Wynder Christmas 2013

     Well another Christmas has come and gone. It was a great 2 weeks off of Work and School for our family. We did so much stuff in the last 2 weeks that I don't really even know where to start. This 2 week break really felt like a long break because we were staying up late and waking up early almost everyday. I will do my best to remember what happened in the last 2 weeks. I really should do this "Blog Thing" daily, instead of waiting till the 2 weeks are over and then trying to remember all the fun and funny things that went on.

     We started the holiday season the way we always do by making Christmas crafts and gingerbread houses with the boys. Well Tyson and mom had a gingerbread train. We do this every year and the boys love to decorate and eat the houses. It is a great way to get into the Christmas spirit.

 Christmas Eve

     We spent Christmas eve at my moms this year. It was the first time in 8 years that all the boys were home at the same time for Christmas. We had a great time watching the Softball and family videos that Jo made for all of us. That is the best part of Christmas for me. I love to watch all of the highlights from the softball season and to watch all the family video that Jo had caught through out the year. There are so many funny things that happened through the year that Jo catches on video. We all had a great laugh watching us dance at Travis's wedding, watching Brody dance on the baseball diamond and all the funny things that happened camping in Was a.
     The Boys opened their Christmas pj's and we opened all the family presents together.

    It was great to have my brother Ryan here for Christmas and have some time to hang out. All the brothers went into Lethbridge a couple of days before Christmas and did some last minute Christmas shopping. This trip is always full of laughs and many jokes that probably cannot be repeated in this blog. haha. It was good to have some hang out time with Ryan because our visits are few and far between. Ryan and I took all the boys into lethbridge to go to a movie (The Hobbit) and then sent the boys home with my mom and stayed to go to another movie (Anchrman 2). Ryan Stayed at moms that night and we played hockey that next day with Kimball Lacey and his family. That night we played cards till late and the boys had a great time playing and hanging out together. Its funny now because Haydn and Brody Text and FaceTime Maddux all the time now. We also took the boys up to the gym to play some basketball and run around together.

Christmas Day

     Christmas day was exciting for the boys. The boys are still pretty good with sleeping in to a reasonable time which is good for mom and dad haha. Haydn's main gift was a iPod 5 and Brody's was a iPad mini and they were so excited to get those gifts. Tyson's main gift was some toys from the movie "Cars". The boys were good to each other this Christmas because they each bought gifts for each other and mom and dad. This was special because they used their own money to buy the presents. I bought the boys a new game for the PS3 called "Rocksmith". It is a game that teaches you how to play guitar. You plug a real electric guitar into the game system and it teaches you how to play a number of different songs. Haydn loves it.

Edmonton Trip

     We spent the 2nd week of the holidays up in Edmonton with Ryan and Brandi. We always have a great time hanging out and playing games with them. We spent one of the days sledding out at Brandi's moms farm. They have a lot of open space and the kids had a great time sledding with each other. The kids would sled down the hill and then we would take the "Gator" down and pick them up and drive them back up the hill. We did this so many times. We stayed out there for dinner and cards as well. All the kids play well together and have a great time. Tyson and Mieko played so good with each other. They did everything and went everywhere with each other. We also made our annual trip to Chuck E. Cheese together and let the kids run wild and play games. Of course we spent like $90 on pizza and tokens and we ended up with a couple of $1 prizes for our tickets haha. BUT, the kids always love to go there and they have so much fun so I guess its worth it haha.
     We really did not do that much. We like to just let the kids hang out and play during the day and then the adults can hang out and play cards when the kids are in bed. That seems to be what we do when we visit. Its good cause there is no pressure to do anything expensive. Its great just to relax and hang out.

     On new years eve we had our regular chocolate fountain treat. The kids love this and wait for it all year. Its messy but the boys have so much fun doing this. We actually counted down the new year for the kids at 10pm so they could go to bed and the adults come have some time to play cards haha sorry boys.
     The roads home from Edmonton were terrible. Edmonton had freezing rain the day before we left and it made the roads like skating rinks. When we drove home on saturday we probably saw about 25-30 cars in the ditch. Some of the cars had rolled and were fairly beat up. Luckily we made it home safe with no problems. We stopped at the mall in Calgary so the boys could spend some of their Christmas money. Haydn bought an Airsoft handgun and Brody bought a bunch of Duck Dynasty stuff. I bought a new pair of goalie skates and a new goalie stick. Don't tell Tyson but his Christmas money paid for Chuck E. Cheese haha. Whoops sorry Tyse.

