Christmas Experiences

This year for Christmas Rock and I gave the kids experiences instead of toys.  I gave Liberty tickets to the Nutcracker ballet and the boys got tickets to the Piano Guys concert.  Liberty's gift happened before Christmas, but the Piano Guys concert just happened this month.  So now I can blog about them all!

The Nutcracker with Liberty

 
Part of the fun was getting all dressed up.

And sitting in the fun theater chairs.

She was super excited to get a picture with a real ballerina.

Then we went to dinner at her favorite restaurant.

Happiness is eating all the peanuts you want.

The Piano Guys 

On February 6th, I took the boys to their concert.  Dream come true!  It was so fun to see their faces light up as they laughed at the crazy antics of their favorite musicians.  For those who have never seen a Piano Guys video, here are a few of our favorites:

http://thepianoguys.com/portfolio/cello-wars-star-wars-parody-lightsaber-duel/
http://thepianoguys.com/portfolio/rockelbels-canon-pachelbels-canon-in-d/
http://thepianoguys.com/portfolio/kung-fu-piano-cello-ascends/
http://thepianoguys.com/portfolio/mission-impossible-pianocelloviolin-ft-lindsey-stirling/

Rock gave the boys skiing lessons or trips (Reagan doesn't need lessons anymore) and Liberty got a tubing trip.  

Skiing Lessons

Thanks for the very cool hat Alli and Sarin.

This was Levi's first time skiing and he loved it!

But he fell.... a lot.

Unfortunately, the day Rock took Reagan skiing it was rainy and hard to take pictures....But he plans on taking him up to Brundage, a much nicer resort, soon so stay tuned for pictures from that. 

Tubing with Liberty

She had a blast, but she does not have the stamina of her brothers.  After an hour she wanted to go to Burger King.

So, they went to Burger King and played on the toys.

Merry Christmas, Hymas kids!  

A Ballerina, A Bobcat, and a Birthday

Liberty had a Ballet Recital a few weeks ago.  

Where's Waldo!

Here is her actual dance.  They put here in the wrong place to start so she had to make some adjustments during the dance.  She is the second from the right, front row.

We learned the hard way at her last recital that EVERY parent brings a flower to EVERY recital. Personally I think this is ridiculous.  But I think giving an entire bouquet of flowers to a five year old who waves her arms around on stage for 2 minutes is even more ridiculous.  We got Libby a chocolate rose for her cute hand waving.  

She was thrilled!

Levi, or newest cub scout, earned his Bobcat at his first Pack Meeting last week.

I came one year closer to old this week.  It was a great birthday.  Rock got the boys off to school in the morning, my co-den leader canceled scouts for me, (:-)), we ate dinner at my favorite restaurant and had a yummy chocolate cake to top it all off.  

I love the look on Reagan's face as he watches his dad make a fool of himself.

But the high light of the day was getting to see both my parents on my birthday which hasn't happened in probably 20 years!  So glad they are close by.  

Levi John's Baptism

Poor Levi was the last kid to turn 8 years old in his primary class.  He had to wait until January 3rd 2016 to get baptized.  But his waiting is finally over.  Here's a couple pictures from the special day.

Here's the handsome boy at Red Robin afterwards.  

We are grateful so many family members were here to help him celebrate his big day. All four grandparents and lots of cousins and aunts and uncles. I'm sure his great Grandpa's John Wesel and John Roper were there in spirit too.  His Aunt Alli even passed up a spectacular, possibly life altering, New Years Eve party to be here for it.  But she just happens to share the same birthday with Levi and when you are born one week before Christmas you need all the moral support (and attention) you can get since you don't get much on your birthday.  Thanks, Al.

Christmas 2015

Christmas Eve 

Look who's obviously expecting!

Liberty, being the serious little person that she is, knows the true meaning of Christmas and has no qualms letting you know it too.  When her aunt asked her if she was excited for Santa to come, she looked at her with a very serious face and said, "You DO know the real reason we celebrate Christmas is because of Jesus, right?"  

Mary and Joseph....and a Jesus too big for his manger.

The Christmas Eve Gift

Instead of PJ's this year, Reagan got a duvet cover.  Yep, that really is army/dark green.  Sigh.  It was so much more fun to decorate when they didn't care.

 The Night Before Christmas

Everyone went to bed beautifully-with the help of some Christmas Juice.

Christmas Morning

Santa was brilliant and gave the boys the first 3 Star Wars movies in their stockings (which he leaves by their beds) and told them to watch one so their parents could sleep longer. 

***Public Service Announcement*** 

For those of you 30 years old and older, "the first 3 Star Wars movies" means the original 3 created. There are a few things I will never be able to do and which very definitely show my age.  The first is that I will never be able to call BYU Idaho anything but Ricks and the second is that I will never be able to think of the original Star Wars movies as numbers 4, 5 and 6.  They are 1, 2 and 3 and my children and anyone else who wants to converse with me about them will just have to accept that.

