Madelyn's Basketball Season

Basketball season is coming to a close. We've had practices every single day and games on almost every Saturday since November. It's been a long 4 four months but we've had a good time. This was Madelyn's 2nd year playing on a team and she loved it! She improved so much this year and really got into the game.  Her dribbling improved drastically from last year. She definitely is learning how to take control of the ball. 

She's my peace maker at home and does not like contention. After a game or two with mom and dad yelling at her from the sidelines to "get in there, take that ball!" She decided to become a little more aggressive. She finally decided it was O.K to steal the ball, knock it out of their hands or to just grab it from them. 

Our coach this year was Aunt Harmony. She ended up missing a few games and so some us parents stepped in. The girls did a great job having so many different parents coaching them. 

Madelyn's shots really improved. She made at least one basket almost every game. There were a few games she was really on a roll and made several baskets for the team.

Madelyn really played her best this year and it showed. She was one of the top 3 players on her team!

She prefer's to stand with her hands in the air guarding her opponent than when she's being guarded.

I'm glad Madelyn enjoyed her season of Basketball. It makes the many hours of getting her back and forth from practices and all the "away games" that take over an hour to get there one way worth it. 

I hope she can keep up the good work and keep practicing to improve her skills. She just may be the basketball player of our family.

Brayden's Eye

Today was my turn to drive for preschool. Brayden had some leg pains yesterday and didn't fully enjoy preschool. I was looking forward to him having a better day at school today. Kory is out of town and had to take my van leaving me with his new little economy sized car. Our old car bit the dust and so we chose to replace it with a car that was given to us. It was newer, less miles and in overall better condition than our previous car. Having said that this new car of ours has been sitting on the side of someones house in a field for 4+ years now do to a burned up engine. Kory found a screaming deal for a brand new engine and over the past few weeks has been fixing this new car of ours. Driving to preschool I had 3 kids in car seats in the back seat with Brayden up front with me in a car seat. 

We got to preschool safely, got everyone inside and after dropping them off I continued down the hall to 3rd grade. The teacher wasn't in her classroom so I dropped my bag off and Kylie and I were headed back down the hallway with the intention's of going home. When I passed by the Preschool door I heard my name. Miss Wendy came out asked me how Brayden was. Thinking she was talking about the previous day's leg pains I told her he was much better and hadn't complained. She was quite happy to hear that but wanted to know what was wrong with his eyes. What??? I followed her into the classroom to see him rubbing his eyes mumbling, "owe, my eye hurts". When he moved his hands both eyes looked like this. They were red and blood shot but not swollen.

(I did not have my camera with me today so I've found some online to help tell our story better.) 

Pink Eye is going around the school and this is what his teacher thought he might have. The aide and I talked about how weird this was. I had just dropped him off and his eyes were fine. He came into class happy, chatty and not once said anything about his eyes. What the heck happened? He hadn't been there for more than five minutes. Did he really just all of a sudden get pink eye or at least start showing the symptoms?  Being Pink eye is extremely contagious I was asked to take Brayden to the doctor's to make sure it wasn't pink eye. If it was as long as I started the medicated eye drops he could come back tomorrow. 

On our way out I stopped by the nurses station to get her opinion. When I bent down to exam his eye again with her his right eye had changed drastically. It wasn't as red and blood shot looking but under his eye was extremely swollen. When she gently pulled the skin down under his eye we saw that the white part of his eye was swollen. It looked like white jelly.  His skin wasn't swollen it was his actual eyeball! When she gently pushed on the lower eyelid the bump of jelly moved until it butted up against his iris and then it wrinkled up. Freaky!

 (another borrowed picture)

The nurse didn't think it was Pink Eye but a swollen eyeball is NOT something you see everyday. She recommended that I take him across the street to our local clinic. I was a little nervous. I was worried about this swollen eyeball. I've never seen that, I've never heard of it. It can't be good on your eye. What happens if it continues to swell and the iris part of his eye swells? Could this cause long lasting damage? I rushed the kids out the door and into to the car. I drove across the street hoping and praying the clinic would be opened. They are not open everyday and being lunch time I was afraid no one would be there. My prayers were answered they were there. I rushed us inside and immediately pleaded my case to the secretary for an immediate emergency appointment. There was a nurse just around the corner listening to me that I was unaware of. She poked her head around and asked me to bring Brayden to her and that she could tell me if it was Pink eye or if I even needed an appointment. I turned around to grab him and I gasped. It took all I had not to freak out. His right eye resembled a ping pong ball with a sunken iris. I have searched the internet and can't find anything that resembles what his right eye looked like. It was absolutely horrid. He was scary looking and looked like he had a huge growth surrounding his iris. With my gasp the nurse walked to me. She looked at him and said "That's not normal, I'll grab Joanne, follow me" Walking down the hallway I seriously wondered if his eye wouldn't pop out. I couldn't imagine with as large as it was how his eye socket was still holding on to it.

