Oh, we've had such a fun time getting ready for Christmas! This time of year can get busy, but it is a good busy because we're spending time as a family and giving and helping and thinking of the Savior.
We were able to go to the Northpointe Retirement Center with the Whitings, some friends in our neighborhood whose two older girls I teach piano to. Emma, Cal, and the Whiting girls played a few songs each on the piano, I played a few numbers on my flute and our fam sang Christmas carols with the Whiting family. Then we went and visited with the residents. They are all so neat and sweet and I love talking to them. It was a great night and all of the kids did really well playing the piano! I didn't take any pictures or video, doh! Sometimes I just get too into real life I forget to stop and capture the moment. It as fun to see the kids play! They were all so brave and did so well and were sweet with the residents after, who thought they were so cute and couldn't believe they were "only four!" or "only six!" they'd shout out while they were playing.
This year, I've been busy sewing puppet theatres for the cousins, etc. Dave put this cheesy Christmas decoration in it to give an idea of how it works. I was having problems with my sewing machine though and itw as getting so frustrating to make them, so they didn't look amazing, but the kids won't care. Hopefully all of the kiddos are having fun with these and the puppets we gave them!
We enjoyed making "reindeer poop" a.k.a. whopper cookies and taking them to the neighbors and ward members. The kids had fun in the car watching and singing along to Mr. Kreuger's Christmas. Can't have Christmas without Mr. Kreuger!
We had our church ward Christmas party. Emma gave me this little angel pin she made at school, and yes, I wore it to our party. Emma was so proud, it was cute! I played the piano while the primary kids sang a few numbers. Now they are the real angels. We had a nice dinner and a touching program and then, SANTA!
Lucy didn't want much to do with Santa this year, she was just concerned with not making eye contact and about opening her candy cane.
Emma loves Santa and told him what she wanted this year. Luckily, she changed her mind and decided she wanted a Barbie house instead of an iPad!
Cal is finally getting to the point where Santa is a friend instead of a foe. He went right up to him and was eager to talk to him. Cal asked for a blue football uniform this year.
All of the kids sitting on Santa's lap!
We have our other yearly traditions, like making a gingerbread house. This year, as we have been trying to focus on Jesus more than Santa, we decided to make a gingerbread nativity. I think it turned out pretty fun!
We also made and sent out our Christmas cards. I can't upload it (I knew having Blogger free was too much of a good thing) since I've reached my storage capacity. But here's the text from the inside of our card:
“The hinge of history is on the door of a Bethlehem stable”.
--Ralph W. Sockman
Merry Christmas!! May you remember the Babe from Bethlehem this
season and always!
Love, the Ryerses
2012 Ryerse Rant
Lucy – Learned to walk & talk! Likes eating sweets, playing with her baby
dolls and siblings, trying on shoes, snuggling with sheets, and Nursery (now,
after some coaxing).
Callahan – Is going to a neighborhood
preschool and loving it. Enjoys playing
football and with trucks, making messes and coloring all over his body and the
house.
Emma – Finished up Kindergarten and is
now a big first grader! Lost her first
two teeth. Loves playing with friends,
Mermaids, changing her outfits, and being outside year round.
Melanie – Loves being a Mom (most of
the time…). Cook, clean, play,
repeat. Helps out in Emma’s class and
with the PTSO. Served as Relief Society
Secretary & Primary Pianist.
Dave – Survived the year at Washington
State, only one semester to go now!
Received the Paper of the Year Award in his graduate Health Policy &
Administration department. Completed an
administrative internship with U of U Hospitals and Clinics. Applied for and had interviews for fellowships
nationwide. Serves as Deacon’s Quorum Advisor
and Scout Leader.
As a family, we got our first pet – a
Beta fish named Daisy (she lasted a few weeks), had our first visitors in April
when the cousins came to visit, lived in Utah for 8 weeks during the summer, went
camping at Round Lake & went to Silverwood theme park in Northern Idaho.
I've also loved getting Christmas cards from friends and family all over the country. How blessed we are to be associated with so many amazing people!
And, the rest of this post is going to be picture-less for now...until I buck up and pay money to post pics from my computer or switch blog sites. So boring, I know, but I need to write down and remember these times somehow!
We had a couple of parties. The Bennetts invited us over to a party over at their house. We had delicious barbeque, games and a white elephent gift exchange with some friends we hang out with. And then one afternoon, Emma had some of her cute little friends over for a Gingerbread party. We made little gingerbread houses together, which the girls loved. Then we did a gum drop and spoon relay and a gingerbread girl madlibs I made up. Lots of sugar and lots of giggles were involved! It was fun!
