Happy New Year

Well, like most years, I get to spend my new years eve at work. Mike and the kids are at home watching the ball drop on TV and I'm sure they are prepared with their fake champagne in our "fancy" glasses. I get to work for the next 3 nights (4 total). I only have 21 shifts left here at Baystate. On Sunday I'm hopping a plane to Vegas for 6 job interviews. It's a quick visit, no time for fun. It's going to be a busy week. Mike and I have started the packing process and hope to get a lot done before he leaves on Jan 14th. His mom flies out to rescue us on Jan 13th and will stay until Feb 20th when we will all fly to Vegas together.

Preparing to move is a rough start for 2009, but I'm sure it will turn out to be good. As I remember it, I also spent 2008 moving and it didn't turn out so bad. I hope you all have a great 2009 as well!!

Mason celebrates

Per McKelleb tradition, the birthday child gets to go out to dinner wherever he wants, just him and the parents. This proved to be a tough decision for Mason. Will it be..... McDonalds or Burger King? He had to get on-line to find out which place had the best toy in their kids meal. So we ended up at Burger King for the wii toys. At least he isn't hard to please.

Then we had cake and ice cream at home with the family on his "real" birthday (dec 29th). That b-day right after Christmas always catches me off guard. We usually celebrate in January, but I had time off work now so we threw together a celebration with his friends on Tuesday the 30th.

The kids had all said that they wanted to go ice skating one more time before we left, so Mason invited a couple of friends to go with us. It was a fun activity to celebrate his birthday. I'm amazed at how well Mason skates around and doesn't mind falling. Brianna and I still like to stick really close to the sides. We start to get the hang of it about when it's time to leave.

Mason chose to invite his friend Kenny (from his old elementary) and Jonathon and Sam from church. I think they had more fun being silly and obnoxious in the car on the way there and back. The girls were about to clobber them but it was hard to stop them from laughing. I think Mason had a good day. It's always fun to be special once a year! We are so glad he is part of our family!


This means we have officially ended our birthday season. No more parties to plan until next October. (YEAAA!)

Mason turns 10

Double Digits now!!!! There's no going back!!!



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We also have to give a shout out to RHYLAN since he turns 5 today too!!! I guess it's the day that only the cool people were born right?

Happy Birthday to Mason

You can't turn 10 until you have blown out all your candles!!

Our gift to Christ

We have been trying to get a time for the youth to go to the Boston Temple and do baptisms for the dead. The only time we could get was the saturday after Christmas. During this time of giving, we decided that it would be a good way for us to give something to Christ. We had a great group of youth there to do the work. This was the statue that was set up on the temple grounds for Christmas. I had never seen anything like it and it really touched me.

We gathered together in the temple for a prayer and a song. Then the workers happened to meantion that the boiler had gone out and there was no hot water. That meant that all the water in the font was ice cold. The youth had a chance to back out if they wanted to and just do comfirmations, but all of them were committed to do the work. Most of them had to be pulled out after 5 baptisms because they were shaking so violently or they couldn't breath from the cold. Brianna stuck it out and did 10 baptisms. It was her first time. I was so proud of her. Chelsea is almost an old pro at it but still loves to go. I just love working with the youth. They are such an inspiration for me. Going to the temple is always a long day, but it's worth it to have such a peaceful feeling.

Christmas Celebrations

We have a lot of traditions when it comes to celebrating Christmas. We start out on Christmas eve taking the family out to dinner. We chose to go to Friendly's since they don't have them out west (if you are from here you just sang the jingle in your head right??).



Then we drove through forest park where they have Bright Nights. It's an amazing light display that is famous in New England, and it's right in our backyard. Cord is at a phase where he LOVES the lights and gets super excited. We drove around to look at a few other lights including a house where the lights are coordinated to music.



We headed home so we could track Santa on Norad.com. We found out he was still in Africa so we had some time. We then open our pj's, make hot chocolate, and settle in for a Christmas movie together. Mason was really concerned that we hurry and get to bed so Santa wouldn't pass by us this year. We even had a chimney this year for him to come down.



We set up our cookies and milk and headed to bed with visions of sugar plums and all that good stuff.



Cord loves Santa. He says HOHOHO and likes to wear this hat. Sometimes we ask him what santa says and he says "choo choo" while he blows the train whistle. I guess that's a little polar express coming out.



Santa found our house and left some cool things. All their hopes and wishes came true. Chelsea and Brianna got their ipod nanos, Mason got a nintendo DS and a lego set, Cord got a little bike and a ball set (baseball, basketball, golf, etc). I got a digital picture frame so I can relive all the fun vacations we took this year and Mike got the family moving to Las Vegas. The family got a nintendo wii with guitar hero and mario cart.



Christmas morning is so exciting and is over so fast. Chelsea played "what child is this" on the violin for her daddy (his favorite song) and wrote me a story. Brianna wrote us some very nice cards and played some piano pieces on the piano for us. They are both so thoughtful.



After scones for breakfast (another tradition) the kids kept themselves busy trying out the wii.



Cord played all morning with his remote control car. I was surprised how well he was able to move it.



We then had a nice dinner (Mike deep fried another turkey) with the Flowers family and the missionaries. Cord and Jack played all evening, I'm not even sure if they sat still long enough to eat. It was nice to be with friends for the holidays. We were both missing our families in Utah.

Merry Christmas from Cord (hohoho)

I just love this stage he is in right now. How precious!

All aboard the Polar Express

"Let's get comfy and nestled all snug in the train,
while visions of sugar plums dance in our brains.
As we steam through the night on the North Pole Express,
keep an eye out for Santa, a sight to impress."

