Thanksgiving 2009

As usual this year's Thanksgiving was filled with lots of family, too much computer playing, lots of food, running, shopping and lots of good times.

Thursday morning we got up and ran the "Earn your Turkey" 4 mile run. When we got home Todd took a nap until 2:45 pm and we headed over for dinner at my parent's house. I was in charge of the ham, a green salad and 2 desserts. Dinner was delicious and it is always so much fun to have family here. Only Sherry's family, Christine and Ginger were missing. That night the boys played D&D and computer games until 4:00 am. For some reason I volunteered to have kids spend the night at my house. There were 11 kids with 2 adults - HOLY COW!!! It took a good hour to get all the kids settled and there were kids in every room in my house (except the play room, kitchen and laundry room). Breakfast on Friday was a little hectic....me and 9 kids and pancakes!!! Thank goodness kids don't mind crazy. Then the boys woke up at 11:00 am and went straight to volleyball until 3:00 pm. That night we had leftovers at my dad's for dinner and played games until bedtime for the kiddos.

Saturday we celebrated Emily's birthday with lunch and shopping. It was nice to be free of the kids for 5 hours and to shop and have some girl time. Emily got some awesome skinny jeans and shirts, we bought lots of Christmas presents and had a great time. That night for dinner we did soups and salads which were all delicious. Then finished the night with Star Trek in the theater room.

Sunday Danny made the BEST pasta I've ever eaten. George was staying until Monday so we had way too much fun playing games. The weekend was a blast and I can't believe it's over already. Kenadi stayed with me the whole time and was the absolute best helper ever. She is so fantastic!!!

I'm pretty sure Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Food, family and fun without a lot of extra stress. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with all the work to make it happen but it always ends up being so much fun and I'd give anything to make sure everyone keeps coming back. This year Todd and I came to agreements on sleep schedules so I wouldn't get mad and it seemed to work perfectly. He got to game and play and stay up as late as he wanted as long as he woke up at 11:00 every morning to help. I think the fact that I don't have a newborn and I'm not prego for the first time in 8 Thanksgivings has something to do with my stellar mood :)

Here are some highlights. I didn't take very many pictures though because I was too busy having fun and watching kids.

Lots of hanging around (Danny, Emily and Ella)

with LOTS of babies (Heidi and Josephine)

Lots of kitchen duties and lots of wearing our Schultz shirts.

Getting ready for the feast
(Dad is such a good sport to wear a crazy hat from a grand kid)

Lots of arm wrestling (Mark vs. George)

I love their 1 and 10 shirts. George did end up beating Mark .... apparently due to "old man strength" combined with "farmer strength". And of course Danny is still the reigning family champion.

Family Christmas Lists

For all of our family members out there here are some ideas of things our family would enjoy:

Tayson

• Fisher-Price Imaginext Adventures DC Superfriends Batman Bat Cave
• Fisher Price Kid-Tough Digital Camera for Boys
• Bananagrams
• Nintentdo DS Game – Scribblenauts
• Snap Circuits SC-300
• Clothing Size: 8

Luke:

• Transformer
• STARE! JUNIOR Game - 2nd Edition
• Wild Planet Spy Gear® Walkie Talkies
• Nintendo DS Game - Where's Waldo?
• Puzzle (more than 24 pieces)
• Clothing Size: 6

Luke & Tayson

• DS game - Mario Kart DS
• DS Game - Mario & Luigi Bowser's Inside Story
• New Super Mario Bros. for Nintendo Wii

Claire:

• My pretty pony
• Puzzle (24 pieces)
• Letter Factory
• Anything princess or dress up
• Clothing Size: 4T for pants 3T for tops

Sophie

• She loves everything and doesn't need anything...be creative
• Clothing Size: 24 Months

Kathy

• Family size crock pot
• Clothes, shoes, jewelry, gift cards (favorite stores: Nordstrom, Banana Republic, Ann Taylor)
• 72 hour kit (s)
• Big Pasta Pot

Todd

• Board Games (if you can find one he doesn’t have)
• Gift cards (favorite stores: Nordstroms, Banana Republic, Barnes & Nobel, Newegg, game stop)
• Popcorn maker for the theater

Tayson Again

I'm pretty sure I have more posts about Tayson than any of my other kids. True he's my oldest so he should have the most...but really the reason he has so many posts dedicated to him is because he is quite a challenge.