Joanne the nurse practitioner (we don't have a doctor at the clinic) came in right away. Examining his eye she said it was definitely not Pink Eye but an allergic reaction. She had him lay down on his back and put numbing eye drops in both eyes. This would cause the itching to stop and hopefully numb them for the next part. Using a total of 8 vials full of saline solution we rinsed both eyes as his left eye was beginning to swell. Brayden kept pulling on her arm crying for her to stop. I had to hold his arms down while she held his head and we rinsed both eyes. I don't know if the rinse actually hurt or if he was just scarred and didn't like the feeling. I don't know anyone who would like there eyeballs rinsed 4 times on each side. After the rinse he was able to sit up and this mom hugged him and tried to comfort him. While sitting next to me Joanne and I watched his right eye deflate. I can't think of a better word to describe it. As quickly as his eye swelled up after the rinse it un-swelled. It was like a balloon that wasn't tied on the end that slowly deflates when let go.  

His eyes are no longer red and blood shot looking. He's got bags under his eyes but they are just that bags. No more swollen eyeball! Google has been my friend tonight. It sounds like what his eye did today is called Episcleritis. It's not very common and it's usually brought on by an allergen. Most people don't have any long term side effects but many tend to have a head ache for a few days afterwards. Sure hoping this young man doesn't have to suffer with that but I've got the Tylenol ready if he does. 

I don't know what happened. I don't know what caused such a severe allergy reaction. After talking it through with my mom the only plausible thing we can come up with is that the allergen probably came from our new car. He was sitting up front with me. It was a cold day and I had the heater on. With his height the vents were at his eye level. Knowing the car has been sitting in a field for 4+years who only knows how much dust and debri had collected in the vents that were blowing warm air out. I'm just glad he's o.k. I hope this never happens again. I'm so glad his eye returned to normal size and his sight doesn't appear to have any negative effect. I sure hope tomorrow will be a great day for this little man being the last two have been kind of crummy. During our drama today I didn't even think about taking pictures. Being I didn't have a camera one me it was o.k. Now that it's done and over with I really wish I would have had a camera. The pictures I did post doesn't do his eyes justice of what they looked like. I wish I could have captured the jelly looking wrinkle when pressing on his lower eye lid. It's something I have never seen and quite frankly hope to never see again! Although I would have loved to share it with you.

Growing Pains...

Brayden is 4 and keeps us on our toes. The things this kid says makes us laugh. Earlier this week he and I were at Wal Mart. He came across a little something that he wanted and told me that it was free! I asked him how he knew it was free and he said, "Wal Mart is being really nice today. He said I could have one thing for free today so this is what I'm choosing. Isn't that nice of Wal Mart mom?"

My older kids have never suffered from Growing Pains. This little man though has recently started. Over the past few weeks he periodically complains of leg or feet pains.Yesterday was by far the worst. He woke up telling me his foot was funny. He hobbled around for a few minutes and finally started to drag his foot around. At first I thought that his foot was just asleep but this behavior continued for an hour or so while getting the bigger kids ready for school. After breakfast he started to complain that his foot hurt and eventually it became his leg too. Yesterday was not the day for this. I had to decorate the church in the morning for pack meeting later that night, I had 2 meetings after school, pack meeting and a basketball game to get Madelyn too later that night. Oh I was also asked to sit on the Board of Review for the scouts later that evening.  I didn't know what to do about his pain and now feel a little guilty for brushing it. In my defense it seemed to come and go all morning and he just didn't seem to be consistent enough about it to make me think something was wrong. About an hour before preschool he was in tears that his foot hurt again and this time it was both feet. I took his socks and shoes off and couldn't see anything. Thinking maybe it was his shoes I had him put a different pair on to see if that made any difference. It didn't seem to, he still  hurt. I told him that if his feet hurt that bad that he could stay home with me and miss preschool. He loves preschool and so even though he had tears he decided to go. Honestly he left, I kept going about my day and I completely forgot about his foot pain.

