Three day Birthday

So today I'll be blogging for Mom, because she's too tired to do it herself. But this is my three part birthday celebration. The first day was actually on my birthday, when I got my family gifts and we had brownies.

Just dance ABBA
(foreshadowing)

The second day was a week and a day after my original birthday when the Smalleys 

came over and we had a dance off. There was prizes, it was fun.

Everyone dancing. . .  Allison we got you

right side of the room

final round

This is where the ABBA foreshadowing comes in, for our final round of dancing we danced to "Dancing Queen."  Andrew, Tim, Maggie and I danced in the final round.  Maggie won.

this was the only good pic of opening presents

Sabrina playing "what's that lump?"

now Tim

This the past summer we got a book called Mr. & Mrs. Bunny Detectives Extraordinaire. (You have all better have read it by the family reunion or you will get looks!)  It's about these two rabbits who become detectives and help a ten year old girl, Madeline, find her parents. It is really funny and Mr. Bunny is hysterical. So when Mr. and Mrs. Bunny had their children they played "What's That Lump?" The children would hide under blankets, and Mr. and Mrs. Bunny would hit them with a Nerf bat saying "in loud theatrical tones, "What's that lump!" The Smalleys read the book too, and as a result I received the "What's That Lump Un-official Game Set" for my birthday.  It's awesome.

Day three we celebrated my grandma's and my own birthday. We had a red velvet cake (which I refrained from turning into an armadillo.)

it's so pretty!!!

Black Arm Bands

Our ward has moved to the 9am time.  We straggled into church today, amazingly on time, and found a seat.  My Mom came over to ask us if anything was wrong.  Apparently a number of the kids had sad and teary-eyed faces.   "No," I said, "we just had to get up this morning."

Friends

I was reminded tonight of three friends.  After dinner, I turned on the First Presidency's Christmas Message and started to paper mache a large letter "A" that I am making for my living room.  I was reminded, as I was up to my elbows in goop, of the time my friend Janice and I, with our kids, made Nemo pinatas.  I love the memory of working with Janice on that project and the fun mess it was.  It's hard to believe that those sweet little girls who worked so hard on the pinatas are teenagers now.  Then, as I was listening to President Monson's talk, I thought of my kid's second Grandma, our neighbor from Kaysville, Caroll.  She was always so willing to help and so kind and sweet with the kids.  We really miss her.  Finally, I had to give haircuts to Caleb and Aaron and Katrina, who had cut her own hair.  (Grrrr!)  As I was cutting, I was reminded of the many times I watched my companion, Annette Beyer, cut our fellow missionaries' hair.  Without her skill and knowledge as an example, I would not have been able to cut Aaron's hair.  I was also reminded of my first Christmas with Annette in Germany, too.  We got out our Advent's Kranz for the first time in many years.  We put it on the table and ate dinner with our first candle lit.   It's been a long time now, but I still remember buying my first Advent's Kranz with Annette and lighting it in our apartment to celebrate the coming of Christmas.  All three of these wonderful friends have influenced me for good.  I am glad  that Heavenly Father has blessed me so richly with their love and friendship.

Disneyland!

The Mighty Abbotts at Disneyland. 

At the beginning of the year we told the big girls that if they read the entire Book of Mormon on their own, we would take them to Disneyland.  It took a little doing, but they all did it.  We rented a house with my family for a week in Anaheim and went to Disneyland.  It was a lot of fun.  The kids enjoyed the three days we spent in the parks.  We also swam in the pool at the house and went down to San Diego to the Mormon Battalion site for Sunday.  If you get a chance to go there, it's pretty cool.  Caleb had an especially exciting time at the Lego store.  Between the souvenir money we gave him, his birthday money, and his own money, Caleb had $70 to spend at the Lego store.  It was overwhelming.  We had to step outside so he could clear his head, but he finally settled on Ninjago stuff.  On our way home, we spent several quiet days at Renee's and cheered my parents on at the St. George Marathon.  It was a fun vacation, but hard to come back from. 

Here we are after riding Splash Mountain.  No one cried.
Caleb got off and promptly wanted to go again.

