Christmas Party and An Answered Prayer

Saturday was the Larsen Christmas party. We (the youngest 5 siblings) were in charge this year so it was a little more stressful than usual. We had dinner at 5:00 5:45 (the person making the kids quesadillas was late). Yummy Cafe Rio style buffet. Then the hugest game of Elimination EVER! I think about 50 people played. Lots of prizes for the winners. Then Santa came!

 There were fun activities like face painting...

 fishing...

 and other fun crafts...

and games.

We finished the night with a slide show of pictures of Grandma & Grandpa. It turned out to be afun night and if we had started on time we would have been done by 8:00. Alas, 8:45. I counted 113 people in attendance. After clean up we got home at about 9:30.

While getting the kids ready for bed Anna fell and hit her head on the post by the stairs. I picked her up and hugged and kissed her and came away with bloody lips. Wes took her and covered the wound while we said family prayer and put the other kids to bed. In the prayer Kaylee asked that Anna would be okay and that her cut would stop hurting. After examining her Wes decided she needed stitches. Fortunately that is something he can do at home. The worst part of stitches is always the numbing because he has to put a needle in the cut. It is usually pretty painful. Anna just laid there and didn't even flinch. Two stitches and some ibuprophen later and she was ready for bed. Now you wouldn't know she had been hurt. It is definately and answer to prayer. It's amazing how negative things can become faith builders and lessons for us and our children.



Anna- Beacuse She's So Stinkin' CUTE!

Jenny took this video last night while we were watching the Christmas Broadcast.

• Anna calls me "mudder" now. As in, "Can I have more please, Mudder?" or "I love you Mudder".
• Yesterday Anna got in trouble and Wes took her to her room. When he went back to get her she said "I'll be good Fadder, King".
• She just ran up to me and said - in a tattley voice, "Mom, Andrew didn't hit me".
• Anna loves to color. She makes marks and then decides what it is. For example, the other day she made a long skinny oval. It became an alligator. She added eyes, legs and a tail.
• Her letter to Santa reads "Dear Santa, It's Christmas Time. Alligators. I want a Barbie Princess. Love, Anna
• When she doesn't like a food she says it's " uh-sgusting".
• Anna's prayers are all "Father, Bless food, name Jesus Christ, Amen" so we've been trying to teach her that we don't always bless the food. So now before each prayer she asks if she can bless the food.
• This morning I stepped on a toy and hurt my foot. Anna came up to me and said "I can make you feel better, here's my corner". Then she handed me her special corner of her blanket.

Go Cougars!

A couple of days before Thanksgiving we went to a BYU Basketball game. The Alumni Association was doing a food drive and if you brought in 3 cans of food you could get a ticket. So we brought in 18 cans of food. We had to take it to the new broadcast center to get our ticket vouchers.

They had face stickers...

and face painting...

and pompoms for the kids.

And we got to look around the studio. They had a giant greenscreen for the kids to stand in front of.

There weren't many people there until right before the game started so the kids had plenty of space to dance.

We didn't stay the whole game, it was late and the kids got bored after a while (you can only watch so much basketball at a time) but it was fun.

Halloween

 We carved pumpkins on Friday. There are some scary faces around here!

 Princess Anna:

 Bloodthirsty vampire:

 Scary witch:

 Jupiter- the gas giant:

It was pretty warm for Trick-or- Treating. Grandma and Gradpa Rogers came with us. We had a good time and the kids all have a ton of candy. Kaylee counted- she has 97 peices of candy. Wow. By the last few houses Anna was exhausted (even though we carried her so she could keep up with the others). She said, "We keep going around and around".

Kids Say...

Me: Are you done eating Andrew?
Andrew: Of course not!

Anna: Mom! Andrew's teasing me!
Me: Oh no! What are you going to do about it?
Anna: I'll kick him.
Me: Oh! Does that sound like a good thing?
Anna: No
Me: So what are you going to do?
LONG PAUSE
Anna: Be nice to him.

Anna: There's my teacher, there's my teacher! He has eyeballs.

The Other First Day of School

Yes, I did get another picture of Kaylee and Kara on the first day of school. Aren't they cute!

Princess Anna & First Day of School

Anna found the princess dresses. She wore them constantly for a few days until I put them away. You can't see it but there is a clothes pin in the back holding the dress on her because it's way too big.

Andrew's first day of school EVER! He was so excited! This is us waiting for the bus. It picks him up right in front of our house.

Getting on the bus.

Walking into the school (yes I'm one of those crazy moms who put their kid on the bus, then follow it to the school).

Finding his seat. That's his teacher, Mrs. Hylton.

He had a great first day of school and couldn't wait to go back the next day. Yay for school!