Home For Christmas

After spending Christmas in Utah last year the kids asked us if this year we could stay home in Omaha for Christmas day. They really wanted to have Santa come to our house and open presents under our tree. So we decided to stay home for Christmas.

Usually we spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day going from one family event to another, but this year it was just our little family of 5.

It was probably a good thing we weren't planning on traveling to Utah before Christmas because there was a big winter storm making it's way across the west the week before Christmas and 1-80 was shut down in Wyoming for several days before Christmas. On Christmas Eve Day the storm reached Omaha and provided us with the perfect White Christmas! Since we had nowhere to be we bundled up and spent the day playing out in the snow. When Christmas Eve rolled around we had to get a little bit creative trying to keep some of our main traditions without having other family around. We usually dress up and act out the nativity with all our cousins, but with such a limited cast we decided to tap into our kids current love of coloring and have them color nativity pictures and then hang them up on the wall as we told the nativity story. We enjoyed a yummy candlelight dinner and then the kids opened up their Christmas Eve presents which were robes and slippers this year. At times it didn't quite feel like Christmas without extended family all around us, but after we were all in bed we still heard Santa's sleigh bells ringing outside and knew that whether in Utah or Omaha, Christmas was coming! 

Waking up on Christmas morning and going downstairs to open presents in our own house was great and we were all really glad we had stayed. Santa found us and as always brought lots of fun stuff. Mason got his pokemon cards, Brynn got Lucy a robot dog and some school teacher supplies, Miles got his orange ninja turtle dream light and a paw patrol toy. 

Christmas morning held a few surprises for the kids. This year Scott and I decided rather than giving the kids more stuff that they didn't need we were going to give them an experience. We surprised them by planning a trip to Florida to go to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and Disney World. We wrapped up several gifts to represent the different parts of the trip including Airfare to Florida, 7 night stay in a hotel, tickets to Universal Studios and Disney World, Lunch at the 3 Broomsticks with butterbeer, a Wand from Ollivander's shop or another souvonier of choice. The kids were all just as excited as we hoped. 

We also decided to surprise the kids and my family by telling them that I was pregnant and we would be having another baby in the summer. Honestly I think the kids were more excited for that than the Florida trip. My parents were in complete disbelief but after the shock wore off very excited. 

The rest of the day was pretty low key as we played with new toys and got packed and ready to leave for Utah the next day. That pretty much sums up our Christmas at home. 

Tis the Season

I'm not sure if it was because of the fierce morning sickness I have been experiencing with this pregnancy or if I'm just becoming a Scrooge about Christmas, but I would have just laid in bed and waited for December to be over if it was my choice. But I have three kiddos who deserve more than that so I came up with a plan that would force me to provide some fun Christmas experiences and memories for the kids. I planned out an activity for each day, like I have in years past with our advent calendars, only this year I wrapped a present for each activity and placed them all under our downstairs tree with numbers on them. Each day the kids would take turns opening a present to find out what we would be doing that day. Some of them were outings like going to see Santa at Bass Pro Shop in Council Bluffs (the best people watching I have ever experienced), the gingerbread festival at the trail center, driving around looking at Christmas lights, or going shopping for each others' Christmas presents. Some of them were activities at home like making gingerbread houses, dipping chocolates, cutting out snowflakes, reading books by the fire, watching a Christmas movie, or simply having hot chocolate. Truthfully some of my plans may have fallen through and I started to fizzle out toward the end, but all in all I think it helped us have an enjoyable Christmas season.
Of course the thing the kids were most excited about during the month of December was finding our elves, Zippy and Bella, each morning. On December 1st they arrived in Brynn's barbie car with a Just Married sign on back confirming the kids' suspicions that they would get married. Apparently the more elves there are the more mischief they get into because we sure found them in some silly situations this year. We started to notice a pattern that Zippy always seemed to be the one getting into trouble or getting hurt while Bella innocently stood by watching. All I know is I would gladly welcome these elves all year long if it meant my kids popping out of bed each morning so they could go find the elves before school. It's never been so easy getting them up and going in the morning.
It turned out to be an okay Christmas season after all.

Nothing says Merry Christmas like shoot BB guns while you wait to see Santa.

