Try not to be jealous.

I got soooo spoiled for Christmas this year.  I couldn't believe what I was given.  It still blows me away!  First my dad, not knowing what I was hoping for most of all, gave me exactly what I wanted in all it's glory.  He worked tirelessly for a very long time printing and organizing my entire blog for me...every single post since the blog began.  Two and a half years of writing our family's story on the internet was now sitting in my hands.  I wanted to cry (and I did.)   He loves the blog so much and wanted to make sure that if anything ever happened to the internet I still had all of my stories to read and to cherish forever and ever.  That is exactly why I wanted to have my blog printed...but I never told anyone.  This was a secret wish of mine.


Each year has it's own book.



The first three books of the Thompson Tales series.

 

A few pages of the book.

 

I've been published...whoo hoo!

Seeing my blog in book form has really helped me see that I have been writing our family history all this time.  You would think that it was obvious but that was not my intention when I starting writing.  I really started this blog to let our family far and near be able to see all that we are up to and keep them up to date on our lives.  It never crossed my mind that I was writing a family history but here it is.  We have gone back and looked at some of the stories and were so glad I had written them down because we had already forgotten them.  Now we have all these stories with pictures for all of our posterity to read.  Even though it didn't start out as a family history that is what it has become and I will be more vigilant about keeping it up...although I do feel more pressure now that I know people will be reading it for generations to come, so maybe that's not a good thing. lol

Okay so if that wasn't enough my Mom gives me (okay CJ and I) this incredibly special gift as well.  She secretly had the kids write letters to me and CJ then she turned those letters into a beautiful quilt.


The quilt has their letters and many special pictures on it too.

 



Close ups.

This was such a surprise!  I love it so much and just keep staring at it so I can memorize every inch of it.  Not only did she do this for us but she made a similar quilt for all six of her children.  She is one amazing woman.

And lastly a gift that was given to me by my children (with a little help from me.)  I took pictures of the kids for our Christmas card and they took that picture and had it made into a fleece throw. 

Larger than life.

Now I never get cold anymore because my kids are always snuggled up tight around me.

Next year people will have to get really creative if anyone is going to top those gifts.

Over the river and through the woods...

...to Grandmother's house we go (and Grandpa's too.)  We were so blessed with a wonderful Christmas present this year.  We got to go to Arizona and spend Christmas with my whole family including my brother from Reno who isn't able to visit very often.  I think though what made this Christmas trip even more special was that CJ was able to go too.  I usually have to take the kids by myself for visits to Arizona because he can't take any time off work, especially Christmas, but not this time.  He was finally able to take Christmas off so we could be together as a family in Arizona.  On a side note, even though I have visited Arizona many times this was the first time he has been back since we moved.


With Maggie at Grandma and Grandpa Tanquary's house.



Megan and Sydni.

Our family has a tradition of getting together for dinner, games, presents, and a children's play on Christmas Eve.  The children take turns writing the play and Grandma does all the costumes.  This year the play was based on the song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas."



Dakota as "two turtle doves", Megan as " three french hens", and
Rebecca as "five golden rings".



Lizzie as "seven swans a swimming".

Our family picture on Christmas Eve.



Rebecca baking goodies with Grandma.

Christmas morning was so much fun being able to share it with Grandma, Grandpa, and Fred.  The kids were so happy because Santa seemed to know exactly what they wanted (even if they didn't even know themselves.)

Christmas morning with the gifts from Santa.



Alexander's first Christmas.

We had so much fun with all the family.  I am so grateful for my family and all the love they give to us.  It was such a wonderful Christmas.

Mini Photo Shoot

In the fall Lizzie took Megan and the camera outside and took a mini photo shoot of Megan just for fun.  I think this girl has some natural talent in photography because these pics are awesome.

Visit with Santa

At our Ward Christmas dinner we had a visitor and the girls were anxious to sit on his lap so that they could give him an earfull with their wish lists.  It's a good thing that our visitor is used to this kind of behavior from the children.  Liz didn't make the dinner so I don't have her picture but here are the others.

And making his debut to Santa this year (it's so hard to believe that this is Alexander's first Chirstmas since he is nearly one year old already) was my always smiley boy...

well he wasn't so smiley this time.  Poor little guy.  He only cries when he's hungry, poopy, tired, or sitting on the lap of a big red giant. 

Just a side note: Alex was so traumatized by the big red guy that he had nightmares that night. He only settled down when I put him in bed with me and held him tight so that he knew he was safe...he never did that before and he hasn't done it since so I feel bad now that I made him sit on the scarry man's lap.

