Merry Christmas!!!!

Check out this best Christmas surprise ever!!!! 

I am so happy!!!! Grama and Grampa totally faked us out. (And I’m telling you it made my whole Christmas!)  I thought they were leaving today and would get here sometime late tomorrow. But this morning when we checked in to tell them Santa had found us they were already on the road-so then I thought they’d get here tomorrow morning. I didn’t know they’d already driven through the night! This evening not too long after sending them a Marco to see how far they were I took the garbage out. Because there were boxes all over the living room floor I went out the front door. (Never happens) then realized the downstairs door was open so I went and kicked Belle out then shut it. They had already been up the driveway so I was halfway down with the garbage when I got the Marco of them in the back yard saying “you wondered where we were...” it was so fun. I was totally surprised! I wanted to run....but I couldn’t decide down with the garbage or back up to see them and since I can’t run at all right now I just finished walking it down. But, it was awesome!!!! 

So fun! Totally made my day! 

Oh the rest of the week...Cannon’s team played basketball last Sat....kind of...it’s a pretty loose use of the word played. They looked liked they’d never played before the first game and were scared of the fact the other group was a year older the second game. Cann played hard though. He got to the free throw line a few times and while he missed all 4 the first game he made both the second game and it was 2 of the only 4 points his team scored. Yikes! 

(Colt took this pic but it was of one of the makes so we’ll take it) 

One thing that was good is I feel like he wants the ball more this year. And if ball hog #1 isn’t in or isn’t open they look for Cann...it’s interesting to not be the coach but....I’m not sure I can sit idly by and watch that—they just need more instruction and direction! The first team they lost to by 6 or so they’d never lost to before. The team that beat them by 40 (nicely -it could’ve been 80) packed themselves into a zone but these kids had no idea what to do with it. 
I might go to practice next week. 😉

After that we went caroling at the window of a ward member who lives in an assisted living place. And that’s all I remember-I guess we survived the rest of the day. 

Sunday shenanigans 

Then we survived the last 2 days of online school —and have our fingers crossed that we’ll go back in person after the first of the year 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

All week the kids have been wound to the nines-I would say that is the best summary of the week. But Wednesday we mostly just dealt with wound up kids-oh and it was freezing cold and wind blowing like crazy but I got to take some family pictures for the Vorkink crew. It was super fun. I hope they turned out! I don’t know I literally just took the SD card out of my camera and handed it to Janelle (brave right? To not delete the awful ones first-but they knew who they were dealing with)  Oh and Isaac and the youth went shopping for people in the ward (so I was up way late wrapping for him...and for our own stuff because I procrastinated then they switched back to online school and I was sunk! But I had some extras from him too) 

Thursday we took cookies to friends in the morning (the boys wanted to so bad and I was game just because I loved that they wanted to do something for someone else.) We’ve made a lot of cookies lately! Oh we had friends out Tuesday cuz it was pretty warm and we decorated cookies with them too-after zip lining of course. But back to Thursday- the day for the boys was highlighted by the “X” present. I didn’t really have one for them so I let them do there brother gifts a day early. My logic was they worked so hard for each other and shopped so intently I didn’t want those simple but thoughtful gifts to be overshadowed by anything Santa brought. I thought it worked out pretty well. 

Oh and I guess I did do the family X present. Ha! It was a microphone for when we went caroling. 

Ray took a pic of us at his house

They worked so hard learning this song all December. I was so proud of them!!! We sang at a couple neighbors and just sent it to one neighbor but then we sent it to our Grandmas too and some of our cousins got to see it. They might kindof hate the caroling tradition but I love it. 

https://youtu.be/d3vxXyXDTHs

It got late on us but then it was home and off to bed. We set out cookies and the boys had a few extra last second notes for Santa-it was hilarious-we set the cookies out and Tanner was like “Cannon get your note!” And went and taped his up. Santa did not come through with a remote control battleship just for the record. Darn. 

I had sworn I was going to lock them in there room (after Cannon was up at midnight last year) but we agreed last second and if they would keep the door shut I would open it when I got up to go to the bathroom as long as it was after 4 and an open door would indicate they could go peek. It kind of worked. 

They were in bed. 

And Isaac was snoring in no time,  then woke up between snores and told me I was being too loud banging things around. I was ticked!!! Cuz he’s about ZERO help! In any and all situations like this (celebrater hater) so I told him in a classic Frei line that he was “about as helpful as a chapped butt” to which he said “I’ll help” as he rolled over and was snoring again. Gee, thanks. 