Miles 4th Birthday

Several months before his birthday Miles announced that he was going to have a Batman birthday. This seemed a little random since Miles knew next to nothing about Batman - pretty much just recognizing the logo. I was sure his desire for a Batman birthday would pass and he would end up wanting a Rescue Bot, Dinosaur, or Basketball birthday. Every time I suggested one of these he would adamantly insist that he was going to have a Batman party. He did find some Batman books that became a favorite of his to read and he began dressing up in our Batman costume more frequently, but it still seemed like an odd choice for his birthday theme. When the day arrived he was sure as ever that his 4-year-old birthday would be a Batman birthday. So I went with it but decided to make it more of a superhero theme instead of strictly Batman. We started off the party by having everyone decorate a superhero cape. While everyone was arriving and finishing their capes we played several different versions of Duck, Duck, Goose like Superhero, Superhero, Vilan or Batman, Batman, Joker. I am always surprised at how much little kids love this game. After all our little superheros were ready it was time to fuel up Ninja Turtle style with some pizza. After the pizza it was time for our superhero training course. This idea was based off of Mason's Transformer Birthday but was a little bit trickier to pull off indoors. Luckily we have a great open basement. The kids started off riding the wiggle car across the room, then they had to crawl through some tunnels, then they had to shoot a basket before fighting off an evil vilan (aka Mason), then they had to jump over some obstacles and finish by "flying" onto the love sac. This last step was the result of Miles' insistence that they needed to practice flying as part of the superhero training. I was grateful that my idea to fly onto the love sac satisfied this requirement because he would have been very disappointed otherwise. After everyone had completed the obstacle course several times then it was time for some target practice with various Nerf weapons. It was about at this point that all the kids lost interest in what we had planned and started wandering off to play with all the toys. It wasn't quite as successful as Mason's party years ago, but the kids were having fun in their own way so I guess that's what matters. We finished off by having cake and ice cream and opening presents.

Anderson Hunt, Ben Cook, Miles, Brynn, Norah Hunt, Spencer Petersen, Mason

Memories of 4-year-old Miles

• Likes all things big and powerful -- construction trucks, rescue bots, monster trucks. The bigger the better.
• Always reminds us to say prayers by shouting "Time for family prayer!" for all to hear. He always offers to say the prayer as well.
• Whenever his glasses get dirty he takes them off and informs us that his glasses are "foggy".
• He is extremely social and has no problem making friends wherever we go. His best friend is Ben Cook, but he enjoys playing with any of his friends. He plays great with Brynn and her friends, too. They are happy to have him be their puppy when playing house or their student when playing school. 
• He loves to color and is very meticulous and thorough with his coloring. He colors every bit of white space on the page and doesn't go outside the lines at all. 
• He has great fine motor skills and is an excellent writer. He knows all his letters and has very good handwriting. He knows how to spell all the names in our family and writes them all over his papers any chance he gets.
• Still a Sports fanatic -- basketball, baseball, and soccer are his favorites. In his prayers he often asks "Please bless that I will grow big and strong and be able to slam dunk." 
• Wears basketball clothes and basketball shoes every day.
• Always asks for 'fresh water', never just water.
• Adores Brynn and will do anything she says. 
• Loves attention and immediately goes into show off mode if he has an audience.
• No longer naps but is notoriously grumpy and ornery in the afternoon.
• Favorite shows are rescue bots and paw patrol. Favorite movie is Big Hero 6.
• His favorite color is still Orange, but lately he will occasionally add blue and green in as favorites as well.

Miles is far from a perfect child, but there is something about his personality, no matter how naughty he may be at times, that puts a smile on my face. Without him at home with me each day I don't know how I could have made it through this last year. He will forever be my best little buddy.