We left to visit Utah for Christmas on mid-day on Wednesday. We drove to Idaho Falls to visit our good friends the Millers. The adults enjoyed catching up and watching the kids. The kids picked right back up like they'd never been apart. Even the babies played well together! It's been so much fun to watch them grow up together. We had a sleep over with them, which was great! I don't know how much sleep we got, but a good time was had by all.
We got to Utah on Thursday, and it was so good to see everyone again! Though we love living where we do for now, we miss family so much! We saw the Ryerses for a while, unpacked (it's ridiculous how much we have to pack for two weeks for 5! I felt like i was moving in!), visited and then went to see the Stoddard's for a while. The cousins came over to Grandma Sue and Grandpa Dan's to greet us that night . The kids could hardly wait and talked for weeks before about seeing the cousins. Cal even named his stuffed animals after cousins. And they kept drawing pictures and writing notes for them in anticipation. They all had fun doing what they do. The girls played with Polly Pockets that night and the boys played with cars. The babies just followed along with the big kids and chased each other.
Friday, we went with my parents to go walk along part of the Jordan River parkway. The kids loved the playground, the ducks, and they walked pretty far. My parents are working on walking the entire way, which is cool. That night, we watched some football bowl games and we played.
The weekend before Christmas, we went with all of the family to go see the lights at temple square. It wasn't very cold at all, so we were lucky to go on a good night! So beautiful! I love the lights, and we caught a glimpse of the candy windows at Macys, which are coming back this year. Seeing the lights at temple square is one of those bucket list things you have to do each year for us.
Monday was Christmas Eve, and we spent the day at the Stoddards. We played with the kids, made gingerbread houses, and made our food assignments for our Christmas Eve dinner. Emma and Amy made a pink one. I made a cottage. And Amber and Mayela made a very decorative house with a heavy roof. They all turned out cute! This was our third round at gingerbread houses, so we should've been pros by then, right? Christmas Eve with my dad's extended family was at Aunt Lois and Uncle Keith's this year. We had ham, potatoes, rolls, salads, and all the fixings for dinner. We loved being around family again this year, and they've missed us too! Family is what makes Christmas! Then we had our Christmas program. Grandma Di, the grandkids, Dave and I all played and sang"We Wish You a Merry Christmas". Everyone took their usual turn (or pass) on the program and it always turns out nice. We had some break dancing this year, my dad told the story of "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" while my mom played a jazzy piano version for background music, the usual stories and life experiences. I like that tradition. And we always do some kind of white elephant gift game. It was fun. During the program, Santa came to visit! Cal ran right up to him, giving him a hug, so of course he was the first to sit on Santa's lap. Then Emma, and finally Lucy, but again, she really wanted nothing to do with him, so Natalie, my cousin, helped her out. After they had their turns, the kids (Emma, Cal and Amber) ran upstairs to look out the window for the sleigh and the reindeer. :) It was too cute! We decided they had to park on the roof though, no room on the lawn or in the driveway or street with all of the other cars.
Then it was back to the Ryerse's for Brian's birthday. We hung out for a while, then we had our pinata, which was a duck this year. Of course, we had lots of duct-duck tape jokes this year, since we always have to tape it up to make it through everyone. Dave was the man in charge again of holding the pinata and moving it on people, I think he enjoys that. Brody went first, he knew exactly what to do! Then it was Lucy's turn. She thought it was pretty fun, but just hit it lightly. Cal whacked it hard and kept whacking even after he took his three hits. Emma hit it so hard, she broke the stick! It was so funny! Then the rest of the kids and the adults all took turns. I can't even remember who broke it open all of the way. After we collected all of the candy and the kids took turns trying on the "duck hat", we sang to Brian and had cake and ice cream. One of Brian's friends came, and with each new person who hears the Ryerse version of "Happy Birthday", she was dying! It was a nice performance. We played a bit longer then we read a few books to the kids and put the little sweeties to bed. The adults stayed up talking, watching Christmas mass (ha ha!), and getting ready for Christmas morning.
