We are NOT done! 13th Day of Christmas.....

This is two weeks after the

ice chest and dinner ended up on our doorstep.

I thought the inflatable looked out of place...

but Grandma Ann was out back to see what we had done with our

"party room",

and I got distracted.

Kortie

had tried to come in through the front door

and found this.....

DINNER again!!!


and two gifts for each one of our kids!

at least 3 of them are shoes!

Yay!

12th day of Christmas

This is

as far as

these people dared bring it this night.

Big bag of Tostitos and salsa

HomeAlone movie and brownies with popcorn on it,

a holiday serving tray and a holiday hand towel,

this booklet,

.

.

and $50.

.

.

Wow.

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.

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What else can we say?

We are still

clueless as to who this could be.

But,

what a FUN FUN FUN season we have had.

.

.

.

Sorry about the wait the past few days,

Unintentional.

I wasn't sure anyone cared to check up on us, and

I just got very busy:

I don't want to wrap

ALL

my presents for 9 people on Christmas Eve again.

.

11th

When Hubby and I got home from

Kyson's band concert,

the kids showed us what had come.

There was a present for every person

even Kamarie......

and

every person's name was spelled correctly!!!

except for Kamarie, but they got the a in the middle

which makes me suspect someone in the ward or access to our ward directory.

Or

our kids' dentist.

Noone ever spells all our names right.

Somehow, these "friends" knew exactly which kinds of books

each of my kids like.

Kashton even got book #3 of the series he just started.

and he is a picky reader.

Kamarie got a board book.

Kortlen got one he could read.

Hubby got one about coaching baseball.

Mine is "Joy of Believing"

Kys and Kob were science fiction or something.

Cheerios mix and Chex mix to eat while we read,

.

.

AND

a

$50

gift card

to Walmart!?!!

Who ARE these people?

.

.

We have had soooooo much fun

waiting with hope and anticipation

each and every night.

We

have no idea who it is.

We don't know anyone rich enough to

pull off a stunt like this one.

Well, we do, but they

are not likely candidates.

and they certainly don't know us as well

as these people seem to know us.

10th day of spoiling..

Hubby and I had a few places to go this night.

When we got home, nothing had arrived.

Found out the kids had been going outside and waiting for the "friends" to come.

We thought they had blown it for tonight.

Hubby locked house down at 10 pm. nothing.

Everyone in bed, finally, at 11 pm. nothing.

I stayed up to work on the computer till 12 am. ah ha!

Checked out the front door and there it sat:

Here are the "spoils".

WOW!!!

That is one pound of See's candy (I get to pick).

6 Stride gums.
$15 of movie theatre coupons.

AND $25 gift card to TEXAS ROADHOUSE!!

9th day

On this night, our family went to see the REAL Santa

at the bank.

Afterwards, we did something we have not done in YEARS!

We took ALL the kids to the store at the same time to look at toys and Wii games.

When

we got home,

we found this on our front porch...

This night was Monday night, and the theme was

Family night stuff:

A MATTED and FRAMED Family Proclamation. (always wanted one)

That is 52 FHE lessons!

Each in a protective sheet!
and

they are not done spoiling us...

I

am

in a

permanent

state

of

shock.

8th day

We got another "dngdng"

and the kids all

froze in place

for about 10 seconds, then

they opened the door to find this

haul:

That is a storage tote that it came in!

Those are always needed!

Breakfast theme:

Just when you've been spoiled to the maxxx...

The next day arrives...

Tune in tomorrow.

7th day

Since my 4 month old baby is teething,

and kept trying to nurse ALL night long,

I woke up thinking

today

is Thursday!

.

Do you realize how excited I was to find out I just got an EXTRA day to prepare for Christmas?

That's one more day than ALL the rest of you get.

Well, except for Jana, who was probably up all night long as well.

.

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So, on to the "Christmas Friends" Saga:

We woke up the next morning to snow on the ground!

But,

we were too busy to think to use the new sled.

.

All of mom's local girls (and families) went with her to her ward Christmas party.

(We miss you Jana, it's just not the same without you!)

.

Kash went snowboarding with his friend and beat us home.

He found this on our doorstep.

No, not his sisters, silly, the sack.

The girls just wanted to

play Vanna.

With all the games we already have, no repeats if you can believe it.





(That is Uno for preschoolers. Kauri loves it. )

6th day

This evening we were finishing up with the Christmas lights that we felt were a necessity for our reputation. (Maybe 25% of what is normal, but it was just the first day of decorating...)

I made everyone hurry and get done

with what decorations they were helping with

so we could get in the house and our "friends" could come.

.

.

We were going to go get pizza for a party that we got the night before.

(My house was semi-clean and I didn't trust leaving any of the kids home for fear of it getting messed up.)

I peeked out the window to make sure we weren't going to leave just as our "friends" got here, and there was no sign of anyone, so I yelled, "quick, get in the car, let's go!"

While my kids were getting in the car, (and they are always so quiet about it....NOT!) our friends came.

Koby thought he heard someone knock on the garage door but didn't think anything of it.

As we backed out of our garage, the package was off to the side of the garage door.

We put it in the house, and when we returned from picking up the pizza, we opened it.

This is a new fangled snow sled.

Chile, hot cocoa, candy.

COOL!

Now, we just need snow!

5th day makes me giggle

Three people were in the office (front of house) and

three people were in the entryway

when the doorbell rang on this night.

It was not a long, drawn-out "diiiinnng dooonnng" like you get with a

door-to-door salesman.

This was definitely a hurry-up-and-get-the-heck-outta-there ...

"dngdng".

.

.