Santa left 4,5 and 6 (got that straight in your heads?) for the kids upstairs by the Christmas tree.

Along with dart guns, a life time supply of darts that should last about a month, and MORE Minecraft.

A few favorite gifts:

Liberty's favorite gift this year was the ballerina snow globe her brothers gave her.  She carried it around all day. 

It plays a song from the Nutcracker, which Liberty saw for the first time this Christmas as a present from Mom.

 The boys favorite gift (and let's be honest, Rock's too) was a Minecraft server.  Now they can play together, work together and yes, fight together in their favorite world.

After Christmas we enjoyed a visit from Rock's parents.  They gave Rock and I several hotel nights anywhere in the world!  This was my favorite gift.  We are so excited!  The only problem is that we can't figure out where to go. I want a warm beach somewhere and Rock wants mountains or Europe. I know-'first world problems'.   

There was no relaxing for Grandma while she was here.  She had her hair done at Liberty Dawn's Hair Salon.

 She restocked our home made play-dough supply.

 She took her first cello lesson from Reagan

And she made us some amazing cake pops which are now legendary!  ;-)

Grandpa was not quite so ambitious but he did demonstrate the perseverance it takes to color a whole page in the cool coloring book they gave us.  It was a huge hit at our house, which is shocking considering the fact that we've had stacks of coloring books sitting unused at our house for years until a girl came along and started using them!

 Here is Cade's finished product.  Wish I'd gotten a picture of Grandpa's, it was pretty awesome too.

Grandma and Grandpa joined us for our annual New Year's Eve Finger Food Dinner.  

And that concludes 2015!  

Can't wait to see what 2016 brings.

Never Use an Expired Gingerbread House Kit and Other Useful Advice

We'll start off 2015's Christmas posts with the world's worst gingerbread house.  If you'll remember, last year we were all sick at Christmas.  It was a story I never ever want to relive.  Due to our "Sickmas" we never got around to making the gingerbread house kit I purchased.  Most years we make it from scratch but I must have had some premonition of how last year was going to go because I bought a kit just in case.  Well it went so bad we didn't even get to the kit! We saved it to use this year because sugar never goes bad, right?  Wrong.  The night the kids pulled out the kit to make it, the frosting would only come out of the tube in one long string because it was too old.  So, rather than cry over their plight, they decided to have some fun with it. They made "The World's Ugliest Gingerbread House".  After lots of giggles, they finished their masterpiece.

Rock did actually get around to making a good one this year too.

My favorite part is the pretzel wood pile.

Rock was particularly proud of the icicles and circle windows on the right side. 

The annual Christmas Sunday picture 

Best
(yes, even though Cade looks constipated)

Cutest

Best teen attitude-Never try to get four children smiling at the same time if one of them is a teenager.

Funny

Funnier

If you want a miracle, wait till Christmas.  We love the Piano Guys at our house.  They have been a huge inspiration for our boys.  So of course once Reagan started playing the cello, the boys would want to play together just like the Piano Guys, right?  If you know my boys at all you can imagine what those practice sessions were like.  And if you are imagining what those sessions were like right now, you are lucky, because your imagination is a lot more pleasant than the real thing was and you can simply chuckle at the futility of such a thing.  If you don't know my boys, here's how it would go: Reagan would tell Cade all the things he was doing wrong, Cade would over explode in tears and frustration and I would have to put a stop to Piano Guys II.  But we have Old Pachelbel to thank for our Christmas miracle.  For some reason they decided they wanted to play Pachelbel's Canon bad enough to be patient with each other.  And so, here is our miracle.

Maybe we'll have a Piano Guys II after all.

Stay tuned for more Christmas at the Hymas House.

Levi Turns 8!

Levi turned 8 years old last week! He and I just finished reading Harry Potter 1-3 together so we decided to go with a Harry Potter theme for his party.

What HP party would be complete without the guests entering through Platform 9 3/4?

The party goers had to walk right through the brick wall.  Worked pretty well if I do say so myself.

The Presents:

The Games:

This game was called "Blow the Snitch".  Cade made us some origami snitches that the boys had to blow across the counter.  First one across won.

Levi took this very seriously.

For the next game they each got to choose their own wand.  Although everyone knows the wand chooses the wizard.  Then they had one minute to move as many fruit loops over to the bowl as possible without using their hands.

The highlight of the party, though, was the Quidditch Match.

And last but not least, Mom and Dad's 8 year old Gift, his very own set of scriptures.

We Love you, Levi!  We love your kind heart and your sweet boyish ways.  You are all snakes and snails and puppy dog tails.