Christmas morning wasn't as early as it could've been. 8 is very reasonable, I'll take it! The kids were so excited that Santa found them! Oh yeah, which reminds me. Cal found the Santa stash at our house before we left! They never get in that area, it was where I keep the decorations, and I just put some of the stuff (most we just shipped to UT) in a storage tote that looked just like the decorations. He decided to climb up one day to the top of the stack and knock it to the floor. There was a chocolate football near the top of the box and when I went downstairs, he was biting a big hunk off of it! AHHH!!! I was so upset and so was Dave. I thought quickly and told the kids that Santa wanted to make sure they got everything, so he shipped us some stuff before. Then we made Cal go to his room and told him he'd better not ever touch that again or Santa wouldn't bring him any toys. And then I hid the presents again. Anyways, back to Christmas morning. Emma got her Barbie house and a Skipper doll, she and Tayla were ready to open it and play with it right then and there, but we told them to wait for a while. Cal got his football uniform, and a football, pump and stand. It was even blue! He wants to wear it all of the time. Lucy got a baby toy that looked like a giant gumball machine. Then they opened their other presents from Santa - books, a DVD each, a few other little things and stocking stuffers. Then we went to open presents with everyone. We made everyone snowflake ornaments with their names in the middle and then characteristics around their names of reasons why we think they're special. We cut them all out of shiny white paper, and then all of the kids and Dave and I gave input on the traits for each person. They all liked them. Then we did the gifts that we draw for with the adults. Dave got his mom a machete, and I got Stacy a girl tool bag and tool set. Julie got me some Bath & Body works stuff, and a little crystal statue of Christ with a lighted base and ___ got Dave a ____. And then we got some other fun stuff from siblings and parents. For the grandparents, we made a canvas picture of a Christmas tree using the grandkid's hands. They liked that. The kids got tons and tons of presents from their grandparents and uncles and aunts. Oh my! I don't know why Santa even needs to come. They got some nifty things. Emma loved best the new Stompeez she got, Cal enjoyed all of the trucks and cars, and Lucy got two Fur Real kitties that purr and move. We made breakfast, we had buttermilk raspberry pancakes and syrup, along with bacon, sausage, hash browns, and scrambled eggs. The kids and adults played with the new goods. Then we went over to the Stoddard's for more Christmas day fun. We had chicken noodle soup and rolls and lots of goodies. We watched a movie, played games, sat around and talked, I read most of "The Paper Bag Christmas", which I finished a few days later, took a nap, went on a drive, and played with the kids. My mom and dad all got the kids a present and then my mom made the kids an I-Spy quilt, that has squares of all different things and a book that goes with it that tells what is on each particular square or where the material came from, and then some history or stories about those things, and some activities or recipes or games to go along with each quilt square. It's really fun and neat and I know she spent a lot of time on it! That's the best thing about Christmas, giving from the heart. I love homemade, well-thought out gifts. This year, we didn't have lots of money to spend on Christmas gifts, but we tried, as we do every year, to make them somewhat personal. It was a nice day!
We went to Les Miserable one night with all of the Ryerse sibs. I thought they did a really good job with it and thoroughly enjoyed it. It even motivated me enough now to read the lengthy book, which I'm about 100 pages into.
We experienced lots of snow while we were visiting! It kept snowing, even if it wasn't in the forecast. One day, Dave and I ran to the grocery store for a minute with Lucy, and we decided to drive around for a bit up. Well, we hit a slippery patch and our car slid into the curb hard and we broke our rim and something else that was making our tires go crazy! So we had to drop some money into the parts and for service to get it fixed. Always something to brighten up the holidays, right?
One day, we went to Jerry & Stacy's to go sledding and playing in the snow with the kids. They had lots of sleds and the kids all enjoyed sledding, jumping on the tramp with snow, making things in the snow, and even the babies loved playing in (and eating) the snow! We then had lunch and played inside all afternoon. We have so much fun with them!
The weekend after Christmas, we went up to Wyoming to see Amy and Kolby's new place. It was a fun little house and Amy is such a great decorator! Someday when I'm rich and famous I'm going to hire her. We had creamy chicken noodle and cornbread for dinner, saw the grand tour of the house, then Dave helped Kolby install his plow to the front of his four wheeler. We made chocolate chip cookies and played in the house. Then the kids played with Kolb's remote control snowmobile and we watched part of Napoleon. The kids did their dance along with Napoleon, and Am & Kolb cracked up over that. Then we helped Kolby open his birthday presents and had birthday cookies for him. We went to bed after that, zzzz! The next morning, we woke up, made pancakes for breakfast, and then got all bundled up to go outside in the negative temp weather! I think the warmest it made it up to in the afternoon was 7 degrees! We went out and pet/fed/ and Emma rode the horses and ponies. They had 3 before but now have 3 new ponies, they were really cute. Lucy was fascinated with them and that's all she wanted to do, see the horsies! Emma and Cal tried the little blue 4 wheeler, and thought that was pretty cool. We then went snow mobiling out on their land (they have a lot of it), and went tubing behing the snowmobiles. It was way fun! Cal made it for about an hour and then spent the rest of the day playing on iPads and watching TV shows. We had lunch and hung out more, and went back outside. Then we got our stuff together, and headed to go get some fireworks in Evanston for New Years. We had everyone in the family pitch in and got $120 worth of fireworks, so we were able to get some pretty good stuff!
