Christmas Happenings

Thursday we were invited to join some friends and go Christmas caroling. After my birthday dinner with Bob at Tepanyaki (yummy!) we met up with the group. What better way to spend your birthday evening than with good friends and a trailer load of teenagers. There's a group shot of all the kids and then odds and ends that I managed to get on a dark trailer in the fog. I tried for a video of everyone singing, it just didn't work out that great but I was able to save the audio for your enjoyment!

I do need to mention that all husbands stayed in the cab of the truck at all times. I really question their Christmas spirit!


Our Christmas day started out a little late for my standards, 10:45 a.m. to be exact, when we finally made Chase get out of bed and Ian rolled in. I guess at their age that is to be expected, especially when they had already received their Christmas and they weren't expecting anything to open. No matter how hard I try to stick by "they already got their Christmas" there has to be at least one present to open. Then we were off to see Bob's mom and then onto my parents where we would have lunch and open cousin presents. Tradition is that we start youngest to oldest, so here we go.

A pretty dress for Payton from Grandma & Grandpa.

Seth seems to be happy with his Megaplex gift card.

Nathan is happy to finally have his own basketball. Now his big brothers can't tell him no when he wants to go outside and shoot hoops.

Madalyn is excited for her pretty scarfs.

Taylor & Tyson got new earbuds.

Ian and Chase get a multi-USB adapter and Best Buy gift cards.

Shannon and Nic get a cozy blanket. Young couples need just about anything.

New earrings for Megan.

Ashley was gifted a class to jessicasprague.com. Maybe another Photoshop guru in the works.

A new shirt for Cameron.

Grandpa didn't follow the rules and snuck into the kitchen to unwrap his present before it was his turn, busted! He'll be busy converting his slides to a digital format.

That's the look of confusion from my mom and my dad laughing as they try to figure out what HDMI cables are for. They were still confused as that big box was sat in front of them.

Now the look of surprise as they realize what's in the box.

And the best Christmas present ever is knowing that my siblings and I pulled off the perfect gift for my parents. Dad had a huge smile on his face and Mom was overwhelmed with emotion while telling us she couldn't accept that kind of present from us, it was just too much for us kids to give them. Well enjoy Mom & Dad, you now have a new HD TV. It's great when grown children can do for their parents once in a while.

My Christmas Day was wonderful being surrounded by family. I hope your day was memorable too.

The Party!

It's that time of year for Grandma Pat's Hoaglin Christmas Party. No matter how often we tell her she needs to cut back, she continues to insist if we make her cut back on this party she might as well give up everything. It's her baby and I don't see things changing in the near future. There were about 25 Santa sacks this year for the grandchildren and great grandchildren. Each one must take a turn on Santa's lap. Poor Santa that's quite a load for him, considering the youngest grandchild is Ian at 18 and the oldest is in his late 30's. With Santa's load comes the pressure of making sure I capture several shots of each one with Santa. No one can be left out. Here's a little glimpse.

 The great grandkids were watching out the window for Santa to arrive, see that little glimpse of red outside.

Ian was trying to convince Santa to bring him a Subaru WRX. I think he's going to be disappointed!

Chase admitted he wasn't quite sure what he wanted since he's been buying himself his own things since he started working full time. (did you hear that little, okay big WAHOO! from me)

Not even the grown ups get to escape from giving Santa's knee a workout.

Yes, Bob took the camera away from me and made me participate, dang it!

This is Ian's cute little girlfriend. Even though I have voiced my opinion (a little to loudly I've been told) about tattoos, her art really is that, art. If you look closely at it you might agree, but just so you know, my opinion hasn't changed.

 Here's a picture of Keelie, the stockings and hat are evidence that this girl likes to have fun.

I was put on alert that I may at times favor a few little faces when it comes to taking pictures and I needed to be very conscious of that this year. Really? who can blame me when I'm drawn to little cuteness.

It's always nice to be reminded that asking some kiddos to smile just a little too much may result in this!

Signs of Christmas

Things have been a little busy around here the past week, but I wanted to share with you a few of my favorite things reminding me it's Christmas time.

