A special day

Yesterday was Makayla's eighth birthday, and she got to be baptized on her birthday. It was a great day. Since she was the only one getting baptized, we could plan the program. Makayla was quite involved in the planning and who she wanted to speak. She asked her Logan to give the baptism talk. He surprised me by saying that he would do it. He did a great job. She asked Spencer to give the talk on the Holy Ghost. He was more than happy to do it. (This kid loves to give talks.....where did he get that?) He did a good job too. Her dad baptized and confirmed her. Makayla, Caitlin and some of their cousins sang the closing song, "Families Can Be Together Forever". It was so sweet.

We had lots of family come. It was a good day. Afterwards, we all went to Becky's house for lunch and birthday cake. Thanks Becky and Kelly! It was nice. Her Aunt Susan gave her the cutest baptism towel. It was embroidered in purple with her name and CTR with little "rhinestone sparkles" on it.

It is hard to believe that she is my last one to be baptized. Makayla said it was the best day of her whole life!

Christmas Secrets Revealed

A few weeks ago Becky called us and said "Want to go on a cruise with us?" I thought she was kidding. Yeah right. She told me they had decided to take their kids for Christmas. I mentioned it to Dean, and he was more open to the idea. We thought about it and decided that what we want most to give our kids right now are good fun family memories. If you asked them a few years from now what they got for Christmas in 2008, I doubt that any of them would be able to remember. But, they will never forget a family Christmas vacation. I was very reluctant, but Dean, Becky and Kelly finally talked me into it, and I relented. We will cruise to Cabo San Lucas.

We decided to keep it a secret for as long as we could, but it was getting harder not to slip and say something to the kids. Besides, isn't anticipation half of the fun? We decided to get all the kids together to tell them the news. We met over at the Dastrups house. We had all the kids gather in a circle. We told them we had something important to tell them and would give them clues to help them figure it out. I had gone to the dollar store to try and find things that could be used as clues. Now that was difficult! It was hard to find things through all the Christmas stuff in the store. We gave each kid a wrapped present and had them open them up one at a time. Here is what I came up with:

Braden - Clue #1 - Sunglasses

Spencer - Clue #2 - Hot Sauce (with a Mexican guy on the label)


Caitlin - Clue #3 - puzzle of the United States


Stacia - Clue #4 - flip flops


Makayla - Clue #5 - calendar with ocean scenes on it


Bryson - Clue #6 - toy plane


Logan - Clue #7 - a neck think that you can carry your ship ID in. (What is it called?)


(I also got them a sucker from the Mexican aisle in the grocery store. They were nasty. I think the package had been on the grocery store shelf for about 20 years. I am not kidding!)

By this time they were starting to catch on, well some of them were. Then Becky gave them each a ticket she had printed up telling them where they would be going and handed and envelope with the ticket inside to each one.



They excitedly ripped open the envelopes and read their tickets! It was so fun to watch their faces.


We leave on December 13th and return on the 18th. The kids will miss four days of school, come back for one day and then have Christmas break. This IS my kids Christmas. They will probably have just a present or two on Christmas Day and that is it. I have to admit, the thought of not having tons of Christmas shopping to do is quite appealing! I have been having a hard time this year getting excited about Christmas.

I am wondering if the actual Christmas Day will take on a new meaning for them. It won't be all about toys and presents. Hopefully we will be able to focus on the true meaning of Christmas a bit more this year.

Christmas will be quite different for us this year, but I hope it will be a Christmas they will always remember!

Job-Shadowing

Last week, for one of Spencer's classes he had to do a "job shadowing". It is where the students arrange to go and spend the day with someone at their job. They get excused from school for the whole day and "go to work". We thought we had a place all set up for him and he was excited about going. Well, things there just didn't work out. The day before the job shadowing day Dean and I were scratching our heads trying to think of someone Spencer could go to work with.

Well, finally I just had an idea pop into my head and ran it past Dean. He liked the idea and called and made the arrangements. So, early (6:00 a.m.) Spencer went down to one of our local radio stations (the cool one) 94.3 XRQ to spend the morning with the DJ's (Charlie and Brandon) on the morning show. Spencer LOVED it. They talked with him on air a little bit. They showed him alot of the "behind-the-scenes-stuff. It turned out to be a fun experience for him.

Since the morning show is over at 10:00 a.m. Spencer got to hang out the rest of the day with Mom and Dad which was fun too. We took him out to lunch. When you have four kids it is nice once in a while to get to spend time with just one of them.

Pumpkins and Turkeys

This year for Halloween I was a real slacker of a mom. I just wasn't into it at all. We kind of threw together costumes at the last minute for the girls. (I didn't even get a picture of them in their costumes. I'm not sure how that happened). I told the boys that this year they were too old for costumes.

We bought pumpkins early in October for carving, but it never happened. It just seemed like every night there was just something going on. Dean having surgery the day before Halloween didn't help out either. Blah blah blah....excuses, excuses, I know. Anyway, the day after Halloween the kids were kind of feeling bad because we never got the pumpkins carved into jack o'lanterns.

SO...Monday night for family night we made our pumpkins into turkey's for Thanksgiving. We used sheets of craft foam to cut out feathers and the heads. We stuck them in with wooden skewers. We didn't actually carve them but had fun making them anyway.

Here are the results of our efforts.








Please note Logan's turkey. He has an arrow stuck in it complete with blood dripping out. Sheesh...BOYS!










Just remember I am not a crafty kind of person and not creative at at all so this was a big deal for me. But it did turn out to be a fun project, and alot less mess than carving pumpkins and having to scoop out pumpkin guts. That part I didn't miss.

Do you think I can talk them into doing this next year too? Yeah, I doubt it too.