NEW YEARS EVE

We have a family tradition that I am not sure how it started or even when it started, but it has been at least 3-4 years maybe longer we have Chinese for dinner. It has been longer because the first time was by accident we had Panda express at home and did that for a year or two, then they starting closing early so for the last 3-4 years we have gone to Chinese Gourmet.
It is something we all look forward to and New Years is beginning to be one of my very favorite holidays. I know it is Bill's. For one thing now I don't cook and I love that and now the kids are all old enough they can go up and fix there own plate and I just have to help Heber a bit not to get just treats (I actually have to help a few of them with that).
Then we come home and watch a movie and turn it to Dick Clarke's countdown on TV for the last 10-15 minutes before midnight and then go out on the porch and bang pots and pans and sometimes if we have fireworks left over we do them.
This year we didn't watch the countdown we just played video games together and then banged on pans.

Trimming the tree

 

This is one of the 4 FHE (Family Home Evenings) we have before Christmas. starting with the 4th Monday before Christmas. We had a lot of fun opening all the boxes with stored treasures and memories. We also had hot chocolate because we live in Utah not Hawaii.
Bill took control of the camera and so I didn't realize until I was loading all the pictures on the computer that I didn't have my usually picture of each of the boys putting an ornament on the tree. We may have to do some re-creating before the tree comes down. It was really great to have the tree in our family room, I was a little disappointed once the season progressed that it didn't look like Christmas much when you first came into our house and am hoping to have enough money to get a tree in the front room too. I think we will have our traditional tree in the family room with all the meaningful ornaments from year to year. Next year I would like to have a really pretty tree in the front room, but we will have to see.
We get a new ornament every year. Sadly our Angel Moroni met a horrible demise one night while the older kids were tending the younger ones. And as many mothers know, not a one of them knows what happened and there were a lot of "not me's" uttered so that will have to be replaced, but no one seems to have them anymore.
We had a great time decorating and what has become a tradition by default we watch the movie "Scrooged" with Bill Murray. This year I had to make a modification and the movie couldn't be turned on until the tree was put together and they had started putting ornaments on and then had to keep reminding them that I would have to turn it off if they couldn't keep decorating. A lot of it was finished the next day while they were all at school. You would think we never allow TV on in our house.

Bateman Family Christmas Party

 

We went to a church this time (Judy did all the arranging and it was at her church) down a treacherous gully road that must scare them every Sunday.

We had a really good time and everyone in Utah was able to make it. We had ball games, movies and lots of yummy dinner with TONS of treats. Grandpa brought gifts and videos for everyone and we really had a great time. It didn't have a comfy couch to watch TV (Jared was disappointed) but aside from that we were set.

My kids were so excited and by the looks of all the shorts, they were prepared for a roaring game of basketball (eat your heart out Jeanna going to the beach on Christmas, our kids had shorts on too). My kids keep talking about it and hoping that we have it in a church every year.

It was so nice to see everyone, it's been a while since we have all been together that could be. We sure missed Jeanna and Johnny's family.

Christmas tag

Christmas Tag... I always mean to do these blog tags, but never seem to get around to it. I started this long before Christmas and it has taken me forever. I wrote so much more than anyone wants to read (not that anyone looks at my blog anyway, but it was a lot of fun for me and I just ramble so no one feel obligated, but I loved doing it.

Eggnog or hot chocolate? Both, I always drank it with Fizzy (Sprite, or I should say the generic of sprite) when I was younger and when I got married Bill likes it just plain. I could never drink it because it was way too creamy, but I have adapted a taste for it. I never drank hot chocolate when I was young and one of my first Young Women’s activities was sleigh riding at Mutual Dell (in American Fork Canyon) and they were going to have hot chocolate. I thought the world had ended and I was given “hot” drinks by my mutual leaders and took a cup, but didn’t drink it. My friends all laughed and I pretending to take a sip and threw it behind me as soon as I could. It was actually a little traumatic. I came running home to my mom and told her what had happened and she said that wasn’t what the word of wisdom was talking about and that we were going to have some for Christmas. I still didn’t drink it then or hot apple cider at Halloween, but I have since eased on my strictness. Maybe that’s not a good thing or something that I should admit.

