January 2017 - Big News for Chris!

We are so excited for Chris. He has worked so hard to get to this point. It will be awesome that he'll get to share in this experience with Kayli and little Brynlee. Just expect a lot of visits from this grandma to Henderson, NV during the next few years!

Together in the Temple

It was a freezing winter day, but we all joined with the Butters family and went to the Draper Temple to seal family names together. Even Brynlee came and Alli watched her in the lobby so Kayli and Chris could join in. Chris's sweet Grandpa Anderson was the sealer.

Afterward, we went to lunch at Hu Hot. Thanks Mom and Dad for gathering us together at the temple and for treating us all to lunch. This made for a great day with some of my favorite people!

Nighttime Snow Angels

Surprise Gray :0

Gray thought he was coming over for a simple video game night with a few friends. Surprisingly, all these people were waiting downstairs to surprise him with Happy Birthday wishes!

 He was pretty happy to be celebrated! Happy "22" Grayden! I have always thought of him as another one of my kids. He basically lives in our backyard. 

It's so awesome having all these college kids around again! Any excuse to get them together works for us!

 And to the instigator of the party...Jake - who invited this crew and organized all the activities! Here is the final round of Texas Hold'em. Originally, there were 6 tables and now we are down to the top 6 players. Jake stopped off at the dollar store and had some pretty fun prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. 

Preference 2017

Madi invited Easton to this dance a little over a month ago. Apparently,  Preference is like the girls choice dance that is comparable to Prom. The day date started off early Saturday morning at the K1 Racetrack.

 This group has so much fun together and they are all just really great friends!

 All dressed up and ready to go pick up her date for a delicious dinner at Tucanos, dance at Thanksgiving Point and then games in Alpine.

 Pictures at Autumns house before - so glad her mom sent these to me.

Beautiful Girls!

 More pictures at the Provo Riverwoods where they met another group for dinner.

 

 Great times all dressed up for a night out!

crazy snow

It's been coming down all morning! Derek has already snowblowed once. Just 15 minutes ago, this pathway was clear.

 He can't keep up! Barely as his finishes one section, it's time to come back and start over again.

 Round 3 for the day. It's a thick storm and I really think we have gotten our fill of snow for this year!

Wrestling and Games - 1/08/17

Heather sent me these pictures the other day and I have to post them! Melissa totally took down her Uncle Derek. She even had some Nacho Libre moves to say the least! Derek played along, but secretly he loves wrestling too. :)

 Pinned on the ground. I really think he makes this too fun for her!

 "Put up your fists, Uncle D" - Melissa is making some tough moves!

Punch to the belly. Derek is a lover and a fighter! He has taught Sara to fight - she is grateful to him for teaching her this skill.

The audience in the room had a great time watching these two entertain us! haha...

Break time to show off her latest birthday present to Jake.

 Some of the adults and kids joined in for a rip roaring game of "Big Bootie". We must play this again!

 It got a little loud and funny to watch how most of us couldn't remember what number we were, especially when we were changing numbers so often.

 The rhythm gets faster with each game. Concentration is key and it shows all over our faces.

 A circle of games is always so fun on a Sunday afternoon.

Cute little Dani just wasn't quite big enough for this game, but she seemed to be happy dressing up and dancing in Alli's old Ballet outfits!

MLK Holiday - Pretzels and Ping Pong

It was a crazy day in the kitchen trying to make pretzels with Madi. She has the skills to make perfect sized Auntie Annie's pretzels and we had the real kit so they would taste just the same!

Everyone crowded around the counter and wanted to get in on the action. Even the younger girls wanted to learn how. Madi showed us several times, but really she works so quickly we needed to have a slow motion camera to figure it out.

There are lots of tricks to making these mall type pretzels, one is dipping them in baking soda before putting them on the tray...

We made 35-40 creations! Some looked like pretzels and some looked like well...something else. The taste was still just the same and everyone had a fantastic time!

Afterwards we all headed downstairs for a ping pong tournament. Since everyone was out of school today, we thought it would be fun to get together. Grandma brought a valentines craft too. 

The girls helped me put together a bracket chart - it was written really quick and so it's a little messy, but it worked. Kayli was the ultimate winner out of 18 people.

And I was so proud of my Mom because she joined right in the tournament with the rest of us!

Thanks Emilee for reminding us what playing is all about!

3 Kings Dinner!!

 These girls have changed so much since we started this tradition 9 years ago. They are all beautiful young women now.

 And this is the first year we have ever had a baby join in. My how time changes everything! Brynlee was kind to let everyone take a turn holding her and she didn't seem to mind all the noise and chaos of the people around. She is such a good sleeper!

 The table stretched from one end of the house to the other and we still can't fit everyone. We are almost surrounded by all adult children now except for the 5 teenage girls!

 Bryn woke up to all the yummy smells of food, but seemed content just stareing at all the candle lights...

 Since this evening takes the entire evening, there was plenty of time for Brynlee to get fed and changed into her jammies.

Dessert!!

Then it was time to send off the Chinese lanterns.   

Derek is so good at holding them perfectly straight so the flame burns up. We had a few catch on fire this year!

Cutest girls...

Friends Forever!!

Lantern Malfunction - when the flame burns through the paper and the lantern loses it's capability to float.

Yay for a great night!