New Year's Eve 2011

Tommy, "Mommy, youz a queen. Daddy's a king!" Tommy thought the crowns from the poppers were quite special.

Fletcher loved the jokes.
Sarah had said on Christmas Day that she missed the poppers and wished we'd done them. Leave it to good ol' Gam Gam! She'd brought them in her suitcase for New Year's Eve not knowing how much Sarah had really wanted them for Christmas dinner.
Poppers are quite exciting for all!
Charlie is King of solving the riddles! He is quick to figure out the play on words.
The night ended with snuggles and sparkling beverages consumed during the newest Alvin and the Chipmunks movie played on our basement wall.
Tommy enjoyed his sparkling juice, spilling it only once on the carpet, while playing pans with egg beaters and wooden spoons (one of which broke and became his sword) to welcome in the new year.
Mid-evening we took Mom and Dad to our friends, Don and Nora's, home. The one block walk just about did me in from laughing so hard at our friend, Michael Winnakur, who kept blowing the "Awkward Whistle Alert" and making me have a Pee-my-pants Alert!
Before departing for the adult party, our night was enlivened with a few rounds of charades, boys vs. girls, and Things. One of the prompts we had tonight had some telling responses: Things that tire you out..."Fletcher (what Sarah said), Popsy (what Fletcher said), New Year's Eve games (what Gammy said in response to how LOUD it had become once game night started)." It was quite LOUD during game time and not just a little bit of commotion either!
Daddy and Sarah enjoying all the corny riddles.

Passover Seder 2011

Tommy's ready for the Seder...he knows his best buddy's family is coming to celebrate with us!

Here is our table ready for the Seder with the symbolic elements at each place. We didn't put out the four cups (each!) of wine/grape juice per person until we actually started the ceremony and everyone (all 7 kids age nine and under, 10 adults) was seated...a bit concerned about wine/purple grape juice stains on the carpet. Can you believe there wasn't a one?!?!
Fun using my Gramma's pretty things for the ceremony.
Sally Johnson was so sweet to come a few hours early to help arrange, organize, set-up and cook with me. Her presence was sooooo helpful (and calming!) She is SUCH a sweet heart! I am so thankful she wanted to help!
The actual meal turned out to be yummy. We served grilled lamb and chicken (for the kids), mashed potatoes, tzimmes (traditional Jewish dish with carrots, sweet potatoes, oj, honey), spinach salad, pineapple, charoset (an apple nut mixture used as part of the Seder ceremony but also yummy to serve during the meal) and, of course, Matzah (NO bread...can't have any yeast in the house!) Sally made a banana pudding dessert for us at Fletcher's request (she had made it when Noah was born and he has been wanting it again since then!) I had the desire and all the supplies to make Matzah ball soup as an addition to our meal to try and keep to traditional Jewish fare, but....time ran out! So, that will probably be our meal (and cooking lesson for the kids!) this week during Passover. I'm looking forward to it!

Gammy Popsy Camp Activities

Some of the highlight activities of camp this year include, but are not limited to: pony rides, pool fun with freestyle stroke lessons and diving practice, "adventures" on the hiking trails, biking and "creeking" at Salem Lake, swimming and canoeing in the pond, fishing (with Popsy buying minnows daily and often leaving them in a sunny spot to accidentally bake to death!), plumming with Gammy (who was quite excited by the bountiful harvest of plums from her two trees...William consuming more than half of what she harvested!), and molding animal-shaped crayons from the old crayons from Gammy's school classroom.

Gammy Popsy Camp is SUCH a BLAST!!

Cousin time was such fun! Everyone loves holding "Ju-jee" who couldn't be more smiley and fun to play with! William was quite interested in Fletcher and his whereabouts and activities. William very kindly played with rough and tumble, quite-demanding Tommy. William was SO sweet to share toys with him constantly and cater to his ever-changing toy "needs." What a precious boy! We all love his heart, and Sarah so cutely pointed out she loves his pretty skin! :)

Treasured Nights with Daddy

Some of the kids favorite nights with Daddy involve sitting with him while he smokes a cigar and tells them stories. They love all Daddy's stories. He is often telling them true stories of his childhood (with maybe a wee bit of embellishment!), but they also love two of his imaginary tales which involve pirates and World War II fighter pilots. Captain William Tilley is a favorite hero from the pirate tales, and Johnny Rocket is the hero of Charlie's World War II tales. The kids beg for these stories on our road trips, and I'm always amazed by Charlie's fantastic imagination!

Remembering the Gammy tradition...

The kids had a BALL making the "hop hop" cake, as Tommy affectionately called it. He LOVES bunnies and was soooo excited that we were making a bunny cake with tons of yummy treats on it. He kept pointing to the spot on the counter where we were storing it to eat with our family friends, the Webbs, who babysit for the kids when we go on dates. He would point and questioningly say, "Hop Hop?" In his way asking, "Mom, can I pleee-ase eat the hop hop cake?" He was so excited to eat the creation they'd made! The Webbs were such cute friends fussing over it and letting the kids know how well they'd decorated it, etc. We LOVE the Webbs!

Easter preparations

We had a great time today planting the wheat grass seeds my Aunt Laurie gave us as gifts this past weekend. SO fun! We found inexpensive Easter buckets to use for our plantings, and the kids had a ball filling them with soil and plenty of wheat grass seeds! We also had a great time coloring eggs. Fletcher was the champion egg yolk blower. He certainly loved poking the two holes in either end of the eggs and getting the yolks out for us. Yay, for Fletcher! Tommy also enjoyed the dippey, dippey the eggs in the dye! He was our champion wiper-upper of all drips as well! Yay, for our little boy helpers!

