A fun Christmas activity - snicker bar trains :)

Sooooooooo our kids have gone to school for @ 2 minutes this week; Monday and Tuesday were 2 hour late start days, and Wednesday and Thursday were cancelled all together. Today it's snowing here and there are lots of car accidents, so we're pretty much home. Nellie decided that she and her friend, Megan, wanted to make snicker bar trains so here are some pictures of this wonderful activity. Above are some gummy bears fishing off a log - notice the catch for the day sitting beside the gummy bear. It's hard to see but there is a vanilla tootsie roll snowman in both scenes.
This is Megan's scene - cute log house, huh?

Here's Nellie's

The finished product with the "artists" themselves :)

In this picture you're SUPPOSED to notice the snow falling in the background.

Oh what fun it is to . . . make snicker bar trains :)
Merry Christmas!

A VERY Merry Christmas to Good Ol' Daisy

You heard it - Daisy got a new dog house . . . and today for her early Christmas present, since she's been such a good girl - a new big fluffy Costco bed!! Hopefully she'll be a little more comfy tonight when it's supposed to get down to 10 degrees. I hope she doesn't chew holes in this bed and scatter the stuffing all over the yard like she did the last one - we thought it had snowed in the summer :). Merry Christmas Daisy - we love you!
I had been playing around with the settings/lighting on the camera trying to get a shot of Daisy in the dark and took this of our tree - it's a little fuzzy, but looked sort of neat so I thought I'd include it. We also watched Elf for FHE tonight - it's such a funny movie and besides the fact that Nellie could (and did) practically recite the entire show, it helped me to feel some fun holiday spirit. In all the hustle and bustle of the season sometimes we have to take/make some time for fun ")
THE END!

Nellie's dog house "project"

For a couple of classes at school (Flora culture and Horticulture) Nellie had to do a project of 10 hours in length where she used tools, learned the uses of them, and completed a project. She did her first 3-4 hours up in Oak Harbor with Kyle Soptich (professional handyman/Soptich Solutions), and then finished up with her Dad, this last Saturday, building Daisy a new dog house - or as her Dad calls it a "condo". Nellie looks a little tired . . . maybe her fiasco the night before took its toll on her, but we'll save that for another time ;).

They both worked very hard all day long on this. Nellie barely had enough time to jump in the shower before going to babysit.

This is the finished product - that's right we've got an opening door (I'm not quite sure if it was attached yet in this picture)!! When we reside our house in the spring we'll side Daisy's house as well, and add some shingles to the roof. Right now we just put a blue tarp over the top - nothin' white trash about that "). It was pretty funny last night because Lee turned the light on in the back and kept raising the blinds to see if Daisy loved her new house. I think Lee was almost more excited than Daisy was - and for a guy that supposedly doesn't like animals that's pretty good :)

Elf-ed (plus Emily Doo-ba)

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

The Soptich Family Christmas Party @ Ensign Ranch

Last weekend we had Lee's family Christmas party - which has become a "weekend" the last couple of years. We had lots of fun playing games, holding new babies (there were 3 there born Nov. 20th), and catching up. Lee must have taken this picture of Paul and I playing a little ping pong :)
"Grandma Great" holding one of the twins

Grandma Great w/twin, Connie, Ciera w/twin and Sarah with Kendall - or is that Addison?

Danny

Emilee, Becky and Paul

Present time!!

Halle and Gracie with their Hannah Montana dolls that they got from Grandma Great

. . . and you'll never guess . . . I got the coveted rag quilt this year (made by Becky)!!! YAHOO! Here's a picture of Scott all snuggled up with it on Sunday afternoon.

We have a LOT to be "thankful" for . . .

This little turkey wishes you a Happy Thanksgiving - in fact all of the turkeys below wish you a Happy Thanksgiving :). This is an idea that Emilee got off the Internet (crafty crow) and sent to me so I thought we'd try it. Nellie and I, along with Bailee and Paige's help, tag teamed it and made a ton of turkey cookies. They were a lot of fun to make.

We had a smaller group this year; Kaisa and Billy celebrated with his parents, and Emilee and Paul with his family, so we ended up with 15 people I think. This is our festive table with our sparkling cider all ready to go.

The "turkey bowl" is a big tradition in our family on Thanksgiving. The guys all get together with other guys from our church and have an early morning football game - frost and all. Lee's opinion is that you have to dress outlandish to participate, so here's Tyson in his BYU dredlocks.

. . . and of course my one love in HIS lovely hat ") . He always has to load up on muscle relaxers and pain killers afterwards but it's worth it I guess.

Chad's friend, Josh, is wearing the hat that my Mom made me last Christmas - yes it's pink.

Here's the pre-game "tough" picture: Lee, Tyson, Paul, Chad and Josh

A wacky picture always follows -this shows their true personalities

Sweet baby Abby is thankful for everything

Big sister Summer hearts bananas

A little kickin' back on Thanksgiving

The ceremonial carving of the turkey

and checking out the adds to aid in the "plan of attack" for Black Friday's early morning shopping trip. This was Calley's first year . . . I hope she won't suffer any emotional scars ")

Nellie was just TOO EXCITED

Chad was "all dressed up with no place to go"

Jen brought a gingerbread house for the kids to decorate after dinner, and THEN Calley arranged another very fun activity for the kids.

Tyson played the part of the turkey (fills the bill quite nicely don't you think?). The deal was for him to run around and the kids were to try and pluck the feathers that were taped to his back.

Then it was time to drag out the firetruck.

Summer started out as the driver, but we quickly realized that she didn't have enough experience to drive a firetruck so we switched and Tanner took over.

It was a great day. I LOVE Thanksgiving and feel very blessed.

Emilee and Pablo celebrate 9 years!!

Emilee and Paul celebrated their 9 year anniversary last Wednesday, so they went out on a (short) "hot date". Having a 2 month old baby doesn't allow too long of a date.
Happy Anniversary you two crazy love birds - we love you!!