Yesterday we had SEP conferences for both boys. We started with Tayson's and found out that once again he has behavior problems in school. He can't sit still in class and he's disruptive to the class and the other kids because he's so silly. She went over his grades and he is on track academically. He should be at 80% or higher and is at 87% and 88% and he has really bad handwriting - but Todd and I both struggled with neat handwriting in 2nd grade so that doesn't worry us. What does worry me is the fact that he has a desk in the back of the room all by himself so that he doesn't cause trouble and that his teacher will be sending home daily reports on his behavior. Moving his desk to the back of the room was his suggestion that it might help him not be so bad....we'll see if it helps. Tayson's teacher kept talking about what a good kid he is but that he is just too silly and social.

Right after that we went to Luke's class and it was the exact opposite. His teacher talked about what a good student he is. She uses his work as an example to others on how to color neatly, he is reading above level and has only been in trouble once so far this year.

I have no idea what to do. We spent quite a while talking to Luke's teacher about Tayson's behavior and she gave us some good suggestions. She also talked to us about ADHD and some ways to tell if it's bad enough for meds (one of the major ones being that no matter what you promise them they simply can NOT sit there and complete an assignment). Tayson can do it if he wants to and he actually is really good about doing his reading and homework this year. He doesn't fight at all when it's time to go to school or do homework and he really likes school this year.

If anyone has ideas about what we can do for him I am open to any and all suggestions.

Here is what we are trying right now:
No red food dye in his foods. Eating protein for breakfast instead of carbohydrates. Running to use up and channel his energy.

Wash your hands

Luke came out of the bathroom yesterday and said "I'm sorry mom but when I wash my hands I have to wash under my fingernails, between my fingers and EVEN my wrists." He said this with a lot of conviction and I asked him if he learned that at school. Yep. They taught my kid the proper way to wash his hands. I'm still not sure why he is sorry about it though. I'm just grateful for school so I don't have to be the one hounding him about everything.

Copenhagen

Last night I took an Ambien, a hot shower and slept for 11 hours. Yahoo. This morning I started my day with a yummy breakfast at the hotel. They have a buffet here so I had french bread with strawberry jam and some with nutella, a bowl of frosted flakes, then I had some french bread with brie, cornishons, and some salami (doesn't sound like breakfast .... but it reminded me of France so I had some anyways).

Then someone from Nu Skin met me at the main metro station in Copenhagen (I made it there via metro all on my own...so proud). He took me everywhere and I learned a lot about Danish history in the process (although he is Sweedish not Danish). After spending all day walking around Copenhagen I went to the mall over by my hotel to find some fun things to bring home....but there was nothing cool (I found a shirt with NYC on it...but nothing about Denmark or Copenhagen or ever Europe).

When I walked out of my hotel I saw this very frightening poster. It's a phone company and I have no idea why they would put that man on there without a shirt on.

One of my favorites things about Copenhagen was all the bikes. They were everywhere and people riding on every street I saw. It was so cool and made me want a cruiser with a basket to ride all around town.

The Little Mermaid.
This is one of the most famous sites in Copenhagen and apparently she was on vacation in China until very recently so I was lucky that I got to see her.

The Queens Palace.
I was actually here during the changing of the guard (but didn't take a picture)

Nyhavn.
I love the boats, canal and colorful houses on this street.

Walking up to the top of the Round Tower.
(This is looking back down)

At the top of the Round Tower.

View from the top of the Round Tower

This was one of the main squares downtown -
and of course it had a huge McDonalds sign at the top.

Tivoli.
This is one of the oldest amusement parks in Europe (if not the oldest).

This church had statues of Christ and all 12 Apostles.

When Todd has the camera

After every family event I like to look through the crazy picture Todd has taken. I was sorting my pictures and was cracking up from the pictures from Luke's b-day party a few months ago.

Here is a typical sampling of what you'll find: the cake close up (for wii puzzles of course), a close up of Luke (he's so photogenic), shadow, random pictures of me doing nothing (I found like 18 of me from Luke's b-day party) including one of my back side while putting Sophie to bed, close up's of people doing crazy things, a picture of Heidi's chest and one of her walking away pulling up her pants, always creative shots of things like the clock while Todd plays with the flash or focus on the camera, and a few cute ones not to mention all the awesome pictures that I usually use when talking about the party.

