December 2011

December was crazy.

The way it is every year.

Jeff had a birthday on the 6th and we had a nice dinner out with his family and then back to our house for Soda Pop Cake.  We had left ALL the kids and cousins home with a sitter so the house was loud and crazy.  I will blame the lack of pictures on that craziness.

In addition to Jeff's birthday, there are 4 other Gardner birthdays in December.

Now add in Ward Christmas functions and work holiday celebrations, Christmas eve, and Christmas.

That's a lot of parties.

I was in charge of our Ward Christmas Party again this year.

I stayed up late many nights, painting, gluing and cutting the nativity display we had for that night.

My mom and sister were able to come over and help a few times with was greatly appreciated.

Here's how it turned out:

Later on in the month we had the 2nd Annual Gardner Talent Show

There were stories....

....sequins dresses.....

baton twirlers.....

....snapshot snatching...

....a beautiful bassoon and trumpet couple....

....upcoming writers for hip-hop artists....

.... and showing off drawings.

On Christmas Eve we joined with Jeff's extended family for food and some more fun. 

We were all told to bring a gift to wrap for a local shelter in need.

Although they really wanted to keep some of the gifts for themselves, they really enjoyed being part of the wrapping crew.  

As promised, Todd, here's the montage of photos you so gracefully posed for:

And here's Todd displaying our new Gardner shirts that get made each year.  On the back was our names and the number indicating when we came into the family.

Really cute!  The front says "Gardner Grasshogs".

I still haven't figured out where that came from.

The traditional nativity began and Griffin decided on the angel title this year.

(I haven't figured out where that came from either.)

Kai was acting shy, for some reason, and didn't want to take part in the nativity until good 'ol Todd offered to be a sheep with him.

Kai said, "I look like that because I was saying, 'Baahh'."

Then there was Trey.

The humble shepherd who ended up with scraps for his costume.

Just a towel.

Barely sitting on his head.

And he was happy as could be.

 Christmas morning.

I love Trey picking his nose in this picture:

Kai and Treyson discovered that 3 of Santa's reindeer did NOT eat their carrots.

Shame shame, I know your name.

It was a Chrismas full of wands, books, scooters, stickers, legos, Angry Birds, 

and smiles.

I hope your Christmas was as jolly as ours!

November Happeneings

On New Years Eve my brother-in-law, Todd, called me from Utah.

He had a great resolution idea for me!

I am to post on my blog once a week.

Since I didn't have any New Years Resolution plans, I figured that was a great one!

I found out over Christmas break that Todd and his wife, Megan, both check my blog and are very disappointed when it's not updated.

I didn't realize the fan base I had. :)

So here we go...... I can do this.

I need to start back before Thanksgiving.

November 21st was our anniversary. 10 years!

Jeff had planned to do a few of my favorite things that day.

We started with a lunch at Nielsen's. Oh yum. It's about time for another lunch there.

I get the same thing every time. Ham and swiss with avocado, fries, and a cherry-almond concrete to round out this amazingly healthy meal.

Next on the list.... pottery.

I've never taken a class but the few times we've gone to Aspen Grove as a family, I always make sure I spend some time in the pottery building.

Here are a few from those family trips:

Not "finished" at all because they don't have a place to fire the pieces there at the camp and I'm too lazy and cheap to get it done here. So there you go.

My attempts from the pottery outing on our anniversary didn't turn out at all.

Thus.... no pictures.

I'm blaming it on the throwing wheel.

Then we went to check into Gainey Ranch in Scottsdale.

Our plan was to do dinner and a movie because... well.... I love food I don't have to cook and I love a good show.

But dinner went a little long and we got a free gondola boat ride for eating there so we did that instead. We grabbed some hot chocolate and went down to the "dock".

It was slightly chilly and probably not as romantic as Jeff would have liked because we had to share the boat with 3 lady friends or sisters or something.

After returning to sturdy ground we went in to listen to some more music. Every night there at Gainey Ranch a different musical group performs.

Oh man we got a good one!!!

A guy named Myles David Lancette produces a few groups under the name Studio 5 Presents.

Myles is the drummer for his cover band (simply called "Myles David Lancette") that played that night.

It. Was. Awesome.

If you have the chance... go see them. I'm pretty sure they're still playing there.

It was a nice, kid-free, night out on the town.

And you can't beat sleeping in 'til your little heart desires.

Thanksgiving in Snowflake.

A trip I look forward to each year.

This year, my sister, Jill, was visiting from Hawaii with her little Vin.

--Who I happened not to get ANY pictures of!! How did that happen?

I guess I'll just steal one from Facebook.....

..... there.

As is tradition, the volleyball net was set up and a few of us got our cameras out.

I'm not really sure why, but I love pictures of people taking pictures of me. It makes me smile.

This would be my mom:

She is the resident photographer and made a really cute online slideshow of all the volleyball that day.

The day after Thanksgiving we took the kids down to the local playground.

It now has a skate park next to it which looked WAY more fun to all the kids.

The funniest was watching Trey try to run up the ramps and climb up.

He had barely made it here:

Treyson is happiest when he has his favorite cousin by his side.

Too bad Brooklyn lives so far away.

They play really well together and he's always wanting to save a piece of candy for her or buy something for her. It's cute.

The older boys tried using a skateboard someone had left but spent most of the time

doing this...

....and posing for me, of course.

Lukas was so funny. He was quite happy to be in front of the camera.

"Aunt Cici, look at me."

"Ooo... great spot Luke!"

"Aunt Cici -- get me punching this bad guy."

"Nice one, dude."

I could not even respond to this next one because I was laughing so hard.

He had been calling my name quite a few times, standing in this spot, so he knew exactly what pose he wanted to do.