Christmas Blizzard

Here is a little Christmas snow for us to enjoy (or at least it was a little snow 2 feet ago.)  This last Sunday it was so warm even in the middle of the night that the previous winter snow was melting then it rained a warm rain and almost any sign of snow was gone.  I thought it was a little odd for such warm weather so close to the end of December.  I told CJ that this isn't a good sign.  It means that we are in for an unusual cold and/or snow.  I just didn't know how fast it would happen.  It got cold enough to snow yesterday but it was still rather warm so it was a really wet heavy snow.  It hasn't stopped snowing since so we now have over 18 inches of heavy wet snow...and it's still snowing...and it's supposed to snow for 2 more days.  It was so bad that the kid's school was closed for the day.  I was told that this school district never closed for snow no matter how deep it was.  I guess there is an amount of snow that would cause the schools to close and we got it today.  I just wish they would have made that decision before I took the kids to school and not after.  Anyway, here are some of our snow pics.



The snow bank is almost as tall as Lizzie.



Dakota's huge snowball from the day before is totally covered.

Our snow covered street.



Our truck before the driveway was shoveled.



The truck after the driveway was shoveled.  It's in there somewhere...at least I think it is.



Dakota did the sidewalk while I was picking the girls back up from school and she said she understands now what they mean by digging yourself out of the snow.

  

Dakota digging out the main sidewalk.






Who needs a snow blower with hard working kids like these.I'm sure the girls would say..."We do!"





All I Want For Christmas Isn't My Two Front Teeth

I just love Alex's toothy grin...now that he has some.  I wanted to get a picture before he gets more in because he has such a sweet little baby tooth smile.  It has proven harder than I thought though because when he sees the camera he is either trying to get it out of my hands for himself or he is hamming it up with the biggest smiles he can muster.  This is one of my favorites with his new teeth.  He definately doesn't need to ask Santa for his front teeth this year.

First Hair Cut

I have said for a while that Alex needed a hair cut but I was unsure how to cut a little boy's hair and still have it look cute let alone the fact that he is super squirmy.  I don't know why I thought that day was the day to do it but as I sat him in the tub getting ready to wash him one day I just decided to give him a hair cut instead.  I took him out of the tub, cut his hair, then put him back in the tub to finish what I had originally started.  I can't believe I did it.  Looking back now he probably could have gone a while longer before people started whispering about his long hair but the urge to cut was super strong and what's done is done.



This is probably the best picture I have for the before picture.  His hair was long on top and went over his ears.  It was also so long in the back that he had tons of curls that I could run my fingers through (what was I thinking, cutting off those sweet curls.)

Here is the after picture for the back.  It didn't turn out too bad for a boy with two cowlicks.

This is the after picture for the front.  It is shorter on top then I pictured in my head but it doesn't look too bad, especially for a first attempt...did I mention that he is a squirmy baby.

While I didn't think it looked too bad I was told by a higher authority that it didn't look that good either.  I was asked if I would just let it grow and we'll see where it goes from there.  I don't mind because I am really missing those sweet curls more than I thought I would so I can't wait till he gets them back.

Christmas pictures

I have many friends that are wonderful photographers.  I see their pictures and I am just amazed at the shots they get of their families.  They are very inspiring.  I know though that a photographer I am not.  I do my best though and try not to judge my pictures to theirs because if I did I would never take any pictures of my kids at all and that would be sad so I just do the best I can.  These pictures are from our little Christmas card shoot in our living room. 



Alexander



Megan



Dakota



Rebecca



Elizabeth



I even had Lizzie take a picture of me and CJ.

These are the group pictures and I think they came out cute.

They turned out so well that after making the Christmas cards I had a collage poster made of them to put on my wall.  You'll have to come visit to see that one though.

Pumpkin Head

I bought this hat from a friend who makes them to help pay for her son's medical bills.  I LOVE IT!  It is so cute on him it makes me want to eat him up.  It was meant for Halloween but I think it is still great for anytime.  I think he may even still be wearing it in the summer. ; )

Midnight Movie

Back in November the long awaited (by this household) first installment of the last Harry Potter movie came out.  The girls had been planning that night for a very long time.  They were excited about the movie for sure but I think the thing they were more excited about was the fact that they were going to get to go to another midnight showing.  Technically their first midnight showing was not at midnight.  I had forgotten to buy the tickets early enough.  I went 3 days before the movie opened to buy tickets and almost didn't get any at all.  They were showing the movie on 6 different screens and all 6 were sold out for the midnight showing.  They only had a little over a dozen tickets left for the next showing at 3am so that is what I got.  It wasn't so bad for the girls because it was in the summer time and they could sleep in all day.  It wasn't so easy for me because I was pregnant at the time and still going through morning sickness and the sickness was so much worse when I was tired.  This time they wanted to see it at midnight not only because it was the very first showing but also because it was on a school night and the rule was that they still had to get up and go to school or we couldn't do another midnight showing on a school night so they knew it couldn't be a 3am showing or they would never make it so they reminded me over and over to get the tickets.  Anyway, I went early and got the tickets to the theatre near our house. It's a small theatre so I thought it would sell out quickly because they wouldn't be able to show it on 6 theatres but to my surprise they still had a few tickets available opening night as well.  I guess that would be one perk to living in a small town.  Next time I won't worry so much. 

 The crowd wasn't as dedicated as they are in the bigger cities so the girls were a little disappointed because they were some of a very few that dressed up.  They were still very excited though.