Food

Last night I had some very yummy veal with boiled new potatoes and onions at the hotel restaurant. The whole time I was eating I kept thinking how much my dad would have loved the meal I was having. It made a little homesick. The food in Europe as a whole has been absolutely delicious. I have missed being able to drink anytime I want. Honestly, you can't get refills on anything here including water. It's crazy. No-one has diet coke on tap and I would LOVE a fountain drink more than anything else. Besides my family I think I miss drinks the most :)

Brussels

Tonight after work I quickly checked into my hotel, changed out of my work clothes and we headed for downtown Brussels. We walked around the cobblestone streets and window shopped. Went to the center of the city to walk around. I saw the opera a very old beautiful church (pictured below), the statue of the boy peeing (pictured below), the statue of the girl peeing (rather disturbing actually), the museums and main buildings in the square, walked down the main shopping street (one of the first high end malls), and went to dinner. I ate traditional Belgian food - beef stew with frites and topped it off with ice cream with the most amazing chocolate sauce ever. It was fun to hang out with the office staff outside of work and they took very good care of me. I have part of the day here again tomorrow so we might get to see a little more. The city is absolutely beautiful and the food was absolutely amazing. Too bad I don't get to spend more time here.

6th Annual Pumpkin Carving

Once again we had a great night of eating and carving pumpkins. Finding a day this year was quite a challenge since there wasn't a single night everyone could come and we had to go without mom and dad but I got a HUGE surprise when Todd came home early since he managed to catch an early flight.

We decided to have Navajo tacos for dinner with Steve's homemade chili and they were delicious and Kami brought her super yummy pumpkin bars as usual and they did not disappoint.

Don't they look excited for pumpkin carving?

Half the people carved while the others ate

Claire was running a fever so she had to stay
in our room watching the new Tinkerbell movie

Josephine helping Heidi carve her pumpkin

Tayson wanted 2 stick figures with one pushing
the other one off the house so Todd designed and carved this one

The final products

Happy Halloween

The youngest child

My poor sweet baby girl....she is so the youngest in our family. Always dirty, always running wild and free, always wearing hand me downs and always happy.

I do love my sweet baby girl!

Basketball

Basketball was better and worst this year. Better because Tayson played better and seemed to have more fun. Worse because for the majority of the games Todd was traveling so I had to go by myself with all 4 kids and Sophie was crazy. At the last game Claire started to get sick with a fever and actually fell asleep on my lap while Sophie ran wild and I had to keep chasing her while holding Claire and at one point she had a wallet next to me and pulled out all the cash before I realized that she had found it (it ended up being the guy sitting 2 rows behind me on the bleachers).

In his game last week Tayson even grabbed a rebound, dribbled it all the way to the other side and then made a basket. It was awesome!

Tayson practicing shooting a basket

Playing instead of paying attention

FHE - Feeding the Ducks

Steve and Christine invited us to feed the ducks with them at the BYU pond a few weeks ago. It was dark so the pictures aren't the greatest but the kids had so much fun. It was a very fun activity to do with the kids and since Todd was gone for FHE I wasn't about to do something that big by myself with the kids.

This duck was eating out of Allen's hand

Claire loved the ducks

Christine took care of Sophie so I could
take pictures and chase the other kids.

Tayson, Luke and Ryan throwing bread

Catching up.....Cornbelly's & Cellulitis

Since I have a few minutes right now I thought I'd catch up on some old posts.

As usual we went to cornbelly's to celebrate Lexie's b-day.

The kids rode on the cow train, played with the water ducks, swang on the swings, ran through the kids maze, made it all the way through the monster, played dress up and just plain had a blast. It was a beautiful fall day spent together as a family.

I forgot to mention...

One of the funniest things I saw in Moscow was that they have lots of porta potties out on the streets (not even for races....just there permanently on the streets) and in most of the sets there was almost always one that had a permanent occupant. Yes homeless people were living in the porta potties on the street. They would just be sitting in there with the door open looking out at the street. Convenient if you need a warm place and a bathroom I guess. I even saw one that a man and woman were both hanging out in just having a conversation like they were at home and I saw a guy who had a butane type heater in his to keep the place nice and cosy. It was so crazy to me!

