the frosting that is supplied with the kit does not hold the gingerbread pieces together very well. She lamented on her blog how she wished she had just used her hot glue gun. "Brilliant!" I said and that is exactly what we did! It worked like a charm and all of ours stayed put together perfectly!


A neighbor of mine had told us a couple of months ago about a Science show they do up at the U called the "Faraday Lectures." It is totally free and is geared toward kids and showing them about chemistry and science. It was so cool! I took Mitchel, his friend Hayden, Max and Mason. We all loved it. They made things blow up, smashed things, changed the color of things, lit things on fire, pretty much a boy's paradise. We learned a lot too!
I've been pretty busy with weddings over the past few weeks. The latest one was just this past weekend in San Diego. Mike's cousin Justin was getting married in the San Diego temple. I've done his other two brother's weddings as well. So they flew me out there on Thursday (I took two days off school) and we took some beach pictures of the two of them while Mike, his brother, and their parents drove down. The wedding and reception were on Friday. Then we all drove back home together on Saturday. It was a quick trip, but well worth it. I think their video will turn out awesome.

Here we are at the reception. The cake was delicious!

So it has been a busy December. Lots of work and not as much play as I would have liked, but I'm looking forward to the Christmas break and spending some time with my kids. Maybe I'll even get my house in order, but don't hold me to that one.