"Cici -- Cici -- Cici -- Check this one out."

No idea what he's doing.

Of course we couldn't leave baby Roxy out of the fun.

Both Jeff and Brian were so funny pushing the stroller up and over these ramps.

It was a good trip.... it always is.

**** So there you have it, Todd. The first post of my brother-in-law-made resolution. Watch out, I've got some good photos of you for my December recap post.*****

Hi.

Does anyone ever believe me anymore when I say I'm going to post more often?

If you answered, "Yes." thanks for your faith in me and I'm sorry to have failed you.

This past month has been SO SO busy.

My sister, Katie... or Katelyn.... got married.

She snagged a great guy named Brandon Overstreet and were married on November 18th.

Aren't they cute together?

Doesn't this next picture make you think of the song:

"Fields of Gold" by Sting and The Police

I know these fields aren't barley but it works.

They had their wedding pictures taken at the reserve on Greenfield and Guadalupe and we thought it was a good choice for our family pictures this year too.

We went with my brother, Jason, and his wife, Stacey. They wanted their family pictures done too so we just kept trading memory cards in my camera and did both families at every spot.

Griffin was making the goofiest faces the WHOLE time. I had no idea until pulling them up later.

He had an expression similar to this in almost every. single. one. :

This next one is probably my favorite of the boys.

I had looked up from my camera to get their attention and ask them to smile. I must have tilted my head when showing them the face I wanted because they all ended up like this:

The next photo cracks me up. This was near the end of our "shoot" and the boys were just about done. I was doing some light testing shots and captured their REAL emotions of the moment.

Griffin's yawn.

Kai in his own little world.

And Trey wondering, "Really? We're not done yet?"

Sunrise and Songs

Remember when I planned to post one random picture a week?...

Yeah -- I think that happened once.

Anyways, my new plan is to add a song or two along with the picture!

I am a major music lover. There can never be enough singing and dancing in one day as far as I'm concerned. So I hoping this might motivate me to post more.

This picture is of the sunrise one morning a week ago maybe. I was walking home from boot camp and couldn't stop looking at the clouds. The colors were even better than what the picture shows but by the time I got my camera, the purples and pinks were gone.

Now for the songs.

There are so many.

I write new ones down almost every day.

I love hearing new songs but I also love hearing tunes from years ago that I had forgotten about.

So I may share a mix of both at times.

Angels and Airwaves -- "The Adventure"

The Temper Trap -- "Sweet Disposition"

Blind Pilot -- "We Are The Tide"

Enjoy!

A Wizard's Undergarments

The boys have been into Harry Potter lately.

Griffin was given a "real" Harry Potter wand for his birthday and the other boys always want turns with it.

So I found a tutorial online showing how to make your "very own wizard wand at home!"

I still haven't completely finished Kai and Trey's wands (otherwise I would have pictures) but they are impatient and took what I had completed so far. A half finished Harry wand for Kai and a Dumbledore fashioned one for Trey.

On Veteran's Day, school was out, and the boys had their jammies on for most of the day.

Trey even had his pull-up on still at 10am.

I heard the boys playing around.... casting and blocking spells.

Calling out "Expeliarmus!" "Redunto!", as well as "Avada Kadavra!", even though I've told them MANY times that the killing curse is not allowed in the house. ;)

So all of a sudden, Trey stops mid-play, with his "wand at the ready" and says, "Oops....sorry. (big grin) Dumbledore doesn't wear diapers!"

He then ran off as quick as he could to change into underwear.

So cute.

I love my wizard boys!!

Halloween 2011

I'm just noticing how much RED was in our costumes this year for Halloween.

Me (yes, I know my eyes are closed) a pirate.

Jeff as one of the best Nacho Libres I've seen,

Griffin as Harry Potter (who,by the way, just recently told me he might be changing his name to Harry in the future),

Trey as a ninja in a power ranger suit (he didn't know the difference, plus it was $6 at Goodwill)

Kai as Superman (in a saggy diaper).

This was the first of three nights dressing up which is why Griffin and Kai let me spray their hair black. They didn't know any better. This first night was our ward's Trunk or Treat. The boys ran around with their friends like crazy and were sweating 30 minutes after we got there.

Black droplets of perspiration streaming down their faces was not in the plans.

Neither was the itching.

Kai was fine, but Griffin was practically clawing his scalp off blaming all his discomfort on the hairspray-dye.

Drama, drama!

The next night was the Gardner Halloween Dinner.

Always a good time.

Julia as a zombie prom queen........Courtney as Medusa.

I caught Danica in a perfect position to "elevate" (get it?)

her cute ghost costume.

The next night was Halloween.

We set up a scary goal we had used for the Trunk or Treat.

This gave trick or treaters the chance of scoring a king size candy bar.

I took the boys around our block to get the actual Trick or Treat experience and discovered that Kai's kindergarten teacher lives on the same street as us! Does that make ME a bad neighbor or would it be HER fault because she's lived here longer?

Doesn't matter.

After that we picked up some of my crazy siblings and found a neighborhood haunted house.

This is Katie with her fiance', Brandon.

My always-willing-to-pose-sister, Shannon.

(I can make fun of her because we share that same trait. Although, one of us (**cough**Shannon) is a tad more willing.)

Allan, the cross-dressing-Geisha, who I'd bet was dressed by the sisters.

What a good sport.

And yes, he wore those shoes the whole time.

They actually forced him to walk more accurately for the character I think.

Smart move Allan. Smart move.

The haunted house was really well done, and made me scream once even though the people putting it on turned it down a few notches when children went through.

The boys loved it and were so proud of themselves for not being scared.

All-in-all... a great Halloween.