After school I was there for my meetings and a pre school aide pulled me aside to talk to me about Brayden. She informed me that he must have been in a lot of pain but when asked he didn't want to go home. For most of the day he dragged and limped around the classroom. He didn't run around at recess and chose to sit through most of it because his feet hurt. I felt terrible to hear that he was in that much pain and I had brushed it off earlier that day. An hour or so later his preschool teacher saw me and pulled me aside. She repeated what the aid had said earlier. She also mentioned that he had a real hard time walking to the bus. It was so bad she felt like picking him up and carrying him but he didn't want that and wanted to walk with his friends. He walked the whole way but was incredibly slow getting there.  She asked him if he had told his mom that his feet was hurting. He told her that he had. When she asked what I had said concerning his feet he responded, "get your socks and shoes on your going to school". I felt terrible!!!!!! He totally took that out of context. I told Miss Wendy that I was aware of his pain but that it was his choice to come to school not mine. I let her know that if he would have acted at home the way he seemed to act at school there was no way I would have sent him. She just laughed it off and said she didn't believe that I would send him to school if I knew the pain he was in. We've gotten to know each other over the past year and half and I wouldn't have done that. She did let me know that she felt that in the 3 hours she had him his pain had progressively gotten worse. 

When I got home Brayden said his feet were fine but that his legs hurt. I had him sit and rest his legs while playing with puzzles and any thing else I could think of to get him to stay off his feet. By bed time he wasn't complaining anymore. This morning he woke up, hobbled around for a few minutes and haven't complained since. When asked he says his feet and legs don't hurt. I sure hope we don't have to deal with this too often. It can't be fun for my little guy.

Our Anniversary/My Birthday

Kory and I celebrated our 12th  anniversary this past November. Our celebration's usually consist of dinner with out kids and a movie. Real exciting! This year we desperately wanted to do more however our anniversary fell on a Sunday with Thanksgiving later in the week. Kory was still in school and money was tight so we decided to hold off again and try around my birthday! After 12 years whats a few for weeks? As my birthday quickly approached we decided we were just going to do it. We wanted to rent a little cabin in Duck Creek for a weekend and hire Kory's oldest niece to watch the kids for us at home. We imagined spending the weekend alone, riding around on a rented snow mobile and enjoying the indoor jacuzzi.  As the day quickly approached we ran into a slight problem. No snow....  As we were looking elsewhere my mom, the best, called and offered us her  free 3 night stay at the Thompson Mansion Hotel that she had won earlier in the year. Who could turn that down? On top of that she and my dad took our 5 kids for the weekend.

The Thompson Mansion is an older home that was built across the street from The Brigham home young in St. George, Ut.  We were given the Legacy Suite. I loved the red door.

Besides our front door were two statues of an older couple. I hope that one day life will slow down enough that I can enjoy the quiet, serenity that these statues depicted. 

We picked our kids up from school and headed down to the warmer country Friday afternoon. We dropped the kiddo's off with Grandma that afternoon and Kory and I began our first weekend ever away! After checking in we went to Chilli's for dinner. It was great ordering something off the menu that I wanted to eat. Not something that I could share with one of our younger children. After dinner we discovered the $2 theater and watched Ender's Game. We have both read the book but it's been long enough that neither one of us remember all the fine details to compare the movie to. We enjoyed it and basing it off our lack of memory thought they followed the book pretty well.

 

Saturday morning, my birthday, we ate breakfast at the Black Bear Diner. Afterwards we spent a few hours in the St. George Temple doing sealings for some family names. We found us a red box and rented a few movies to keep us company later that night. We spent the afternoon searching for a radiator plug for Kory's new economy car that he just replaced the engine in. It wasn't what I would have planned but it was great just being together with no interruptions. 

 For my birthday dessert we stopped back in at the Black Bear Diner and bought a Raspberry Pie.

 Oooh la la that was yummy!

