Christmas Morning!

It was a great morning! The kids stayed up late and so they slept in a little Christmas morning! We had a wonderful day in our jammies making great memories. Hope you all had a great day as well.

December pictures

For those of you who haven't been following along on my last post, I updated every day the things we did each night to celebrate Christmas feel free to check that out :-) Here are a few pictures of the highlights. Decorating sugar cookies. The real kind shapes and losts of frosting and sprinkles.
MaKady get's to celebrate her half birthday in December so we made peanut butter fudge with chocolate flowers on top for her to take to school and share with her class. They turned out pretty cute.
The annual picture of frosting on everyone's tongue.
This is decorating our gingerbread house.
It's been a great month making lots of memories.

Christmas Countdown!

Last year we started a new family tradition so this year is the "second annual Young family Christmas Countdown!" Every night we do something together as a family centered around Christmas. We sat down with the kids on Monday night and came up with a list of 25 different things. This way Christmas lasts the entire month not just a couple of hours on Christmas morning. I'll try to keep updating this list with all of things we've done this month. Somethings we already have scheduled others we'll decide that morning from the list what we are going to do that evening and the kids seem to look forward to doing the activity all day long. Here's to making great family memories the whole month long.
1. Watch Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer in front of a cozy warm fire.
2. The girls dance at the Festival of Trees. We also enjoyed all of the I spy and look & find Christmas books. Something fun about finding hidden snowmen, and Santa faces.
3. The elementary school Christmas program. We read Moosletoe.
4. The girls danced at a friends Christmas party. Mom sang a solo at the relief society dinner. We read The Christmas tree.
5. We made peanut butter fudge, chocolate fudge(2 kinds), and dipped pretzels, a good start to the treats we give our neighbors. We read the legend of the Christmas Spider.
6. Made Cream cheese cherry candy and cream cheese mint candies to add to our neighbor plates tomorrow night. Watched the First Presidency Devotional. It was filled with wonderful reminders of what the season is all about. Check it out at www.lds.org.
7. Made chocolate chip cookies and delivered almost all of our neighbor gifts.
8. Read the story "The Three Tree's"
9. Watched "Christmas with the Kranks" Made a gingerbread house (pictures to follow) and read "Merry Christmas Biscuit"
10. The Ward Christmas dinner. The kids slept by the Christmas tree.
11. MaKady and Mom finished Christmas shopping while Dad hosted a late night party for the other kids.
12. Young Family Christmas party.
13. The twelve days of Christmas have begun ;-) We read "Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer."
14. On the second day of Christmas...I can't list the fun things we are delivering because the family we are surprising may be reading this at some time. We also read "Twas the night before Christmas" and "The gift of the Magi".
15. On the third day of Christmas...we listened to our favorite Christmas Carols.
16. On the fourth day of Christmas...We went to the big city to look at Christmas lights. There is one home here in our little town that out shines any of the ones in the big city. I'm glad it's not our power bill :-)
17. On the fifth day of Christmas we ate popcorn and watched ABC family channel's Christmas movie "Snow"
18. On the sixth day of Christmas we watched the movie "The Santa Claus 2" and completely dejunked the playroom, it's now all ready for new toys.
19. On the seventh day of Christmas the girls had their Christmas dance recital. We also watched ABC family channel's Christmas movie "Snow 2" We found some fun Christmas movies to watch on www.hulu.com
20. On the eight day of Christmas, we made real sugar cookies, the cut out kind with lots of different colors of frosting. Everyone had a smiling, sticky, good time.
21. On the ninth day of Christmas, we played holiday bingo!
22. On the tenth day of Christmas, we finished wrapping and delivering gifts.
23. On the eleventh day of Christmas, we went with the Stuart family to Lava Hot Springs. The pizza was good and pools were great. This should be an annual tradition.
24. On the twelth day of Christmas we ate sorts of yummy food, hung out in the basement in front of a roaring fire, read the Nativity Story, and watched movies till the kids got sleepy.
25. Because the kids stayed up so late last night it was a wonderful morning. We didn't get up til after 7. We stayed in our jammies all day and a great time playing games, watching movies and eating yummy food. Til next year...Merry Christmas To you all!!!!!!!

new recipes

I just added some new recipes to my other blog we-cook.blogspot.com There is a recipe for black bean brownies and one for crustless pumpkin pie. I had both of these this weekend at my sisters. They were delicious! Let me know if you try them and what you think.

Happy Halloween

I know it's been over a week and I'm finally getting around to posting about Halloween. It has been one of those weeks. Gracie was a ballerina, Brock a knight in shining armor, Meggan was Dorothy, and MaKady was another fabulous ballerina. It was a fun night for all.