Monday night was New Years Eve. We spent the day playing at the Ryerses, then went in the afternoon over to the Stoddards. We had pizzas and salads and all kinds of snacks. We played some new years games. The kids really got into this, especially since prizes were involved! Then we went over to the Ryerses again (back and forth, back and forth, at least we can do that!) and did fireworks. They were great! We played some Disney Scene-It, watched the ball drop, toasted in the New Year with sparkling cider, kissed and did some noise makers.
I was able to go to the temple one morning with my dad and mom. That was neat because we all did family names together. And my mom gave me some more family names to work on. She does a lot of family history and finding names of ancestors to complete their work in the temple. She is such a great example and I want to be like that someday!
I was also able to get together with some friends, but of course, forgot to take pictures every time! One night, we got together with a bunch of high school friends. Mike, Stacie, Kristin, Emily & Amanda and families/significant others all made it. It was so much fun to see them, most of which live out of state or even country now! We just chatted, shared secrets, and did a white elephant gift exchange. One day, we had a get together at Jasmine's house with Katie, Jasmine & Amber, all friends from college. We had lunch, did pedicures and painted toe nails, played an M&M game, and just talked! Then, I went to visit my old neighbor Hlee & her kids, and Lori came over too. We ate yummy food, which was delicious. Hlee and Lori and I all contributed, so we had mong Chinese food, Thai food, and my American food. They are both amazing cooks. And we just talked and caught up on life. It's so good to see old friends!
Right before we left, we had a birthday dinner for me at my parents house and the in-laws. We had Italian chicken, and then we just visited and enjoyed being together. My mom made this cute cake that was a sponge cake with cherry filling and vanilla pudding frosting on top. We also had a party to celebrate my birthday, along with Tayla's (2nd) and Julie's (9th). We had 3 cakes there, Emma made one, and Stacy made the other two yummy cakes, a Hawaiian cake and a chocolate chip banana cake. We played, watched some shows and got in what we could before we left the next day.
We finally left (felt like we had been away forever) and drove to Emmett, ID to see Grandma Carol and Grandpa Chuck. It was so nice to see them, they're such great people. It's hard to get the kids not to touch their non-kid proofed things in their house though. He he! We had chili verde, visited, and Cal cut Lucy's hair! Ah! None of our kids have ever done that before, until now! We slept over, and it was nice to see them and to break up the trip. The next day, we went to go see our friends Josh, Lindsay & kids who just recently moved to Emmett, really close to Grandma & Grandpa! So it was fun to see them for a little, but the kids were not ready to leave. We made the rest of the trip back home, got unpacked, took down Christmas decorations and got back to normal life again. It was such a fun time being with family and friends and I'm grateful for all of those moments we were able to spend!
When we got home, we unpacked, got the Christmas decorations down and tried to get back to normal life. On the drive home, I kept feeling my stomach churning the whole time, but it never amounted to anything (thank goodness!) The next night, I started feeling sick, and just in time for my birthday on Monday morning, I began spending the day partying in the bathroom with some kind of stomach bug. Yuck! It as a happy barf-day! Ha ha, sorry I couldn't resist. Emma thought it was funny. Luckily, I have a sweet husband who takes good care of me and the kids, and by the evening, I was feeling much better! The day wasn't all that bad though, I spent the afternoon by myself sleeping and reading and catching up on some things laying down. So it was quiet and pretty nice. I also got some cards in the mail that were fun to read and stalked my FB page to read all of the fun greetings friends posted. So that made me feel happy too! The weekend following my birthday, we really celebrated. We went to Tepenyaki to eat and then to the mall to go hang out. It was good times with our little fam! Then I had Peperli, Leah and Caitie come over and we did a "favorite things" party, where everyone brought a couple of their favorite things priced at about $5 and then we exchanged them. I gave the C.O. Bigelow lip gloss from Bath & Body Works, love that stuff! And I got some fun stuff. Everyone wore their jammies, so that as fun! I just forgot to snap pictures...again! We also ate some of our favorite foods - chocolate cake, veggies & dip, hummus and chips, and chocolate covered cinnamon bears. And then we just talked all night. I'm grateful for good friends and good times together!