 Being in Utah we figured we could show up at any chapel on Sunday at 9,11 and 1 and find a sacrament meeting to attend. Being we didn't have kids to worry about we were hoping for the 11 o' clock. Our first chapel we came to we discovered they must have been on a different schedule than the norm. Everyone was still in class and sacrament meeting wasn't until 12. Not wanting to wait a few blocks down the street we came to the chapel across the street from the temple. Sure enough they had an 11 o' clock. It's so nice to be able to attend an LDS church where ever you are. We don't attend other wards very often especially ones we've never been to. It's comforting to know we'd be welcomed. It's comforting to know the "schedule" for the day. We sing the same songs, hear similar topics and I had to laugh to hear the same announcements over the pulpit. Following sacrament meeting we saw our old bishop and his wife from when we lived in Hurricane. We also saw Kory's cousin with her adult children. It's crazy how small the world can be at times. Following church Kory and I went on a drive and found his Aunt Dixie's home. We were able to visit with her for several hours and really enjoyed our visit with her. Sunday night was bitter sweet. We missed our kids but was also sad it was our last night alone, kidless!

Monday morning we slept in, went to breakfast and began our search again for that radiator plug. We finally made it back to pick up our kiddo's around noon. The kids had a good time with Grandma and Grandpa. They were able to play a lot outside on their bikes and played basketball. They got to spend some time with my younger siblings who live in the area. Brayden had his new best friend, his cousin, to play with the whole time. I miss our a lone time Kory and I had together but it's good to be together as a family again. I'm hoping we can do this a little more often in the future. 

We've got a job!

I've meant to update our family blog for a few weeks now but life keeps getting in the way. We finally heard back from Jared and we are so excited for Kory to start working for him. He will begin the 1st week of February with 2 day's a week until clientele builds up. Despite our lack of advertising it's always amazing to me how fast word spreads and how many cabinet job opportunities continue to come our way. We will continue to take advantage of these blessings of cabinet job's until he can support our family.  

Patience....

I think I am being tested with patience. I am a planner. I have a calendar that keeps me on track. My life, our life is on that calendar. It has everything from dr. appt's, kids basketball games,homework assignments and when tests are due on that calendar. I have a separate calendar for work. I have dates circled when W-2's need to go out, sales tax form's are due, when pay roll needs to be handed out.  I like to know what my immediate future entails. When I loose my calendar I panic.  I don't do well when the future is unknown.

I'm trying my hardest not to panic right now! Kory's out of school. He's studying to take the state board and he doesn't have a job. In June of last year, almost 8 months ago, Kory contacted Jared Gough, the therapist we hope to work for. Jared is very good at what he does. He's never had to advertise. His clients come by word of mouth. Jared is usually 6-7 weeks booked out. Some people are in so much pain that they can't wait that long and so try to see someone else. Jared, trying to keep all his clients in house is looking to hire a few therapists to do that.  Jared told Kory he needed to complete the schooling and then could start working in January. During the 8 months Kory has remained in contact with Jared through text. Kory and I were able to visit with Jared at his office over the Thanksgiving holiday. We only had about 45 minutes to visit before Jared's next client arrived. Some of our questions were answered. For instance Kory can work under Jared's license until Kory get's his own. Kory can start anytime after his school has ended. Kory mentioned that he'd  like to start in January being he quit his job to attend school full time and our finances are getting low. I had been looking on Craigslist and other sites for housing. It's been hard for Kory to travel 2 hours a day for school. I don't want him to travel 4 hours a day for work. We can't afford the gas. I was hoping we could move during Christmas break but Jared doesn't know how busy he can keep Kory. Jared's only planning on Kory to work 1-2 days a week until the clientele builds up. Some of our question's we didn't get answer's too. For instance, How much is Kory going to be making? Is he being paid per hour or per client. How much is that? Jared want us to move closer to help with the emergencies. We want to move closer too. If Kory's only working 1-2 days a week we probably can't afford to move right now. It would be nice to know how much we're going to make too! Who starts working without knowing what they are being paid? We can't live on Kory just working 1-2 days a week and so until he becomes full time he needs to accept cabinet jobs on the side to support his family. I really hope that we can move when school get's out. I want my kids to make friends with the neighbor's before school starts so that they have a friendly face at a new school with new teacher's and new faces. I don't want my kids to have to switch schools in the middle of the school year. I'm really hoping that we can move by August at the latest.