My Grandpa Roy Larson

My mom's dad, Grandpa Larson, passed away Tuesday morning. I don't have any recent photos to add so when I get one from my mom I'll add it. Grandpa will be missed and we are grateful for the knowledge that families can be together forever. This is the obituary that will be printed in tomorrow's paper. He was a great man and I have a lot of fun memories of the time we spent at their home. This is the second grandparent I've lost this year. As you can tell from the obituary they have an amazing posterity and I'm grateful to be a part of this family.
Roy D. Larson
DOWNEY - Roy D. Larson, 85, lifelong resident of Downey, Idaho, passed away of natural causes on Tuesday, November 3, 2009, in Sandy, Utah.
Roy was born June 15, 1924, in Downey, a son of Archie W. and Annie L. Denney Larson. He was the third of five children. He had two brothers, Henry and Reed Larson, and two sisters, Ivalue Packard and Glenys Edwards, all of whom are deceased. He grew up and attended school in Downey.
Roy married Myrna Taggart in the Logan LDS Temple on April 22, 1943. They celebrated their 66th wedding anniversary this year. They lived in Downey all their lives, except for the past couple of years, while they resided in North Pole, Alaska with their youngest daughter, Sandra (Scott) Averett, who took very good care of them.
Roy served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He was stationed in the Philippines during that time. After the war, he was sent to Korea for a short time. He was proud to serve his country.
When he returned home, he farmed and raised cattle. He also worked for the railroad at Pacific Fruit Express in Pocatello for many years. He enjoyed his retirement years.
Roy was a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He served in many capacities through the years, including the Cub Scouts, high priest quorum presidency, and a member of the ward bishopric. For many years, he and Myrna served as ordinance workers in the Logan LDS Temple.
He enjoyed four-wheeling, cutting firewood, and snowmobiling. He also enjoyed working in his large vegetable garden, which he shared with his neighbors. He had a well-kept yard and beautiful flowers.
Roy is survived by his wife; Myrna; and is the father of three sons and four daughters, Fred (Sue) Larson of Sandy, Utah, Rex (deceased), Eddy (Theresa) Larson of Magna, Utah, Marjorie (Ron) Batson of Kent, Washington, Louise (Eugene) Webb of Downey, Betty Ann (Mike) Wasuita of Mountain Green, Utah, and Sandra Dee (Scott) Averett of North Pole, Alaska. They also have 41 grandchildren and 69 great-grandchildren, with two more on the way.
Funeral services will be held on Saturday, November 7, 2009, at 1 p.m. in the Downey LDS Ward Chapel, Bishop Rex Nielsen officiating. Friends may visit with the Larson family on Saturday at the church from 11:30 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. Military rites will follow in the Downey City Cemetery.
Arrangements are under the care and direction of Horsley's Marsh Valley Funeral Home. You are invited to share condolences by visiting www.horsleyfuneralhome.com.

New Blog

A couple of friends here in our little town have started another little blog with healthy things our kids will eat. Feel free to check it out under my other blogs on the right. Or www.we-cook.blogspot.com. If you have any recipes to add feel free to send them to my e-mail and I'll add them to the blog.

New Me!!!

I decided to stop fighting mother nature. I went to the beauty supply place in town and asked them to help me match my roots and tada!!! I'm a brunette! No more fighting the dark roots and trying to hang on to being a blond. Of course come spring time I'll probably be ready for another change who knows. For know I like the new look. Let me know what you think.


PS You have to love the self portrait :-)

Summer Flowers that survived the flood.

These are a few of the summer flowers that survived the flood. The rose is from the bush that was planted in when my dad passed away and the lily is a gift from Dustin last year. I really enjoy gifts that keep giving so instead of bringing my a vase of flowers he brought me a lily that was blooming and after it was done he planted it in the flower bed and I get to enjoy it year after year. I sure do love that man :-) We also have a huge sunflower. It was 2 feet high when the flood came and now Meggan can look out her bedroom window into the flower.


These are my plants from Mother's day they were in pots up on the stairs so there were spared in the flood.


I love watching how things have grown throughout the summer.

One last Summer Highlight-Swimming Lessons

The kids took swimming lesson this summer at Lava Hot Springs. They had a great time. By the end of the week they were climbing the rock wall and jumping off the diving board. They seem to be picking on the basics so next summer I think we will spend that swimming lesson money on just going to the pool as a family 6 or 7 times. I'm already looking forward to next summer. This one went by just to fast.

Summer Highlight-Missoula Children's Theater

The last week in July, MaKady and Meggan had the opportunity to participate in the Missoula Children's Theater Camp at our local performing arts center. The company sends two people in their "little red truck" with all the props, costumes, make-up and accessories and within a week they pull off a production with 50-60 local kids. They auditions were on Monday and Meggan was chosen to be a River Runner. MaKady was a Snow and Sleet Smoother and a Phony Princess. After practice each day they all did workshops and MaKady got to participate in the make-up one. Notice the fake bloody wound in the first two pictures. They had a great time and I'm sure they will want to do it again next summer. *The MCT company has a documentary titled "The little red truck" that talks about this incredible program. Check it out if you get a chance.

BACK TO SCHOOL!

I still have pictures to post from the summer but I thought I would skip ahead and post about yesterday. It was the first day of school. Brock started kindergarten, Meggan is in 3rd grade, and MaKady started 6th grade. It was a great day! They all enjoyed spending the day at school and the homework wasn't too bad the first night. Hopefully they all stay just as excited through out the year. Gracie gets to stay home with Mom this year she's to little for preschool just yet but that's OK. We'll just have to find some fun things to do with out the other kids. Going to lunch, shopping, making cookies and all those fun things like cleaning the house, dishes and laundry. Here's to a great year.

Summer Highlight-Baseball & Softball

I thought I would blog a couple of times about some of the fun we did enjoy this summer. First off the camera baseball. Brock played tee-ball, Meggan coach-pitch, Mom was the town rep again, MaKady & Gracie the cheerleaders and snack servers. Dad was also Brocks coach. Last but not least Dad got to play softball. It's been 12 years since he played on an official team and he got his chance this year. It was great and it was a lot of fun to go and support each of them.