Open for Business

The Jonas ice rink is officially up and running. We had a rocky start, but the rink master got it under control and it's fully functional.
For those that don't know, John floods our sports court each winter to use as an ice rink.
The kids skate around during the day...
Adeline, I think, is going to master skating this year.
With some support from AustinWho is an old pro

Even Bailey got out there today
She is a trooper

At night, all the boys come out for hockey...

Austin's got his game face on Adeline likes to play cheerleader for the first 15 minutes or so.

This is Heaven for John

We have dozens of skates with no rental fee, no admission fee, and free hot chocolate! (Oh, and great company inside:) Everyone's welcome! Come on over.

Our Christmas

Pre-Christmas present opening... My Uncle Winn always out does himself with gifts for his great nieces and nephews (last year it was a Wii). This year it was an electric scooter for Austin, giant doll house for Adeline and portable DVD player for Bailey. We took dinner to my Grandma and Grandpa Claybaugh's house, had a nice visit with them and let the kids open presents.

My Grandma Marilynn always out does herself too. She got my kids a beautiful Disney cuckoo clock. It's a special thing because my grandma has cuckoo clocks all over her house. It's part of the experience of Grandma Marilynn's house; clocks going off all over the place each hour. Since she lives so close to Disneyland, it's also close to our hearts.

Adeline was involved in the performance of "The Little Match Girl." She got a whole 30 seconds on stage, but still so cute and fun. I seriously dropped the camera on my way out the door, so I only got a fuzzy picture. We had to order another camera and have it over-nighted so we had one for Christmas!

Caught Austin sleeping like this right before Christmas

The girls are dressed up for Halloween in December. My mom got these ladybug costumes on clearance last year and the girls love to wear them around. We've even been to the grocery store in them.

Christmas Eve was a perfect celebration. I got to host dinner and a program. We had our silly...Mom, Cara, Jonny, Tim, Shelbie and even Hudson did Mele Kalikimaka.

I find that if I'm taking too many pictures, I miss out on the moment, so I didn't get pictures of Tim and Jonny in their Hawaiian get-ups or Cami's boys dancing to Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Then we had our spiritual...My kids acted out the nativity, Todd and Lexi read "I Believe in Santa Claus" (a book comparing Santa to Jesus), we watched some of last years Mo Tab Christmas concert, and then were serenaded with Christmas carols by my dad, Shelbie and Alexis (both my brother's wives- the only females in the family with musical talent)

After it all, and much anticipation from the kids, we exchanged gifts.

We were so excited to have my brother Todd and his new wife Alexis spend their first Christmas night with us! Lexi helped me finish wrapping presents, while Todd and John played elves and set up a new play kitchen for the girls. Bailey was passed the whole "open one present and get stuck on it" stage. She opened each present with enthusiasm and kept them piled in her lap.

The Newlyweds!

Me and my girls

The rest of the day is pictureless, but went like this:

After presents we piled into the mini van in our jammies and went to my mom's for breakfast and to open our gifts from them.

Then we ran back home, got showered and ready and went to the rest home where my cousin's husband lives. Todd played the piano, the kids sang and we visited with him and other people who were around. It was great for the kids to see and opened a door for us to talk about less fortunate people.

Back to Grandma's where she reserved her church so the kids had plenty of room to run. Dinner, junk food and games ended our perfect holiday season!

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas

This is my very favorite Christmas movie. EVER!I watched it last night while wrapping presents! I got to wrap presents last night because after dinner at my mom's, my family set up an assembly line and helped me finish my Christmas cards. I know, I know, I haven't gotten them out yet and I'm super lame.
Anywhooo, John watched it with me and liked it too! That made me love him more. So we fell asleep spooning. SWEEEEEEET!

(should I have enlarged spooning instead of sweet?)

Seriously?!?!?!

HE WON?!?!?!?!What a massive disappointment!
BOOOOO!

(So You Think You Can Dance: Season 6)


Bring on Idol

A Christmas Carol

Every year for the last thousand years, my family goes to see a production of (what we call) "Scrooge" and have See's candy at intermission. This tradition has such a dear place in my heart that is intensified through sharing it with my own children.
My sister Cami and I share these tender feelings. When we were little girls, we would sit on the end of the row and feel the carolers big dresses as they walked by.