We both really like Jared and think that this can work. The only negative things we hear about Jared is that he's too expensive. He charges $85 an hour and insurance doesn't cover this. He has raised his price by $20 over the past 18 months. He also isn't very good about getting back to people. It's not uncommon to leave him a message and not hear anything back for several days if not over a week. If you text him you have a better chance of hearing from his sooner. Kory's ready to start working. He emailed Jared a resume, something he asked for, over a week now. In the email Kory told Jared that he's ready to start working and is willing to begin anytime. But before starting he needs to know how much he's getting paid. We emailed Jared on a Thursday. We didn't hear back so after a few days Kory texted him on Monday of this week just making sure he received his email. Jared's reply was yes he did get it but he's been swamped with holidays and family stuff. That was it! No other information. What is that suppose to mean? The holiday's were over with by a whole week before Kory sent the email. When can Kory begin? How much will his pay be? We know he works Mon-Sat but takes Thursday's off. We both really thought we'd have an answer by now.  With yesterday being Thursday we thought maybe we'd hear from him then. But we haven't. No text, no email, no phone call. My mom had an appt. last week with Jared and she learned that he's taking the entire next week off and is going to Cancun Mexico for vacation. He mentioned to her that he's really busy and is ready for Kory to start working. He also mentioned to my mom that he's looking for other therapists to join too. He mentioned back in November to us that he's got another therapist that he hopes will start working in April. This concerns be just a little bit. We know Jared's busy. We know he has clients booked at the moment with all his recent vacation's 7-8 weeks out.  With as busy as he is you wouldn't think it would take to long for Kory to have more than 1-2 days a week. We want to move. We want to be full time. He knows this. Where are the clients coming from for this new therapist in April when we don't even have clients yet. She will still be in Massage Therapy School and won't be able to work full time but will be part time. Is there enough clients to support 2 therapist full time and 1 therapist part time in just 3 1/2 months? At the moment it's only supporting 1 full time therapist.  April is just around the corner. He's scheduling clients for himself in March already. When can we start scheduling for Kory. We're assuming it will probably take a week to get a day for the following week hopefully booked. 

I guess we're both starting to get a bit frustrated. Is this job with Jared going to work out? Surely he's not expecting Kory to start working for him without knowing how much he's getting paid. Jared's been in the process of looking to hire therapists to join his office for more then 8 months now. Surely he's thought about how much to pay them. He's known since Thanksgiving at least that Kory wanted to start in January. He's known for I don't know how long that another therapist is going to start working in April. You would think he's thought about some sort of pay.  Knowing that Jared's gone next week I guess Kory won't be starting then or it seems anytime soon. Kory feels like they've texted, talked on the phone, talked face to face and have now emailed enough that Jared know's what we are looking for. He know's we are ready to start and am just waiting on him.  We're out of money. Our savings is gone which we knew 6 months ago at this time it would be. We've got less than $20 in our Checking account. Kory is at the moment in Prescott installing what we were hoping would be our last cabinet job's. He should be coming home with a few checks for these 3 different jobs he's completing. We'll have enough money to get through the rest of this month and hopefully next but then we'll be out of money again. Kory's truck has had some cylinder's go out. We replaced 2 of them last month and it cost over $2,000. We know we're going to have to replace another 2 in the next week or two. There goes another $2,000. The money we're making right now is going towards fixing the truck. Our little car has bit the dust. We can drive it around town but that's about it. When Kory starts working he'll be taking the van leaving me with the truck or he'll commute in the truck until we can get another small economy car.  How long do we continue to wait for Jared?  We are hoping that we will hear from Jared before he leaves on vacation in just a few day's. Will he get back to us while on vacation? I doubt it. We've heard his wife likes him to be all her's while there away together. I'm assuming that means no work! We would be considered work. We're thinking about giving him until the 21 to get back to us. At that point Kory may be able to start his 1-2 days/week the very last week of January. If we don't hear back from him by then Kory's going to start looking elsewhere. We can't wait on Jared any longer to figure out how much to pay his employee!

Maybe I jumped the gun but thinking we were moving this summer I let my boss's know our plans. It can take them several month to make a decision and I didn't want to leave them empty handed. They've been looking for someone to take my place but haven't been able to find someone local. They discussed this with their accountant and it was decided that their office will start doing the book keeping part. They met last week and have a few things to do before they can take over the the process has begun. Chances are by March I will be out of a  job. 

We haven't heard from our landlord for a few months now. They wanted to sell the house by the end of the year. That obviously didn't happen and we assumed they dropped the ball again. We were wrong. They may have dropped the ball but they are still trying to sale it!  I had an appraiser show up yesterday to appraise the house. This time I did get a 24 hour notice.  It seems there is a buyer in mind. We thought it was a brother-in-law, Dustin, but the appraiser said he thought there were 2 interested parties with one having given an offer. We know Dustin made an offer during the Fall. Is this the offer the appraiser is talking about. We were told the landlords didn't accept it. It was to low. Who only knows!