Hannah created a video of our pictures from Disneyland on a site she has been using at school called animoto.  I hope if you click this link it will take you to her fabulous Disney video.

Disneyland!

The End of Summer

The last few weeks of summer we did so much that there wasn't enough time to post here about it.  I'll just recap the highlights.   We had a cousin exchange sleep over the second week in August.  We had a Smalley kid here and some of our kids at the Smalleys and then we switched after a day or two.  It was very exciting to have cousins over.  The little kids decided to go swimming at the Draper pool.  The big kids decided to go see The Lorax again.

Then we headed up to Bear Lake to visit Grandmother Renee.  As always, it was a weekend filled with lots of fun, good company, and delicious food.  We visited the ice caves, slept in the cottage with Renee (all 18 of us), rented a jet ski at the lake, and went to Bloomington Lake to swing off the rope swing.  The jet ski is always exciting, but this year was especially exciting for me.  I took Hannah and Allie out, and they both wanted to drive.  This would have been great, except that they both threw me off the jet ski when it was their turn.  After getting dunked twice, I told Aaron he was in charge of teaching Hannah to drive a car.

The sun setting over Bear Lake.  It was super smoky because of a fire,
but it made for beautiful pictures

Allie and Hannah and Me after the traumatic jet ski ride.  

That's one handsome guy!

Aaron and I also celebrated our 40th birthdays in August.  I was excited to reach this milestone.  Every time I get down on the floor to read scriptures with the kids, I creak and groan--"I'm getting old," I would say. The kids always respond, "No, Mom, you're not old until you're 40."  Now, at last, I can creak and groan to my heart's content.  For our birthday party, I made an Asian food buffet.  It was super delicious.  Then for Aaron's birthday, which we celebrated at Bear Lake, I made a chocolate hazelnut cake and put 40 candles on it.  It made an impressive fire.  We also celebrated by going to a Real soccer game.

Aaron's birthday cake forest fire.  

Our last days of summer were spent getting Hannah ready to attend the local middle school.  We spent a day getting to know the school, opening her locker and meeting teachers.  We also had to get school supplies, a backpack, and a lunch box.  She was excited and nervous to go to school.  And, despite the early mornings, she has really been enjoying her classes.  Maggie and Sophie are having to do a lot of their school on their own this year, because I am working so much with Caleb.  And Katrina is doing quite a few workbooks and a preschool with our cousin Lia in preparation for Kindergarten next year.

Here we all are in front of our pioneer house on the last day of volunteering.  

A "Green" Camping Trip

We went camping this last week with my family.  We went down to the Fremont Indian State Park which is a little north of Cedar City.  Our campsite had some great hills to climb and a little pond for the kids to explore.  We got there rather late on Wednesday and just had time to get the tents up and eat a quick dinner before it started raining.  It only rained for about half an hour, just long enough to make things humid and cool.  On Thursday we went to the Fremont Indian museum.  The Fremont Indians lived in pit houses, so there were several in the museum.  The most fun one was the one in the kid's section that you could go into and climb all around in.  They also had dress-ups made with real leather.  We took a small hike that went past several petroglyphs.  Then we went on a hike to a cave called Hundred Hands Cave.  As we were hiking there, we walked under the freeway and someone had gotten mud on their hands and made handprints on the underpass wall.  We did the same thing.  That was lots of muddy fun.

 Friday morning we went to Cove Fort Days.  Cove Fort is a Mormon pioneer settlement about 20 minutes from our camp site.  They have a fort with rooms around the perimeter decorated as they would have been in pioneer times.  It was used as a way station for travelers.  During Cove Fort Days they had quite a few people demonstrating pioneer skills and pioneer games to play.  I was surprised when we drove up that not only is it a free event, but they also provide free hot dogs and drinks.  

Caleb cards wool with a wool carding machine.

Maggie does some weaving on a loom.

Sophie hand quilting.  

Katrina on the wagon ride.  

Katrina got my camera on the wagon ride and started taking pictures.  Here is a sampling.

Silly picture of my Dad.  Notice the feather in his hat--now that's macaroni. 

