Happy New Year

On our way home we stopped at Natalie and Brian's for a couple of days to spend New Year's with them and the Andersons who also stopped on their way home.  We had a blast playing with the Evans!  (Thanks for putting up with all our loud chaos, guys!)

We forgot to pack our swim suits, so we got a little creative when the kids all wanted to get in the spool. Daphne and Sydney borrowed stuff from Kyrie, Dallin just wore a pair of shorts, 

and Hayden and Sean . . .  Well, you can see what they did.  

The kids just LOVED that spool and were in it every minute we'd let them.

One morning we forced them to play out in the front yard (the opposite yard of where the spool is) and sure enough, they found something to do.  They searched for rollie pollies, and made them a cute little house.

But despite all their best efforts, their rollie pollie wasn't appreciative and went to find himself a crack to live in instead.  

On New Year's Eve, Brian took us to the beach at Camp Pendleton.  

We had the place to ourselves, and had a great time.  The kids played in the sand, the dads played football, and I took pictures.

Eventually, the kids ventured into the water and got much wetter and colder than is probably advisable.

And the moment it became too much to bear (i.e. when the whining commenced) was the moment our trip to the beach ended.

All in all, a nice place to spend the last day of 2011.

Thanks for letting us ring in the New Year with you, Nat & Bri!  

a lunch with long-lost relatives

After Christmas at Stonehaven, we returned to Mom and Dad's for a a couple of days.  On one of those days, we drove out to Dublin to meet some Garietys we hardly ever see.

Arthur's oldest brother, Norb Jr. and his wife, Kathy, had come out from North Carolina to visit one of their daughters and her family.  So we drove out with Mike and Amber to meet up for a Gariety lunch at Fuddruckers.  It was the first time I'd met Arthur's niece, Anne, (who is actually older than Arthur) and  it had been years since we'd seen Norb & Kathy.  In fact, when we told the kids who we'd be meeting for lunch, Dallin said, "I have an Uncle Norb?"  wow.  We definitely need to do better at keeping in touch with our relatives!!!

It was really fun to catch up and get reacquainted with some of Arthur's family.

We stopped on the way back to Mom and Dad's and Mike and Amber showed us around this giant place called BassPro (I think).  It was like Disneyland for hunters.  Our kids loved looking at all the stuffed animals everywhere--bears, wolves, elk, deer, moose, turkey, mountain goats, fish . . .

Here's Daphne by a couple of wolves.

And we all had a fun time at this shooting range.  

(look at Hayden--he can barely see over the counter.)

And the excursion would be incomplete without a picture of us all posing by a big ole' bear.

(Sydney looks a little nervous, don't you think?)

good times. 

Christmas Eve/Day 2011

Christmas Eve

Preparing for our Live Nativity

We borrowed costumes from one of my mom's friends, and they were awesome!

Jemma and Sean as Mary & Joseph (don't you love the beard?)

Hayden and Carter--the cutest donkeys I've ever seen.

The wise people.

the cast.

After reenacting the Nativity story, comes a part of Christmas eve that is the most anticipated of all!  Building our hiding forts to watch Santa in the morning.  Here is Carter and Hayden in their hiding spot.  They were SO quiet on Christmas morning--I think they may have held their breath the whole time!  And Santa, who fell asleep on the couch . . . again . . . touched Sean's BACK! when his hand fell down while he was snoring away.  Sean didn't move a muscle, and as far as we can tell, our secret is still safe, and Santa does not have a clue that there are people all over our family room hiding under tables and behind couches and in the corners watching him deliver his Christmas presents.  Oh, we are good!

Christmas Morning--The kids with their presents from Santa

Look how much of the floor you can't see with the kids and their wrapping paper spread everywhere.

We got Sydney up a little bit later, after the main chaos had died down.  

And she was still pretty groggy.

This year, the husbands did something really fun for us Stone sisters.

They gave us each a card with some letters in it, and we had to combine the letters and unscramble them to find out what the gift was.

And it was . . .

tickets to see Celine Dion in Vegas together!  

Way to go, guys!  Can't wait!

(stole this pic from Jen's blog--Dad was blinking in mine.)

Finally, here's Mom and Dad opening the present from their kids.  

This year we all pitched in to start a mission fund for them.  After all the college tuition and missions they'll have helped pay for by the time Nathan is home from his mission, they won't have had a chance to save for their own mission.  Since they will be some of the best missionaries ever, we had to make sure a fund was  started for them.  It's something that we can all continue to add to as we're able, and more and more of us have jobs.  :)  We love you, Mom and Dad!  

The Christmas Day sickies.  

Poor Emma and Jacob sharing their Christmas dinner of saltines and gatorade.  

After church, we tried to get some pictures of all of us together using a timer on Jen's camera.  I'm pretty sure the little kids were bribed with cupcakes if they would hold still and smile for a few or 10 pictures. 

 All things considered . . . not bad.  

except for Brian looks like he has a bird on his head.

(see my sister Mel's recent blog post here, if you're wondering what the heck I'm talking about.)

Christmas in California--Before Christmas

Okay, finally catching up on all our Christmas festivities.  Here we go . . .

This year, all of the Stones got together to celebrate Christmas at StoneHaven.  It was the first time all of us, including spouses and children had been together since before Reed's mission.  It was super crowded but tons of fun.

Before heading up to Northstar, we did our traditional Christmas caroling.

I know this picture is not quite in focus, but I just had to post it anyway, so you can know what to look forward to if you ever have the privilege of being caroled to by the Stone Family.  While we were driving from house to house, I told my kids about how when I was growing up, Aunt Natalie always used to surprise me by pinching my bum when I sat down in the van.  Even though I'd check to make sure her hand wasn't there before sitting down, she'd slip it under before I'd made contact with the seat and GOOSE ME!  good times. 

 At the Cabin:

Jenny was genius and brought up stuff for the kids (and adults too) to make homemade ornaments to decorate the tree that we brought up to the cabin.

Melanie working on her Masterpiece, 

and Jade drinking capri sun, and looking very excited about her work.

The kids working on some of their ornaments

Daphne made these cool ornaments with her cousin Jemma while staying at her Aunt Jenny's house the week before Christmas on a home-school exchange program.  

Below, some more ornaments:

The beautiful tree!  I love how it turned out!

Other cabin activities included coloring giant coloring pages, movies, games, snacks, building forts, and there was some puking happening as well.  We had a lovely Christmas bug go through the family which, thank goodness, wasn't as violent as last year's bug.

Mom and Jenny brought up their sewing machines and all the materials for each of us to make these darling Valentine's table runners using a quilting technique that's new to me called stippling.  (I think that's what it's called.)  It was really fun, and, glimpsing the endless possibilities in the world of stippling, Julianne and I have already gone out to purchase our "free motion" quilting feet for our machines.

And this is me . . . finishing my table runner.  

The guys headin' out for their ski/board day.

goobers.

More skiing

 I think Hayden is adorable carrying his little skis!  

Not bad for his 2nd time on skis.

Okay, Jenny's gonna kill me, but I love this picture of her.  When I saw her wearing these goggles, I thought she'd put them on to humor her 3-year-old son.  

But no.  

She was wearing them because she was cutting an onion.  :)