We braved the snow storm and headed to Essex CT to ride on the polar express (about an hour away). What a fun night for us. It was a magical train ride to the north pole where we picked up Santa and Mrs. Claus. They rode on the train for a while and got to visit with each child. On the way we had a special elf on our car who lead us in singing and telling stories. He also kept trying to introduce Chelsea to another 8th grader on the train. There were other elves there to hand out hot chocolate and cookies to munch on. Cord loved every minute of it - the train, singing and dancing, and Santa (Ho Ho Ho). Mason loves to keep ringing his bell that Santa gave him. He doesn't remember the train ride we took about 4 years ago with all the cousins in Heber City Utah but it brought back a lot of memories for me. All of the kids commented on how much fun tonight was and I agreed.

Merry Christmas from Chelsea

With all the snow we expected church to be cancelled. Instead they decided to just hold sacrament meeting since the snow was going to get bad around noon. (too bad, we had a really great YW Christmas lesson planned). Chelsea played her violin in church. I'm so proud of her. She did a really great job. She wanted to post this as a Christmas card to her grandmas and for you to enjoy.

Here comes the snow

Between it snowing all day friday and saturday, we have gotten well over a foot of snow at our house. The storm continues today and we are expected to get another 6 inches. Mason and Brianna are loving it and are outside until their fingers get numb, come in to thaw out, then go back outside. We don't have any snowmen yet though.


You can see that the snow comes up to Briannas knee. This was saturday afternoon.


It's a good thing that daddy has a 4x4 truck and knows how to drive in the snow. He has been our chaperone all weekend. He had to drive me to work on friday then come pick me up saturday morning. He drove us to the ballet and back. And tonight he is driving us down to Essex CT so we can ride the polar express. YEA DADDY

Nutcracker

Another christmas tradition is going to see the nutcracker ballet. We usually go with cousins and grandma, but once again that is just not going to happen this year. We really wanted to head back to NYC and see the ballet there, but it just wasn't possible. So the next best thing.... a ballet company from Albany NY came to springfield and preformed in symphony hall. This is the place that we went to see the symphony with our friends. I love the inside and all the details of the decor. The ballet was nice. Brianna's favorite dancers are the chinese dance and the arabian dancer. I really enjoy the second half the best as well.


This is a pic inside symphony hall. See what i mean about the details? I guess if we would have stayed, Mike would have had his graduation ceremony here. Oh well.

New England Tradition

The first time I saw the candles in the windows at Christmas time here in New England, I fell in love with this tradition. It's hard to get a really good picture of these old homes in the dark with their candles, but I just think it looks really quaint. We decided that we have to start a new tradition when we move back to the west. Maybe we'll be so cool that other people will put candles in their windows and we can be as cool as the new englanders.

First snow day - making gingerbread houses

Today we got the call that Mason has been waiting for "school has been cancelled because we are getting a huge snow storm". We heard about the snow that you folks in st. george were getting and we felt left out. We didn't even see a snowflake until after lunch and then it dumped 8-12 inches of snow in a few hours. To pass the time, I was able to get out the gingerbread kits that I had bought before Thanksgiving. Its an annual tradition, although we usually are doing at grandmas house with all cousins. So while we missed the company, the kids were able to have a lot of time to get creative with their houses and had a good time. Every year they just get better and better. I was grateful for a day to just relax at home, and I didn't know when we were going to have time to do this activity. It all worked out great. Cord was upgraded this year from watching, to having his own graham crackers to decorate. It will take a few years before he upgrades to having his own house to do. By the end of it they are all sick from eating all the candy that doesn't end up on their houses. But the best part from missing a day of school for snow...... we don't have to make it up in June because we won't be here (hahahaha)

Returning wih honor

These are most of our favorite elders. We had the opportunity to attend their farewell testimony meeting tonight in a town called Weston that is close to Boston. But only 3 of these are going home. Elder Koerper (tall one on the left) just got transferred to be the new AP so he was at the meeting. How great it was to get to see them again and hear about what they have learned on their missions. All of them are fabulous men and hope they will come visit us in Vegas. Elder Stevens and Amicone are from northern Utah and Elder Overson is from Arizona so its possible that they'll come to visit us. Elder Koerper told us he has a 14 year old brother that he is going to bring with him (after Chelsea turns 16 of course). We wish them all well as the now enter the "real world". They will soon be "RMs" (return to mommy).

How many cans?

How many cans of Mountain Dew does it take to get through finals?????

Michael took his last final today!!!! We are now officially half way done with school and he feels about 50 pounds lighter. Now maybe he can start to enjoy Christmas. Notice all the highlighters? They have all been sucked dry on law books just this semester. Maybe we should be stock in the company that makes them?

Are you on the naughty or nice list

We took another trip up to yankee candle so we could visit Santa. But when we got there he was gone. Luckily we ran into him as we were walking out of the store. How lucky are we. He told us to hold onto this picture. If they were naughty, they would start to disappear from the picture and everyone would know. We could also keep an eye on Santa to see if he was being nice because the same promise applies to him. So we look everyday to see if they are being naughty or nice.

Where's Chelsea? Did she disappear from the picture already? No. She went to a stake dance down in Hartford with a van load of crazy teenagers (and an adult driver). It was her first dance and she can't stop talking about how much fun she had. She can't wait to go again. There is another one in Albany NY and one in Hartford before we have to leave. Because there aren't as many youth around so we have to travel to get these fun experiences, but it's worth it.

Happy Bithday Baby

Cord turned 2 on December 11th. WOW where did that time go?


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