To spell Santa's name is easy to do....

"You write S, A, N, T and another A, too.

But no L, no L. Santa's name has no L

And he won't be too pleased if you don't learn to spell." (sung to the tune of Noel)

Well we didn't need 'L's for Christmas, but here were a few things we did need.  Yummy, Yummy goodies.  It was baking week, which meant one goodie a day.  Sometimes they didn't last longer than that day, but we got them made.

Snow, hooray, finally, well sort of. We had this much for a couple of hours, and then it melted. At least we had a white Christmas one day out of ALL of December. Strangest winter in Utah

Christmas concerts are something you need for Christmas. Jacob had his band one this week. He's with the trombone.

Christmas songs--obviously! Once again the kid's school had each class sing a Christmas song. Adam's was the Noel song quoted in this post. Nathan sang I want a hot cup of cocoa, and Jacob's class played a christmas song on the recorder.

Last, but not least you need lots and lots of batteries for Christmas, although maybe not these kind. Adam and Dave took apart Adam's pod (what we put insulin in) and found four batteries inside. We only use these for three days, so they are still good. Well see if they continue to take them out and keep them. Must be recycling in their blood...

Christmas, Christmas time is here...

"and Christmas songs you love to here. Thoughts of joy and hope and cheer, but mostly shopping, shopping, shopping..." This is one of our favorite songs for the season. It's by Straight no chaser, and their video on Youtube is awesome. I may have to quote the song all the way through.

I went to our Relief society Christmas dinner. Lots of songs I love to here, but mostly cooking, cooking, cooking...

Rachael got this from her YW leaders for their Christmas gift.

A surprise gift from a company Dave did some work for. Oh if only we drank something other than water and chocolate milk. It went into the white elephant gift pile.

"Hey Santa do the can-can, help them if you can-can join in the parade. All you need is a tree, some lights, about a thousand presents, wrap them up and pray for snow." This is who we saw driving down to BYU one saturday morning. The kids tried to get a picture. I love that you see him everywhere this time of year.

"Do they know it's Christmas Time at all?'

This is one of my favorite Christmas songs. It kind of puts what we have here in the states a little bit in perspective, but that's not why I chose this song for this week. It was the first week of December, and we should have been getting ready for Christmas. Well instead we were doing other things. So I began to wonder, is it really Christmastime right now? Here are the other things we did....

A new kindle fire. For Dave's work he has to get all the latest and greatest to make sure his projects work on them. I've always thought nooks were dumb, and any electronic held devices to read books. Who doesn't love the smell of paper, and the weight in the back pack? Plus when you get something like that from Amazon and open it up brand new, it's just heavenly. But I have officially been converted. I love the kindle fire. I can check out ten books at a time from my library. Unfortunately, Dave loves the kindle fire too. At one point I think he started hiding it from me. Now the question is do we need two?

OUCH, OUCH, and more OUCH. I went in for a root canal, that lasted all month. Yep, ALL MONTH.... Thanksgiving was my last real meal. It was pretty deep, and I won't go into details, but lets just say each time I went back the dentist made sure I had plenty of Oxycotin.

I went with some friends to go see the Festival of Trees in Sandy. This was as close to Christmas as I got this week. Here is a cool tree centered on the theme A Christmas Story.

I love advent calendars. I try to get a new one every year. I'm hoping I can talk my mom into creating one like this for me someday.

At last, but certainly not least, our youngest chose to be baptized. He's been waiting a long time for this. We were so excited for him. I can't believe my youngest is 8. I'm old.......

Turkey for me, Turkey for you

Let's eat the Turkey in my big brown shoe...I love this song by Adam Sandler. Who knew he could sing/say words so well. We had a lovely Thanksgiving week, and of course ate yummy turkey.

Rachael wearing a hat Adam made at his Thanksgiving party.

The night before Thanksgiving we were invited to a turkey making party. We were given apples, all sorts of candy, and toothpicks to do whatever we wanted. It was a blast.

How many pies do we have at Thanksgiving? The rule is at least one per person. Yummmm

This is what my hallway looked like after black Friday. I like to wrap things up pretty quick, because we have lots of peekers in our house.

Then of course we put up all our Christmas stuff.

One Step at a Time....

It's gonna happen when it's Supposed to happen and we Find the reasons why One step at a time...
Another busy week, and we really did have to take it one step at a time, or it would have seemed overwhelming.

Nathan is so excited for Christmas he just had to make a countdown.

Still celebrating birthdays. We had a little ice cream social for November birthdays on the Funk side. It was some yummy ice cream, and we had to take it one step at a time, or we would have eaten a whole lot of ice cream.

Rachael worked on this for awhile. She finally finished it this week. Maybe here the song needs to be "one lego at a time...."

Doesn't Dave look tired? We had a Stake Split at the end of this week. During the week he was setting up to have it broadcast to all the buildings (except ours) in the area. It was quite a week for him.

While Dave was busy working, Jennie was busy playing. That seems to be a major theme in our house. I went to a late night game at BYU with my friend Mindi. We had a blast, and I was hoping I would beat Dave home late that night, but he beat me by a good hour. (I didn't get home until 1:00a.m.) When our stake did split one of our previous Bishop's was made the new Stake President, and another one was made one of his councilors. We were so excited!!