.

Kort gasped and leaped towards the door.

I quietly yelled for him to "wait!"

When we thought the coast was clear, we opened the door to find this...

Kort yelled "thank you" at the dark empty night.

I hadn't thought of that, but felt it was very appropriate.

.

What makes me giggle?

As we

sat around

admiring the generosity,

we realized there was no note.

.

"Oh, no, they forgot to leave the note!"

.

.

Then all of a sudden there was another "dngdng" at our door.

.

Koby answered the door:

.

"It's the NOTE!"

.

.

Kortlen wants to show you how excited he is for this gift.

Yes, that is $30 of pizza gift card.

4th day was "magical"

This night,

when the doorbell rang, the kids raced for the door.

We yelled at them to wait a few seconds, cause we don't want to risk catching them for fear of the warning on day 1.

So, the magic "bars" must be these butterscotch chip, chocolate chip cookies with toasted coconut on top. They were to die for. So much so that I traded my younger kids a popscicle for theirs.

Those poor unsuspecting souls. ;>)

It all came in this

cute jingle bell bag:

A magic kit, a card trick book, and 2 deck of cards to practice with.

The "believe" is wooden blocks from Deseret Book.

And of course, the cookies had to come on something....

This ceramic plate has already come in handy for other desserts this season.
.

The kids are loving the magic tricks.

3rd day of...

This was delivered between 4pm (kids just got home from elem.)

and 5pm (Koby went to piano lessons).

If I was going to deliver something to my own house with all of the activities and kids comings and goings,

I would not even try to sneak something on my doorstep between 4 - 5 pm. in broad daylight.

Brave, daring people.


The story is Chrismas Oranges
about the girl in the orphanage who had never tasted an orange before.
My kids were so excited to get the oranges, you would have thought they were the ones in the orphanage.
Of course,
it made hubbies eyes leak when we read it.

2nd day...

We weren't expecting anything quite this soon.

It arrived on our doorstep before 6 am.

Cookie mix and cookie cutters;

sugar, butter, and 3 kinds of sprinkles;

hot chocolate, snowman shaped marshmallows, and candy canes;

and a foam ornament kit.

We were still wondering "what in the world..."

The first day of Christmas....?

We came home from church and found this on our doorstep:

Cluelessly, we walked up to see what in the world...

A brand new ice chest with wheels,

.

.

and inside was

2 loaves of hot homemade bread,

a warm hamburger, corn, mashed potato casserole. (with shredded cheese to melt on top.)

a parisian salad (the one with cranberries, nuts, and feta cheese that I love),

a frozen Marie Callendars apple pie,

and this booklet.

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.

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Click on the picture to see what the letter says.

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So we naturally assumed someone would be bringing us a plate of cookies or fudge or

carmel popcorn for a week and a half.

.

.

Until the next day came...

We grew watermelons this year....

fa la la la la

la

ha ha ha

maybe we'll try again next year.

LOL

Used and abused

on his swim team

This turned out to be a good day for Kyson!

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.

His arch rival on the swim team
(the one that took his spot on the Varsity relay and brags about it unrelentlessly)
grew to 6 feet tall over the summer.
He also posted a time on his 50 freestyle that Kyson and I realize Kyson can't catch.
Two full second faster than Kyson's recorded time.
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Yesterday, at the first half of this swim meet, Kyson scored a
27.15.
Two full seconds FASTER than his personal best!!!!
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This is huge for a short race like this one.
He fell short of getting a spot on the coveted 200 free relay by a finger nail: .10!
But, he made the braggart very upset and nervous.
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This day Kys swam the 100 free with a goal of getting under 1:00.
Which would be six seconds faster than his best time.
He wanted to do it most of all to kick the braggart out of the next coveted relay, the 400 free.
He swam,
he scored a 1:00.49!
Yep, he missed getting under a minute by half a fingernail!!
BUT, he beat the other kid's time and made him really mad.
Woooooo Hoooooo!!!!!
Congrats, Kyson!!!!!
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P.S.
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Mommy LOVES you!!!

Oh! no! he DIDN'T !!!

age 13 1/2

passed me already.

Kauri's Funnies

She always likes to watch me make things.

.

She got her stool

peeked over the edge of the bowl,

and asked,

.

"Are you making pomegranites?"

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Santa plans:

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http://www.southwestfederal.com/pdfs/santa.pdf

We will plan on attending the one closest to my sisters and brothers at 6:30.
(We have heard the stories waaaaaay too many times.)
Or, we might go earlier so that Kort and Kinzie can hear them??
.
.
anyone else up for it?

Random October Moments

My itsy bitsy baby.

The High School

Jazz band played at mm 25 for the marathon runners to cheer them on.

Kyson walked around

and back and forth

and got a lot of high fives from the runners.

The Middle School Jazz Band played at mm 25.5 at the Tabernacle.

This is my first time seeing Koby play a drumset.

The college homecoming parade: we got pizza from Dominos

again!

These beads were also being thrown.
But, they are not necklaces...

Kashton's first band concert:

Kyson was embarrassed to be there till he found out two of his best friends were there also.

Isn't it awesome how "friends" can make a 15 yr old SMILE?

Cute picture, Kyson!!!!!

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You've seen him with his cake:

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Here he is after his 9-yr-old cousin blew out his candles.

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She has finally developed chubbiness.
10 lbs 12 oz at 2 months.

The shirt her Grandma Myrtle got her via April.

My favorite pirate accessory on Hubby.

Pay close attention to the details:

Did you figure it out?

.

.

..

Thanks to being young during high school,

.

he

can

wear

pirate

jewelry!