Christmas Eve Bowling

 

Every Christmtas eve our family goes bowling together. This year, we had three little bowlers at Morongo lanes- Karissa, Kyle and Tyler. James and I watched and helped, and Trevor slept through the whole thing. It was a close game, but Tyler ended up winning by one point. He liked to carry the bowling balls up to the ramp himself and push it down. He even had a little dance he did when the ball hit the pins. Karissa liked to do "granny-style," rolling the ball through her legs. She says, "I loved it." Kyle says, "I liked doing the balls [motioning with his hands], like throwing it.

Mallo and Brian

Mallorie and Brian got married last Saturday. It was a great day. They were sealed in the San Diego temple. They had an amazing sealer and I learned so much! I wish I could have written it all down and studied it afterward. Mallorie was a beautiful bride and we're so happy to have Brian in the family. They are a great couple.

Shoes

Normally, new shoes wouldn't merit a post on the blog, but every time I put these shoes on Tyler, he smiles and says "shoes,"  and I'm smiling too. That's a big change from his old shoes. We used to have to shove his feet into his shoes. He would say "ow, ow," and half the time, I would just give up. (I mean, do you really need shoes if you're just sitting in the cart?) I knew he needed wide shoes, but I thought we had the size right-- 6 1/2. So you can imagine what a bad mom I felt like when the guy at Stride Rite measured and he really wears a size 8 wide! No wonder getting his shoes on was so impossible! He never wanted to wear shoes, and I thought he just liked the feel of bare feet, but now that the size is right, he's always asking to have his shoes on. Oops! So, we are both thrilled that he has shoes that fit.

Karissa's big day!

Karissa has been saving up her allowance since this summer in anticipation of this day. She gets 10 dimes each week that she completes all of her chores. The first dime goes to paying tithing, the next two are for savings, and the other seven...she can choose what she wants to do with.

Karissa had been asking to get her ears pierced, but James wasn't sure she was old enough. He kind of wanted her to wait until she was a little older. We decided that if she saved up the money all by herself it would prove that she was ready to get her ears pierced.

This girl saved every single dime she earned, every penny she found on the ground and any money that was sent to her for gifts. It took months and months, but finally, she had enough!

She was a little nervous, but ended up being very brave and didn't even cry. It helped that her aunt Mallorie was getting her ears pierced the same day.

Later that day, Karissa asked Grammy to look at her loose tooth. Grammy (my mom) said that she could get that out. She tied dental floss around it and pulled! The tooth came right out. It bled and bled, but Karissa was really excited to have lost her first tooth. I wouldn't have been able to do it, so it's a good thing my mom enjoys stuff like that :)

In the evening, Karissa got to go to her first bridal shower. Mallorie's shower was held at Jody Heaton's house (James' cousin who is in my parents ward). I planned the games for it, and they turned out good. The decorations were cute and Mallorie got a lot of great gifts.  Karissa thought it was a fun party and a good ending to her big day.

Tyler, a marker and two cuties (clementines)...need I say more?

Getting Crafty

This is a project I put together for the little boys room. If you look closely, you can see that all of the "animals" are made of hand and footprints. Each one is one of us. James is the giraffe, Trevor's little foot is the monkey, I'm the elephant, Kyle is the turtle, Tyler's the tiger and Karissa is the lion.

For a girl in our wards bridal shower, I made cupcakes and cut out shapes on the cricut to decorate with. I got the idea from Jill (my sister in law) when she did something similar for Trevor's blessing. I was happy with how my projects turned out!