What's Cookin?

The timer's set.  This "bun" should be done cooking around September 3rd.

VIP Weekend

After a long, boring week (it was "Mid-Winter Break" for the schools around here, so all our "extra" activities were cancelled), we had a super weekend to make up for the monotony.  On Saturday Aubree and I took off for a day in Seattle, while the boys stayed with Mark for a "Boy's Day" at home.  From what I gather, they spent their time playing inside, playing outside, making treats, building train tracks, and riding scooters.

Aubree and I made our first stop of the day at a big gymnastics meet (Battle in Seattle) where my Aunt Sue was a judge.  She'd arranged to get us tickets, but (to Aubree's great joy) we didn't just get tickets, we got lanyards with VIP passes.   I had to explain to Aubree what "VIP" stood for, but since then she's worn her lanyard constantly.  

I don't get to see Aunt Sue often (she lives in California), so it was a treat to have a little while to visit with her.  

By pure luck, Aubree's gymnastics teacher happened to be competing in the Meet at the exact time we were there to watch.  Aubree followed her around the gym in awe of her skill.

After the Meet, we stopped for lunch and then went to the Paramount Theater to watch the Broadway production of Beauty and the Beast (we got those tickets through our home-school parent-partner school).  Aubree adores watching plays.  She proudly told me she's seen three in the last 2 months.  It was amazing!  Granted, our seats were in the nose-bleed section (I didn't know they had a nose-bleed section at the Theater, but I do now), but it was still fabulous.  

Sunday we had an extra chance to spend a little time with Aunt Sue before she flew home.  She brought each kid a set of flashing sunglasses from the gymnastics meet, and immediately won their affection.  Soon they'd recruited her to play "Monster" and refused to give her a moment's peace the rest of the morning or afternoon.  They're already asking when she can visit again.

Mechanic-in-law

Earlier this month we started to have trouble with our mini-van.  We took it to the repair shop and learned we needed a new radiator.  After getting a quote for parts and labor, I sent a quick text to my brother-in-law Seth asking for a second opinion, "does this seem appropriate?"

I expected him to write back, "yep, bite the bullet and pay the bill."

Instead, he essentially responded, "no way, fly me up and I can get it done for a quarter of that price."  Good joke, right?

Would you believe that it actually ended up being less expensive to buy him a plane ticket to fly up from California (with a new radiator in his checked luggage) than the original repair quote?  Plus (plus!!), he brought my sister, Katie, and their two little girls with them (ages 22 months and 4 weeks - so they both fly free).  So, not only did we save money on getting the car fixed, we also got to visit with the Harps for the weekend and meet their brand new baby, Piper!

I like to think it was a win-win situation because Katie and Seth were celebrating their 5-year wedding Anniversary that weekend and had wanted to do something different and fun.  We watched their girls while they spend Saturday evening exploring downtown Seattle and trying not to freeze their California bums off.

They arrived Friday evening and left Monday, so it was a short trip.  I had wanted to do a few touristy things with them, but Mother Nature had other ideas.  A snow storm blew in Saturday night, so we spent our time playing in the snow instead.  

Seth taught Bryce and Aubree how to build a snowman and have a proper snowball fight.  They idolize him.

Thane chased Anna around the yard until she decided she'd had enough of snow and was ready to go back inside.

Adorable baby Piper fell asleep every time I held her and found a permanent place in my heart.  

Despite the fact that Katie is super-woman (did I mention Piper was only 4 weeks old?), we still managed to wipe her out.  Late nights playing games and talking will do that.  

Oh yeah, and of course Seth fixed our van perfectly.  I guess he's superman.

Now I just need to continue my genius plan to get them to move up here and be my neighbor...

Pre-Christmas

It's a week into the new year, so I better get busy and finishing writing about the end of 2011.

*I recall some years when my kids saw Santa no less than five times.  This year they only caught a brief glimpse of the Jolly Fat Man at our Ward Christmas Party. We did manage to get the obligatory Santa-lap-photos of Aubree and Thane (who, surprisingly, didn't cry), but Bryce refused to get closer than two feet.  I'm not bothered.  I decided it's just not worth the trauma to make my kids sit on a stranger's lap for a photo op.

As we stood in the short line to meet with Santa, I remembered that Santa would ask the kids, "what do you want for Christmas?"  I knew what Aubree would answer (an American Girl doll), but it occurred to me that Bryce was totally unprepared for the question.  I bent down to explain to him what he could expect, but the line moved quickly and too soon it was our turn.  Sure enough, after speaking to Aubree, Santa turned and asked the obvious question to Bryce, "what do you want for Christmas?"  Bryce was stymied.  First, he looked at me confused, then repeated Aubree's answer, "a doll?"  Finally, he stated, "I'll be happy with whatever I get."  

*Another favorite Christmas tradition is decorating gingerbread graham cracker houses.  Truth is, I don't like gingerbread and am too lazy to bake it, so we've always just used graham crackers with moderate to minimal success.  This year, thanks to Pinterest (amazing), we learned the Secret to using graham crackers to make fabulous, sturdy (lazy-mom approved) houses.  Want to know the secret (this could seriously change your life)?  

Forget frosting or royal icing, the trick is white chocolate.  Oh yes! Melt up a little white chocolate, pipe it onto your crackers (I used a plastic baggie with a small hole cut in one corner), stick the crackers together (I even found a graham cracker house pattern!), wait a couple minutes, and (Tada!!) perfectly solid structures.  Genius.  