 Dakota was Professor McGonagall, and Rebecca was Harry Potter.

The owner of the theatre went around and took pictures of all those who had dressed up for the event.  He took some of the pictures and put them on the wall of the theatre and one of the pictures was of Dakota and Rebecca.

This is their little claim to fame.

They had a really fun time and they did get up for school with out a single complaint.  They can't wait for the last Harry Potter movie to come out in the summer so they can do it all over again.

Megan's listening (more than we realize)

I was in the kitchen trying to make lunch for Megan and she was not being very patient for it.  I finally told Megan to settle her hands down.  She sits down on the floor, looks at me and calmly says, "no momma, I hold my horses." I guess we've told her to hold her horses more than I realize.

My Talking Toddler

Alex continues to push harder and harder to learn how to run.  I just know that the first time he saw one of the kids run that it must have been his mission to learn to run as soon as possible.  He is one determined little boy to accomplish this mission because at 10 months he is almost there.  He has been walking for a while now and is really good at it.  He still has his drunken zombie wobble here and there but they are becoming less and less frequent.  He figured out how to go from sitting to standing without pulling up on anything two Sundays ago and he just kept doing it over and over that whole day.  It was like he just kept doing it not because he had to but because he wanted to so that he could get faster at it.  Now he likes to walk ALL over the house, in and out of every room.  He has also found his voice and loves to babble.  I think he likes to go into all the rooms babbling as he goes so he can compare the echo in each room and see which one is the best.  I want to get a video of it but every time I pull out the camera he knows its there and he wants to see himself on it so he won't let me video him.  He is so fun to watch. 

I also like to catch him when he is playing with the toys by himself because he talks to the toys.  He talks to them with facial expressions and all.  I wish I knew what he was telling the toys to do because he is so serious when he talks to them.  He also loves to dial the buttons on the phone and then put it to his ear and talk.  He does that one with facial expressions and head bobs too.  He is quite the chatter bug.  If I didn't know any better I would believe that there is someone on the other line and they are having a good conversation.  Of course all this talking is when he thinks he is alone.  He won't usually talk as much when we are playing with him.  What a character.

Sweet Megan

I was doing some laundry on Wednesday and Megan comes up to me all excited and says, "Mommy. There's lots and lots of snow outside!" I tell her that there really is lots and lots of snow outside. She grins so big and sings, "It's Merry Christmas time!" Yes indeed, she is right. Christmas is once again upon us and what a wonderful Christmas season it will be.

UFO in Orem

On the morning of Nov.6th I get a call from my dad telling me that he heard on the radio that there were sightings of a UFO in the Provo/Orem area. Since he lives in Arizona he wanted me to go outside and look to see if I could see anything. We don't have TV so I hadn't heard anything about UFO's but if there was one I wanted to see what it was so I went right out to my driveway and looked everywhere I could. He asked me what I saw and I said that I didn't see anything...maybe I'm too far away from Orem to see it. He told me to look up and down my street to see if I see anything unusual there. I could see a car coming down the street but nothing up in the sky. He said look up your street again...are you sure you don't see anything? I saw the car getting closer to my house and it looked just like my parent's car. Because of my social anxiety I usually tune out the cars on the street so I tried not to pay too much attention to the car, especially since my dad wanted to know if I saw any UFO's. I couldn't ignore the car for very long though because it was pulling into my driveway. I couldn't believe my eyes when I finally realized that the car that looked exactly like my parent's car actually had my parents in it! I hung up the phone and began to cry, overcome with emotions. Here were my parents right in front of me. I had been going through some really emotional times lately and was really missing my family, especially my parents. I secretly wished everyday that I could be near them and just hug them because I knew that it would make me feel so much better. Now I was able to do just that. I hugged them so hard, afraid to let go in fear that this wasn't real. They didn't know how much I needed them and how much this visit would mean to me. They had planned this quick visit for over a month but didn't tell me just in case they may not have been able to come after all (which very nearly happened.) When my dad called to ask me about the UFO's he was just trying to get me outside so I would see them coming down the street. My mom told him that I would never fall for a story about UFO's. Sadly, I actually did believe him and feel a bit foolish thinking back on it. But in my defense, I didn't believe there were really true UFO's I just thought that there may be something interesting catching people's attention and I was curios as to what it was. Anyway, that doesn't really matter, I had my parents and that was all that mattered. My Mom was asked at the last minute just before they left to make a wedding dress and a flower girl's dress for the following Saturday so we helped her as much as we could, enjoying what ever time we had with her. We kept the girls home from school for a day so they could spend time with grandma and grandpa. Grandma needed to work on the dresses so grandpa took them on a special date to lunch and an arcade. They had so much fun. Before we knew it it was time for them to go but oh how blessed we felt for the time that we had with them. What a wonderful surprise.

It won't be long before we get to see them again though. We will be seeing them next month because their Christmas present to us is to help us get to Arizona for Christmas. I am excited because then I will have my whole family (even my brother from Reno will be there) to visit with and hug until they can't take it anymore.