Gardner Family: Christmas 2014

This is what Percy was up to this Christmas...

The first day, he brought the kids a present and a letter.

Russell and TK put together the puzzle, Percy brought them.

Percy having breakfast in the pantry.

Our little Percy is so enlightened,

He meditates...

He does yoga...

and he reads (1 Nephi 16:29)... And thus we see that by SMALL means the Lord can bring about great things.

He got into the pantry one night after Rick had made banana bread (and labeled one loaf for each of the kids) and crossed out Ryker's name and wrote in his.

We found him one morning, snuggling by the fire, with a bottle of bubbly.

This little mischievous elf took a ride on our fan one night, unfortunately, T.K. turned the fan on so the next morning we found him healing from the tragic fall. :)

He healed in no time and was sledding down the stairs the next day.

When it was time for Percy to leave us, we found him on the front porch, knapsack packed, with a good-bye note for the kids. See you next year Percy.

We spent one family night getting Grandma Platt a Christmas tree at Costco and setting it up for her. Rick felt like he deserved a reward for performing this extreme act of service, so he bought him and the kids shakes on the way there.

Her tree.

Our neighborhood always does fun things on the holidays, they brought in a Santa and Mrs. Clause. You could take a hay ride around the neighborhood to look at all the lights on the way to see them. They had the pavilion decorated and heated and while we waited in line there was hot chocolate, cookies and candy canes.

Christmas is in the air, I love getting updates on everyone's family and seeing their fun family pictures all month long. The Christmas cards are the only decoration I am not dying to take down the second we are done opening gifts.

The stake put on a live nativity. They also had nativities from all around the world, It was really cold so we were in and out in 5 minutes. There was music and lots to see, but we had a bunch of cold party poopers waiting in the car so we rushed through it pretty quickly.

These pictures didn't turn out great. :( The kids did the Polar Express for their program. Every parent had to make a train for their kids, kindergarten is a LOT of work! T.K.'s part was, "Hurry, Hurry, we're gonna miss the train."

Look how cute his record wheels are.

Melanie sent me a picture of TK at his Christmas party.

Last day of school and now Christmas break is on, TK came home with a stocking full of treats.

We enjoyed going to Kurt Bestor so much last year that we decided to do another activity instead of gifts again this year. So we bought everyone tickets to Piano Guys and Matt and Alicia bought dinner. We went to a new, all organic restaurant in Salt Lake called Alamexo, it was so delicious! I thoroughly enjoyed myself!

Table side quacamole, yum!

Normally I don't eat much meat or any corn (even organic) but I made an exception here because of the local organic meat and organic corn. It is an enchilada but it's not folded, it's like a sandwich, with Niman Ranch braised short ribs (barbacoa style) with spinach, onions, mushrooms all in the center topped with a toasted walnut sauce, goat cheese, cabbage, lettuce and pomegranates. Seriously delightful.

Rick's dinner, I think it was chicken enchilada's.

Alicia and Lynn got fish taco's and they both really liked them.

Matt got steak fajita's , I believe.

Energy Solutions Arena for the show.

Waiting for the show to start.

The Piano Guys, picking at the inside of the piano.

They did a great mix of Christmas music plus some popular music like The story Of My Life and You Don't Know You're Beautiful.

American Heritage Orchestra

They brought out cute Lexi Walker and she did O Holy Night and Ava Maria with them.