Luckily he sort of redeemed himself. An elderly couple in our ward has COVID and he’s had to try to help with that as much as he can lately. Well he slept through it but his dang phone rang last night at 11:30!!! I didn’t know who it was (it was that sister though) I just wanted it to stop. I had 4 sleeping kids and I was in the middle of things! When it stopped...Sethy hadn’t slept through it so he was crying. Hoping like crazy the other boys would stay asleep. I quickly grabbed Seth and snuggled him for a minute then laid him down by Isaac where he contently went right back to sleep! I smiled and thought FINALLY Isaacs dang sleeping is helping me! Yay!!! 
And shortly after I got to bed! 

Well 4:00 somehow turned into 3:30 and peek-ha-turned into them ransacking ever single thing that wasn’t wrapped but they were having a blast. I love the magic too so whatever. When I went out to check, They begged to open just one little present Santa had left each of them and Colton “could make beep” (a walkie talkie) I agreed to it on the condition we waited until 7:00 for everything else! 

Deal! 

Experience has taught me to be a little careful about taking pictures of specific toys because then if something has ever “moved on” and then they see the pic they are like “hey, what happened to _____” it’s a pain. 


But they had fun. We had a good Christmas!!! They picked the menu, We had biscuits and gravy for breakfast French toast for lunch and “pick apart meat” for dinner. It was a fun day! Grama and Grampa were the highlight for me! The boys were happy to see them but sure love presents! They of course brought more gifts and gifts from the cousins. It’s been fun! 

The big boys never did nap! 

But Isaac Seth and I did, I crawled in bed next to Isaac and he said “I was just looking and a traditional 11th anniversary gift is made of steel.” 

??????????? I don’t get it. He definitely has other strengths that aren’t celebrating. There’s lots to love about him. His gift giving—is not one of them! He literally did nothing for me for Christmas-I mean except said it. But then on Christmas Day brought up traditional anniversary gifts. 

Hmmm I think it’s going to take a lot more than 11 years to figure this one out!! 

Oh well. 

Maybe he’ll surprise me. Ha. 

Merry Christmas everyone!!!! 

Quarter jobs for the win!

Christmas is getting close and these kids are wound up!!! But while the surprise sibling gift hasn’t been perfect-there’s no surprise about who they have! I think it’s still been a success if for nothing else than the quarter jobs. They worked so hard for me on Saturday! And really it’s all a guess if I give them a job and they are done in 30 seconds. Whoops. If it takes them 2-3 minutes I think that’s about right and when the jobs took way longer I just figured I better cough up a few extra quarters. 

That was a large part of Saturday, I can’t remember what else we did but I was proud of their efforts on the quarter jobs. 

This little stinker gets so excited when he finds any phone 

And speaking of stinker. Somebody knows exactly where the treats are...

Cann was turning Tanner into a Christmas tree. Things are usually a mess around here but we’re usually a good time. 

And the boys want us to build a railing and carpet the little area above the guest room upstairs so it’s looking like that might happen. Oh and a climbing wall to get up to it. Merry Christmas boys-they have the funnest dad, but I will make sure Santa still comes. Funnest dad or not they might be out of luck in that Dept without me 😉

Let’s see what else? 

Our good friends the a Wagners invited us over to make slime...that’s the perfect way to make slime-at someone else’s house! And throw it away on our way out the door. 



The boys loved it though!

Isaac trying to match the stain of the wood upstairs for our little project. 

The worst part about this is I have 4 little boys growing up thinking this is a perfectly normal thing to do at the kitchen table. 😳😳😳 it’s not!!!!! But somehow around here it is. 

Not worth a fight. 

The other thing I’m not a fan of is he’s been letting our outside dog sleep in the basement. It’s not even super cold yet. We don’t need a dog in here-we need a cat! We’ve had mice again Ahhhhhhh but I hate animals so a cat is kind of a problem too. There’s a family in the ward that has a bunch of barn cats they want to get rid of some. I could live with that. An outside cat you never see-sounds about like my kind of “pet” but what are the chances of Belle leaving them alone? Answer: Slim to none. 

Who knows. 

Life is pretty good though-I shouldn’t complain. I mean look at these grins—I’m a pretty lucky mom!! 

The shenanigans 

Saturday Isaac tore into his chair...but luckily the place we bought it from called him back and they would put a new base on it. I think that was a much better option  than him drilling out rivets and trying to straighten out the piece of metal and then bolting it back together or whatever his plan was. It’s at the place now and out living room looks a little empty without it. 

