How They Grow!

My boys celebrated their birthdays this week.

We went to breakfast on Tuesday morning, and to a movie Tuesday night.

I took cupcakes to school for their classmates on Thursday and their new futon was waiting in their bedroom when they got home.

Today we had a small party at Chuck-E-Cheese. Even the teenagers had fun.

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I can't believe how much my boys have grown.

This means I have now been a mother for over one third of my life.

How do I have an 11 year old??

We are looking forward to Mark's baptism now that he is 8. But we are hoping to have his Uncle Mike here for it, (and maybe even his cousins).

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I dug up some photos and scanned them in for the occasion.

Yes, every mother thinks her kids are the most adorable. I just happen to be right.

Mark-1, CJ-4 Mark-3, CJ-6 Mark-1 Mark- Kindergarten Mark- 2nd grade

CJ- 1

CJ- Kindergarten

CJ- 2nd grade

CJ- 4th grade

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Happy Birthday boys, I love you.

Turkey Bowl! (in January?)

I'm pretty sure the Turkey Bowl is over Thanksgiving weekend.

During this time college students and other people looking for ways to entertain themselves with frozen goods go Turkey Bowling!

I know this is a popular sport over Thanksgiving, but I'm not sure why Turkey Bowling is being featured on YouTube right now. Unless it's to promote a new sitcom on TBS about a grocery store.

Anyway, you get the benefit of having me screen dozens of Turkey Bowling videos for you, (okay, I really only watched about 6), and posting the best of the bunch here.

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If you only have time or patience for one video, watch the last one. It's my favorite.

But otherwise, enjoy them all.

The Dalai Lama's Instructions for Life

At the end of this year here are some good words of advice.

I love you all.

Thanks for sharing in my life and letting me share in yours.

I hope you all have a wonderful new year!

-Della Hill

Chris' Christmas Wish

You know how we wives always try to give our husbands little hints about things we would like?

Pointing out things we see in commercials or in store windows, casually mentioning over lunch how much we like the new pendant that the jewelry store is promoing, all those things?

I gave up on doing that years ago.

I am much more direct. As in:

"Hey Chris, see that digital photo frame? The one right there on the middle shelf, second from the left, with the 7" screen, made by Panasonic that's on sale right now? See it? That's what I want for Christmas."

And guess what I got?

The 7" panasonic digital photo frame, that wasn't on sale any more by the time he got back to buy it.

See, it works.

But I have also learned something else from years of trial and error in this department; sometimes guys give us hints too. Sometimes intentionally, other times unintentionally, they often point out things they would like to have, or think are cool.

And this year, I paid attention.

Not only did I pay attention, I did it up right. I thought it out, I planned it, and I delivered.

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Most of you know that my dear husband is a bit of a World of Warcraft fanatic.

You may also know that a new expansion to the game, called Wrath of the Lich King, was released last month.

You probably don't know that in the game the Lich King has a completely awesome sword called Frostmourne.

And if you don't know that, you probably won't know that a company called Epic Weapons has created a real life version of this sword.

Chris not only thought this sword was cool, he found it worthy to decorate his Chrstmas stocking with a felt version of it.

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So this is what happened on Christmas morning:

We all had a great time opening up our presents as a family. After the last presents were opened and thank you hugs given Chris started moving around cleaning up all of the wrapping paper and boxes.

This was when I put on a pair of reindeer antlers that had a piece of paper with a yellow exclamation mark pinned to them.

(In the game, when a person has a yellow exclamation mark over their head it means they have a quest to give).

Chris looked at me sideways for a few minutes before he came to me and asked if he was missing something. It took him a minute to figure out why I would possibly be wearing such a silly getup on my head, but when he got it he got excited and asked if I had a quest for him.

I gave him a scroll of paper I had prepared with a quest written out.

The quest was to spend time with each member of the family for 5 minutes, thereby concreting family values and togetherness on Christmas day. Each family member presented him with a siver bell upon completion of their activity.

When he had all of the bells, he returned to me.

At this point I had on my head a gold question mark, the symbol that the quest has been completed.

I told him that his reward would not be found under the Christmas tree, but instead in the box that the Christmas tree is stored in. (It was the only place I could think of to hide the thing, where it would fit, but not be found too early).

