Valentines Contest!

Seeing that the Valentine season is approaching, I thought I would host a little contest. Paul and I, like most of you will be going out for Valentines this year and would like some ideas for our date night. So, we want you to give us some input on what you think would be the "coolest date"! Now, no hanky, panky stuff (we can take care of that all by ourselves) just good clean fun or romantic stuff. Oh, and no eating at the "Bombay House", those entries will be excluded. Get your thinking caps going.
We will then choose one of your date ideas for Valentines. The winner will be notified by our blog and will receive a very special PRIZE which will not be disclosed at this time. But, rest assured it will be a good one! Have fun!

2006 - The Year to Ski

For Christmas, the boys (Bryson (9), Garrett(6), Tanner(4) & Paul) all received ski gear and ski passes at Park City. Park City has a program where all children six and under get a free season pass and elementary age children get a season pass for $150. So, I purchased a 10-day locals pass for myself, we got everyone gear for Christmas, and our Saturday's are now consumed. We are having a blast!

There is a newly married couple living in the Love Shack (Cache and Stacy Ferguson). Cache is a full time student and was a ski instructor at Deer Valley for a while and, in exchange for a ski pass and a nominal hourly rate, he has agreed to teach all of the young uns this year. This is Garrett and Tanner's (and Ritchie Heywood's) first year and they are doing terrific! Here we have stopped for a hot chocolate break.

Our first day out was very wet and cold. We figured, heck if they can go on a day when the weather sucks, they'll love it on a good day. We were right!
Bryson has been taking off with the Heywood cousins (they have become the JR Smith ski team) who are a bunch of skiing fools and speed demons. These kids don't want to go on the 'Green' anymore and much prefer the Blue and increasingly more difficult stuff. Here are the older cousins on the ski lift together.

Angela felt like she should start taking lessons too (seeing as how she has never skied before). She signed up to go skiing with a couple of lady's from the ward at Sundance every Thursday for 2 hours. Never having skied, she didn't know any better when she inadvertently signed up for an advanced freestyle lesson. Here she is on her second day. I am kind of jealous, it took me years before I could do that. Angela is quite the athlete!

Angela's side note: I was wondering if learning to ski was going to be worth my time and money, but after Tanner's comment last night, I knew I made the right choice. While putting the boys to bed last night I asked the boys, "What was your favorite part of the day? And what was your least favorite part of the day?" All of them agreed that skiing was their favorite part. Then Tanner said, "Mommy what was your favorite part? I know, it was cooking dinner for us while we were skiing!" Then when I asked them what was their least favorite part of the day, they all said that it was eating the soup (tortilla soup with zuchinni and tomatoes) that I made for dinner. I knew that I had made the right choice to start skiing!

New Years in St. George

I think the highlight of the St. George trip this year was going to see the new Joseph Smith movie at the visitor center. It was amazing! And the majority of the kids sat still and watched it, that is amazing too! All of the grandkids are in this picture except the Clyde boys and Katelyn, and then of course Eliza's baby which will be here in a few short months.
This was quite the task, trying to take a good picture of all the grandkids. Luckily we have enough older kids to hold all the younger ones. We enjoyed having the older grandkids this year, we took advantage of their babysitting skills and the adults went out one night to dinner and a movie.
The kids had hours of fun jumping on the trampoline, and McKay was right in the middle of all the action.
It was like Christmas all over again when we opened our cousin gifts. Garrett and Ritchie both got BYU jerseys. Don't they look cool?
With all the chaos at the St. George home 24/7, it was hard for the little ones to get any sleep! McKay tried to get a nap whenever he could. Isn't he adorable?
Paul took the kids to the park while I enjoyed a day at the spa with Jessica. Paul and Ryan had both surprised us for our anniversary's (just a week apart) with a day at the St. George Day Spa. It was awesome! We had facials, pedicures, and a desert stone massage. I wish someone could have taken a picture of Jessica and I in our robes in the waiting room when a man walked in and asked me if I was ready for my massage. This was a the first time I have ever had a man give me a massage, and it was just not the same. The whole time I was laughing to myself thinking about why in the world would this man want to give massages for a living. These were my two conclusions: 1) He is a pervert (which this man was not, infact he seemed more uncomfortable about the whole experience than I) or 2) he is gay and this was is niche to talk about girl stuff all day and about his newest favorite massage lotion, etc. So as I tried to figure him out (he wasn't much for conversation), I asked him if he did this full time. He said "No". I figured he worked at Bath and Body Works, the Clinique counter, or in the shoe department at Nordstroms, I was a little taken back when he said he worked part time at NAPA auto parts! I guess he likes make all types of bodies run smoothly.

Playing football in the backyard of the St. George house. Can you guess which kids are from Vegas? They were freezing the whole time with jackets and hats on, while the rest of were basking in the St. George sun!