View of the countryside.  This is why green is in quotes in the title of my blog.
The color of this trip should actually be sage.  

Katrina's foot.  

When we got back to our campsite, my Mom, my niece, Hannah and Aaron came.  Hannah had been at girl's camp, and my Mom had stayed home with my sister and her new baby.  The evening was rather eventful, because my niece was trying to sit in one of our camp chairs, when it fell over, dumping her hand into the fire pit full of cooling charcoal.  She got second degree burns on her arm and fingers.  My parents ended up taking her back home and to the emergency room. Luckily, the doctor said the burns weren't too bad and would heal up just fine.  

Saturday morning we packed up camp.  My sister decided to drive down to Bryce Canyon.  We went back to the Fremont Indian museum to show Hannah and Aaron the fun stuff there.  I spent most of the time in the kid's section with Katrina reading an interesting book called Code Talker about the Navajo code talkers during WWII.  I'm assured by the Smalleys that it is very good, so I have it on order at the library to finish reading next week at Bear Lake.  

This is the last week of the Badges of Fun.  The theme is Get Active.  They suggest 1. Take a hike--go on a nature hike.  2. Hop on your bike--make a bike obstacle course and do it with your friends. 3. Play in your yard--turn your back yard into a bean bag basketball court.  Hannah and Maggie are going to Allie's for a sleep over and will be participating in her ward's youth boating trip.  Sabrina is coming here and we are going to the swimming pool.  

I won't be blogging this next week, I have Aaron and my birthday celebration this weekend and then we're going to Bear Lake.  I'll blog after that.  Then you can expect a long silence as we start school.  

S'winter and Tea Time

When I talked with my kids about S'winter, Maggie had a truly awesome idea.  She suggested we go ice blocking.  So on Saturday we went ice blocking with my sister's family.  We went to our favorite sledding hill.  It was a fun afternoon.  And luckily, it didn't rain on us, though the wind blew and it threatened several times.

Maggie goes down the hill.

Katrina looks a little scared.

Caleb tries to run over Jake.

Now Katrina goes with Hannah.

Watch out for Sophie.

For our next week's activity, we had dinner together with family.  First, we celebrated Pioneer Day with the Smalleys, Beckners, and my parents.  We had bacon wrapped hot dogs and other cook out food.  I have been wanting to try bacon wrapped hot dogs ever since I saw them on Man vs. Food.  I was hoping they would be crispier.  But they were delicious anyway.  To cap off the evening we saw a fireworks show thanks to the Beckners and made s'mores.  

Then we celebrated the Olympics with a tea party.  Having food from the host country is becoming a family tradition.  For the last summer games in Beijing, we had Chinese food.  My dad suggested we have Fejuada (I'm sure I spelled that wrong.  Sorry.), a Brazilian dish of beans and pork, for the next Summer Olympics in Rio where he served his mission.  Anyway, Hannah came up with a great menu for a high tea.  We had sandwiches with meat and cheese, cucumbers, or strawberries.  Then I made scones and clotted cream.  (I'm sure the clotted cream was no where near the real thing, but it was delicious.)  Emily researched and then made crumpets.  They were amazing.  And for dessert we had raspberry bars, brown butter sea salt shortbread cookies, truffles, and birthday cake.  (It was my nephew's birthday the next day.)  Of course we had herbal teas.  I got out my tea cups and saucers, my tiny tea spoons from my Oma and borrowed some tea pots.  It was a fun meal.  And we really enjoyed watching the opening ceremonies outside on the patio thanks to my Dad and Aaron.  

The tea table all ready to go.  

 

My nephew's awesome Avengers birthday cake.
 My sister made the faces of all the Avengers  to go around the cake.

This next weeks Badge of Fun is Go Green.  They suggest 1. Play with green power--make a lemon powered clock, 2. Make gardening more fun--make a frame to frame a flower in the garden, or 3. Learn to upcycle--turn old magazines in to glossy flowers.  We are going camping this week and I think we will just be enjoying nature.  We have plans for some hikes and I'm sure if we encounter a creek, we will get very wet and muddy.  Hope you have a green week!