Our own Thanksgiving

November 2015

In 11 years of marriage, 2015 marked the first year our family has had Thanksgiving on our own. Before moving to Omaha we always lived by family and participated in our large extended family celebrations for Thanksgiving dinner. Last year we traveled up to  Minnesota and spent Thanksgiving with Vance and Janessa's families. This is year didn't allow for any travel plans so we just stayed home and had Thanksgiving as a family of five in Omaha, Nebraska. There ended up being a terrible ice storm that hit Omaha and we were more than happy to be safe and warm at home with nowhere else to be.
We set up a TV off the kitchen, turned on some football, and spent the afternoon preparing our feast. Scott took on the responsibility of cooking the turkey. He researched and gathered all the kitchen gadgets he needed in the days leading up to Thanksgiving and ended up cooking a juicy and delicious turkey.
I had taken on learning how to make homemade rolls last year for thanksgiving so this year I decided to expand my skills and tackle making my first ever apple pie. I watched countless you tube videos and asked for advice from all our pie making relatives. It turned out to be a pretty fun process and I was very proud of how it turned out.
Brynn and Miles contributed by designing custom place mats and name cards for everyone and setting a beautiful table.
Mason gave us play by plays of the football game going on.

Although very different from our typical family filled Thanksgivings, it turned out to be a great memory for our little family and wonderful in it's own way.

Halloween

For Halloween this year we had:

Harry Potter

Mason has been completely obsessed with all things Harry Potter since reading the series this summer so it made for a pretty obvious costume choice come Halloween. He opted for Quidditch robes rather than the tradition black school robes and he insisted we get the lightning bolt scar just right - even if it took redrawing it 17 times.

A Witch

While at Grandma Linda's this summer Brynn played dress up with the girls and ended up in this witches costume that Grandma Linda kindly sent home with us since it didn't fit anyone at our house. Brynn decided then and there that it would be her Halloween costume. In true Brynn fashion she didn't want any sprucing up or accessories added to her costume. It was fine just the way it was. 

Optimus Prime

Miles was the most enthusiastic Optimus Prime you could imagine. He was sooooo excited to wear his costume and go around the neighborhood trick-or-treating.

As always, Scott pulled out some treasures from our costume box and entertained the neighbors as he handed out candy. 

Fall Sports

When I think of Fall I think of school starting and I think of sports. I guess growing up in a big time football family and then playing volleyball myself, that is what our falls consisted of. This Fall our family took a step into a whole new phase of life when ALL THREE of our kids were playing Fall sports. Saturdays got a little bit crazy trying to get three kids to different corners of Omaha for their respected games. But with the help of friends and teammates we made it work.

Miles played his first year of soccer through the YMCA. His best friend, Ben Cook, was on the team and his dad was coaching. They had recruited all the little boys from our ward and neighborhood to play, making it a fun little team. When coming up with a team name the kids unanimously agreed on the name: The Soccer Team. I dare say it is my favorite team name up to date. We were all set with an awesome team and an even better team name, the only problems is as it turns out 3 and 4 year olds seem to like the idea of soccer more than actually playing it. Just keeping the necessary players on the field during the game proved to be a full time job for the coach. Miles, however, was 110% into each game. He's been waiting for his turn to play for years and he loved it just as much as he thought he would. In the first few games Miles would run up to the ball and kick it once and then just stand there while the other team ran and got it. I couldn't figure out why he was doing this since he loved to take off dribbling across the yard with a soccer ball at home. I finally figured out he was taking our instruction to kick the ball literally and so I told him to go kick the ball lots of times and the next time he got a foot on the ball he took off across the field and scored a goal - again and again and again. I have a feeling we have a lot of fun soccer years ahead of us with this boy.

The Soccer Team

Miles wasn't the only soccer player in our house. After taking last year off, Brynn was anxious to play soccer again. When her best friend, Collette Morrow, asked if she wanted to sign up for the same team it became Brynn's dream situation. Brynn played for OFC (Omaha Futball Club). She ended up on a fun team, Team Magic, with a fun coach and her skills improved so much over the season and she was a great contributor on her team. She is very excited to play again in the Spring.

Team Magic

Brynn and Collette

Mason hung up his soccer cleats several years ago and has moved onto Flag Football. Mason was able to get on the same team he was on in the Spring, which he was very excited about since they had gone undefeated. With a new school year his team was moved up into the 3rd-4th grade division where the competition proved to be a little bit tougher and they had a few losses along the way. It was fun to see how things were starting to click for Mason. Unfortunately his season was cut short when he broke his arm and now he can't wait to get back out on the field in the Spring and continue to develop his skills.

Playing against our ward buddies Owen Hunt and Hudson Adams