Long Term Decision

In his spiderman costume, Adam walked up to me and in a very serious voice declared, "I've decided to be spiderman for the rest of my life."

More Christmas Pictures

Adam got weapons and armour

Ruth and Kate with lovely American Girl doll clothes from Grandma

Anya feeling like breakfast should have come before presents

Johnny and my sister Amber

Rachel getting toy food. Anya attacked this package. Poor baby was really hungry.

Christmas Pictures

Jeremy, Rosanne, Ada, Rachel, and me caroling at the Robertson's

James, Rebecca, Jay and Grace caroling

Grandpa Robertson

Adam obeying Grandpa about the Christmas bulbs

Christmas

We got to spend some time with Amber, my parents, Monika, Ben and Tommy between the wedding and Christmas. It was so nice to see them and be with them all. My kids were in relative heaven. They just need to learn that Aunts and Uncles are made for things other than wrestling. Johnny and Kate seem to think that if an adult is related it is okay to punch them. We will have to work on that. On Christmas Eve we went to PF Changs with my family including Seth and Natalie, and then Monika's in-laws plus Monika's in-law's in laws (Who happen to be friends from our child hood.) I think that I enjoyed the bit that I got to visit with people, but John felt miserable as we had Adam break 2 or 3 plastic chopsticks, as well as stab himself in the eye with one of them. Each of our 5 potty trained children had to use the bathroom at separate times so we went to and from the bathrooms 5 times. Anya fussed about wanting food when it wasn't there, and then not getting the food fast enough and then not wanting that exact food but different food. She was just a handfull the entire 2 hours we were in the restaurant.

After dinner we all went to Amber's apartment, read the Christmas story in Luke 2, and sang Christmas carols. It was really nice. We left Amber's when Monika and Ben went to bed at 8:30. When we got the Robertson's, all of John's siblings were just arriving for their Christmas eve caroling so we joined that party just in time. While we were caroling with the Robertson's, Adam started taking the red Christmas bulbs off the tree. Grandpa Robertson said that the Christmas bulbs had to stay on the tree. Adam them put tham all on one branch. We know that wasn't what Grandpa meant, but boy it was funny. Later Adam strung all of the bulbs together and hung them on the tree.

When we put the kids to bed we told them that they could not get up until 7am. Ruth woke up at 4am but, was good and waited until 7am. I think that the kids enjoyed opening their stockings and presents. Rachel's favorite thing seems to be the ring pops in her stocking. She still is telling me how she got ring pops for her birthday. Johnny got lego star wars for his nintendo ds and disappeared for 4 days until we took the ds away just to see if he could still talk. Thankfully, he can. All in all I think we had a nice Christmas.

The Wedding

I would love to post pictures of Seth and Natalie's wedding, but we realized that the batteries were dead in our camera about the time we arrived at the reception. So I have no pictures to post. The wedding was beautiful, though. Natalie has very good taste. She was able to take an ugly church gym and make it very elegant and lovely. They used a lot of Christmas trees and the put lighted wreaths in the basket ball hoops. Her colors seemed to be maroon and green. It fit the season perfectly and made for a very beautiful wedding.

My favorite part was seeing Seth and Natalie sealed in the Salt Lake Temple. (That is where John and I were married. ) Natalie made a beautiful bride and Seth looked happy for the first time in 9 years. Our family has been praying for Uncle Seth to be married for many years now. At times, it seemed very hopeless. I am so grateful that he found Natalie. She is beautiful, good, and smart and I am sure that she will make him a great wife. Seth has always been gentle and kind, so I know that he will make a good husband and father. I am glad that he has found a good woman to give him the support and confidence that he needs to succeed.

The Drive Out

It is a bit more than 1000 miles from our house in Wichita, KS to John's parent's house in Provo, UT. The drive generally takes between 16 and 18 hours. It took 21 hours of driving to get out there this time. We were in an ice storm through most of Kansas until about the last 70 miles when we drove into a blizzard. It was dark and our windshield wipers were so covered in ice from the ice storm, that they no longer worked at all. It was pitch black, I was driving, and I could not see 2 feet in front of the car. John noticed that he could tell where the bumps that let you know you have gone off the road by the way the snow clumped on them were, so John looked intently out his window telling me to go more left or right to stay on the road, while I drove between 5 and 10 mph. When several trucks and cars went off the road on the other side of the highway the headlights of the jammed traffic helped to light our way. For the most part we were the only car on our side of the highway. We aren't sure if a truck jack knifed and blocked all of the traffic behind us, or if the authorities closed off the highway just after us. When we finally made it to a safe stop, we immediately went to Wal-mart and bought new windshield wipers. Then we got dinner and a hotel. We were just so exhausted after the slow drive through Kansas we felt that we would be safer to get some rest before we drove the other 700 miles. We did something that we never do: we went to sleep pretty much right away and got up at 6am to get an early start. We were really blessed to be both safe from bodily harm and to have not been in a car accident. Through the ice storm we saw 5 trucks and 3 cars off the road, and then in the 40 miles of the blizzard we saw at least 7 trucks and 4 cars either jack knifed or in a ditch.

The next day we got through half of Wyoming with Johnny annoying people for his own entertainment as our only trouble. The second half of Wyoming we were in snow and had to slow down again. By Rock Springs it was blizzarding again and we had to drive slowly. But we were grateful that they did not close the highway. It was blizzarding until we got to Provo Canyon and then the snow just stopped and we drove the last 45 minutes in relative calm. It was such a relief to arrive safely in Provo. Thinking back, it seems pretty miraculous that we were able to drive through probably 500 or more miles of storm and to have seem vehicle after vehicle off the road, and we did not even slip or lose control once.

Time To Catch Up-- Family Home Evening Nativity

Well, we have been gone for almost 2 1/2 weeks visiting relatives for Christmas and to see my brother's wedding. So I have a lot that I want to blog and catch up on. I think that I will start in chronological order. The Monday before we left, we did our annual kid performance of the nativity. To avoid any conflict the kids drew their parts from a hat. The results were

• Ruth: Shepard
• Kate: Mary
• Johnny: Wiseman
• Adam: Joseph
• Rachel: Angel
• Anya: was suppose to be a sheep, but we made her baby Jesus instead.

I was surprised how perfectly the roles were assigned from such a random method. They all did a good job. Anya was a little fussy, Adam wiggled a lot more than you would think Joseph should. Kate was a very motherly Mary. Ruth was a very girly shepard, and Rachel danced and sang and enjoyed her Angel dress a lot.