December in California

Ryan's family were all getting together for Christmas, sort of an impromptu family reunion. It was a lot of fun. We flew into Arizona, rented a car, and then drove out to California all in one day. We drove with Ryan's parents and his sister Sheri and her kids. Most of his family who live in AZ were already out in CA and then his sister Rose joined us the next day. We were staying in the Palm Springs area because that is where the Christensen's have their time shares. The first night we celebrated Ryan's brother Dan's Birthday.
Jory and his cousin Chase

The next day we took off to see my Grandma who also lives in the Palm Springs area. The kids had a blast playing and swimming. Grandma and I mostly caught up with each other. Eli at Grandma's pool

Renton making a fountain in Grandma's pool.
Jory having the time of his life in the water.

Jory and Grandma Steinkuhler

The next day the whole family headed out to Disneyland. It is a family tradition for Ryan's family to go to Disneyland on Christmas Eve. We had a lot of fun. Renton and Eli are just the right age for Disneyland. Jory even handled it quite nicely too! Some of the time we did things with Ryan's family, some of the time we did our own thing, and some of the time Ryan and Renton took off to do older kid stuff while Eli, Jory and I did the younger kid stuff. It worked out perfectly. They have this program for families where not all the kids can go on a ride called parent swap where the parents go individually but don't need to wait in line twice, but the parent swap card is good for 2, so Renton would go with dad, and then go immediately again with mom! He discovered that he loves roller coaster rides! Eli discovered that he didn't. He was very apprehensive at first, but with some help we got him on some rides that he enjoyed. His favorite was Peter Pan. I think Renton's favorite was Indiana Jones. Jory even had a favorite, he was mesmerized by the lights and sounds of Its a Small World. It was a great day!Just before heading in.

First ride of the day!

Jory checking out the wishing well and the 7 dwarfs.

Check out this great suit of armor Eli found!

We checked out Tom Sawyer's Island, just to find that it is now a pirate island. This is in the tree house with the treasure map!

They also had this awesome cage of bones.

Of course we found the hidden treasure on the island!

I guess no King Arthurs today.

Outside Its a Small World

The next day was Christmas. We went to spend the morning with Grandma Steinkuhler and Ferman. We opened presents, had breakfast, and let the kids play as we visited. Then we went back to the time share and had lunch with Ryan's family. After taking a family picture we opened presents and also celebrated Rose's, Kristen's and Lorrelle's birthdays. It was a very fun family time. Jory helping me get pulled together for Christmas day.

Saying Goodbye to Grandma.

Family Pictures

Family Pictures

The next day we packed up and headed back to AZ.

December in Utah

December was very exciting and full, so I'm braking it up into 3 parts! We celebrated my birthday on the 4th. It was nice to be with my family for that. Once again I decided that I wanted a birthday pie, and made it way too late so that it didn't get eaten until the next day. This year I made a delicious recipe I got from my sister in law, Michelle, for Pear Pie. We had it for breakfast the next day, and it was fabulous!

Jory cracks me up! This is his solution
to how to carry things while crawling!

We went to the Annual Gundersen Sing Along, our friends who have this fun tradition of sharing the musical delight of Christmas without freezing yourself to death going from door to door. We had a great time singing and playing. Music is amazing.

Christmas was coming quick for us, as we were leaving town and didn't want to tote all the gifts with us! So, while I was the envy of all my friends in how early I was prepared for Christmas, really I was just barely ready in time. This year, however, I wrapped presents as I bought them so that prying eyes wouldn't find them... and that meant no huge wrapping fest the night before Christmas... and I didn't miss the wrapping fest. We opened presents the Saturday before we left on our trip so that the boys would have time to play with their toys before we left them at home for the holidays. And even though it was early, there was the same excited "can't sleep" and early morning that comes with Christmas. It was great! The boys felt loved, and that is what really counts. Renton and Eli loved it, but Jory had a blast!
Christmas is finally here!

Renton handing out gifts.


Opening presents.


New Sword. Its amazing how quickly we go through those things!


Can't wait to play with it!

The aftermath is fun too.

Later that night we went to see my brother who had decided last minute to come out to Utah to spend Christmas with some friends. I was glad we got to see him and his family before we left! The cousins got along famously, as if there had never been any time between the last time we saw them! I love that.
My kids and David's kids. Jory and Emily, their baby, are only 1 month apart.

But, pretty much as soon as Christmas at our house was done it was packing time... and we were off to catch an early morning flight to AZ.

November

Jory checking out the new Christmas tree.

Jory plinking away at the piano.

Some of the fun stuff that we did while we were sick for a week.

