Christmas Eve 2012

Every Christmas Eve we head over to Brandon's parent's house for a family party. 2012 was no different. We have a lot of fun traditions that we do. We always have a big delicious spread of food, play fun games, have an ornament exchange, open a few presents, and open new Christmas PJs. This year Jana planned a game that turned out to be pretty hilarious. She wrapped up several presents in several layers of paper with a lot of tape. We all sat around in a circle. The presents were in a trash can in the middle of the circle. We had to pass around a paper plate that had a pair of dice on it. Each person had to keep rolling the dice until they got doubles. Once they got doubles they had to run to the presents, put on pot holders, and a Santa hat and try to open up one of the presents. They had to unwrap is the best they could until someone else got doubles and then they had to switch places with that person. It was a riot. Jana had enough presents for everyone. We had a lot of laughs =) Here are some more pictures I got throughout the night including a group shot of us in out PJs.

 Papa always calls Scarlett "Monkey Girl" so he got her this cute monkey snow hat =)

2012 Pictures with Santa

Better late then never! I love how Scarlett is staring up at Santa. I have a little funny story about this. So, Alexis really didn't want to sit on Santa's lap. I talked her into sitting on his lap so I could get a picture of all four of them but told her she didn't have to tell him what she wanted or anything. So while she was sitting there waiting for me to take the picture, Santa asked her what she wanted. She couldn't just ignore him! So she told him what she wanted, which was a bow. (a hunting bow) Well he didn't quite hear her well enough and his response was, "A Pony?" Well that pretty much mortified her that he would think she wanted a pony. It was quite funny, and we still laugh about it =)  We visited santa at "The Streets of Southglen." Afterwards we walked up to the candy store and bought some candy. The kids think that is a great tradition to continue =)

Pumpkin Carving

To be perfectly honest, I really don't like pumpkin carving. At all. I thought if I didn't mention anything about it, my kids would forget. It was actually working, until two days before Halloween when Tori brought home a pumpkin from school that they used in a science experiment. I was this close! lol. So I promised the kids that the next day I would take them to get pumpkins, not realizing what a task that would be. You see, all throughout the month, each time I would go into any store there would be hundreds of pumpkins in bins outside of the stores. I thought we would just drive up to any old store pick out big wonderful looking pumpkins and be on our way. Boy was I wrong. Apparently every store in Colorado sold out of all of their pumpkins a few days before Halloween, and there were no pumpkins to be found! I felt so bad as we went from store to store only to be disappointed. Finally on our way home we decided to stop by one last place. We were thrilled to see a small box labeled pumpkins out front. I dropped Alexis off in front of it and went to find a parking spot. It turns out there were two pumpkins left! They were pretty sad looking, but they were pumpkins none the less so we snatched them up. Luckily Tori had hers that she got from school, so we got the other two for Levi and Alexis. Poor Scarlett didn't get one, but that's ok, because we waited until she went to bed to carve them. (Oh the life of the fourth child)

Here is Alexis all ready to begin scooping hers out. You can kind of see the ugly marks on the pumpkin. There was one good side though that was perfect for the face, so we lucked out.

In Tori's class at school, they made volcanoes out of carved out pumpkins. Luckily hers was all cleaned out and ready to carve when she brought it home. It was really pretty and big too =)

Here's cute Levi all ready to scoop his pumpkin out. Or so he thinks. He had no idea what was to come.

Yes those are tears, and that is one disgusted boy. He would hardly get through scooping out the pumpkin without gagging. I took mercy on him halfway through and scooped the rest out for him.

Alexis on the other hand had no problem whatsoever with the sliminess of scooping hers out. It's so funny to see the differences between each of our kids. Look at all that slime!

Levi tried very carefully to scoop it out without touching any of the gross stuff.

Tori was happy as can be to skip that part and get right to carving.

If you though I took a picture of the finished products all lit up on our porch, you are sadly mistaken. I have no idea how I forgot that part. So is life these days.  Levi had Brandon draw a scary face on his and  then fell asleep on the couch as I carved it out. Alexis worked for an hour carving a ghost on the front of hers, only to have the whole thing cave in right as she was about to finish (luckily we had a good sense of humor about it and we got a good laugh out of it) And Tori worked really hard on her silly faced pumpkin and it turned out really cute  

It ended up being a fun night. Although I really don't like carving pumpkins I need to get over that so the kids can have fun memories like this. Next year I will just have to make sure to get our pumpkins early!

Levi's Baptism

On October 26, 2013 Levi was baptized. It was a wonderful day for him and for our family. We were so blessed to have so many friends and especially family to share in this special day. With Levi being our third child to get baptized, we have developed a few traditions along the way. One, is to have pictures taken beforehand to be displayed at the baptism. When Alexis and Tori were baptized we bought them each a new white dress. For Levi we bought him his first suit. It took a few trips to the temple to get pictures that we were happy with, and poor Levi was actually really sick at the time, but we were able to capture some treasures. Here are some of our favorites

We had his baptism at 10:00 am. It turned out perfectly. I loved having so many of our family members participate. Here is what the program consisted of:

Conducting: Layne Crowther
Opening Song: "When I am Baptized"
Conducting: Grandma Barker
Pianist: Aunt Kristalyn
Opening Prayer: Uncle Michael
Talk on Baptism: Aunt Katie
Levi's Baptism: Performed by Dad
Witnesses: Papa and Grandpa
Interlude Music: Aunt Kristalyn
Special Musical Number" "I am a Child of God" sung by Levi's sisters and cousins
Talk on the Holy Ghost: Aunt Cindy
Confirmation: Performed by Dad
Bishopric remarks: Layne Crowther
Primary remarks: Gloria Harris
Closing song: "I Love to See the Temple"
Closing prayer: Uncle Daniel

It was wonderful and a very special spirit was felt. Levi looked and felt so happy. I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked. But here are the ones that I did get. I cannot believe that I didn't get one with Nana and Papa, they of course were there, and would not have missed it. They  hurried home right after the baptism was over to get things ready for the luncheon we had afterwards. I will take a picture of them with Levi and insert it later =)

After the baptism, we had refreshments in the relief society room , and then headed over to Nana and Papa's for a family luncheon. I didn't get any pictures of the luncheon =( but it was yummy, and a good time was had by all. When we got home that night we gave Levi his gift from us which was new scriptures, a football CTR tie tack, and some scriptures marking crayons. This was such a special day for our family. We are so proud of the sweet, kind, loving boy that Levi is becoming. He is such a joy to us and all of those around him. 