We waited until Grandma and Grandpa Winters came to town to make our houses so we'd have a better adult to kid ratio.  They made houses with us last year as well and were thrilled with the improvements this year.  

Aubree and Bryce probably didn't notice too much of a difference, because they were too interested in eating the candy carefully decorating their structures.  Is there a better way to use excess Halloween candy?

Thane was asleep again  (poor kid) during our decorating, but don't feel too bad, because he certainly didn't get left out of the demolishing eating of said houses.

* We started another new tradition this year - the Minivan Express.  I got the idea from my spectacular friend, Holly, and have been wanting to try it for years.  One night we put the kids in their pajamas and got ready for bed as usual. 

However, once they got to their beds, they each found a ticket good for passage on the Minivan Express.  We loaded into the van and each kid (and the grandparents) got a cup of hot chocolate (sippy cups for the kids, we're not totally insane), and we drove around nearby neighborhoods admiring Christmas lights.  The kids were thrilled.  Definitely a keeper.

* I already wrote about our plans for Christmas Eve, and I'm glad to report that the scavenger hunt went well.  We invited the Missionaries over for a big dinner and to share in the festivities, and tried hard to spoil them in honor of my brother, Ian, who's serving a mission in Africa (hoping that someone was likewise spoiling him).  

Before it was Winter...

... it was Fall and we did stuff.  

Some turkey crafts:

Some raking:

Some doctor visits (everyone's growing and healthy):

Some Thanksgiving festivities with extended family (I forgot to take pictures at this fun event, with the exception of Aubree's "makeover," courtesy of her older cousin, Gabby [on the right]):

Birthday Pilgrimage - Part BYU

We spent Wednesday returning to our BYU roots.  It was amazing to see how much has changed on campus in the 6 years since we left.  Not only have some buildings been torn down (including Deseret Towers where both Mark and I spent our freshmen year), and new buildings built, but apparently they're now admitting little kids (or at least that's what the students swarming campus suddenly looked like, but I guess that's more of a change in us, isn't it?).  

We took the kids on a quick tour of the places we spent most of our time while students, and they did a fabulous job feigning interest.  We stopped by my School Psych program offices and were able to briefly catch up with some of my favorite professors.  

Once we hit our top campus memory locations, we met up with Kira and rewarded the kids with a BYU must-have: Creamery Ice-cream.  

From there we spent a few hours at the Monte L. Bean Life Science Museum, where kids have been fascinated by stuffed animals for generations.  

Somewhere along the lines, Bryce started flashing gang signs whenever we tried to take his picture. (???!)

After a full day of fun, we capped it off with dinner out with Mark's sister Amy and her new husband, Nathan.  It was so great to see them, and of course, we had to take the traditional Winters' family Los Hermanos picture.

PS I suppose our trip was successful because Aubree says, Yes, now she's sure that she wants to go to school at BYU. ;)

Birthday Pilgrimage - Part 4

Tuesday we had ambitious plans to spend the whole day up in Salt Lake City.  Turns out, it's hard to get a huge crowd of people up and out of the house at a reasonable hour.  Still, we had a fabulous afternoon at Temple Square.

We started our adventure with a personal tour of the Conference Center.

Granted, everyone who visits the Conference Center gets a personal tour, but not everyone who visits gets to play with a phone app that can change the colors behind the organ.  That's a very rare treat, indeed.

The Conference Center is amazing.  Adults and kids alike marveled at the phenomenal architecture and displayed artwork.

Everyone's favorite stop, however, was the 4-acre park that doubles as the roof.  Check out the view!

After the Conference Center we swept through Temple Square and proved that the world is indeed a small place by running into an old friend from Florida (hi Charlene!).

Our final stop on our Temple Square tour was the Church History Museum.  I'd hoped they might have some displays and exhibits that were kid-friendly, but what we found far exceeded my greatest expectations.  They had a whole wing filled with activities, games, and toys for kids.  We spent two hours and our little ones could've stayed for twice that time.  In fact, we didn't get to see anything else in the museum because there was so much to do in the Children's Area.  

On the way home to Kira's we stopped at Colleen's for a yummy dinner.  Despite the fact that Colleen and Andrew live in a relatively small apartment, Bryce declared that it was "the very best house ever!"  Why?  Because they live right next to the Light Rail tracks, and since we were visiting during rush-hour, a train came barreling by about every 10-15 minutes.  Bryce couldn't peel himself away from the window.

Birthday Pilgrimage - Part 3

On Monday we hit up one of our old favorite Utah restaurants - Cafe Rio.  Mmmmm...Cafe Rio!

Then we headed up to Thanksgiving Point to their corn maze.  I was expecting a corn maze and maybe a tractor ride.  What we found was the Disneyland of corn mazes.  There was so much to do we never even ventured into the actual maze.

We did enjoy a hay ride,

and pig races.

The kids scaled a hay hill,

jumped on the hay trampoline,

and pretended to be spiders on a giant web.

They loved sliding,

and swinging,

and, most especially, jumping.

We listened to the Pumpkin Princess tell stories and took pictures in a life-sized coach.

Thane would've been happy to run around in the pumpkins all night, but we were cold so we gathered around a campfire to listen to stories and songs.

When the rain came in earnest, we were ready to head home, but not before one last try for a cousin picture.