Ahhh... What a month! The first week of November we were completely incapacitated. We had caught the latest fad flu, OK, I mean the deadliest flu of the year. But that was not all! Renton and Jory both had H1N1, but Eli had strep. Apparently you can't have a bacterial infection and a virus at the same time... so this is the good news of it: Renton got on the same antibiotic as Eli so he wouldn't eventually get strep, and apparently you can't catch strep when you are under 2 yrs old so Jory was good; Eli couldn't catch H1N1 while he had strep, so I kept expecting that he would get H1N1 the week after everyone else got well but by some miracle, he did not! Because both diseases will give you a high fever we thought that they had the same infection, so believe my surprise when I found that we not only had 2 different things but that we had to quarantine ourselves for a week if we loved our friends! I was self medicating with chocolate all week, that is the only way I got through it. And yes, Jake, chocolate is a medicine in that scenario! Ryan and I both had some minor cold symptoms, but that was all. Jory got the tamiflu stuff because he was high risk, but there wasn't enough to go around for those not high risk like Renton. But, Renton survived as did we all. Really, we were very blessed that it wasn't worse. I took the week off after that week to just relax!
So, aside from the week of horror, we really had a great month. We celebrated Thanksgiving with Rose and her family and her husband's brother's family and her husband's brother's in-laws. It was a lot of fun! A house full of great people. And with so many people there the food assignments were pretty minimal too. Rose was so awesome to host the grand event, she is amazing! We, of course, gorged ourselves on all the delectable food. The very next day was our 11th anniversary, and we typically do a steak dinner for that, but right after the Thanksgiving feast we decided to put off our anniversary dinner and do a fun family outing to celebrate our 11 years instead. So, we bundled up warm and headed to the zoo the day after Thanksgiving. We saw some great animals, checked out their Madagascar exhibit, and of course paid a visit to some of the family favorites: The orangutan named Eli, and the Siberian Lynx. We had a great day. Then on Sunday we fired up the grill and cooked up steaks to celebrate our anniversary. This year we decided to get our Christmas tree early because we knew that we wouldn't be here for Christmas but still wanted to enjoy all the traditions associated anyway. We actually bought our tree the night before Thanksgiving, as soon as we saw that they were available to buy. And it actually lasted pretty long as well, right up until we left. So, the Saturday after Thanksgiving we decorated the Christmas tree. We have a bunch of jingle bells that we hang on the tree, and this year the boys hung them all together in the front of the tree and then would stand there and bat the branches softly to play their new musical invention. I loved it. We listened to Christmas music and had a great time decking the tree and the halls.

Thanksgiving Day

Visiting the Siberian LynxAt the ZooHappy 11th Anniversary

Renton and I finished reading the 3rd Harry Potter book together this month, and that is where we will leave Harry Potter for a little while, but he has loved the books. I taught Eli's preschool the week heading into Thanksgiving and we did a little Thanksgiving feast after acting out the story of the Pilgrims. Eli really enjoyed that. Jory started cruising around, holding onto things as he walks around. His favorite thing to do is crawl to the piano, stand up at it and plink on the keys. I love to listen to it. He is our little musician.

October

So, I got informed this year that our house was not scary enough. I guess I was voted a great wussy-pants for not wanting to add death and gore to our home... I don't get it. But I did concede a little and we got some more halloween decorations, which included a glittery skull and skeleton lights. The boys were thrilled, even though I didn't take Renton up on his idea to turn the front yard into a cemetery. Of course the big question this month was, "What to be for Halloween?". Eli was set on being Link from Legend of Zelda. I was actually very excited about this costume and designed it after the latest Link from Twilight Princess. Renton was Jack Skelington from The Nightmare Before Christmas, also known as The Pumpkin King. Jory got to be my favorite costume that I've ever made, a little red dragon. As a side note, Eli wore that costume when he was 14 months old, and Jory wore it when he was 8 months old. Yikes!

Our Scarier House
Ward Halloween Party
School Halloween Parade

Little Dragon

Link

The Pumpkin King

Renton's Jack-o-Lantern, his own creation!
Jory's Jack-o-Lantern, a vampire!
Eli's Jack-o-Lantern, a ghost!

As for other stuff going on this month... Jory started pulling himself to a standing position on just about everything: the coffee table, the banister, mom's pant leg while she is cooking so she can't move or he will fall just to name a few. It is so fun to watch him progress! With Jory's new found mobility (crawling) and ability to stand up, Eli decided that Jory was OK to play with, and they have become very good friends. They love to play together and laugh together! Renton tried his hand at photography this year for his school's Reflections contest. He didn't place, but he sure had a lot of fun! We got a surprise visit from Grandma Steinkuhler this month, too! There was a problem with her conecting flight in Salt Lake City of all the lucky places, and we had her over to spend the night. That was very fun! We stayed up late talking, and surprised the boys in the morning when they woke up. So, it was a quick visit, but very enjoyable!

Visit with Grandma Steinkuhler

Jory Standing!

Jory playing with his shadow.
Building a Haunted Gingerbread House
Eli's black smile after eating the Gingerbread house!

September

So, I'm attempting to catch up on the busy months of my life! I started on September with Soccer and School pictures, but I thought I'd add more. Renton started 1st grade and is loving it. His scores in Math and Reading are consistently very high. His favorite part of the day is recess (good for him!) And we gave him the option to buy a hot lunch at school if he wanted to when school started, which he sprang on. After 2 weeks of school lunch he started begging me to make him a lunch to take! Just recently he told me that the other kids wish that they had lunch from home too! Ryan and I just have to chuckle about that. Eli started Preschool and loves it! We are doing a neighborhood preschool again with 5 kids and 5 moms, each mom taking turns to teach. One mom is very into science experiments (Eli calls them experience, love it!) and I think that is his favorite. He and I have been working on reading too, just the fundamentals, but he is excited to learn to read like Renton. Jory learned how to sit himself up. He also discovered the joys of the baby bouncer, his new favorite toy!The boys at the end of the maze.

Mama with the boys.

Daddy with the boys.

Our big family outing for the month was going to the corn maze. Jory was pretty good through it, and the boys had a blast! We let them take turns as to who got to choose which fork in the road. It was a very fun day!