Happy St. Patties' Day 2010

Charlie turned 16 years old in Christ on St. Patrick's Day! Wha-who!

We followed in the Thompson tradition of dying everything green, and Paris was my most enthusiastic helper squeezing plenty of green food dye into our pancake batter and biscuits! We also created a centerpiece for our table from all things green. The kids had so much fun collecting and arranging the green items to decorate the table!

Celebrating Purim, Sunday, Feb.28th

This year we celebrated the Jewish holiday of Purim. What fun! I first learned of the holiday last year during a women's Bible study of the book of Esther. The ladies celebrated together last year, and we had so much fun that I promised myself to teach the kids about Purim and celebrate the holiday with them this year. We had a blast preparing "Haman's Pockets" (a tasty, triangular cookie filled with preserves). The cookie is supposed to resemble Haman's three cornered hat.

One of the key components of Purim is a feast with friends so we had a family over for Sunday afternoon supper. We prepared gifts of food to give away as well. We were able to share a few prepared gift baskets of the cookies we'd made, fruits, candies, and hot cocoa and teas. Surprising our friends with, "Happy Purim!" was fun for the kids because, of course, not many had even heard of the holiday. The funny thing about the Purim celebration is that there is lots of noise, dressing-up, and singing. We played the traditional Purim music during our baking session and giggled trying to sing along with the songs that were foreign to us. During the feast, we all taped Haman's name to the bottom of our foot and each person tries to stamp out the name of Haman. The Jewish people chant that cursed is the name of Haman and blessed be the name of Mordecai. Mordecai is Esther's adoptive father (her cousin who raised young, orphaned Esther). He influenced her to save her people from annihilation when Haman craftily plotted how to wipe out the entire Jewish nation.

Part of the celebration is to read "the whole Megillah," the whole book of Esther, sometimes on two separate occasions reading the complete book. One fun component is for all the listeners to loudly crack noisemakers called gragers, although we used Tommy's wooden instrument set, and to stomp their feet every time the name Haman is mentioned in the book of Esther. In case you haven't read Esther recently, Haman's name is mentioned ALOT!! The kids got a kick out of trying to "blot out" his name with their feet and their instruments! What a ruckus! Fun! Fun! I highly recommend incorporating this celebration into any family's holiday repetoire...I praise God for Esther's faith, her humility to seek God through fasting and prayer, and her willingness to risk her life for the sake of her people. May God continue to grant His children great faith and perseverance. May we continue to seek Him even as Esther so willingly did.

2nd ever Valentine's Day with snow

Snow on Valentine's Day is significant to our family. It all started with three and a half year old, Sarah, back in October 2004 when we were living in Dallas, TX. She told us she really wanted it to snow. We told her to ask God for snow because we couldn't make it snow. Our neighbors and friends found out she was praying for snow and laughed telling her it never snows in Dallas. Sarah kept praying. Months passed and she kept asking God for snow. It wasn't until we woke up on Valentine's Day 2005 and saw a few inches of snow covering our apartment complex's yard that we knew God said, "Yes," to Sarah's prayers. How loved we ALL felt by God!


This year Charlie had prayed with all of us asking God for some more snow. We had had some beautiful snow in the weeks past, but we were missing seeing white. A few days after his prayer, we woke up and there was a beautiful snow covering our yard once again...Valentine's Day 2010. We all rejoiced together about this answered prayer.

Valentine's Day 2010

Our family's Valentine's Day tradition for the last seven years has been to dip fruit and pretzels into chocolate. The kids absolutely love it, and we all look forward to this annual tradition. This year we not only did the "standard" dipping, but Charlie had the great idea to dip peanut butter Girl Scout cookies, too. Then, we moved on to pretzels into peanut butter before the chocolate. Yum! Yum!

The other Valentine's Day tradition is to make breakfast pink! This was something fun my mom did for Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day. We'd have colored milk and breakfast foods to match the holiday. We always loved being grossed out by the pink or green milk. Our kids have enjoyed the tradition, as well. This year the pink pancakes had cheerfully colored sprinkles also. Really healthy meal I served between all the food coloring and sugar!! Oh well. :)

The past few years I've been leaving a "trail" for the kids to follow from their room to the dining table. Last year the trail was made from tiny pink, white and red paper hearts but this year's trail was edible...red, chocolate covered (dried) cherries leading downstairs to the table. Silly.

Advent Gifts from Gammy and Popsy=FUN tradition too!

The kids love the tradition of opening advent gifts from Gammy and Popsy instead of waiting until Christmas Day. This year they loved (!!!) the soft, little farm animals and sleep and play with them daily. "Baa-baa" (Fletcher's lamb) and "Snow" (Paris' lamb) meet up for morning playdates while Sarah's pony (Laughy Taffy) and Tommy's rooster (Cockadoodle) are never very far from either of their hands. The kids also love their drawing activities and wallets/purses. It was a very fun advent season!

One of our most treasured traditions started this year. We bought and started to read last year a book called Jotham's Journey. We were able to successfully complete the advent readings this December. We LOVED reading this book each day and couldn't wait to see what adventures Jotham got into or out of for that day. We often couldn't stop reading and spent at least a couple days in December reading a good chunk of the day away! SO fun for us to bond over this book! We ALL loved reading it out loud together! We got Bartholomew's Passage as a gift for ourselves for next year's advent season. Many families just rotate reading out loud one of the three books in this series each year during advent. We can't wait for next advent season to discover what adventures lie ahead for Bartholomew, a character we met in Jotham's Journey this year.