Christmas Magic

Christmas Eve was spent with the Zobrist clan. Staci & Tony's crew was stuck home with the croup so it ended up just being just us, Brandon and his fam, Grandma Z and Mom and Dad. It was a really quiet night with such a small group but fun none the less.

We came home early so we could make sure we were snug in our beds before the man in the big red suit made his debut, which was apparently before 1:30 in the morning. I know this because that was when I was ripped out of my very peaceful slumber with sugar plums dancing in my head (or maybe sugar cookies) to find a crying Bonnie and 3 kids trying to wake her up. After some very stern words about NEVER EVER EVER waking up the Bon at 1:30 in the morning they went back to bed and stayed there until 6:30, a much more acceptable hour for waking up the girl!! When she did wake up happily she came down stairs to see a princess overload!! I am now crowned the official worst mother of the year because I seriously ended up with 1 picture of each Terry, Sam and Brett and all of the rest were of Bonnie and Colby, which wasn't much. Remind me next year to take more pictures of my kids opening presents!!

After some delicious crepes enjoyed on our super fun Christmas plates we cleaned up and headed out to Logandale. Please don't judge, my photo skillz were left with my dancing sugar cookies because dang, I was having an off night!

ANYWAY...

Grandma Becky gave all the kids pillows and blankets which prompted some fun times, fake sleeping, pillow fights and who will ever forget the blanket hats donned by Becca and Amy? NOT ME!! Good times at the Conks!

All in all it was an amazing Christmas followed by a fun trip to Oregon, stay tuned for a blog post with all the super fun shake weight details!!

December Happenings

In all the business of the holiday season I realized that I may have not fully captured the events and goings on of the month. Between lessons, homework, shopping, recitals, photo editing, print orders, and such I didn't really take as many pictures as I would have liked but I did get a few shots from Sam's Deseret Strings performance at the Springs Preserve as well as some video of the boys piano recitals.

The Deseret Strings had a fabulous group this year as always and Samantha was one of the older kids in the group. It is weird to see her so grown up but we are so proud of her and even though she NEVER practiced she pulled out flawless performances as always...if only we could all have that gift!!

I haven't done video in a while so bear with me if it doesn't work!!

This is Colby playing Up on the Rooftop

Brett played is very own decomposed version of What Child Is This. Don't worry only his piano teacher and I knew, it was too late to fix and so we just went with it!

More Cousin's Camp

I edited all those cousin camp pictures and then found another memory card with a whole bunch more pictures. I can't wait for next year, the wheels are turning!!

Cousin's Camp

We had a fabuloulamous cousin's camp this year! The kids worked hard on the service project and I was so proud that they were excited about giving service and working to help others less fortunate. We did about 350 hygiene kits and about 160 school kits. It was a beautiful, warm day and lots of playing and bonding went on outside as well as the fun inside the house. There were amazing gingerbread houses and trains decorated with great talent and gusto! Such clever kids! Pizza for lunch and then a Dollar Store gift exchange...which, ironically, seems to be more fun-filled than just exchanging bought gifts! We ended up with Hex-bug madness! We didn't explain them to the kids who weren't Hex-bug savvy.....we just said to figure them out...then it got really fun....AGAIN! Now, what can we come up with for next year???? Grandie

Gift

I teach the CTR6 class (for one more week anyway) and for Christmas I wanted to get them something that will help them as they move into senior primary and prepare for baptism. These CTR rings are just little symbols to remind them to Choose the Right and follow the teachings of Christ. We have really focused on choosing the right by following Jesus Christ this year in our lessons. My sweet little primary class has been so fun even with as rowdy and wild as that bunch of boys and 1 girl could be, I will miss them as I go into the new year and a new group of kids. I will be teaching the 5 year olds next year, which is a little bit of a daunting task, I am used to kids who can read and have a little better understanding of the scripture stories but I am sure that I will love them as much as every other age of primary kids I have taught!

Thanksgiving '10

Thanksgiving this year will go down it history as the year of the most delicious turkey EVER!! We have been frying turkeys for the past few years but this year Brandon was in charge and he used some cajun injection on the fried turkey and it was so absolutely delicious I have been dreaming about it since that wonderful day. It was the coldest Thanksgiving in Las Vegas (well, Logandale...same diff right?) that I can ever remember. We froze unless we stayed in the house. it was cold and windy! We played quite a few games of the Monopoly card game, we had a blast!! Family is the best! If they aren't pictured they either hide from the camera or were too spaztastic to hold still for a picture!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

2 Questions...
1. Is Christmas really 2 weeks away?
2. Can I blog about Christmas when I haven't blogged Thanksgiving yet?