Does Santa wrap presents or set them under the tree? Yes, but I am with Judy on this, the big nicest present comes from mom and dad. Santa’s is something fun and not from the dollar store, but mom and dad need a little “brownie points” since I am always “the meanest mom in the whole world”.

Colored lights on tree or white? Colored lights, I really like the color ones, but I have to admit I love a really nicely decorated tree

When do you put your decorations up? I was never one to do it the day after Thanksgiving... but this year we did (or started it) and I love it, we are going to do it every year. I have a hard time not taking the tree down on Christmas day, but I think having more room will make it so I am not so anxious on Christmas, we will see. And we are doing lights on the house next year; we haven’t had time this year. And we even have a fancy plug up on the roof with a light switch inside.

What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? I love just having a lot of snack food around. Cheese ball and crackers. I love augratin cauliflower and rolls. We do different things for Christmas, but mostly ham, summer sausage and snacks and relish trays, just snacking all day and not really having to fix a big dinner (especially now that I am the mom and it would be me making it). We always have an orange and apple and a banana in our sock and have that for breakfast. My family all remember the big dinner on Christmas eve, but I don’t remember the big dinner on Christmas Eve and so haven’t really carried on that tradition. Plus that is when Bill’s family has their big get-together every year and Bill’s dad does a ham, rolls and green bean casserole, which is really good.
I only remember the Christmas party over at the church and our bag of candy with an orange (funny thing is I am sure that is how I figured out there wasn’t a Santa because my orange from the church looked exactly like the orange in my sock).

Favorite holiday memory as a child: My mom LOVED Christmas, I think it was her favorite time of year. She would get so excited. I think that is why I love it so much. She used to say it was magical and would get so excited on the Sunday before Christmas when the choir would sing almost all of sacrament meeting. She was usually running around trying to get us there on time, but I think she started an hour early just to make sure we didn’t miss a minute of them singing. I used to just love to watch her as they sang, she was so intensely enjoying every note. She used to say that her talent in music was appreciating it, which she did very well.

Christmas is one of the hardest times not to have her and I have gotten to the point where I want to be what she was for me in regards to Christmas so I have some of her here with me.

There are so many wonderful holiday memories. I wasn’t a part of Judy’s steal of a deal on Christmas trees, but one of my best memories is similar. It was a day or two before Christmas and we didn’t have a tree yet, I think the expense usually kept it late in the season, but it was normal to me. That year we didn’t have a tree and I must have been 17 or 18 because I had my little yellow Datsun car, Jerusha and I heard on the radio of a tree place that was giving away trees. We got there as fast as we could, but they were closed and a sign said “free trees, just pick one” so we had to jump the fence and as long as we were there we grabbed at least 3 or 4 for anyone else that didn’t have one. We tied them to the top of the car (I wish I would have had my camera) and came home bragging of our conquest (which dad didn’t appreciate us saying that we stole them) and put it up. Then we headed up to Grandma Andersons and put one up for her and called a bunch of people in the ward to take a tree to them. We spent most of the night decorating trees for everyone. I think we were laughing so hard I almost wet my pants trying to get those trees over the fence.

When I was little I was so excited I just couldn’t sleep. I would sneak into Joey and Jordan’s room and we would talk about how great the next day was going to be. Sometimes we would get silly, I remember playing “Make me laugh”, a really old-old-old game show and me and Jordan pretended to (sorry this is gross and I don’t know if I should write it in case my kids read this) but we were trying to make Joey laugh and if you made them laugh within a certain time you won. We started pretending (I am going to blame Jordan on this, because it couldn’t have been my idea) but we pretended to pull a giant rope of snot out of our nose and just kept pulling and pulling and Joey laughed, but then he started to gag and then so did Jordan and me. Gross, I know. Maybe that is why I am the mom of boys. Then Joey and I (and Jordan once he got a little older) would sneak into the front room and just gaze in wonderment of all the presents and the tree glowing. We could go through our sock and everything around it, but couldn’t touch any presents under the tree until everyone was up. We would read the tags on as many presents as we could without moving them.

