White Christmas

We had a white Christmas, we did we did. Jared was in charge of the still photos this year and let me tell you, 63 pictures! I trimmed them down for the slide show don't worry. We had a very nice Christmas. Jared's parents are so great to come in the morning and watch the kids open their gifts. Todd came this year too, and he made us french toast! That was a nice gift for us. We opened our Christmas box first and read all the nice things we did for each other and others this month. Then it was on to presents.(Excuse my pajamas and robe, no one wanted to wait for me to take a shower on Christmas morning.) Savanna's favorite gift was her digital camera from Grandma and Grandpa Schauers and the scooter from mom and dad. Fiora got a camera too in her stocking and loves it! Weston loves his red ryder bee bee gun from his daddy and hulk shirt from the Snows. We visited my wonderful Grandma Rappleye and she gave me my favorite gift of all -- purple pajamas! Thanks grandma. And Wendy Snow gave me comfy slippers to go with it. My parents and siblings came over for gift exchange in the afternoon and Jared and I were the lucky recipients of $40 gift cards from Holly and Bill. My parents very generously gave us some nice clothes and books we all love. We had soup and my family left to beat the storm. What a blessed day! Thank you everyone for the wonderful gifts and love you give us.

Jareds 31st Birthday

Somewhere in the Christmas melee fell Jared's 31st Birthday. Jared wanted to keep it low key this year what with all the Christmas celebrations going on. I made him breakfast in the morning and he got his traditional gift of meat/cheese/mustard box sets they sell this time of year that he loves. We went to my parents house that evening and had barbecue chicken pizza and sang Christmas songs. I made him some brownie trifle and the Barretts sang the Birthday cantata to him. He is a good sport about our desire to celebrate. It was a lot of fun singing with the family-thanks everyone! And Happy Birthday Jared!

Images of Christmas

This is our Christmas Box, wherein we put slips of paper that have good deeds written on them that we have done for one another. We will read them before opening presents Christmas morning, our Gift for the Lord.

This is the gingerbread house made out of graham crackers and chocolate frosting. What a messy project! But the end result looked alright.

Here's us on the Sunday morning before Christmas all festive, handsome, and ready to go to church.

This is the poinsettia we let beatuify our kitchen and put on Lillian's grave Christmas day. I hope we can find her headstone in all this snow!

And the stockings, unoriginal and inexpensive, but very coordinated. Our coats and hats have been tossed all over the livingroom without the coat rack.

bandwagon elfers

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

I've seen this all over, couldn't resist doing it with us five! So funny.

Final Final

I Heather took my final final today! The semester is finished. HOORAY Special thanks go to my husband Jared, Shelene Westover, Julie Valora, Jennifer Gomez, Wendy Snow, Lacey Weight, Jesse and Kelsy, Kaylin Skousen and Kelly Hill for helping to make this semester a success. Thanks for helping watch our kids during classes and tests so Jared could work and do his calling. We love you!

Now, here is a celebration You Tube clip from the 80's now that we have time to browse the internet and watch really funny stuff. All those my age or older may know the actual words to this song, I think this is a major improvement.

Yay

Fiora: Savanna, will you make me some cinnamon toast?
Savanna: Sure
Fiora: Yay yay yay yay yay yay yay yay
Savanna: Fiora stop saying yay or I won't make it
Fiora: Can I say it one more time?
Savanna: (sigh) OK.
Fiora: Yay
~After a pause~
Fiora: Cinnamon Toast Cinnamon Toast Cinnamon Toast Cinnamon Toast . . .
Savanna: (sigh)

Merry Merry Merry Merry Christmas

I stole this Youtube light display from my friend's blog, I saw it last year and loved it. So amazing what people can do with their lights!