I hate the unknown. It sure looks like there's a good chance of the house selling. Will we be able to stay? I don't know. How long do we have? If it's Dustin I think we could stay until the end of the school year. Yet I know they want to be able to rent the house out as a vacation rental. There's a lot of work to do before that should be done. If we don't move till summer that doesn't give them a lot of time to fix it up and start renting it out. Do I start packing now? Where will we go? I keep getting on Craigslist and other rental sites but I don't know what to look for. What town do I search in? How much can we afford? I really, really hope Jared get's back to us soon. I really hope this will work out. I checked Kory's email too many times to count yesterday hoping that he had gotten back to us on his day off.  Just knowing how busy he his while working his work days I don't have much hope from hearing from him any time soon now. 

Finished with Massage School

It's official! Kory finished Massage Therapy School on January 3, 2014. He had fun, learned a lot and is ready to move on to the next stage of our life. He is going to take a few weeks to study up on the State Board exam and then will have to make a trip to Vegas to take the test. He wants to take the test this month some time. 

 I was able to get some pictures of him off of Facebook to share. 

This is Kory doing some sort of an ice therapy. Kory liked giving them better then receiving them. Although with this therapy I think everyone did. Kory is rubbing ice cubes up and down particular muscles. He says it starts off cold, gets to almost a burning cold hurting feel and then goes numb. Once it's numb your good to go. 

During Daylight Savings weekend Kory and a few other's from school had the opportunity to participate in the Frog Hollow Race. This was the 5th year for the "25" hour 1 day Mountain Bike race. They race begins Saturday night and into Sunday morning allowing for that extra hour of day light savings, hence the 25 hours in 1 day. The school had a tent set up and over the course of 2 day's gave *free* massages to the race participants. Kory really had a good time. He enjoyed working in a different type of atmosphere, with people who had plenty of "knots" to work out and the variety of people he saw. There is another local race coming up this Spring that he would like to participate in again.

Kory and his fellow classmates.

I'm glad school's over for him. It went by fast in some ways and in others it's been a long 6 months of schooling. He made the 2 hour round trip to Cedar City daily rain/shine and even snow. There were many times he beat the snow plows and pushed snow all the way with his little Geo Prism. There were many mornings I asked him not to go due to the terrible weather. Instead he'd leave early so he didn't have the need to rush it.  Instead of taking an hour to get to town it might take him 2.  He didn't miss a single day and graduated with a 3.95 GPA!  He had a different schedule then most schools. He had school Christmas Eve and had to go back after Christmas.  He also had school New Year's Eve and then finished up on January 2nd and 3rd. I wish he would have had more time to spend with the family while the kiddo's were out of school for their Christmas break but we made the best of it. School's out, let's shout!

New Year's Eve Heaton Style

Every year Grandma Heaton throws a New Year's Eve party. In the past it usually starts around 6 pm and then ends at the church for the ward party. Being Grandma was serving a mission the past 2 years she was really looking forward to hosting her annual party again. This year it worked best for the majority of the family to do it today, the day before new year's eve. Seven of the nine siblings were able to make it so it was hosted at the Town Hall. 

It started at 1 this year and ran long into the afternoon. With everyone working together our lunch was Cafe Rio style followed by Root Beer Floats. While this mom was busy helping Grandma and Daddy wasn't home from school yet Kylie found cousin Jessica to snuggle with. Jessica must have done something right as Kylie fell asleep on her shoulder.

After lunch Grandma had 2 pinata's for the kiddo's. 

 This is Madelyn taking her turn.

Way too much candy!!!

But... the kids loved it. 

Following the pinata a charades game was played.

While the kids were busy playing charades the dad's visited.

When the kids tired of Charades we had a white elephant gift exchange.

Brayden lucked out opening a box of Star Bursts.

 No one took it from him so he came home with even more candy.

After the white elephant exchange the candy bar game was played. You can't tell but this is Madelyn all dressed up. She was the 1st to roll doubles.

The candy bar game is always a good one. Who doesn't like chocolate??

As if all that chocolate and candies weren't enough our time together ended with ice cream sundaes.

We had a great afternoon visiting with one another. It's always great to see some of Kory's siblings that live up north that we don't get to see too often.