Another favorite memory was once I got to be about 11 or 12 I was mom’s helper. While mom was shopping for Christmas food would buy all the fixin’s for a nice steak dinner including white grape juice for 2. My mom would put the kids to bed and my dad would go start a movie or have TV on to Johnny Carson waiting to help wrap. He would always fall asleep. I would wait until I thought he was asleep and sneak down and help my mom wrap all night and she and I would share her steak and have a nice meal together and have such a great time talking and laughing. One night we watched “The Gods must be Crazy” and laughed until we nearly wet our pants (I know a theme). Then put everything in piles for everyone and see how even they were and make adjustments if someone seemed to have a little or a lot. Then dad would wake up and say “oh you’re done” and then he would have his steak while we all talked and then I would go to bed. I felt bad for Bill on our first Christmas Eve married because after we set up everything for our first Christmas I bawled and bawled because mom was being Santa without me, but Bill and I had a steak dinner with white grape juice.

Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? The Christmas PJ’s is one. I used to think that was only our tradition and still think people really copied my mom. I remember coming home from school and her sewing them. She was always pretty good at only working on the other kids when each of us was there and having them be as close to a surprise as she could. When I got older I would know which ones were mine sometimes, because I was her helper, but she still tried to keep them a secret.
We have kept this tradition up since it belongs to us (ha-ha). I used to be really good at making them, but haven’t for years. One year I thought I had such a great idea and got the kids sweats for their Christmas PJ’s (the first year I didn’t make them) and thought that was such a great idea. The kids were so upset. They looked like they had just been punched right in the face clear into adult hood. I felt so terrible that we bought them the next year (and not just cheap ones, super hero ones).

How do you decorate your Christmas tree? It is a big mesh of ornaments that don’t match, but ones that we have made throughout the years. We get a new ornament every year and I used to be able to tell you which one for which year, but I’m getting too old. Now that we have our addition and the tree in our family room I have really been sad about no tree in the front room when people come over to visit so next year I am doing both. I will have to wait until tax return time, and hopefully they wont be too much, but I am going to do a fancy tree in the front room and the family tree with all the history and homemade mismatched ornaments where we spend the most time.

Snow! Love it or dread it? Yes, the first snowstorm I absolutely love and hate it when we don’t have a white Christmas and love sleigh riding. But hate the cold and when it gets black and icky I don’t like that. Plus I married someone that would love to live in Arizona where it never snows and he hates it so I think that is growing on me a bit.

Can you ice skate? I love to ice skate. I’m not sure I could any more. I could only push off with my right foot though, I’m not ambidextrous even though I always wanted to be and used to practice, but it never came through on the feet so my left leg would be so sore by the end of the night from holding all of my weight all night long. I did get so I could do a turn or two and go really fast, even one footed. For a couple of years the old school house where Kencraft is now was a skating rink and you could skate for a quarter (dating me I know). Someone gave us a pair of ice skates when I was about 7 or 8 and I wore them everywhere and got to be really good at balancing and running up and down the stairs. I thought it would be great to be in the Olympics, but try as I might if I tried to push off with the wrong foot down I would go.