Oh what fun it is to ride...

on a sled right down the stairs! When Santa brought these sleds he had no idea what fun the boys could have in their own home with them! Luckily, Uncle Scott always is always thinking and taught our boys to go down the stairs on a sled, what a novel idea. I'm just waiting for someone to crack their head open, and then we will send Scott the bill. What is it with Scott and the need for speed? For example: Rick's college water park and snowboarding, I better tell my boys to be careful! I think Scott's passing on his wild past now to the next generation, he never once went down our stairs.
We were so happy that Scott and Natalie stayed with us for a couple days over Christmas. We had so much fun with them. Scott entertained the boys while Natalie, Paul, Bryson, and I played a long game of scrabble. And we love having Easton and Maddie around too, infact we may just keep little Maddie, we need a little princess around our house.

Eleven Years of Married Life!

Why in the world does anyone get married around Christmas time? Luckily our anniversary is 2 days after Christmas so we can actually have time to celebrate it! Brady and Karen came and watched our kids for us a couple of weekends ago so we could go out on a date, this was our anniversary celebration: finish Christmas shopping, go through Wendy's drive-thru and stuff our food in my purse and then eat it while at the movies (Pride and Prejudice - awesome show). So when our anniversary did roll around we decided just to stay home with the kids. But I thought it would be fun to have a nice candlelight dinner with Paul's favorite, chicken enchiladas. The boys were so excited about the whole thing. Bryson said "Wow, I can't believe you guys are actually staying home with us for your anniversary. Usually you go out to eat at some really nice place like Chuck-a-Rama or something." (No, Bryson we go all out and go to Wendy's!

Ritchie Movies - This is a test

During the holidays, we spent some time making a few Christmas slideshow/movies. For home evening the week before Christmas we made a slideshow to the Voice Male song "Tracting Winter Wonderland.mov" and then on Christmas Day, with our new found toy (Movie Maker) we went ahead and made another slideshow of our holiday season, appropriately entitled "Ritchie's Christmas 2005.rm". The links will only be "live" for one week ... or until next Sunday, January 15, so if you have any desire to see it ... you had better move fast.

Cory is teaching us how to post larger links through Yousendit.com, so if it doesn't work, then we shall flog the lad, if it does, then give him the adulation that he so appropriately deserves. Thanks Cory.

An Early Christmas Morning

After only a few short hours of sleep, Paul and I were awaken by Bryson at 5:00 a.m. He was ready to open presents! We talked him into going back to bed for one more hour (the longest hour of his life), and then by 6:00 Bryson woke up everyone to open presents. McKay had no idea what was going on and Uncle Ryan has never seen such an early time since his mission days, I'm sure. Garrett ran into our bedroom so upset, "Mom we weren't very good because Santa didn't come!" Garrett ran out to the living room to take a peek and couldn't see anything different. Luckliy we found a note on the fireplace, Santa had decided to take the presents downstairs this year. What a relief! The boys had so much fun opening presents, and even Uncle Ryan said how much fun it was this year watching the boys.

Christmas Surprises

Daddy was so excited about his presents, who does his smile remind you of?

Uncle Ryan was happy to see he had a few presents under the tree. We've got to keep him looking hot for his women!

Bryson got his Game Boy advance SP! I wish I could capture the moment like Natalie can, because this picture doesn't do Bryson justice. The boy was jumping up and down like crazy. He was estatic to say the least about his present from Santa!

Garrett got his Pokemon cards (this is all Garrett wanted for Christmas), he told us he already had enough toys.

Tanner got his coveted car ("just like Jackson's").

McKay got his favorite...a baby Einstein show, this baby is going to be a genius!

Our Favorite Christmas Lines

There always seems to be a lot of questions and inquiries in our home at Christmas time. The boys are very curious to find out how Santa and his elves really work. Here are some of our favorites:
BRYSON: "Mom, just so you know I'm watching to make sure Santa's paper is different than your wrapping paper this year. If it isn't then I'll know Santa isn't real."
GARRETT: "Mom, do I get a gift for everytime I've been nice this year. Because I haven't been very nice to my brothers this year. But, I was nice to McKay once, so I know I'll get one present. Does Santa count stuff from last year? I hope so, then I can get more presents!"
TANNER: (this was the year of endless questions) "Mom, how does Santa fit down the chimney? When is Santa's birthday? How old is Santa? Dad, I can't believe it, I got all these presents and I wasn't even very good this year!"
PAUL: "You boys better be good because Santa's elves are watching."

The Annual Christmas Eve Nativity

Our nativity was bigger and better than ever this year. The kids all dressed up happily (as you can see in Bryson's face) in their costumes and reinacted the first Christmas. The favorite part to be played was the shepherd because you got a cane, and the cane could be used as a weapon as well.

Garrett's Christmas program

Garrett was so excited to sing and dance in his 1st grade program. He was very proud of the fact that he got to dance with his "girlfriend" this time, Summer Chappell. Garrett was a wooden soldier and kept his eyes on Daddy and Uncle Ryan the whole time to make sure they were watching him (much to his teacher's dismay). Mommy was playing the piano for the program and was in awe of how his teacher, Mrs. Patterson seemed to pull everything togoether at the last minute. We were all very proud of Garrett. He is an excellent student and always trys to do his best.