I'm so so thankful that John has happily adopted this tradition. I see in the future him wearing a "Grandpa Jerry smile" and have a "Papa" tear in his eye.

Adeline sat next to me, on the end of the row, and reached her hand out to touch the carolers beautiful dresses. It was magic

At the end of the night Scrooge promised to honor Christmas in his heart. So do I. Thanks Gma M and Gpa J for bringing Christmas to life each and every year for me. Now I know how to "keep" Christmas!

Yesterday: I cleaned all day

I started at 9:30. My mom called and asked what my plans were for the day. I said "Cleaning." she said "What else?" I said "That's all." And that really was all. I stopped at 5.
Today: You can't even tell. It's 11 and I'm back in bed on my laptop. I'm frustrated.

Scuba Certification

This is what has kept us busy over the past few weeks.SO FUN!

Update:

With headaches pounding both John and me, we headed to my parents ward Christmas party at 6pm last night. As we pulled onto State Street, we saw a car pulled over and surrounded by half a dozen police cars.
HHMMMM....
When we got home from the party, I had a message from a Pleasant Grove detective. He told me they had detained a woman that they had been after for several weeks and my purse was in her car. I hung tight while they went through, photographed and documented everything. They called about 10pm and asked me to come down and claim my stuff.
Turns out this woman has been passing bad checks for weeks now, so they've been following her paper trail. They had video surveillance of her in various stores and bank drive thru's. So they knew what she looked like, her car and license plate. As luck would have it, the same day my purse had been stolen, the detective found himself right behind her at a stop light!
There were about 5 other purses in her car. My camera was in HER purse, she had started to write a check from my check book, my sunglasses are gone, make-up all there, $1000 worth of Macy's clothes were in the car and all the receipts were in my wallet! She wears size 7 shoes and doesn't have good taste:) That is all kept as evidence. They kept on referring to me as "the victim." I asked them to stop.
Things I'm going to do now:

• Always lock my car doors and never keep valuables in there (thank goodness we're good about locking our house and setting the alarm)

• Take an inventory of everything in my purse, especially credit and debit cards. Include phone numbers to credit card companies for quick cancellation.

• Write down the serial numbers of important electronics. Luckily we had the serial number to our camera since we still had the box. When you report an item of that nature stolen and are able to give the serial number, it goes into a database so that if it's pawned or if it's recovered, it is easily returned to you.
  

Hope this never happens to you, but if it does, hope your story ends like mine!

Deatils

Sorry, in my frazzled state (plus I was on hold with Mastercard), I didn't give any detail about my purse. I had left it in the car last night (which I often do) and John took the car to the dentist this morning. He realized when he got back in the car that the center console (between passenger and driver) had been flipped down, but didn't think much of it. He ran a couple other errands and came home. Not too long later, we got in the car together to run more errands and I couldn't find my make up bag. I was almost positive I had left it in the car, then realized my purse had been left there too. We looked around the house and all through the car and concluded they must be stolen. So we canceled our errands, checked the bank to find the charges at Macy's and started making phone calls. We canceled all of our cards and closed our bank account. Now it's just going to take time to replace things. So it's not the end of the world. Actually, I'm glad they took my purse and not the $3,000 worth of scuba gear we had in the backseat. We won't be reliable for anything spent, so this is cheaper.
Just a HUGE headache!!

Stolen Purse

I'm spending my afternoon on the phone with my credit card companies and bank to cancel EVERYTHING (including checking since my check book was in there). Also in there, all my make up, our brand new camera, drivers license, temple recommend, Costco card, etc, etc, etc.
When we started making phone calls, we found out that there has been about $1000 charged at Macy's. Fun shopping spree!
And I filed a police report. Probably have to do something with my insurance.
GRRRRRR!!!
Off to the bank and Target so I can at least replace my make up today (first things first!)

Family Pictures: Fall 2009

My good friend Monica did family pictures for us a couple weeks ago. She did such a great job. It was the most painless photo shoot I've ever done with my kids.