Do you remember your favorite gift? A few, 3 in particular; First, one year we had a big Christmas we had 2 trees one upstairs and one downstairs in the family room (before our addition). We opened what we thought was our whole Christmas up stairs. Joey and I really wanted bikes so after we opened our gifts upstairs mom and dad told us to go downstairs and there were bikes for Joey and I and Janet and Jordan got big wheels. (This is the famous bike that, while I was pumping Joey on my bike his foot got caught in the spokes and ripped all the skin off of his leg. That part isn’t a good memory).
Second, I really wanted a watch one year and got a white Timex that I had for years and even lost it in the big ditch at the top of the orchard and the next water turn it came down in our yard. And there were others.
The third was a homemade doll and buggy. My mom made dolls for each of us girls (I think there were 3 or 4 girls at the time) and she recovered a big baby carriage that she had when she was young. She had really wanted one for Christmas and didn’t think there was any way she would get it and was surprised when she got it. It was big enough that I would put my brothers and sisters in it.

What's the most important thing about the holidays for you? Trying to make Christmas as wonderful for my kids as it was for me, and spending time with my family. Enjoying my kids and the magic of Christmas. Also is my gratitude for my Savoir and the knowledge that I have of His love and the Atonement and being able to share that with my kids.

What is your favorite holiday dessert? I love fudge, divinity and homemade caramels. I also love breakfast pull-a-parts, but most treats are wonderful.

What is the your favorite tradition? The PJ’s and the build up to Christmas, we have 4 FHE (family home evenings) building up to it: 1. Seeing the lights 2. Making cookies, 3. The Christmas story and lesson, and 4. Taking around neighbor gifts and doing something of service.

Which do you prefer, giving or receiving? Both, again. I love getting things for the kids and don’t always care about what I get, but love a surprise and who doesn’t love getting something, especially something scrapbooking.

What is your favorite Christmas Song? I love the Church Christmas music and a lot of it, but there is a lot I can do without. I HATE the Christmas song about the shoes, “sir, I wanna buy these shoes” it makes me want to gag! I love Picture a Christmas and Christmas bells are ringing by the primary. And like my mom I love the Christmas program on the Sunday before Church.

Candy canes! Yuck or yum? Used to be yuck, but now little bits and I love them in hot chocolate. I used to love the cherry one, but not anymore.

Ever recycled a Christmas present? Of course.

Sorry this is so long, like I said it was really good for me and nice before Christmas. Especially remembering my mom and my childhood memories. Plus I’m not sure anyone, but I will read it. And I don’t have 7 people that read my blog, thank goodness Judy comments. I’m always so excited when I see a comment.

Halloween

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holiday. When I was young My mom always made chili so that when we came home cold we would have a warm dinner with Apple Cider. I have never been a fan of chili, but nothings better on Halloween. Bill and his family had the same tradition so it worked out perfectly to have this continue in our family.

It has kind-of grown from there. I'm not a great host and I get a little stressed out inviting people over, but for Halloween we have ended up with quite a few people.

It seems to grow every year. This year I made about 20 quarts of chili and about 140 bread sticks. We also have hot apple cider.
Either I or Bill go out with the kids (although I really think we both just locked the house last year and went for a while together, but Bill is sure we never leave the house, his house got robbed and has been vandalized quite a few times on Halloween and so he doesn't like to leave). Anyway this year I took the kids around for a while in the van and went around to our ward, our ward is spread out so we just hit the houses that we knew.

A friend and neighbor came along for the ride with her son Kyle while her husband stayed home and handed out candy. Once we came home we let the older kids go out with friends while we entertained. We had about 4 or 5 families over and invited a few neighbors over for a hot bowl of chili.
It was so fun to have a scary movie going, friends over and talking with a ton of kids playing everywhere. The clean-up the next day wasn't as fun, but I was smarter about my food prep this year so even that wasn't terrible.

BJ was a Jazz fan, nothing out of the ordinary except that he usually only has face paint when he goes to a game or goes trick-or-treating . . . he didn't go all Putty on us and paint his belly though . . .

Taft was a Jazz player . . . .











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Ammon was a "Ranger's Apprentice" from his favorite book . . .

Carson got to be 2 things, pack meeting they dressed like their favorite book character so he was Harry Potter (no surprises here)


Then he was Batman on Halloween. He saved up his money around his birthday and bought his own costume.

