It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

I love Christmas time. Yes it always is so busy and goes by so quickly but I love it!

So the first week of Christmas here's a few things we did:

We put up the Christmas tree



We hung up the stockings



And put out a few other Christmas decorations. Blake hung the lights outside with 2 little helpers doing their very best to assist.



We started our Christmas countdown



And started reading a Christmas story everyday. Maybe some of my family remember this binder. It use to be at my Grandmother's house and is filled with different short Christmas stories. Now I have it and love reading the stories to my children.



We also attended our Ward Christmas Breakfast. Yes, it was a breakfast this year and not a dinner but it was still fun with alot of good food. What a way to kick off the holidays!

Our Thanksgiving!!

Yes I know I'm extremely slow. What can I say other than I've been busy. But I wanted to post some pics of our Thanksgiving.

We spend Wednesday evening with Blake's family taking some family pictures and just hanging out. Kierstyn and Ben had alot of fun running around with thier little cousins.

The rest of the weekend was filled with a Gardner family reunion. And it was jam packed with activities thanks to some wonderful planners who put it all together(Jamie, Robyn, JaLane, & summer)!!!

So here is the schedule so you know how busy we were:

Thursday-all activities held at the church

Thanksgiving Day Parade
Movie Room
Jedi Knight Training for boys
Beauty Parlor for girls
Dodge Ball
Pictures with GreatGrandma
Dinner
Turkery bowl
Turkey pageant

Friday

We had a quick breakfast with our friends the Hepworths!
Play time and lunch at Game World
Family Pictures
Dinner at the hotel
Wii tournment/ Scrapbook night

Saturday

Scavenger Hunt
Bowling & lunch
Temple sealings
Traditional Gardner Christmas party

Maybe that doesn't sound like all that much just looking at it but doing it all sure kept us busy. We had a great time and it was so much fun to see everyone. It was about 70 people so almost everyone was there. And of course it was great to see Grandma enjoying all the family!!! Thanks Grandma for giving us a reason to all get together had have a good time!! Love ya!

Hiking Black Mountain

About 2 weeks ago I had the chance to go to Time Out for women in St. George. While I was gone, Blake took the kids hiking. They hiked all the way to the top of Black Mountain about a 4 hr hike round trip. He said the kids did pretty good and walked most of the way.




They went hiking again yesterday with the Elders Quorum. They seem to really like hiking and now is the best weather for it!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween was alot of fun this year. We did the trunk or treating thing but that was a week before Halloween. Lucky for us, we were invited to a couple of great parties. The kids went to one last Friday that was just for kids, and had a great time. They played some games and did some crafts and just had fun playing with their friends.



Then on Halloween we went to another bash for the whole family it included pumpkin carving, carmel apples, slime, dinner, and of course trick or treating. Can I just say I have never seen trick or treating like that before. The whole neighborhood was filled with small groups of kids going door to door. And I was amazed at how much candy my kids got. Kierstyn was a tropper and finished the whole neightborhood, Bentley was done half way through and just wanted me to carry him.





Thanks Jeanna and Yvonne for putting on the great parties, we had a great time!!

Oh what a moment!

So last Friday I had one of those moments when I thought, I'm not a very good mom I need to pay more attention to my kids. Both kids were downstairs playing and I was upstairs paying bills on the computer. Then I hear Bentley start yelling and crying. Well I didn't even get up, I just thought oh great the kids are fighting again. But then he really started screaming and I knew he must be hurt so I went to investigate. Bentley was coming up the stairs just screaming and rubbing his eye. So I assumed he got something in his eye. I took him in the bathroom and flushed out his eye but he was still yelling. I tried several times to ask him what was in his eye but all he would dp was just scream at me. So finally I asked him to show me. Well he takes me downstairs and gets in a drawer he isn't suppose to be in and pulls out my small can of pepper spray I take jogging with me. He had apparently been playing with it and sprayed himself in the side of the head and then it dripped down into his eyes. Poor kid!



Unluckily for him, I had to strip him down and put him in the shower to try and get it all off. Its pretty nasty stuff and I could instantly see where it had touched his face as one side had turned a bright red. Poor guy took a short nap and then felt better but it gave me a good scare to! Not the kind of scare I wanted for Halloween though.

International Day

Instead of a Halloween party, Kierstyn's school celebrated International Day. Each classroom choose a continent and they dressed up like people who lived on that continent. Kierstyn's class was North America which worked out great since she was a cowgirl for Halloween anyway. I volunteered in her class that day and was impressed at the effort put into the event. Each of the classrooms was decorated and had crafts,activities, and snacks centered around that continent. The kids rotated through each classroom and then had a costume parade outside. Kierstyn had so much fun and really enjoys her school. Abover is Kierstyn in the Antartica classroom.

ZOO!

Okay, so its time to catch up on my blog. Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to go with some friends to the San Diego Zoo. My kids were so excited! They love the zoo. In fact, one morning Ben asked me if we could go to the zoo today and I explained to him that there wasn't a zoo in Las Vegas. He says, "there's one in Africa we could go to Afica." I had to just smile at that. Needless to say he was very excited about going to the zoo. It was a quick trip and I think wore me out more than the kids since they were excited to go with their friends. Here's a few pics.