He ran to the garage and opened the box.

The sword was wrapped in towels, but he quickly removed the sword from them.

He was shocked. He was thrilled. He almost giggled and jumped up and down like a schoolgirl.

He didn't think I was paying attention when he had pointed it out.

He certainly didn't think he was likely to get it even if I had been paying attention.

In only a few minutes he had it mounted on the wall next to his computer.

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You may be interested in knowing it has already drawn blood.

Chris had to lean over his desk for something and when he stood up he hit his head on the sharp sideways dagger.

(Don't worry Grandma, it was just a small scrape).

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So in the end, I was the hero for giving the perfect gift.

It doesn't happen much, but I get him once in a while.

And it made my Christmas day that much better.

Christmas Wishes

I had one Christmas wish this year that I didn't expect to get.

I barely even said it out loud because the more I voiced it, the more I felt like I invested in it. And I didn't want to be disappointed, because I was certain that I would be.

I also felt like my wish was a little bit selfish, and I didn't want others to miss out on Christmas happiness just so I could have it.

What I wanted, more than anything else this year, was to have all of my boys here together on Christmas morning.

In all the years I have done foster care or worked in group homes, I have never had a Christmas morning with every member of my household there.

There is always someone who spends the day with their biological family and comes home later.

I am glad that these kids have family to spend Christmas with. I wish they all did.

In a perfect world they would all have families who take care of them everyday, and I would be out of a job, and it would be awesome!

Unfortunately, that isn't the case.

My kids who go to another home for Christmas still get as many gifts, they just open them when they get back and they miss out on the magic of Christmas morning at our house.

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This year was different. For one reason or another, (and some of these reasons made me very sad), none of my boys were able to go to their other homes for Christmas. The result of this was that they all got to be here on Christmas morning. And I got to be very happy.

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All of these kids have anxiety about the holidays. Historically Christmas has been a time of tremendous disappointment or even pain for them. And allowing themselves to open up to the fun and family joy of Christmas is a scary thing.

Because of that, yesterday morning had a potential to start off badly. And it almost did.

But after a few minutes we were able to work through it and have a great Christmas morning.

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After all the presents were open all the boys took part in helping Chris do a quest to get his last and biggest present.

Everyone hung out, played with their toys, cell phones, and even put a band together to go on a World Tour courtesy of Guitar Hero.

Later on we all went to the movies to see "Bedtime Stories".

No one complained. Everyone got along. Everyone had fun. We even all sat together at the movies, which is a small thing, but a big thing for everyone in my family to not mind being close to each other.

After we got home we played more Guitar Hero and downloaded new songs onto mp3 players.

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I couldn't have asked for a better Christmas. Even the initial stress early in the morning made us appreciate how well everything went even more.

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I got the presents that I asked for, but so much more importantly to me, I got the wish that I was afraid to wish for.

I got to have my family together, and had a wonderful time on Christmas..

It was wonderful.

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I hope all of you have as great of a Christmas Holiday as I am having.

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And to top it all off, I called my Bishopric Member and accepted that calling that I am terrifed of.

Here's to weight lifting.

Santa Tracker

Just in case you're wondering when Santa will hit your neighborhood, you can check out the Google powered, Satellite Santa Tracker at >>>Track Santa<<<.

Merry Christmas!

The Christmas Blog

In case you haven't noticed, at the top of the page there is a link to our family's Christmas Blog.

I don't do Christmas Cards, so I am inviting everyone to read our Christmas Blog instead.

Please just click on the blue Merry Christmas button.

After you read it, be sure to leave us a comment to let us know you were there.

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I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!

-Della

The Best of the 12 Days of Christmas

How can you pick one version of the 12 days of Christmas to be the best?

I can't.

So I am just going to give you a few of my favorites.

Grab some hot cocoa and a popcorn ball and enjoy these carols.

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First we have Jeff Foxworthy and a Redneck Christmas

Next is the 12 Pains of Christmas, done oh-so-cleverly

And Bob and Doug McKenzie with their version, delivered (I couldn't help it) World of Warcraft style.