Heaton Christmas Party

 About a year after Kory and I got married we moved to Arizona. The 1st few years we traveled home for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. After Madelyn's 1st Christmas we decided it was just to hard to travel with all the gifts for Christmas. We stayed home that first year and I absolutely HATED it. I hated how quiet our home was. I hated how both Kory and I were seriously bored! I hated how much time and work I spent in the kitchen making this huge Christmas dinner and then had no one to share it with. We decided there and then that we would have to do things differently. The following year we started a new tradition. Prescott was full of young, poor college student families. We invited several friends (that were also staying home) over Christmas afternoon to eat a big fancy dinner and then play together. We missed being away from family the most during the holiday's. Our tradition stuck. For 5 years we hosted Christmas Dinner for our Prescott friends that felt like family. 

Moving back to Utah being closer to family was a perk. Our 1st Christmas home was in Hurricane where we shared it with the Christensen side. The next year we were living in Alton. I could not believe it when I heard that Kory's family did not get together for Christmas. The Heaton's at that time were getting together every Sunday for dinner and so did not do anything on Christmas Day. That was not O.K with me! So 3 years ago we changed family dinner's to 2x a month and we hosted our 1st Heaton Christmas Dinner on Christmas Day. This year was our 3rd year hosting and will probably be our last. I'm not expecting to be here next year. I wouldn't mind hosting again but I'm sure most of the family won't want to travel to our house on Christmas Day. This year we had 5 families, Grandma and Grandpa (who have been on a mission the past 2 years) plus Mike and Carol, our adopted sibling couple. We had 34 people at our house. 

 Everyone brought a dish to share and we had a plenty of good food to choose from.

After dinner we played a reversal charade's game. One person sat and watched their team act something out that they had to guess. What they were acting out was held above their head so that they couldn't see but the team mates could. Uncle Kevin went first. Savannah, Madelyn, Ruth and Aunt Harmony were his team mates. They were trying to get him to guess "suspender's". They must have done a good job. He guessed it quickly and they went on to the next card drawn.

Grandma participated several times while Grandpa was napping on the couch. I'm not sure how he could have possibly fallen asleep with as loud as it got. But he some how managed. 

More cousins doing there best at acting.

The older boys spent most of their time outside playing darts!

It was a great activity for those bigger boys.

Madelyn was a great sport and let everyone have a turn on her new karaoke machine. The girls had a good time hearing themselves. I believe our family missed the singing gene. I don't think anyone will ever make it in the singing world but it was fun to hear them do their best!

It was a great few hours to spend together. We're a big family and I'm glad our house can host everyone. It does sadden me a little to know that next year we will be in a different house, in a different town and we probably won't see any of Heaton's on Christmas. On the bright side it's been a good 3 years and I hope the Heaton's will continue this new tradition of their's that we started. Chances are Grandma and Grandpa will be serving another mission at Christmas time next year so it will be left up to one of the siblings to get everyone together.

Santa found us!

Christmas morning at 7:05 am.

Waiting so patiently for mom to turn on all the lights!

Madelyn's look of surprise to see Santa did bring her that Karaoke machine!

Santa brought some pretty complicated, sophisticated Lord of the Ring lego's too!

Proud new mom of the newest addition to the family, Cuddles!

Brayden wanted the purple Ninja Turtle. Santa snuck him in his stocking.

Santa also brought him his much anticipated Bat Man Cave.

 Santa brought Kylie her very own purse with a set of keys, and her favorite a hard plastic no push, no noise making cell phone!

Santa was good to us this year. Now on to some of the other gifts given/received this year....

Hunter was just a little excited to get some fun looking duct tape.

Madelyn is thrilled with a spirograph. It's amazing what can be created with this.

Brayden was so excited to have mom and dad open his gift to us. Look what he made in Preschool for us!

It's something that will be treasured for many years to come.

Kylie loved the baby bottles for her new baby. Mom hopes that now maybe she'll quit giving her baby doll's a drink of milk out of her real cup. 

Emily was thrilled with a pair of pretty boots.

Kylie and her new baby. This baby is all plastic. Instead of mom having to throw the babies in the washer because of the real milk offered to them she can now just rinse her off in the kitchen sink.

Madelyn was quite happy with her new necklace and earrings.

Mom's pretty happy with her new winter coat. Dad's quite ecstatic over his Vitamix. He's made a a slushy at lunch and ice cream after dinner every day since Christmas. He can't wait to try making soup, peanut butter and powder sugar. I think it was a hit for everyone!