   
   

Odds and Ends of the Break

 Haydn's Choir

Cardston Elementary Senior Choir

     Haydn has been singing in the Cardston Elementary Senior Choir for the last couple of years. Last year they won a competition that made them the best elementary senior choir in all of Canada. They received a trophy and a certificate for this achievement. These kids are great and they put in so much work to learn their songs.

     Haydn had his Christmas concert a few weeks ago and he almost missed it. He had been sick all week and was not sure if he was going to be able to sing in the concert. We felt so bad for him because he had worked so hard and woke up so many early mornings (which was probably a bigger job for Kristi). He missed school monday, tuesday, wednesday and Thursday. His Concert was thursday night. He stayed home from school to save some energy and went to the concert that night. He was supposed to perform 2 shows that night. We as a family went to the first show and listened to the choir. He started the night feeling pretty good, but as we watched him through the show you could tell that he was not feeling so hot. He was not able to do the 2nd show because he was so sick, but he did a great job in the first show and they sang great.

December is Here

     Well what has been happening since halloween????????????????? Haydn and Brody had their birthdays on December 4th and 9th. Haydn is now 11 years old and Brody is 8 years old. Brody is especially excited because he will be baptized this month. This will be a great day for him to share with all the family and he is very excited for that. Brody also was able to go to "Cubs" for the first time last week and he was really pumped up about going with his older brother to that. BUT now that Haydn is 11, he will be moving out of "Cubs" and into "Scouts". Wow, they are growing up so fast.
     Kristi let the kids choose what they wanted for a birthday dinner. Brody wanted chicken wings, which was great because I love chicken wings. All Haydn wanted was sushi, so Kristi made him home made sushi and teriyaki beef which was so good. Haydn is so funny, because he is the pickiest eater ever, but he will eat sushi everyday if he could. Either way we had 2 great meals for the kids birthdays.

     I played in the Cardston Alumni basketball tourney this year. They did not have many players coming back this year for the tourney so they asked a few random people like myself haha. This was a lot of fun because Ryan was asked to play as well so he flew home from Vegas for the weekend and we were able to play on the same team. This was great because I missed seeing Ryan a few times during the summer because of Haydn's baseball tourneys and our camping trip at the end of summer. Ryan stayed with us, so it was nice to hang out and catch up. I had not played in a competitive basketball game in about 5 years so I was really nervous, like had to go to the bathroom 8 times before the game nervous haha. We won our first game in the last few seconds of the game. We had a call that went our way with about 4 seconds left in the game and that sealed it for us. Our second game we were winning the whole game by about 10 points and then fell apart in the last few minutes and lost by 3. We played in the third place game and won that game. I had a great time playing and found out that I am kind of a Hack when it comes to basketball. I will probably just stick to playing softball!! haha!

     We are having a baby GIRL!!! Yes, I will be the father of a daughter. This is a scary thing for me to think of for some reason. Kristi was soooo excited to find out that she was going to have a baby girl on our last baby. She had to pull the car over to the side of the road when she was telling me because she was crying cause she was so happy. Deep down all dads want to have a son and all moms want to have a daughter. I am happy that Kristi will get to have that. She has such a great connection with her mom and I am sure she would love to have that same connection with her own daughter. It will be good for me to get more in touch with my sensitive side haha. I am sure I will parent a daughter different then how I have my boys. I keep telling Kristi that it is good that we are having a girl cause now we will have someone to take care of us when we are old. We are excited and are in the process of brainstorming names!!

 



      It has been sooooo cold here the last few weeks. We had 2 days of school that were cancelled last week because of the snow. We hadn't had a snow day from school in about 4 years so it was amazing to get 2 days in a row off. We had temperatures of -48 with the wind chill. It was tough to be outside for any amount of time. The bad part is that I was supposed to fly to Dallas Texas on December 6th for a teachers conference, but the Bad weather we had must of made its way down south because Dallas had the worst ice storm it has had since 1950 and all the flights to Dallas had been cancelled. We tried to fly out the next day and the flights were cancelled again, then we tried to fly out the next day and again for the 3rd time the flights were cancelled. So me and Scott Quinton were stuck in Calgary for 3 days hanging out in a hotel playing video games, watching movies, hot tubbing, water sliding, and eating. It sounds like fun, but we wish we were in Dallas.

     Well it is christmas time again!! I helped Donny with his lights at his house, and we made our lights for the outside of our house. Each tree represents a member of the family. The big green tree and the 3 smaller green trees are me and the boys. The red tree is mom and after we found out our baby was going to be a girl, Donny made a small red tree to sit beside Kristi's tree.