And here is a link to listen to beautiful Christmas music for hours on your computer from the mormon tabernacle choir.
Merry Christmas

Saturday is a special day

Sometimes blogs get sugarcoated. :) Lest you are under the notion that every day is rosey over here at the Schauers home let me tell you about Saturday, which really was pretty typical of any day here.
6:30 AM enter Weston, climbing in Heather and Jared's bed. After 15 minutes of squirming he requests pancakes. Heather tells him its too early and go downstairs and watch something.
7:00 Girls alarm clock goes off. Savanna's feet hit the floor and she turns it off, Heather hears a banter "Why did you set the alarm?" "I didn't do it!" "Yes you did!" and a few slaps. Enter Fiora telling Heather Savanna hit her. She climbs in the bed. Enter Savanna, Heather asks her why the alarm went off. "Fiora set it!" "No I didn't!" Heather tells them to go downstairs.
7:30 Enter Weston crying, "Savanna touched my foot!" Heather rolls out of bed. Heather makes pancakes.
8:00 Eating pancakes, cleaning the kitchen, getting dressed
8:30 Jared gets up and asks when I am exercising because he has a lot to do. Good thing he didn't ask me what time it was because I would have to reply, "Time for everything but me."
9:00 Heather exits house of chaos to go exercise, kids try to get ready for program rehearsal at 10:00 Sunday best by themselves.
9:45 Heather returns and practices a musical nubmer with Jesse and Kelsy and gets the kids out the door takes a shower and runs to the rehearsal, Jared leaves for work (yes on a Saturday)
10:30 Heather finds out they aren't doing the song she is playing today, she goes home
11:00 Some silence, should Heather go back to bed? read? clean? She sits on the couch in a daze and does none of the above
11:30 Kids come home and want lunch. Heather takes the kids to Little Ceasars and gets a $5 pizza
11:45 Weston insists on holding the pizza and drops it in the garage on his way out of the car
12:00 Heather serves dirt covered pizza to kids whilst Weston cries "It was an accident!"
12:30 Heather climbs under the covers and wimpers, defeated. Kids run amok
1:00 Jared comes home. He assesses the situation and takes the kids to Macey's for food fun and Santa claus.
2:00 Heather emerges, makes two pies for the Ward activity that evening
3:00 Jared returns with food and kids, Jared put away groceries, Heather sulks that he brought home more work for her, and the kids watch Mr. Megorium
3:30 Heather has a melt down, Jared turns therapist and tries to talk me through it,("Are you mad because I slept in?) Weston breaks an ornament (why do they play with those?), Heather is sorry and thanks Jared for the nice food
4:00 Jared naps, Heather practices "Chocolate in my Stocking" with Savanna for the Ward activity
5:00 Everyone getting ready to go, fight with Sav about her hair, appease Fiora who didn't get a "shirt like Savanna's"
6:00 Ward Christmas dinner, mom and dad Barrett come with to see Savanna perform
7:00 Savanna does a flawless performance, although stone statue still, for over 200 people!
7:30 Santa Claus comes to the party, kids sit on his lap. Fiora asks for my little ponies, Savanna asks for a Scooter, and Weston asks for a candy cane. Weston got his wish.
8:00 come home put kids to bed and Jared and Heather sit by the Christmas tree and relax. Whew!

PBJ

Weston's body cells are comprised 80% of peanut butter and jelly and bread. He opts for this food selection at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I offer him everything under the sun but he only wants his pb&j. The other 20% of his diet are cereal, meat off the grill, and apple juice.



We were somewhat disappointed it did not snow this past week. We usually like to take the family sledding the day after Thanksgiving. Instead the children had to stay in the house and entertain themselves. All my ideas are tossed by the wayside, the kids like to do only what I haven't suggested. Too bad all the fun things to do are so expensive, except sledding.

Jared Jared

Here is mighty Jared fixing the weather stripping on our front door. He also replaced the squeeky, falling out hinges. Now we won't know if robbers come in the house because it is a silent door! Jared braved Old Navy on Black Friday and bought us all jeans and shirts. The gal at the cashier asked if his wife dragged him out of bed at 6:30 AM to come shopping. He said, "Uh no, I'm here by myself." "You're here by yourself?" she echoed. The lady behind him heard the cashier and repeated, "You're here by yourself?" and turned to the lady behind her, "He's here by himself!" That earned more "wow"s down the line. He was pretty embarrassed. I'm sure the ladies were very impressed. I was very grateful for the jeans and sweater he brought home for me. Jared has been experimenting in the kitchen a little also. He made us some "wise guys" style sandwiches for dinner Saturday night. Delicious! What with the new Home Basics Building having a kitchen and all, the guys have been making lunch. On Jared's shift he made taco soup that was a big hit. He just improves with age...