Budapest

I asked the Moscow staff how early I should leave for my 9:50 flight to Budapest and they said because of how long it takes to get to the airport (due to traffic 2-3 hours) I should leave around 6:30. So I woke up early and took a taxi to the airport at 6:30 and it took 15 minutes to get there. The man drove like a maniac and there were no other cars on the road that early. I couldn't check in to my flight because I was so early so I sat out in the main area of the airport surrounded by smokers reading my book (btw...I've already finished 2 books and I'm only half way done with my trip - oh no). Finally I was able to check in and get through customs and on the flight. There was a high school hockey team on my flight which was crazy. I got taken on a bus out to the flight and kept worrying that I wasn't on the right flight because there were very few signs and everything was in Cyrillic and no-one spoke English. But I made it.

Luckily I had no major issues with my flight to Budapest or finding a taxi to take me to the office. My training went well and I got lots of work done then a few of the girls from the office walked me over to my hotel and out on the town.

We had a blast and stayed out until almost 11 and I had to wake up this morning at 4:15 am for my flight to Brussels. I'll sleep when I get home. :)

This is at the top of the hill on the "buda" side of the town

A better picture of the view that was behind me in the picture above.

Kata told me that I would have good luck if I touched the horse "there"
so of course I did....it's tradition

This sign was hilarious to me pointing to the toilets

Kata and I on the "pest" side at the square

The anonymous writer - his eyes were so creepy!

We had dinner at the "Spoon" restaurant which was on a riverboat
and it was an amazing view with amazing food.

For dinner I ate traditional Hungarian food. We got appetizers that included sausage, liver pate, and some other meats and spreads. I had goulash soup for my appetizer and then paprika veal with egg gnocchi for dinner and marzipan for desert. I was almost sick from eating so much but it was all delicious.

I miss this...

I was going through a folder on my computer and found this picture. It made me miss my little ones.

Russia

Yesterday I left my house at 6:20 am to start a VERY long trip. I headed to New York first. I kept myself awake on this leg of the flight to help me sleep better on my way to Moscow. Which means that I finished my book before I got to Moscow.....oops! Knowing that I would be spending less than 24 hours in my first 2 cities on the tour I opted to do carry on which always makes for fun flights (fighting for overhead space and no foot room along with dragging my bag around the terminals to make it to my connections). I had a quick dinner at Chilis in the airport before getting on my flight to Moscow. The flight to Moscow was 11 hours and it was packed. My luggage barely fit and the Russian man next to me had 5 whiskey's within the first hour of the flight. So when I tried to sleep he kept leaning over to my very small seat accidentally when he was sleeping and at one point his legs were completely stretched out under the seat in front of me! Even with him I managed to get a few good hours of sleep.

Then I got to the airport and my cellphone didn't work, there was no wifi in the airport, and I had no idea how to get to the office or my hotel. I'm sure I looked confused because a taxi driver kept following me around asking if I needed help. I finally changed some money and paid to use a computer for 15 minutes (what in the????) Then I took a cab to my hotel to find out I couldn't check in until 3:00 pm. So I asked if they knew where Nu Skin was and gave them the address and they had no idea. I still had no cell phone and the hotel doesn't have wifi either. UGH! So I took a taxi and the man drove in circles (I actually saw the hotel twice on our drive) just to end up about 2 blocks away from the hotel. Oh well I made it to the office with 30 minutes to spare. I changed in the lobby bathroom out of my tennis shoes and jeans and presented with very flat hair and day old makeup on.

One of the staff took me around to see all the sites tonight and it was amazing. He took lots of pictures (so those will be coming soon). We rode the subway everywhere and I was amazed at how far down it is (the escalator was liking riding a rollercoaster it was so steep). I went to Red Square, bought some cool Russian dolls for Claire from a street vendor, saw churches and the Kremlin, and Lenin's Tomb, went inside a catholic church (and had to cover my head), saw the Moscow version of Times Square and walked down the street where free market began after the fall of Communism. My host was very knowlegable and spoke great English and was a wealth of random facts. It was funny to me how much he hated propiganda. I forget easily swayed American's are by our media. He went off about Swine Flu for an entire metro trip.

Here are some of my observations from a day in Moscow. Everyone wears fur, short skirts, high boots, tight pants, they all smoke, have crazy teeth, no-one smiles, there is a starbucks on every corner, and the subways were exteremly clean.

After a rough start this morning things were great. I'm going to bed because I've been awake for about 27 hours.