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

I'm interrupting my mad Christmas rush of working on family calendars (a girl needs to get sidetracked sometimes) to bring you 

The Good

The Bad

& The Ugly

Ian's experience of paying for his first car came to a screeching halt last night as someone made a left hand turn in front of him. Ian was not injured, but we have heard that the elderly lady driving the other vehicle has a fractured hip and broken wrist :-(  I know Ian is upset over losing his car but here are a few life lessons learned. 1) Who else gets to practice driving their first stick shift on the hill of his dad's driveway. 2) When your dad test drives a car and warns you that the clutch is shot and could go out next week or last another year, don't be upset when it needs to be replaced before you make your first car payment. 3) Don't argue with your elders when they warn you that little red sports cars are magnets for speeding tickets. 4) Spending three nights installing new springs and shocks in freezing temperatures to only enjoy them for three days before your car is totaled, really is a life learning experience it just might take a few more years to realize it! 

Santa Sighting

There was a sighting in West Haven of this jolly old fella.

He had a hard nights work visiting with all the children at the 1st Annual Lighting of City Hall. Don't you just love Santa with his all natural hair and beard. Our neighbors are involved with the city youth council and were in charge of the hayrides, so who better to help out than Bob and his mighty red tractor!

Our neighbor tried to tell me he was The Grinch Santa, I just think he was a little confused and couldn't quite decide who to be. Here they are at the beginning of the night, keep in mind it was about 24 degrees out when Bob drove his tractor over to city hall.

There was a big turn out and Bob was out on his tractor pulling dozens of different groups.

Finally the Grinch handed Bob a wool blanket to try to warm him up a little.

This was my last picture before I had to go inside to warm up my frozen fingers. By the time we made it back home it was 18 degrees outside and he was frozen to the bone. I guess dressing in all your ski gear just isn't enough when you are sitting on a cold metal tractor for a couple of hours. He already volunteered to do it again next year, I think his brain cells were frozen as well!

Traditions

I happened to be looking at some old pictures I had scanned onto my computer and ran across these. What better time to scrapbook these than right before Thanksgiving.

Credits: Paper - PhuonTon_Autumn; JSprague_Dauphin Alpha; Font - Myriad Pro; Template - TNT 25DaysSum10

If you want to read the journaling you should be able to click on the picture to see a larger version. I hope everyone enjoys their Thanksgiving!

2nd and Proud

These kids had such team spirit. They spent the morning making posters to support their older brothers, but weren't allowed to bring them into the stadium so they did the next best thing by becoming their own walking poster. Fremont put up a good fight but wasn't able to overcome the nationally 4th ranked Bingham football team. We lost our starting quarterback a minute into the 2nd quarter and I was worried our boys would simply give up. They never gave up the fight.

Going into halftime we were down 27 - 0, talk about being deflated, but it must have only been the fans feeling the defeat. Our boys came out the second half of the game, rotating 4 different quarterbacks, and fought to the end. 

I am so proud of this team and how they turned the game around. We still lost 30 - 7, but won the second half 3 - 7. It was a win in my mind simply because they never gave up despite the odds against them. 

My nephews may be twins but couldn't be more different in appearance and personality. I thought these after the game shots were priceless.

The Bug Project

I've had a few requests for an update on Bob's latest project. So here it is.

YABBA DABBA DOO!

That was for those of you that didn't see this picture on Facebook. I really did marry quite the comedian. The bug project is moving along nicely. A little slower than the tractor, but this one is going to take a lot more TLC along the way. He's not simply restoring one bug, he is combining bits and pieces off of a few. Here's the bottom part of the above car which he's not using.

And here's the bottom of the car (please understand that's my lingo, not sure of the exact terminology to use) that he is going to use. In this picture he was test driving the bottom of the car to make sure the transmission would shift through all the gears. Prior to taking this picture I got a phone call from Chase telling me to head outside so I could take a picture of them, well in the middle of the conversation there was a little bit of commotion on his end and then he hung up. The next phone call I got was from Ian laughing his butt off. He was following Bob & Chase on the 4 wheeler as he watched the back wheel start to shake, come off and pass Bob & Chase as they came to a screeching halt. That's one picture I wish a had, but you'll have to settle for this one after all 4 wheels were properly secured.

Here are the remains of the unused portion.

Bob is currently working on replacing the heater channels (whatever they are!). The only thing I know about this part of the project is that he spent a lot of time researching and reading articles. Apparently there was a lot of warning that this was not a project to be taken lightly and the local shops told him he was crazy to do it on his own. Well that's only more of a challenge for Bob and from what I can see it looks like he has thought it out wisely and it's going as he had anticipated.

A little custom fitting with the grinder

and little bit of welding. Those welding classes for Chase are coming in handy!