Summer Camping

This past week we went on our annual family camping trip.  We went to the Michigan Creek camp ground, near Jefferson Lake.  We actually went to this same campground two years ago.  We were able to get the same exact camping spot, and were so excited about that. (It was right next to the bathroom, which is always a plus).  The last time we went to this spot we brought our yellow lab puppy Jasper with us.  It was a disaster taking him.  This time was so much more enjoyable.  We did take our dog Misty with us but she did great. It was so nice to get away for a few days and just relax as a family. We hung out, went exploring, went fishing, and ate yummy campfire treats. Lots  of memories were made and we came home filthy and exhausted. Here are some pictures I took. I wish I had gotten more.

One of our kids favorite things to do on camping trips is sit around the fire and carve things out of wood.  Brandon would always do this when he went camping with the scouts, and now he does it with our kids.  Needless to say we have a lot of wood carvings around here! This time  he brought them each a piece of wood to carve swards out of. 

It was so fun to see Scarlett enjoy the whole camping experience this year.  She was too little last year to really enjoy it, but boy did she love it this year!  She wanted to do everything the big kids were doing, and wasn't afraid to get dirty in the process.

Like I said, we brought Misty with us. She did great.  She didn't even need to be tied up because she stuck right around with us

 We bought little papasan camping chairs for the older three when they were younger, and it was so fun to see Scarlett enjoy them.  I couldn't get enough of seeing her lounging in them.  I think it made her feel like such a big girl =)

Here are Lexi and Levi carving their swords. You gotta love the box cutters! haha

Scarlett was being so cute sitting and playing with Misty.  I got my camera to take a picture of the cuteness, and right as I snapped the picture Scarlett grabbed Misty's face.  As you can see Misty was not too happy about that.  Scarlett is a grabber, and Misty can by a little snappy at times.  Not a good combination!

Brandon brought his blow torch along to help get the fires going, lol.

Here are Alexis and Scarlett eating some blueberries.  Some of them were a little smooshy, as you can tell by their faces.  Scarlett was reaching to throw hers on the ground. I was constantly picking up food from the camp site, for fear that we would attract bears! Some rangers stopped by the first night and told us they had been having some "visitors" and to make sure we locked up all our food at night.  That was enough to freak me out and turned me into an obsessive food cleaner upper. I got every last crumb! 

When her little camp chair kept tipping over, she decided she liked the big camp chairs better.

There was area to go exploring that led to a river.  The kids loved exploring, and Scarlett wanted to be right there with them

The kids loved playing in the river.  It made me a little nervous when they were climbing across the rocks, but luckily no one ever fell in!

Alexis was determined that she was going to catch some fish with this plastic bag.  She tried all different spots, and tried her hardest to get one! She even lost the bag at one point, and tracked it down way down the river.

When deciding on where we wanted to camp, one of the priorities was going somewhere with no fire ban.  Having a camp fire was a must for us.  It just doesn't feel like real camping without one!

We did smores the first night, which is always a hit.  We forgot our marshmallow roasters as home, so we had to make some out of sticks. 

Here is Scarlett munching on a marshmallow before we even had a chance to roast it! She loved those marshmallows, and didn't even know the difference between a roasted and non roasted one, so we just let her go to town on it.

 Brandon brought his fly pole, but we didn't have any poles for the kids, so Brandon made some out of some tree branches and fishing line.  They worked great and we actually caught three fish with them!  I wish I had gotten more pictures =(  He had the kids catching grasshoppers in the field to use as bait, and the fish loved those grasshoppers! We threw all but one fish back, which Brandon cooked over the campfire that night.

Scarlett was fascinated by the outhouse. After I told the kids a scary story about an outhouse (mom fail), they were afraid to go alone, so we spent a lot of time waiting outside the door for them =)

The second day, we planned on going to Jefferson Lake to go fishing, but it ended up raining off and on all day.  So we just stuck around our camp site.  The kids made friends with two kids at a campsite next to ours and had fun exploring and catching grasshoppers with them all day. In between downpours, Brandon took the kids fishing.  It was a great day.

That night we made banana boats. Alexis has been raving about them ever since she had them earlier this summer at youth conference. I actually had never heard of them!  You take a banana, cut it down the center (with the peel still on), and stuff it with goodies.  We had mini marshmallows, chocolate chips and reeses pieces. Them you wrap it in tin foil and roast it over the fire. When it's done you have a gooey yummy treat.

Here are Brandon and the girls filling theirs.  Brandon was a little unsure of it as you can see by his face.  Levi wouldn't even entertain the idea, and opted for a smore instead =)

Here are Alexis and Tori's stuffed and ready to wrap.  I could not believe how much they stuffed into theirs!

Waiting for them to be done! They ended up being pretty tasty, but a little weird at them same time, lol. Alexis finished Tori's when Tori decided she didn't like the banana flavor.  It was fun to try something new!

Here's a picture of me to prove that I was indeed there =)


Getting ready for camping trips, and going on them is always a lot of work.  But the memories made are priceless and I wouldn't trade it for the world.