This picture was taken by Savanna. I love how she didn't mention the closet door was gaping open behind us. We love you Jared!
The kids helped me get the tree set up on Saturday. Turned out pretty good. I've just read book 1 and 2 of Fablehaven and the kids have been asking me to tell them the story. They love my retelling-from-memory-as-best-I-can so much that after 10 or 15 minutes I am ready to do something else and they all beg me to "keep telling Fablehaven!" "Five more minutes!"

Fiora Weston Savanna

Fiora
Dad came home one day with a dollar for each of the kids. Just because I love you, he said. Fiora promtly put her dollar in her bank and asked me to take her to the store today to spend it. She bought a toilet with powder candy for water and plunger suckers to dip in the toilet. Candy makers these days! She has ALREADY advanced to level 2 in gymnastics. Way to go Fi! Fortunately there was an opening in that class for her at the same time. She's got talent.


Savanna
Another talented one in our family is Savanna. She has diligently been attending choir at school at 7:15 in the morning and learned 5 Christmas songs. She modestly accepted my invitation to sing one of them, "Chocolate in my Stocking" for the ward Christmas party. She has a lot of enthusiasm and a good pitch and will do great. Savanna had a read-a-thon in school today and was very excited to go to school in her jammies with a pillow. They are sending her home with chapter books to read! Takes a while to get through them but she's doing it. We had some Indians in the house on Friday, Savanna's and Weston's classes made Indian costumes out of paper bags and they were so cute!


Weston
Weston insisted that he was "the Indian Chief" on Friday, but has now forgotten about Indian Chief. Today he is Steve/warrior with toy sword and sheild. He makes up costumes out of toys, clothes, costumes, paper; he had Savanna make him a Superwhy mask and taped a towel to his back for the cape. If I try to play his counterpart he politely tells me "That's cheating." I think what he means is, that's not working for you, mom.


On Saturday while Jared was at work, with scouts, and getting a hair cut the kids asked me to make a little face art. It was so fun, and they were so good with me in the house all day. I love my kids! Savanna Fiora and Weston you are wonderful and I love being your mother!!!

oh twilight

My sister-in-law Wendy bought me a ticket opening day to Twilight and I couldn't resist seeing how they made this movie. It was pretty good except that it was so low-budget. After seeing movies like X-men, Hellboy, and even The Grinch I couldn't help but wonder where the make-up artist was for this movie. The vampires looked like they put some dusting powder on thier faces and were good to go. And the hair stlyist, eh. They left out many of my favorite charming scenes, but you can't put in everything. I'm glad I got to see it. Thanks for including me Wendy! I loved having a girls outing and seeing a fun movie.

She doesn't do hair

After my jog Saturday I came home to a dilemma. Savanna had decided to do Fiora's hair and used the comb like a curling iron. I remember doing the same dang thing when I was a kid to my own head. Savanna had that hair so tightly wound around the comb I thought we were going to have to cut Fiora's hair like a boy's. Then I got a brilliant idea to cut the comb instead of the hair. It took me 25 minutes to work the comb out.







Weston left two crayons in his kahki's pocket and I washed and dried those kahkis in the WHITE load. That was a family tragedy. All our underwear and white shirts were speckled with red and orange. I try to check the kids' pockets thoroughly now before washing them, and it's amazing what I find. What was happening to all that stuff before I checked their pockets?
Weston has a new favorite show -- Superwhy. Although he still loves Blue's Clues. I found this clue in our kitchen that he made. I told him I found a clue and he said "Mom you are not a kid." I guess that my finding a clue doesn't count.



