The kids waiting for me so we can open presents….I wanted to shower first.
Parker’s favorite presents. 
Keaton excited to have presents
Berkley trying to steal Keaton’s light saber….and playing with his horse and dog.
I think Berkley liked Christmas….Instead of using his crayon holder to draw with, he just wanted to take the crayon out and put it back in. That was much funner than drawing.
Jaxon with his new toys.
Me opening presents.
Jaxon loves a story that Grandpa Bruce tells about the last grizzly bear in Cache Valley named Old Ephraim. Jaxon is quite the storyteller himself. I love all the extra details and how he gets parts of other stories mixed in there too. The kids all call the bear “Old Mephraim.” This version includes some interesting facts about “stunks” or skunks. Anyway, have a look for yourself, it’s about 8 minutes long.
Jaxon with his principal
Jaxon came home with a paper from school the other day that said he was going to receive an award for some picture that he drew and the parents were invited to come to the little awards assembly. I thought it was probably for the reflections contest, but it wasn’t. They hung his picture up in the hallway. It was one he had drawn in class—-and of course it ended up being the picture he drew of me sitting at the computer. Ha ha. Oh well. It was a cute picture. But, not only did he get an award for his drawing, but also for being such a good storyteller. His teacher told Scott and I that he draws these pictures, and she’ll ask him what the picture is about, and he’ll go into this big long elaborate story, so she just has to pick out what she thinks is the most important point and write that on his picture. So, the picture of me on the computer said, “My mom on the computer, and I am having a dinosaur party.” I’m not sure what the rest of the story was, but I’m sure it was really good. I think he gets his good storytelling skills from his two grandpas. They are always telling him stories, and Jaxon’s always begging them for a story.
Keaton has been working on stringing beads on a shoelace. It’s pretty hard for him, and usually I have to help him. The therapist told me I should get some pipe cleaners, because it would be easier for him, but being the lazy person that I am, I never did get any. So, I got the beads and shoelaces out the other day, and told him I was going to sit down and help him practice stringing the beads on the shoelace. Well, I was also in the middle of getting the other kids their lunch, so Keaton kept asking me to help him, and I kept telling him, “just a minute.” Well, I guess he got sick of waiting and just decided to go ahead and try it himself. While I was making lunches for everyone, I looked over and he had two beads on his shoelace!! It was so amazing. I sat down and asked him to show me how he did it. The little monster would grab the shoelace with his left hand and then grabbed a bead with his right hand. He would slowly push the shoelace through the bead and then with his right hand still hanging onto the bead, he would carefully reach over with his thumb and forefinger and grab the shoelace. It was really fun to watch him succeed. I don’t think even the therapists thought he would be able to string the beads on the shoelace. Pretty cool to watch!
Looking for Christmas Trees–I didn’t really get any pictures of anyone actually cutting a tree down. I mostly stayed by the cars and held Berkley. Berkley conned a lot of people into holding him. He’s a heavy kid. And, we also have Scott doing his “model” pose for the camera. I think he should have been a model instead of a photographer.
Here’s Berkley with Grandma and playing the horseshoe game.
Cowboy Parker—Parker found the little vest he has on down in the toy stuff in Grandma’s basement. He pretty much wore it the whole time we were there. When it was time to go home, he tried slipping into the van with the vest still on. I think he was hoping no one would notice. We told him he had to leave it at Grandma’s house, but I did find a toy phone (one Grandma had put in her toy room at her house) in one of Parker’s pant’s pockets when I was doing the laundry.
Jaxon hogged the horses most of the time. Once that kid gets on a horse it’s hard to get him off. But, eventually Berkley and Keaton got their turn.
More pictures of Berkley with Grandma and Grandpa.
Thanksgiving was fun. It was nice to get away from home and be with the family. Now I am also looking forward to Christmas.
Jaxon was getting hungry and came and asked me for some food. Here’s our conversation.
Jaxon: “Mom, can I have a petunia sandwich?”
Me: “Do you mean a tuna sandwich?”
Jaxon: “Yeah.”
Then, Jaxon goes in the storage room to find some tuna.
Jaxon: “Mom, I can’t find the petunia.”
Here’s another one from Jaxon. It was right before the reflections contest, and Scott was telling me how he figured out if he wanted to win the reflections contest when he was little that you just had to make a really big drawing. So, Jaxon was listening to us talk about this and then he interrupted us with his own little comment.
Jaxon: “Wait, hey guys, it doesn’t have to be good (to win), it just has to be perfect.”
