Happy Birthday, C!

Ummmm....so C's been (guess age) for a month, as of today. I'm a little late posting these pics, as well. (Better late than never?)

I love C for a lot of reasons. Here are just a few:

1. People have been asking us lately if we're twins. Not a lot of people, but a few. I ALWAYS wanted a twin, and especially after I met twins in my gymnastics class when I was five. It's even better now that she bought glasses almost exactly like mine. Her three year old son is still upset about it because he "already had a hard time mixing you two up." For the record, twins DO have double the fun, and yes, we purposely both wore white polo shirts for this picture.



2. C knows how to celebrate a birthday the right way: Peppermint Blue Bell ice cream. I love this girl! :)

3. Below is a picture of C doing just one of many things she does well: love and appreciate her children. Her son B made the tech deck (a fingerboard skateboard, like this) below. (Apparently tech decks have been around a while but a really "cool". I just want to know: These are fun, but whatever happened to playing outside? or maybe... Is this what happens when mothers are too afraid that their children will get hurt? I will confess, my other nephew has one and loves it. AND he plays outside plenty. So neither of the two previous questions apply to C.) Anyway, as you can tell, B is very proud of his creation, and C was very appreciative. K and J also gave her wonderful presents, and why wouldn't they? She's SUCH a great mom!

LOVE YOU, C!!!

Christmas Left-overs

Left overs aren't always bad. The best thing about Christmas is that it really doesn't have to end. AND, if you're delinquent in blogging (like I am lately), then it REALLY seems like it hasn't ended yet. Some pics from the rest of the trip:

Santa still came, even though we were in El Paso.

The kids loved the wii and played with it for hours.

We drove up to the El Paso mountains to watch the sunset and talked with Mom and Dad on our cell phone.

Evidence I am truly blessed:

The beautiful El Paso sunset.

Christmas night we watched a special slide show about Christ's visit to the America's after his death. It was a great reminder of the true meaning of Christmas. There is a great spirit to that clip. And, as a late Christmas present, I'm sharing it with you here.

Remember that time...

Do you remember that time? You know the one--the one when you went to Einstein's Bagels in the morning to grab breakfast really quick on your way in to work? ... And a really, really good looking guy about fifteen feet in front of you with no wedding ring and a great sense of fashion TOTALLY checked you out? And then you checked him out while you were waiting in line? And then he checked you out again? And then you both walked away separately to your cars? Remember? You drove drove away with this great big smile on your face, knowing you would never see him again, thinking: "Yeah. He was cute. REAL cute. HUZZAH! We were checkin' each other out :)...I should come here more often around this time... and next time I'll wink." Well,...that was a great way to start the day. You should try it more often.

What? ...what's that you say? It didn't happen to you? Oh... it must have been me. I love those moments.

Santa's helpers cried Wii! Wii! Wii! all through the night

Well, we're obviously not really Santa's helpers. (After all...we're clearly too tall to be elves, and certainly don't have pointy ears!) However, we did "need" to stay up late to set up the Wii that Grandmommy and Granddaddy Chipman gave the grandchildren for Christmas. As you can see, it was a true sacrifice on our part to stay up so late.

Christmas Eve

Christmas was wonderful. All of the siblings managed to get together, and we enjoyed our annual "fondue" dinner. This year we had a "sort of" fondue dinner, using a griddle to cook the meat quickly, and melted chocolate drizzled over fruit. Apparently, El Paso grocery stores don't order in much of the ingredients needed to make fondue, or understand what kind of assistance we needed. ("What do you mean you want me to slice your beef into small pieces?") We were all still as happy as clams.

Picture #1: Smile, everyone:

Picture #2: Jonathan--would you please give me a normal pose for the camera? (Notice David didn't get the memo)

Following dinner, we joined mom and dad on skype to complete the rest of the evening where we read the following traditional stories:

• The Little Black Lamb. My mother's family also read this one every year, and you can read it here.
• Timothy Thomas. Another classic from my mom's childhood. This poem is about a little boy who is so good that people wonder if he's feeling well. Don't worry--Christmas morning, round about 10, young Timothy Thomas turns normal again.
• The Christmas Story. Luke 2.

FINALLY, it was gift opening time. As children we used to open a gift the night before Christmas of our choosing. Things have changed a bit, but the new tradition still traces back to our childhood when "Mistress Mouse" would come and check on us during our naps. If we were good and went right to sleep, Mistress Mouse would leave a note for us with a penny taped to it. She no longer visits us during our naps, but instead brings a children's book for us each year. This year's book was extra special. It is called Choco Goes To Peru, and was written by my mother. She used a monkey puppet to document my parent's travels as mission presidents. Choco learns lots of wonderful lessons in the book including the power of prayer and the value of scriptures. Choco also shows us around Peru in a section called "Where's Choco", and shows us all around the market. It's a fantastic book.

David showing pictures of the book to Abby on Skype while mom reads a portion to us.

The kids were soon off to bed, and took precautionary steps to ensure that they wouldn't "forget" to go into the living room early. Camille found a motion detector alarm which would trip if the kids came within a few feet of it. The kids decided it was best to put tape across their doors, although there was plenty of hallway for them to walk in without setting the alarm off. I just wish I hadn't forgotten to take a picture!

If you could be anyone else in the world, who would you be?

As you can tell from the picture below, our family just thinks the world of my brother David. While trying to figure out how to celebrate his birthday, we decided it would be a goo idea to celebrate by throwing him a surprise "DAVID" party, which entailed making life-size pictures of David that we could make into masks. If I do say so myself, the pictures look pretty good!

I love how the David on the far right has his neck in exactly the right spot so the picture makes it look like it's really David...but with a slightly smaller head.

We selected several pictures to cover our faces. This was important because David's fiance Abby was there to surprise him, and we didn't want him to know right away. Here we are waiting for C and M to bring David back from the airport. The last picture is us waiting behind the couch in preparation of the surprise. The kids decorated quite nicely, don't you think?

David came in, cheered, and as you can see from the picture below, was thrilled to see his Abby. SUCCESS!

As you can also see, the kids were also thrilled to see David, and what better way to let him know than piling on top of him.

Happy Birthday, David! I bet it feels great to be 21 again! :)

(p.s. You can read David's account of the night and see a few more pictures here.)

Thanksgiving and Let the Magic Begin

I spent Thanksgiving in El Paso with four awesome kids and their parents!
I love the star of Texas on the El Paso mountains!

B, C, J, and K

How did I get them to all sit against the wall, you ask? Oh. Well, I babysat them for an afternoon at a hotel room. I borrowed an idea from a cal I know (Lindsay Ross--check her out!) who does professional photography and offers sessions called the "funbooth" where she grabs a camera and let's the kids do whatever. I needed something to do with the kids an had limited resources. We had a blast and I have some great candid shots of the kids. (Nothing like what Lindsay does, though. Really--check out her blog and online portfolio. She's awesome!)

In addition to Thanksgiving, we also celebrated our annual "Let the Magic Begin!" party. Essentially, this is the start of our Christmas season. We eat great food, do some sort of craft with the kids, and then play holiday bingo. If you win, you get to choose one of the gifts--a new one or one another person already opened. It's like a white elephant party, only with the order determined by who won the last round of bingo.

Here are the kids coloring their holiday bingo cards, with the presents to their left.

This year was also the first year we were is so many different places for the event. Therefore, we did it by Skype. I told everyone what food to get ahead of time so we could all eat dinner "together", and then we skyped in from El Paso, Texas; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Pocatello, Idaho; and Piura Peru. We had a great night! Let the magic begin!