Winter Beauty

Christmas night went down to a -20 degree freeze in Sevier County.

All the trees were dressed in winter shimmer the next morning.

It was BEAUTIFUL!

Christmas Day #3

A long time ago in the teeny weeny town of Redmond lived a handsome young man who had an eye for beauty. He chased that beauty down until she too thought he was a good match. 44 years later, 8 kids and 21 grandchildren, he still chases her around the town of Redmond - but a little slower. :)

Christmas with the whole 'famdamily' - grandpa's word, not mine.

Grandpa Allen and Grandma Louise

The ones that started it all.....

#1 Aunt Laurie and Uncle Mikey + 4 little ones

#2 Cameron and Yolanda + 5 little ones

#3 Aunt Jenny and Uncle Jay + 4 little ones

#4 Uncle Jared and Aunt Kim + 2 little ones

#5 Uncle Matt and Aunt Vonda + 2 little ones

#6 Aunt Janelle and Uncle Frank + 2 little ones

#7 Aunt Alley and Uncle Jerramy + 2 little ones

#8 16 year old Uncle Jordan

Handful of naughty kids.

Brandon and Hunter

Brayden

Jason getting on Grandpa's good side.

The oldest grand kid - Sexy Lexy!

The latest greatest grand baby - Anna Louise.

Jared and Kim's treasure.

Christmas Day #2

After a wonderful morning of family fun, we loaded up the suburban and headed to Redmond for our annual Jensen Christmas lunch. Years ago Grandma declared that there would be no more gift exchanges - only grandparents to the grandchildren. Less stress and more memories for the grand kids. Grandma outdid herself this year. She made all 21 grand kids awesome pillow cases along with fluffy pillows and pajamas. The kids are going to think of her every single night.

What a wonderful Christmas!

Thanks Grandma - oh yeah, you too Grandpa!

Christmas Day #1

I heard little scuttles in the living room Christmas morning at 12:30 am. I arose from my bed to find two excited boys eagerly rummaging through their stockings. Their eager faces told me that Santa had come. I dampened their excitement by pointing out that they still had six hours prior to the big reveal and to go to bed.

Six hours later I woke up to five sweet voices singing Silent Night and Santa Got Stuck in the Chimney Again at my door. I loved it!

Getting ready to open Santa's gifts.....

Santa requested no letters this year. Instead, he gave surprises that did not include electronics.

Thank you Santa!

Snorkel gear for mom and dad - Caribbean Cruise coming up.

So cute boots.

Football and a football pass to play tackle this year.

I think I need to have a chat with Santa about that one.

1,116 piece K'nex roller coaster set - complete with screaming sounds.

(This monster was put together on Sunday - 'the day of the sick'.)

Barbie House for the Ladybugs.

While dad was putting the Barbie house together,

Oreo and I took a snooze on the recliner.

Not one complaint!

Everyone was happy!

It was the best Christmas ever!

It's Just a Bug

'Twas the night AFTER Christmas when all through the house Jarin came running up the stairs with an awful tummy ache. I told him he had eaten too much and now his tummy was rejecting it. I wasn't kidding, five minutes later he was throwing up.

The rest of the night was a blur....

Saturday 9:30 pm - Jarin throws up

Saturday 10:30 pm - Rebekah wakes up complaining about her tummy and throws up

----Jarin and Rebekah take turns throwing up for the next 7 hours.

Sunday 5:40 am - Trevor runs upstairs bye-passing two unoccupied toilets and beelines for the furthest toilet in the house - mine. Thank goodness for tile.

Sunday 6:00 am - Cameron and I lay in bed and laugh. We wonder if the Swine Flu Brothers finally caught up to us (actually I'm pretty sure they came in October and possibly in November).

(Neighbor boys - I love it!)

Sunday 8:00 am - Cameron and I have an unspoken agreement. He cleans up barf and I clean up loose stools.

Sunday 10:30 am - Makayla feels sick and tired - join the world. She declines the invitation to visit the lavatory and survives.

Sunday 2:30 pm - Kerri throws up - finally!

The porcelain throne was called upon 17 different times, the floor twice and the kitchen garbage once. Faces were white and blank. Thank goodness for movies and Powerade.

Sunday 9:00 pm (24 hours later) - towels and pajamas are washed, toothbrushes and Tupperware bowls are being sanitized in the dishwasher, 3 bathrooms are wiped and clean and 5 kids are knocked out in their beds with only Powerade, applesauce and Progresso chicken noodle soup in their bellies.

