Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve Santa and Mrs. Clause come for visit. All of the children look forward to seeing them every year.

Everyone takes turns sitting on Santa's lap and putting in last minute gift requests.

Mrs. Claus tells the best stories. We all enjoy listening and singing along. She hands out candy canes too. The Zobrist Family Christmas Eve celebration is a wonderful tradition. All though it can get pretty crazy with so many people (some years we've had about 50), it just wouldn't seem like Christmas Eve without it.

The Germ Show

I guess since her hospital stay I have stressed germs a little too much. This is a video that I saw when I downloaded pictures from Gracie's camera. I never know what I'm gonna find when I look through the pictures and videos she takes.

Cousin's Only

The kids, with some help from Aaron, made this fort in the trees behind my parent's house. It became a little clubhouse for the kids and I was told that only cousins were allowed in the clubhouse. It sure beats a fort made out of blankets in the family room.

Candy Land cake

While Grandpa, Aaron, Crew, and Gracie were at the museum looking for the pigeon John Silver, we made a special treat. Grammy, me, Layla, Braelynn, and Brielle baked a cake and decorated it with all kinds of candy to make a Candy Land cake. Of course the kids had a fabulous time creating and eating it. But we left the cake out overnight and my Grandma Rae, who now lives with my parents because she has Alzheimer's and dementia, must have forgot that she had already had a piece about a dozen times because when we woke in the morning the cake was eaten. The kids were disappointed that they didn't get to eat more cake but I can't say that I missed the sugar rush that would've followed.

National Air Force Museum

In school Crew read a story about John Silver, a pigeon, who delivered messages for the military. The story told about this pigeon's bravery. Even though he had several bullet wounds and his leg was hanging on by one ligament, John Silver flew the 25 miles to deliver his important message and ended up saving many lives. The story mentioned that John Silver was on display at the National Air Force Museum. When Crew found out we were going to Ohio, he wanted to go to the museum so he could see this pigeon.

Don't all kids want to be astronauts when they grow up? I know I did but I also wanted to be a cowgirl too. Maybe I should've stuck with one of those. Crew and Gracie have always been really interested in the solar system. Sometimes I think I might go crazy if I have to hear any more facts about outer space or anything in it!

Crew's turn in the hospital

Well the first day in Ohio we spent in the E.R. Crew was playing around down stairs with his cousins, doing who knows what, when we heard major screaming and he came running upstairs. He had a major gash in his leg and the skin was shoved up behind the wound. It was so disgusting; his fat layer was hanging out. Mom took us to the Quick Care closest to us but because we were out of town the lady there wasn't sure if they accepted our insurance and the wait looked long. We headed over to the E.R. and I'm glad we did. They were great there. We hardly waited at all and everyone was so nice. Crew got popsicles and a stuffed Stinger (the mascot for the Columbus Blue Jackets NHL team). However, only about half of his stitches made it a week. I just couldn't get him to take it easy. At least I've had a lot of practice with this sort of thing and knew just what to do: steri strips and super glue.

Gracie in the hospital

I was really hoping that Gracie would be discharged in time to go to Ohio but she wasn't well enough. I ended up going with Crew and Layla as planned and Aaron stayed with Gracie and came later. At least we were together on Thanksgiving Day. The doctors believe that it was asthma but because she has never been hospitalized before they were hesitant to make that diagnosis so for now she has reactive airway disease. We now give her medication everyday and have a nebulizer with plenty of albuterol. She is doing great and was such a sweetie throughout the whole ordeal.

Mother of the Year .... or not

My wonderful husband got plane tickets for us to go home to Ohio for Thanksgiving and I was so excited!!!! Since my kids always get sick whenever I go home, I decided to take them to the pediatrician and get them some allergy medicine before. While we were there getting prescriptions for all three kiddies, Gracie's oxygen test was so bad they re-did it 3 times and tried different machines. The doctor gave her a breathing treatment immediately and then re-tested it was still extremely low. So we were sent to the emergency room. Three steroid shots and 2 breathing treatments later her oxygen level had gone up from 77 to 80 (below 92 is bad) but that was still really low and so Gracie had to stay in the hospital. I didn't even know that she was having difficulty breathing. She never complained or acted any differently than normal. If I didn't take her in for Zyrtec, who knows how bad she would have gotten before I noticed something was wrong. So once again I am out of the running for Mother of the Year..... maybe next year?

Family Camp-out

We loaded up the motorcycles, camping supplies, and lots of treats and headed for the sand dunes. It was so nice to be together without any interruptions. We had a bonfire, made s'mores, and set off a bunch of fireworks at night and rode motorcycles, played in the sand, read and told stories, and hiked up Big Dune during the day. It was quite an amazing trip. I don't think I will ever hike up a sand dune again though.

Halloween in Mexico

In Nevada school is out for Halloween, o.k. not really, it's for Nevada Day (the day Nevada became a state). So we decided to head to the beach house for the long weekend. I was a little concerned about the kids missing out on trick-or-treating so Gigi came up with a great plan. I bought a bunch of candy and we were going to go through the neighborhood and give it to the residents and tell them that our kids were going to come by trick-or-treating. Turns out that they already do trick-or-treating. Outside the gated community, they set up tables and everyone comes by dressed up with treat bags open begging for candy. What did we do with all the extra candy? The Halloween Goblin came and left it hidden around the courtyard. The kids had a blast looking for the candy.

The kids designed their own pumpkins (Thanks dad for doing all the carving), we made some spider treats, and ate so much candy I was worried someone was going to go into insulin shock or maybe even a coma. As you can see the girls were pretty intrigued by their Jack-o-Lanterns. I think it was my favorite Halloween ever!

Happy Halloween!

I love Halloween and its not just for the candy. I love the costumes too! This year I really enjoyed the wigs. Layla's made me laugh every time I saw her in it. I kept making her try it on just so I could laugh.

At the school's Fall Festival the girls got to make these little masks which was definitely one of the highlights of the night for them. They also had an amazing balloon artist there and lots of games, candy, and prizes. It was really fun!

Costume Parade

The elementary school had a costume parade so the girls and I went down to see Crew and his friends walking in the parade.

I think its kinda funny that he, dressed up as a clone tropper, walked in front of Darth Vader. It's probably only of interest to me because I am constantly bombarded by Star Wars. Crew is pretty obsessed and is constantly telling me stories or involved in some intricate imaginative game revolving around Star Wars.

Halloween playgroup

We have a fun playgoup in our ward and for Halloween we had a special activity for Halloween. Layla was so excited to do Halloween crafts. She adores craft time and is constantly asking to do crafts. She got to paint, glue, and eat candy so she was in heaven.

Halloween cupcakes

Gracie loves to bake and so we often look at the Bakerella blog together. When she saw these cupcakes she just had to make them for her class Halloween party. She did a good job baking and decorating, I only helped a little. Her classmates loved them. Gracie was so proud.

Autumn.... sort of

I heard that the leaves up Lee Canyon had changed color. So we drove the hour up there because it was supposed to be beautiful and I really miss the fall leaves. I was disappointed there were like maybe 50 trees that were all aspens so they were just yellow. It was a nice bright yellow but only yellow.... no red, no orange, no maroon, nothing but yellow and barely that. I guess I should appreciate what I can get.

The kids still had fun having a picnic, hiking around, and playing in the leaves (probably because they didn't know what they were missing)!