Heber wanted to a vampire, but just a normal vampire. "I want to be a vampire, but just a normal vampire with no name, like Dracula I don't want that name, no name just a normal vampire that doesn't have a name and can you come with me and tell people I don't have a name especially NOT Dracula".

Carving Pumpkins

This is from October, but I am a bit behind . . . .
So for the last few years we have been carving pumpkins. We used to paint them and always painted them once I got older, I don't remember doing pumpkins before that except my dad carving one pumpkin. Once all the kids were born we started painting them and always did it. I am sure for safety reasons.

When Bill was the 11 year old scout leader and the Webelos leader we continued trying our hand at painting. So about 2-3 years ago I wanted to try our hand at carving, much to Taft's dismay. He hates it, he thinks it is gross and disgusting . If you look at the middle pictures all the kids are into it up to the elbows. They enjoyed making noises like they were sneezing the pumpkins guts or pretending like they were throwing it up or acting like they were going to eat it. It was all more that Taft could take. We had to make an end to trying to gross him out and if you look closely at him carving he has a knife and a spoon in his hands and nothing on him. He would have worn rubber gloves if he could have. Also if you look close his pumpkin is hardly cleaned out like the other kids. He is getting better though a few years ago this episode of family togetherness brought him to tears and not happy ones.

We might need to let him paint his next year and have the other kids carve. Either way we aren't drawing on them first. I love doing family traditions and need to remember that it is worth the trouble to create memories and we always have a good time.

Ammon's 12th Birthday . . .

It doesn't seem possible. It seems like just yesterday my mom was holding Ammon and admiring him and noticing that we have the same tongue. Of all my kids I think Ammon looks the most like me. The other kids look like me until you see a picture of Bill at their same age and then you can't even tell I had anything to do with their creation. But I have pictures of me that look a lot like a "girl" Ammon. He isn't fond of me saying that we look a like unless you throw in that he is ALL BOY. I remember him sitting up for the 1st time on my mom's front room floor and her so excited. Ammon will probably always mark time for me since he was only 6 months when my mom died, but as grateful as I am for the time I had with my mom and miss her I am equally grateful for the time I have had with my wonderful family.

Ammon's 12th Birthday . . . He was ordained by his dad to be a Deacon. Taft and Ammon are both now in the same Quorum. He is so excited. There are a lot of boys just older than him so it will be a big quorum, but in 11 year old scouts there were just 2. He has been able to go on a couple of Deacon scout camps already and has loved it. I am so proud of him and his decision to get the priesthood. He really has a strong testimony of the church. I hope that he always keeps it.

Jimmy came up for Ammon's ordination and brought his girlfriend, Natalie. It was really nice to get to know her. The kids all seemed to have a really good time with them.

And here is Heber saluting again. I don't notice until I upload the pictures onto the computer. I need to pay more attention so that every picture we have of him isn't saluting. I have been making more of an effort to have family pictures and now we seem to have a ton. Unfortunately none of them are that great. We need to get one that is really good of all of us.

Corn Maze

I'm trying to do a bit of catching up with a piece of crap slow computer.
I am also trying to make it so we do a few more things and stop trying to just do what is thrown at us but plan. I had planned at the beginning of the month we were doing this and what day. I think had I not we would have just had a short FHE at home and then off to do homework and a quick treat, but here is our trip to the Corn Maze.
We had so much fun. We had to find numbers 1-15 (I think, I can't remember how many there were). We didn't find them in this order, but we had a bit of a fight over who found it first (I'm sure no one has ever experienced that before) and I wanted at least one picture of each of them so we had them stand by their birth order number.
We started out together, but by the time we got to the end we had lost BJ. I'm not sure he did it on purpose. A few cheats here and there and a few lost boys here and there and freezing, but we had so much fun. We even got a family photo out of it (although it's not very good). Heber salutes in most of his pictures lately, I don't know why except that he has 4 big brothers all in scouts, but he was saluting in almost every picture once I got them loaded on the computer and not just on this little adventure.