Whew!

I think we got a bug!

Merry Christmas

"Tomorrow is Christmas! It's practically here!"

Jarin started the day off yelling this phrase and repeated it every hour or so. It sounded vaguely familiar to me, yet, after the zillionth time of hearing it - I blocked it out of my brain.

Someone mentioned sledding. I took that opportunity to kick Cameron out the door with bundled up kids from head to toe to go find the closest hill. They were only gone for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

The girls reminded me that we needed cookies and milk for Santa. The last thing I wanted to do was to make cookies. I suggested string cheese and an apple - nope. Just then, the doorbell rang and there stood my saving grace holding a plate of sugar frosted Christmas shaped cookies.

Our Christmas Eve began with it's traditional Shepard dinner. After a few complaints, it was upgraded this year from dried fruit, dried fish, nuts, olives and bread to baked fish, green salad, rosemary bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, humus and crackers - mmmm.

We opened our first gift of pajamas and modeled them for all to see.

Lively entertainment was provided by the Jensen children at the piano with Christmas carols.

We sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and ate cake.

We all played with Oreo and watched her chase after her toy a million times.

Jarin rummaged through books and pulled out How the Grinch Stole Christmas! and read it to us using his famous vocal expressions. During his read, he stopped to look at me and said,

"This is my favorite part.....'Tomorrow is Christmas! It's practically here!"' Oh yeah - now I get it - duh.

Makayla read the story of Jesus' birth from Luke 2.

Family prayer was said and a special blessing was given to Santa.

Everyone went to bed without being asked - I am in awe!

I just checked the Santa Tracker - at the present he is in Montreal, Canada.

It's off to bed I go.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Countdown

This year I was hanging up our Advent socks for our countdown to Christmas when I heard one of the kids (I think it was Makayla) exclaim, "Not the socks again, are we going to do the 'thankful thing' again? It's kinda boring?"

Heaven forbid that a mother should subject her children to the boring 'thankful thing' year after year. I admit, I too wanted to do something new, so I stayed up all night with a December calendar and came up with a 'new' stocking advent idea. The next morning, instead of a sock containing a thankful phrase, each sock now contained an activity to do the day of its choosing. I plugged in school, church and our regular December hustle and bustle fun to the list of activities.

Before anyone thinks that I am an amazing mother - here is my disclaimer.....there were days that an activity just did not happen. Once we had to pack three stocking events into one day. Each night I peeked in a stocking just to make sure I was up to doing what was in there the next day. Twice I had to rewrite an activity for the sake of my sanity. Some occurred around the dinner table while eating to insure that it got done before anyone left for the evening. In the end, it was GREAT! All of my precious kiddies looked forward to taking a stocking down and spending time together.

Here is a list of our December events...

*Have a hot chocolate bar.

*Drive around the neighborhoods and see the Christmas lights.

*Watch 'Joy to the World' DVD.

*Make sugar cookies.

*Watch a Christmas movie with popcorn.

*Game night

*Sing Christmas carols.

*Read a Christmas story.

*Have a round robin story telling night.

*Make name attributes.

*Have breakfast for dinner.

*Eat at Red Robin - our favorite.

*Sledding

More events with pictures.....

25 days of stocking activities

*Deck the house with joys of Christmas.

*Make snowflakes

*Christmas party with the Packs

*Aunt Kylee left me a little surprise in the microwave -this smelly tradition has been going around since I was little.

*Spaghetti dinner with no plates or utensils.

*Decorate 1 Gingerbread House

I opted for Costco's famous gingerbread house kit instead of five small individual houses.

Thank you Costco!

*Ward Christmas Breakfast

Wrapped up with a yummy breakfast, children singing, The Nativity presentation (Jarin is the blue Shepard) and a treat from the Three Wisemen.

*School Christmas Sing

-Rebekah-

This is the first year that I did not have restless little ones or a bulky stroller or crying toddlers to maneuver around the school gym. Instead I sat and enjoyed every single minute without looking at the clock. I even joined the hundreds of crazy parents hunched over running back and forth with their camera taking pictures of their children - it was great.

Kerri is smack dab in the middle.

-Trevor-

-Jarin-

*School Christmas Class Parties

I helped Jarin's class this year - we made Sock Snowmen.

So cute!

*Sleeping under the tree the night before Christmas Eve.

Everyone hid in their sleeping bags when they saw me pull out the camera.

Oreo (in the middle of everyone) loved having extra sleeping buddies.