Benjamin and I had, had a serious debate going because he had dared to speak ill of Marshall in my presence. I had to take this young chap to school and educate him on the art of rap, which I have to say, is such an aberration, you would expect, that music coming from "the streets" would be uneducated music but it is seriously, so SMART. It keeps my mind actively engaged. These young kids though, just listening to it because of the naughtiness of it are missing the genius in it. I had to explain to Ben how Marshall's music is inundated with metaphors, similes, assonance, consonance, homophones, double, triple and sometimes quadruple entendre's, alliteration, Iambic pentameter etc. For heavens sakes, The entire song, The Way I Am, is written in anapestic tetrameter, I had Jade and Amber clapping it out, trying to teach them about it, (bad example, or teacher of the arts? I don't know, probably a little of both). His ability to rhyme compound syllables is utterly brilliant! The way he stresses a letter in a word to make it rhyme with another word when it normally wouldn't, like, rhyming birthday with first place, by stressing the, I, is AN AMAZING ASSONANCE ACCOMPLISHMENT!! You see what I did there? A little alliteration.I remember learning in school that the word, orange doesn't rhyme with anything, but as another little blonde bad boy would say, "Au contraire mon frere", Marshall can rhyme it 100 times over. Combine all this poetic virtuosity with his amazing production skills, a sick beat, clever word play, his shock and awe factor, his sense of humor, his ability to stay relevant with current affairs, the way he always pays homage to other rappers and other music genres in his sampling and lyrics, his honesty in story telling and his ability to spit fast and furiously...AHHHH! Ya, Ben got this ear full and much more. I did not let his comment go. Couldn't do it. Anyway, that was a pretty long intro into why, I got him Shady XV for Christmas. It's GENIUS, Marshall is a GENIUS! He loved it. End of story. That's all she wrote!

Jade got him this jacket, not the thoughtful, amazing, educatinal gift that I got him but he liked it.

So Rick has always hated our Christmas tree, he has always wanted a homemade looking tree so his wish being my command, the kids and I spent a day making him some ornaments with their pictures in them, out of stupid, cheesy materials like pipe cleaners, buttons and bells. Happy homemade Christmas Ricky!

Brooke and K went to see the Tree Of Life, it has 1,000 strands of lights. This tree, seemingly ablaze with white fire, symbolizes so much more than the light and warmth of the season. It has become a living symbol of the love of Christ—a vision from the Book of Mormon come to life.

It cost over $12,000 for the tree, it took four men working from eight in the morning to eight at night three and a half days. When finished, the entire holiday light display cost $40,000.

Christmas Eve at Grandma and Grandpa's

This is Lynn's idea of an ugly sweater (I think they're cute).

The rest of us pooped out and didn't wear ugly sweaters and even after Lynn and Russ bought me an ugly sweater for my birthday.

Matt brought a fun new game called Wits & Wagers.

Matt said a bad word, so we had to take appropriate measures to ensure his bad behavior didn't continue. Nothing says hell, fire and damnation like a mouth full of Tabasco! I got it on video too. :)

Cooper, relishing in the teacher being taught. :)

Aspen, Lola and TK all sang a solo for us, it was so sweet.

Russell has joined the older boys and no longer gets pajamas, he got ammunition this year.

T.K.loves his pajamas.

Looks like Ryker and Chase do also.

The girls look comfy and cozy in their new night wear.

Pajama Par-tay!

Santa Came!!!!

Presents!!

I got Ryker a book on how to make monsters and he got to work really quickly. I am kicking myself now, that I didn't get a few of them, it is keeping him busy and he has fun making them. They would have made great birthday gifts. :(

Christmas morning at Grandma and Grandpa's, I had seen somewhere that making omelets in the waffle maker made the process a little easier, so I tried it out and I think they were a hit. They were fluffy and no need to try messing around with folding them in half.

Yup, I found the stud! :)

Matt and Alicia got our kids sledding for Christmas, they had a ton of fun. We took Matt and Alicia's kids & Addie to Night At The Museum 3, it was only mildly entertaining, oh well, better luck next year.

The boys got helicopters and had fun trying to maneuver them about all morning. It was mostly a case of, "Black Hawk down, we have a Black Hawk down." We got some good video of the aftermath.

Christmas at Grandma Platt's, or as T.K. would say, "The Grandma with only one grandma."

The boys (and Julie) having a spirited game of B Ball.

The "cool" kids found a place to kick it, above the stage, away from other humans. :)

Abba dabba, doo.

T.K. and Layla and Malia have so much fun playing together. I love that they are in the same kindergarten class.

Sweet Mya, giving me kisses.

The two cutest babies in the world.

Kissing cousins...

Oh my gosh, I love her so much!

Mom made a lovely dinner, as usual, she fried up some yucca plant, and the dipping sauce she made was to DIE for. After cleaning up the church we headed back to her house for presents.