Only 3 days left till Christmas!

Are you ready?

Christmas Comics, day 3, (last day)

This last cartoon is from "Today’s Cartoon by Randy Glasbergen", displayedwith special permission. For many more cartoons, please visit Randy'ssite @ http://www.glasbergen.com/.

Hope you enjoyed my comics.

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Merry Christmas!

More Christmas Comics, (Day 2)

I apologize for any content you may not feel is appropriate for a family blog.

(This one is my favorite)

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I found a website that belongs to a cartoon author. All of his work is copyrighted, so I didn't repost it here, but check out >>>Randy Glasbergen's site<<< to see some other good ones.

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And come back tomorrow for the third and final day of Christmas comics

Christmas Cartoons, Day 1

Over the last few weeks my site meter has been jumping.

Whenever I check to see what people are coming to my blog for the answer is Christmas Comics, over and over.

So while I posted most of these last year, I will repost them for the sake of my readers who didn't see them last year and for the sake of my google searchers who are looking for them now.

But, to keep you coming back I am not going to post all of them today.

See you tomorrow!

White Christmas

This is the vest version of White Christmas ever.

I know I'm dreaming of a white Christmas.

I'm Pumpkin Pie

Pike's Pickles had this on her blog and I was curious, and had extra time, so I tried it.

I was surprised that with such a short quiz it gave me an answer that I found to be so accurate about me.

Or at least, I would like for it to be accurate about me.

You Are Pumpkin Pie

You're the perfect combo of uniqueness and quality. You're able to relate to many types of people with many different tastes. But you're by no means generic or ordinary. In fact, you're one of the most original people around. Those who like you are looking for something (or someone) special. You tend confuse people when they first meet you. But you're not as complicated as you seem. Even though you have a lot of spice and flavor to you, you're never overpowering. You are a calm and comforting force in people's lives.

What Kind of Pie Are You?

Try it out and tell me what you are.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Yes, I know I am a day late, but I didn't take time to blog yesterday.

We had a wonderful dinner with all of my favorite Thanksgiving foods.

I tried to invite a few people over for dinner, but in the end, they all had other plans.

J spent the day with his sister, so we actually only had 6 of us here for dinner. Needless to say there are a TON of leftovers.

We had a 22 pound turkey and 6 people to eat it.

The baked macaroni and cheese seemed to be the favorite.

Even though this was comparatively a small dinner with only a few of my loved ones, it was wonderful.

Even though Chris and I spent hours preparing and baking, it would have been worth it if we had only been able to share it with one of our boys.

The memories that we are making are invaluable. The time put in, the care; each moment matters. Every moment makes a difference.

I had a great day with my boys. It was small. But it was us. It was our family, together. That's what matters.

I seem to be thankful for the same thing every year at Thanksgiving.

I am grateful for my family.

Even though my family seems to be different every year.

I love them all.

God must love me a lot to bless me with all of these kids.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone.

I wish you all joy and love in your families.

A Few Thanksgiving Comics

I finally got away from last minute shopping and day before cooking prep, to bring you a few Thanksgiving Cartoons.

Enjoy.

The Turkey's Ain't Happy

Just a musical turkey perspective.

Enjoy.

My Trunk or Treat is Better Than Your Trunk or Treat

I think every church has a trunk or treat now.

Some of them go way out, having not only cars with candy, but homemade refreshments, inflatable jump arounds for the kids, games and prizes, spook alleys and other stuff.

Sometimes they even make commercials to talk about their Trunk or Treat.

Here is a selection of some of these such adds I found on Youtube.

Enjoy.

And I'll see you tonight at the Trunk or Treat.

I Made This

It's called Ghosts in the Graveyard.

I found this at the >>Kraft website<<, along with a bunch of other great halloween recipes.

I also found this recipe:

(I didn't make these ones)

I used the same recipe at cub scouts, but instead of scary faces with green pudding, we made jackolantern faces with orange pudding.

And I found a bunch of great ideas at >>Tip Junkie<<,a great blog with all kinds of great ideas.

(Thanks Ally).

Thanks to Kraft foods, blogs like Tip Junkie, and lots of trial and error,

You too can be domestic! Ha!