Twighlight here I come . . .

So my original post on this was greeted with mixed reviews. Ammon seemed almost proud of his picture and what I wrote. Bill hated it and said it was like taking a picture of our dirty dishes and saying this is what our house looks like . . . I was just going to delete the whole thing, but now am just leaving it as it is and will maybe delete it later. I have edited my comments and hope that it is still not offensive.

I don't have any idea of what Twighlight is, Judy loaned me the book. I lost it and then found it and now think I have lost it again. I am going to read it but I need to get through Thanksgiving first.

Anyway here is Ammon's new teeth coming in . . . before he has lost his old ones. . . . . When Ammon got his baby teeth he got all his eye teeth long before any others and looked like a little vampire, but I didn't think it would effect his permanent teeth.

Ammon wasn't posing for this picture up that close, it is from another one, but when I blew it up to take the red eye out it was shocking how much you could see his new teeth coming in on top of his baby teeth.

20 Years . . . and counting . . .

Today is our 20 year Anniversary . . . I can't believe it has been that long. In some ways it seems like we have always been married and in other ways it seems like we are still newly weds. Since it is FHE (family home evening) we took the kids with us on our "romantic" night out. Bill had a gift card from his parents to the El Matador, a restaurant that they have been going to since Bill was a little boy. It was really fun. It is up in Bountiful so it was a full night, we came home and had Ice-cream and now as all parents do with young kids we are doing homework. Maybe this weekend we will be able to have a quiet date together.

I am so grateful and lucky to be married to the most wonderful man. My life is wonderful and aside from a few minor issues, missing my mom a lot and just regular struggles of trying to stay on a budget and keep the kids taken care of and healthy and trying to stay patient we have a GREAT life.

So much for a big celebration for our 20th, we will try again on our 25th. It seems like big miles stones like our 5th and 10th we have something come up that makes it so time and money don't allow something big, but this year we have our addition and we are about to send the kids to bed and enjoy watching TV in our family room.

Bill bought me the most beautiful multi-colored dozen roses, I'm not sure the picture does them justice. I can't get the picture to load so I will have to add them later. - - - I never got a picture and they are wilted now, but they were beautiful.

This is the Place Monument

We have had major computer problems and so I haven't posted much, but I love seeing other peoples posts and think that I just need to do what I can slow computer and lost pictures and all. Conference Sunday we took advantage of Bill not having a bunch of meetings and packed a lunch and went up to the This is the Place Monument with the kids. It was so much fun. The park was closed as far as shops, rides etc. In fact we didn't see any workers there at all. There was actually hardly anyone there and we were just able to walk around and have the place almost to ourselves. (Maybe we were breaking the law and shouldn't have been in there). The kids had a blast. It was just so nice to have some time together. We took the tri-pod so now we have a few family pictures. None of them turned out that great, but that might be more of a feeling of how I look than how they turned out.

Heber

I am sure there are many moms who have a child like Heber, but after having 4 boys I would have thought they got easier . . . WRONG!! Heber beats to his own beat (usually on his brothers heads). He is so independent and does not have that filter that most do that stops every thought from coming spilling out of their mouths. He is so excited to be in school. He can't wait to go, but you would never know it by the way he gets dressed. He gets side tracked and there have been many times I have gone up to his room sure that he is getting dressed to find that he has discovered a toy he forgot he had and just had to play with it . . . in his underwear.
This used to completely freak out the neighbor boy that carpooled with us and he would take it upon himself to teach Heber the value of modesty, Heber just usually told him to SHUT-UP or some other form of thanks, but no thanks.
Anyway after fighting this battle everyday and having him have to drive to school getting dressed and putting shoes on in the car I was done . . . putting his shoes on in the parking lot I explained in not so calm terms how irritated I was . . . "this is awful, everyday we have the same battle, you are going to be grounded, I am taking away all your toys, everyone else can get dressed, your on my last nerve" . . . you get the picture. Our school does school breakfast as well as school lunch . . . so my last tirade was "AND YOU ARE GOING TO MISS BREAKFAST" without missing a beat he jumped up, grabbed his backpack and said "you know what else I am going to miss? . . . YOU" and gave me a big hug and kiss and ran off only looking back to say "I love you mom, see you at 12 o'clock".
Needless to say I have some repenting to do.