I can’t remember what Isaac was doing but I ended up taking the boys down to the church. Colt runs pretty darn well! And it almost kills Cannon to let Tanner win once in a while. 





 Sunday one really fun thing we did was read tons of stories out of the old Friend magazines that were December issue so it was some good Christmasy fun Then that night we listened to the first presidency Christmas devotional. (Oh the pics...) while the boys took apart an old DVD player that had a disc stuck in it they thought that was pretty cool. And they got the disc right out. And then of course continued for a complete dissection. At least it was Sunday night and Monday morning is garbage day so most of it made it down there the next morning. 





I got his fun idea out of one the Friend magazines about making a tree then the kids get to put an ornament on it everyday with something they know about Jesus—and if they run out, they turn to the scriptures. It sounded great! Too bad the Friend didn’t warn me it would turn into a major fight because this one wanted to use the marker when that one had it but this one asked and that one said “okay” but then was so sad because he didn’t really want to give up his turn. So then I thought the marker was taken away so I got was going to make him give it back and this one “always gets gets in trouble but does nothing” oh and in the meantime Seth is dumping water all over the floor/fighting with Tan and all the while Dad sits on the couch with his nose in his dumb phone. Well at least until he closed his eyes and had a little power nap. I swear,  I got ticked and threw the Christmas tree treat making activity out the window. Thanks Friend. My first ornament on the tree should’ve said some thing about how patient the Savior is...

Good thing Seth has a big brother for when mom won’t lift him up to look in the washer to check on his jamas that are in there washing. 

A little hauling wood  down to the basement project with dad. Isaac cut up one of the trees that was over at the property we have in town he’s trying to get it cleaned up because I am pretty sure the latest is he wants to build a spec home on it. Who knows? But he had some good helpers with the wood project. 

By Wednesday night I’d  finally cooled down enough from Monday’s family home evening debacle that we busted out the tree project while  dad had meetings with the youth over zoom. And the boys did have fun. 


This next picture might be the best thing of the whole week! We have been doing quick little jobs that we called quarter jobs. The boys are trying to earn a little bit of money to be able to buy one of the brothers a Christmas present. They are  supposed to earn 20 quarters. But then they will tell me they might want a few extra jobs because they might need a little more $ to buy_____if they get ______. We haven’t actually draw to see who gets who but it’s been pretty fun!! Its  so good to see them A: willing to work and B: thinking about somebody else and what they might like. 

Thursday Michaila  invited us over for a little play date and lunch with the preschool kids and younger siblings. It was beautiful weather and super fun! But when I got there the other moms asked me if I got the text about school? I hadn’t because we had just been trying to get out the door and what not but it was the bad news -we’re going back to online school next week. Bummer!

I love this four-year-old preschool age. (For some things 😉)  Tanner came home with this special present for me and told me I couldn’t open it and it was surprise. Then 30 seconds later he had it opened and put on the tree —it was too cute

And I don’t know what’s wrong with me but today I gave in when they asked if they could get the blowups out. Seth was loving life! And really Tanner had  helped me so much doing his little quarter jobs that I was more willing. They had a blast!



The other big news on the day is that I was about to put Seth you don’t for a nap but when I picked him up  his diaper was totally dry. He had had juice twice and I hadn’t changed him since the first thing this morning. So we made a run for the potty and stayed there till he went. It was awesome!!!  I paid up with a treat and some screen time so with any luck he’ll think that was a good deal and hopefully will be moving in that direction 🤞🏻 but I don’t know —potty training can be rough and I’m not sure I have it in me right now...we’ll see. 

Also the Bakers tended the kids on Thursday night just cause they’re nice. But Sethy spotted this little Santa Claus on their counter  and it was the only thing he would eat any dinner out of. So they are so nice they just gave it to him -oh they also gave him a little chair that she had got from Michaila,  he’s pretty proud of it-but now he has the Santa thing at home and it’s still the only thing he will eat any dinner out. Hmm not so sure how I feel about that but I gave him tonight. 

I think that’s pretty much everything from this week. Oh except me learning or relearning how to translate Isaac talk. 

“Hey do you want to....?” Translation: “will you?”

It’s so true he spins  it in this positive light like you’d want to (often times it will be related to some project he’s working on or dreaming up or something) ..so when I notice him doing it  I’ve been saying “why don’t you just ask me to do it” to which of course Mr. positive replies “oh, well I don’t want you to do it if you don’t want to” 🤣 he’s the best!