Y'all ready for this?

This song was playing in the car the other day and I just had to use it.

On Adam's actual birthday we had a little celebration. It started out well, but soon turned rocky. He got home from school that day and had lost his Personal Diabetes Manager. Which is the machine that calculates and gives him insulin. Adam and I ran back to the school in a panic, and had everyone looking for it. We called around, and could not find it anywhere. Many prayers were said that day. By that night Adam was distraught. He kept asking me if he was going to get punished. I told him we now had to give him actual shots again, and that was probably punishment enough. When we finally got home from the school, still with no PDM, Adam came to me and asked if he could at least open some of his presents. We made a late dinner (Top Ramen, Adam's favorite) and he opened his presents--finally. I know I didn't sleep very well that night, and continued to try to have faith that the PDM would be found. We were so concerned it had gone home with someone accidentally and that they wouldn't know the value of it. On our way to school the next morning we got a call that it had been found. It was actually found by one of the staff who had been looking all over the school for it with us. Her little boy is in Adam's class and their backpacks hang on the hooks next to each other. It had been placed in his backpack by mistake. She didn't find it until that morning, but I was so grateful she was the one that found it. She knew right away what it was and called the school. There was a lot of cheering going on in the car that morning. And of course we made sure to thank our Heavenly Father for the best present Adam received. Certainly a birthday to remember,

Recognition night for the scouts and YW was this week as well. Jacob received his Tenderfoot Rank, and Rachael completed five of her YW Values.

Dave received the newest Iphone for his work. Jacob was the one that was thrilled. That is because when Dave receives a new one, they all get passed down. Now Jacob has his very own iphone. Let me point out that no one, except Dave, actually uses their iphone for a phone. It's more like a very expensive Ipod touch.

We also had pack meeting this week and Nathan received his Bear Rank. Yes we have been busy accomplishing our goals. But don't worry, we've had plenty of time to play.

Our weekend came, and with it a trip to BYU to attend another Diabetes Clinic. This time the food of choice was 'Y' donuts.

They Did the Mash

They did the Monster Mash....So I'm very far behind, but with Halloween comes many birthdays, much celebration, and little time for anything else. Now that we're on a break, and the kids are back in school, here was our November.

It was a great Halloween. The kids came up with their costumes all on their own. I just had to grab glasses for Jake. Nathan was a dangerous thing in a box. Rachael a clown, Adam--death, and Jacob a nerd.

Instead of carving pumpkins this year, we painted them. It was a lot of fun, and took way less time. I think we may transition over to this in the future. Also it was a lovely day outside--rare for Utah in October. So we were out in shorts. In fact as I'm typing this it is the end of November, and I can still go out side without a coat.

The day after, which means sorting and trading candy. We bribed the kids this year with promises of a movie and as much candy as they wanted if they didn't go trick-or-treating. Two of them took us up on it, and two did not. We'll see what happens next year.

I have a teenager. It's official. Yes I'm that old, and I have tons of gray hair to show for it. She had a lovely birthday and a lovely day. Isn't she cute?!

I also now have an eight-year-old. For his first scout outing he got to go on a field trip. This is a picture of his birthday.  We had to do it a few days before his actual birthday since every other weekend was full.  It has been a major busy month.  Can't wait until December when things will calm down drastically.  Crazy huh?!

Who let the dogs out?

Or in this case the kids.  Due to parent teacher conferences, my kids had 1/2 days all week (well the boys), so the party was pumpin'!

Pizza at Costco!! One of our favorite things to do. We had a few samples too, but the boys would only let me take them on errands if they were treated to one of their favorite foods. Win-win for all I say!

Cupcakes from Phil. He got in the spirit of Halloween, and brought us over these monster delights.

Red Ribbon week. The kids also celebrated being drug free. On this day they had to wear as much red as they could. Adam has on 11 red shirts, which is why he looks like a hunchback.

We have been cleaning out rooms. Nathan's was up this week, and I headed to IKEA for some organizing tools. I was so glad we found some boxes in green, since that's his favorite color.

This week I also had several things going on with our church. We have different positions, and the one I had was teaching the 11 year old girls during the week. Well I got released but stayed for a few more weeks while we finished a big recognition night. It was a success, but by the end of the week I was exhausted, since I was also starting my new position, or calling. This was the sweet thank you note I got from some of those girls. I'm sure going to miss them!

If you thought this week was pumpin', wait until you see what we've got coming up. It's a huge celebration!

I need somebody (Help)

Not just anybody (Help) You know I need someone (Help)--John Lennon has some interesting songs. I like this one. We needed lots of help this week, and got it. Here's a few things:

Why would I need help with the primary program? Maybe because I started playing a song at the wrong part. It's a long and hilarious story, and one you can ask me about personally. But on here, it would just come across as some nutso lady trying to pull off her own solo in the middle of sacrament mtg.

It got pretty exciting in our house when the oven gave out. We called a repair guy, and in the process finally got our dishwasher fixed. It was a 2 for 1 special. Some boys were jumping for joy at the prospect of not doing dishes by hand for a long while...

The Nerf Wars. Either team would take all the help they could get.

Rachael in charge of her first YW activity. She made cupcakes, and we all pitched in and helped.

Try to get this big love sak down your basement stairs--lots of help required.