Forget it, I'm breakin' all the rules because my house is all decked out and I had so much fun taking pictures of all my fun stuff! I'll get to blogging Thanksgiving, I promise!! I hate that this season just seems to fly by, it really is the best time of the year but it doesn't last long enough. Last week I was surprised by my sweet brother and sister in law with a tree. Knowing that my artificial tree had seen it's last days and that things are a bit tight around here, they decided to bring us a tree to force us into the Christmas spirit. I am so thankful they did, not only did they get our tree they brought in all my bins of holiday decorations. We got the tree set up that night and then the next day I got the rest of the decor set up. I started with my North Pole Village, I just wish I could shrink down and walk around in there!!

A few years, well maybe more like 8, a friend of mine told me about a tradition she has of collecting different Christmas plates each year and they eat on them all season, no two are alike and it is fun each night at dinner to pick out which plate you will eat on. It is definitely one of my favorites traditions, along with picking out one or two to add to the collection!


Everybody loves mistletoe right? Catch your honey there and just see how much fun it can be!

I made these stockings a few years back and still love them to death!! It never ceases to excite me when I pull them out of the bins! This darling bell rings when ever we get a visitor and makes me smile every time! The advent calendar has been a Conk tradition since Terry was a little boy. The kids get to take turns opening a small gift! The trick is finding prizes small enough to fit in the pockets! I never have trouble waking kids up when it is their day to have the advent!


My tree and banisters make the whole house look amazing. The whole house glows and you can see my tree from the street in my front room windows. I always wanted front room windows so you could see a lit tree in the window!!

I have had the rest of these decorations for years but I want to document them because when my kids are grown they will look back at thesse pictures and say remember the wooden nativity that we played with and the trees that always sat on the piano! I have memories of decorations from when I was a kid and wish I had photos of them to cement the memories.



When all was said and done I kicked up my polka dot santa sock clad tootsies and sipped some home made hot chocolate. I plan to do a whole other post on that recipe but I better blog Thanksgiving first!

Parenting by Kristin

Guilt is such a powerful tool as a parent. 10 minutes ago I lost it and I mean COMPLETELY LOST IT. I actually resigned as a mother with my parting words before I shut my bedroom door being "And when you all grow up to be complete losers it won't be my fault." Now I feel it necessary to give a little background here, It is currently 5:45 on Thursday afternoon. My children have been home from school for more than 3 hours, more than enough time to complete the simple tasks of homework and instrument practice, YOU'D THINK!!! But not my children NOOOOO! Examples of how effectively they killed time this afternoon to follow in bullet points because they look so official and I like them, who cares if this is not the appropriate time for them.

• Brett stayed after school and did get his homework done so that is one positive but when it came to piano practicing he sat a the piano, played though his recital piece for like 3 minutes and then proceeded to sound out the theme to "The Office" now while that is awesome that he has the talent and ability to play by ear so easily it gets us no closer to polishing a song that needs to be performance ready in 16 days.

•Samantha rather than do her homework during the week a little each day decided to leave it all to Thursday night to complete, and rather than actually work on her homework she has squandered the entire afternoon on eating me out of house and home, leaving bits and pieces of her clothing strewn about the house and sitting at her desk "pretending" that she was doing her homework. Now here we are tears, a few slammed doors, LOTS of yelling (by her I may add not me) and coming quite close to blood and she is still not working on it.

• Colby sat in his room at his table with his homework out and actually built some pretty impressive lego creations, oh and managed to smash pizza into my carpet in between building projects.

So that brings you up to speed as to my reason for resigning as a mother, I am so tired of nagging my kids to do the things they must EVERYDAY, seriously you'd think Brett would not be surprised when I ask him to brush he teeth...HE'S 12 years old for heavens sake, this is not a NEW thing!! After having all I could take I told my children I quit...they could never brush their teeth again, never to their homework, eat whatever and where ever they wanted and that when they grow up to be complete losers it won't be my fault. Now 10 minutes later, Piano is being practiced, homework is being worked on and rooms are being cleaned with out asking. I love guilt, well except when it comes after telling my kids that they will grow up to be losers without me!

On a side note Yesterday was the first day a Christmas and somebody brought to us a Partridge in a pear tree! How cute is this and it totally brightened our day! Now I just need to get my Christmas decorations up so he doesn't look so out of place in this bahumbug looking house!