Small interuptions

I haven't been here in a while . . . our 92 day old computer, which had a 90 day full replacement guarantee went down and with it all our pictures. The only pictures I have are the old fashioned ones before digital and the few on my blog. That is pretty pathetic for someone who has spent 100's on scrap-booking and now has no pictures to scrapbook. I am hopeful that we can still retrieve them and that it isn't the hard drive that crashed. I have been sick about it. I also kept meaning to write down websites and passwords and back up my pictures but never did. I couldn't even find my our blog or check my email, it wasn't until Carolee decided to send me something that had a link to her blog that I was able to go to the comments and see where Judy had commented on link to her blog and find where I had commented on hers to transfer me over to see my own blog . . . sad I know.

I put a picture of the temple, since I don't have any pictures on this slow as molasses computer and because I am home alone late again with the kids finally in bed and Bill gone doing bishopric stuff, so it seemed to fit. We have been really blessed and have really enjoyed serving, some nights are longer than others, but all in all it has been good.

I hope that everyone is doing well . . . I love seeing everyones blogs . . . so glad to see Jeanna's.

Alpine Days . . . Annual Bateman Family Reunion

I am trying to add more than one image . . . this has taken me all morning . . . I think I finally figured it out. We will see.

We had our annual Bateman Family reunion for Alpine days. Because of School and Scout camps we weren't able to go to the Rodeo or Parade, but made it to the "BIG" dinner . . . Yummy Hawaiian Haystacks and Wahoo!!! Root Beer Floats . . . . Dad was there for dinner, but then had other obligations. It was good to see you dad, I hope you had a good time. We missed you for the rest of the night.

All the cousins seem to have had a great time playing sports, swinging, running and don't forget the tramp . . .

Jordan brought out the big toys and my kids loved it. I think BJ and Taft wanted to ride, but are trying to be "grown-up" and didn't want to seem too anxious so they missed out on that. Taft is sure he was "fine".

The big kids . . . including Jordan had a rousing game of basketball that no one wanted to end. The game was finally called in the case of it was dark . . . and time to go to the fireworks . . .

Judy bought glow sticks that were the hit of the night . . . the kids had a great time running and moving them all over the place. Heber hardly noticed the fireworks and just kept spinning his (and has been spinning his for 2 solid days) half way through he decided that the fireworks were boring and wanted to go. Once I told him that was always my favorite part of Alpine days and I remembered going with my mom and grandma when I was his age he stopped for a minute and loved the second half.

We had a great time, we got home really late. Late enough for me to have to be up until 3:30 working on my sharing time for the next day. It was really nice to see everyone and missed all of you who couldn't be there.

2008 Cherry Hill Vacation

We just got home from our vacation . . . and jumped right back into our crazy busy life.

I just got back from dropping off Ammon to Mill Hollow (a school camp, similar to Clear Creek). He will be there until Friday afternoon and then he, Taft and BJ will leave for scout camp and get home Saturday afternoon which is when we will head out to Alpine for Alpine Days and our Annual Bateman Family Reunion. Carson, BJ and Taft have scouts tonight, Bill and I are going to girls camp on Thursday with the other members of the Bishopric and their wives, I know we have something Friday, but it escapes me now. (one of these days I will be on top of my schedule, but today is not one of those days.)

I am still new to this whole blogging thing and writing everything down so it all sounds so choppy . . . but if I waited until I felt comfortable I would never get it done.

