what we do for fun here in Monument Valley

You might think that living in Monument Valley would be boring, but really i can't imagine life being boring with these boys.
One of my New Year's goals is to have Spencer help more around the house. This is one of his favorite jobs- sorting laundry. James enjoys it too, and and Spencer doesn't mind re-sorting what James puts in the wrong basket- usually.
On the day Elizabeth came i was going a little crazy cleaning the whole house, and this is what my boys did while I was cleaning. They were getting ready for a trip (a very long trip from the looks of it.)

One day we made a zoo. Spencer had a special reason for the shape and placement of each cage, and it was great entertainment for quite a while.
It doesn't usually snow much here, but Spencer really wanted to make a snowman. We actually did make a regular sized snowman about a week ago- but I forgot to take a picture and it melted that afternoon.



i love my boys- they make life so fun!

Devon's Birthday

On the morning of Devon's birthday Spencer woke up and the first thing he said was "Can Daddy open his present now?" He wanted to get Devon the movie Nightmare Before Christmas. He was scared of the Haunter Mansion decorated like that, but somehow the movie is not so scary.
When you have kids, you always have help to get those presents open.
Devon's favorite dessert is scotcheroos- so we have that instead of cake.

Happy birthday Daddy!

Elizabeth's visit

A few weeks ago Devon's sister Elizabeth came to visit us. We love having her come! We wanted to practice with the new camera so we went to Valley of the Gods and Moki Dugway for some scenery.

I promise, he is not really that close to the edge, okay I was changed James in the car, but I hope he wasn't that close to the edge.
Spencer is becoming a great photographer, he is so excited that he got a picture of his shadow.

Spencer said "Can i go out there like Elizabeth?" I said "When you are 20 years old"
Thanks for coming and showing Devon the ropes of a nice camera.

Catching up

It has been a long time. This is pretty much catching up for the whole month of January. Right before school started again we took a stock-up trip to Farmington. Usually on these trips we just shop, and it is very boring for the boys. We decided to go bowling this time. There is only one bowling alley, and they had to fix our lane twice in the one game we bowled. They didn't even have the things to help kids bowl, but it was James' first time, and he thought it was great.
They both loved pretending on the arcade games, next time I think we'll just get a few $'s of quarters instead of paying $25 for bowling. I did win though which is a first, so it was fun.
Devon got a new camera, so he took lots of pictures.




This is one of our favorite things to do- especially when it's cold. We take the boys to the school and let them go crazy in the halls- we call it "ball in the hall." It's almost as good as having keys to the church (a bigger church than our that actually has a gym).

Pretty cute boys I think.

New Year's Eve

Spencer has been very excited about all of the holiday's, so we had to celebrate New Year's eve. We changed our clock, so our clock said midnight at about 7:30. We watched the London New Year celebration on you-tube and made lots of noise outside.


We told Spencer he could yell as loud as he wanted, which was pretty loud. Our neighbor even came out to see what all of the excitement was about.

then we drank some Sparkling cider and toasted the New Year.

I didn't get any pictures of this, but Spencer is very into decorating, so we had lots of decorations, mostly homemade clocks and huge sign with fireworks made from dot paints. I love how exciting holidays are with little kids around.

Christmas Day

We had a wonderful Christmas. the boys were so excited- especially Spencer. Here is the video of them coming into the living room on Christmas morning.


They both got a little wind up train and a rechargable flashlight in their stocking. i am excited for those because Spencer always wants to play camping and ends up leaving the flashlight on.

Santa brought both of the boys a play kitchen for Christmas. That was Spencer's request. It took Santa's elves more than 2 hours to put it together- but it is a great size and has been really fun.

After seeing a Dora kitchen on TV Spencer said he wanted a Spiderman kitchen. Elf Elizabeth saved the day by sending some Spiderman stickers to decorate the kitchen with.
James loves the kitchen too. We have eaten a lot of plastic "feasts" lately!
We just did Santa stuff before church. It was nice to spread the fun out. We had a breakfast at church after a short Sacrament Meeting, it was really nice.
When we got home I had the boys open their presents from Grandma Coombs first so they could change clothes.
They love their fuzzy sweatshirts!
Between present opening (since we took turns) James went back and played with the kitchen, he wasn't too interested in other people's presents.
Devon gave me this cute sign and lots of other stuff.
You see that dinosaur thing next to Spencer? Kelsey found it on super-clearance. Spencer loves it. It's kind of animatronic, so it snaps at you and flaps and freaks James out- but Spencer thinks it's great.

My grandma crocheted hats for the boys- they fit perfect!
Devon is the picture taker, so this in the only picture of him, wearing Spencer's hat and the Coke shirt I got him.
We got some fun dot paints from Emilee that we have uses about 10 times already.
These pictures are all out of order, but James loved his new airplane and cars. This boy can never get enough cars.
The rest of the day was great and relaxing. We watched movies and layed around. Our neighbor invited us for dinner, so i should say it was relaxing until Spencer broke her snow globe, good thing he got some money for Christmas to buy a new one. It really was a wonderful Christmas.

Christmas Eve

We had our first Christmas just our family this year. We had a wonderful holiday.
Our friends the Whitaker's who moved this year from Monument Valley to Monticello came to spend Christmas eve with us. We were so glad they could come.
First we played traditional Bingo- but not Gosney cut-throat bingo. Everyone got a prize and no one traded or stole. It was fun.
Then we had dinner. My new tradition is to buy cute Christmas paper plates for Christmas Eve- less mess, more family time ($ store).
After dinner we decorated gingerbread cookies and then our neighbor brought over a real homemade gingerbread house to decorate, the kids loved it. We actually ended up with two gingerbread houses, which was really fun. But after a week of candy the Gingerbread Fairy came on New Year's Ever to use the houses for runaway gingerbread men- and leave 4 nickels.


This house was amazing. It didn't even threaten to fall over!
Last we did a nativity with the puppets that my mom made last year. It was actually pretty successful.

Somehow e missed pictures of opening Christmas Eve PJ's from Grandma because we were Skyping Devon' parents at the time as they opened their present from all their kids- a shotgun.
We had a great Christmas Eve- it's my favorite day of the yer. We even got to sled on the skiff of snow that was left here in MV- and that was only in the shade- but it worked!