We were going to go some place new since we have gone to Cherry Hill for about 4 years straight, but with gas prices and signing our life away on our new addition we decided to stay with the familiar. We camped for 8 days/7nights. It was really fun, we camped, swam, went to Get Smart and Journey to the Center of the Earth, cooked by fire and camp stoves and a few restaurants, went to the Ogden and Logan Temples and Ogden Canyon as well as Morgan and then swam some more . . . and more . . . and more.

It was really fun, each of the kids had a meal to prepare and a clean up job . . . if you notice the picture of Heber in front of the tent you will see his job was keeping the front of the tent and the shoes clean, all the shoes we kept in a line the whole vacation. The kids had a great time and it was so nice to be there together, only a few minor fights, brawls and "it wasn't me" or "he did it first" and only one or two "I hate you's" but what can you expect with 5 boys, one tent.

I am not sure what the kids enjoyed the most, but they are all getting to be great divers and are a bit competitive. Even Heber learned to dive and spent as much time as he could in the deep end. I am still a nervous mom and it made me really uneasy as much as he was there. We attempted actual smores and banana boats . . . they were so good.

As fun as it was and as horrible as it is to come home and have to deal with all the laundry and unpacking it is so nice to be home. It was really weird to come home to our addition and wood floor. It wasn't that I forgot about it, but it was just so nice and shocking. I love our house. I am so grateful for my boys, my husband, my house, my life.

I am really excited to see everyone for Alpine Days and will miss everyone who can't be there.

24th of July

I wish I had a picture for this, but my boys have revolted from photos of any kind and I just didn't feel like hearing how crazy I am . . . I know it, I just don't need to hear it. But we had a wonderful 24th. My family always went to the Zoo and a few times hiked up to the "this is the place monument", my mom always said it was a hateful hot hike. I think it was a case of dreading it and also being a little older, but it was one of my great memories. I don't remember doing it once we started having a million kids.

Bill always watched the parade (which I always found boring and wondered who ever watched a parade on TV . . . we both had surprises, I couldn't image ever watching a parade on TV and he never knew there were people who actually bought popcorn from a gas station), but anyway we watched it for a while then we cleaned the house and headed up to Cherry Hill, which has become our tradition for the last 4 years or so.

We had so much fun and the water was sooooo nice and cool on such a hot day. Bill and the boys dunked and played rough while I swam around them and helped Carson and Heber when they "literally" got in over their heads . . . and consoled anyone that felt they had been "done wrong". We ended the day floating around the lazy river, while the ones that were still ready for rough and tumble hit the water slides, then walked around the campsites to pick out which would be best for our vacation next week. A whole week of swimming and camping . . . I AM SO EXCITED!

Coming home after a wonderful day and to a clean house I am so grateful that I live in these times of a wonderful home, swimming and air conditioning.
My limited time is up . . . off to play referee to my wild boys and off to primary presidency meeting.

I hope you all had a wonderful 24th.

Me and my mom and dad

I am going through all my old pictures and trying to do a scrapbook for me, the first few years were really fun, but not a lot of pictures. Now I am in the teen years and even less pictures, but not nearly as much fun. I think if I do one more school page I will scream and I haven't even done one of my kids pages. Actually I have a preschool page done for a few of them. One of these days I'll be caught up.

Adding on to our house

I hope that this isn't the first blog I do, but we just finished adding on to our house. The boys were a big help and it was a lot harder than I anticipated being in pure upheaval. Some of the boys liked the ladder, some more than others. We couldn't keep Heber off and BJ was a little scared at the top.

Trying to get one picture where all 5 look happy and at the camera is something I have yet to master.

I hope to get better at this and as I said I want to do a better job for my first blog.

My boys

I have thought about starting something like this, but haven't really felt comfortable. Judy and Jerusha came up to "scrapbook" today . . . we (or I should say I) got nothing done except watch kids, solve problems and get me into the 21st century and have a blog set up. I really thought that this would be the last thing I ever did but have so enjoyed looking at Judy's and Carolee's. Well that is it for the first try . . . Jenny