Mom: Savanna I will give you a quarter if you clean the kitchen
Sav: The whole kitchen?
Mom: Yes
Sav: I don't care about money
Mom: Fiora if you clean up this kitchen I will give you a quarter.
Fi: Can I buy anything I want with my quarter?
Mom: Anything that costs a quarter
Fi: Do I have to do the WHOLE kitchen?
Sav: Fiora, if you want a quarter I suggest you clean the whole thing.

grateful

Being in school for nearly 3 months makes one grateful. With not a lot of time for anything but kids and studies I feel grateful for friends and family who I miss associating with. Justin and Shawna Schauers came by Saturday night and played games with us, I was nearly in tears for the joy of socializing. I'm grateful for Sunday dinners with my parents out in Eagle Shmountain. I'm grateful for email, I am better at email that other methods for keeping in touch with people. My parents and siblings were in Orem Monday and stopped by here for a little FHE. I loved it! I love them. My sister Kynsie just got her braces off, we took a picture of all of us once "brace face" girls. (My poor parents, all 7 girls will probably end up with braces Rachel's next...) So this picture represents 12000 dollars worth of dental work.

I'm grateful for my kids' health. I just heard that my cousin Angela's oldest boy has Type I diabetes, he is only 3. My heart broke when I heard that. Although we went through a tough struggle with Lillian, our other three children are so healthy and bright. We are so grateful. I am also GrATEFUL for Jared! He is also mightly healthy, but also mighty good. Last night he had a conflict and couldn't watch the kids after work so I could go to class. I called nearly everyone I could think of, including my mom (just to vent because I knew she couldn't)and was driven to tears trying to find a way to get to class. Thankfully Lacey and Lyndi Weight offered to watch them extremely last minute. So I rushed them up there and rushed me to campus and sat in a classroom for 30 minutes with 45 other students and our professor was a no-show. Some emergency or something...sure wish I could see into the future in those instances. Instead of being mad at Jared I was actually very grateful because of all the times he IS there and DOES come home after work to make it possible for me to do my evening classes.

So now that I've been mushy and boring here is a couple photos to put a smile on your face. Hanna Montana came to visit:

Baby Blues says it all

Weston has been clumsy like this lately and he always comes to me saying "It leary hurts!" (Leary is his verson of "really")


This is Fiora, she can and likes to burp. I really get after her when she loudly burps repeatedly. The other day she informed Weston "Don't do that at the table because it's impolite." So it must have sunk in.


This is me these days. My kids play together so cute and when I enter they pause, usually because they know a request is about to be made (did you practice? is your room clean?) but sometimes just because they don't want me to watch.


I just thought this was funny because they created Daryl so funny-looking.

Quints

For any of our readers who may keep up the the Wilkinson Quints (my cousin Rachelle and her cute babies!) I just have to put in a plug for their recent post - hilarious!
www.wilkinsonquints.org

Mummy, and Batman, and princess oh my

Fiora just donned one of the princess dresses we have had for years for Halloween. I thought we should put at least a little effort into her costume so I put some makeup on her. She said, "Mom I look wild!" Hmm, maybe too much makeup. She said she was going to pose wild for her picture.
Savanna wanted to be a mummy out of toilet paper. I thought I'd be even more smart and rip up an old white crib sheet. Unfortunately that didn't quite work either, even with 20 safety pins, because it bunched up and fell apart whenever she moved. Oh well, people knew what she was trying to be.
Jared took the kiddies around and I stayed home to hand out the candy. I put on Jesse's green Santa mask for a few kids. Weston sure was terrified of that mask when Jesse snuck up the stairs wearing it. He jumped in my arms shaking! "Mom there is something on the stairs!" I felt bad for the little guy! He laughed the next day when I put it on though.
I must say I made the GREATEST pumpkin seeds ever this year. Totally worth the cost of 4 big pumpkins. Recipe if your interested:

Rinse seeds from apx 2 large pumpkins
coat cookie sheet with 1/3 cup vegetable oil
lay seeds on a cookie sheet
sprinkle worchestersire sauce generously on seeds
salt seeds
bake at 375 for 30 minutes, stirring once

Amy's Bday

My sister in law Amy celebrated her birthday yesterday so I wanted to post a blog for her to tell her how much I appreciate her! She is Jared's brother's wife, and the first 8 years they were married I didn't have a chance or take the opportunity to get to know her, but this year we started running together and I feel sorry for the lost years we were in the same family but never really acquainted, now I can't live without her! She has become a very dear friend and I love her a lot. I'm so glad we will be in the same family unit forever. Happy Birthday Amy!

7 strange things

I have a friend who went to high school with me who I haven't seen in a LONG time because she lives in Illinois! Her name is Amber. She posted a tag of "7 strange things" about herself on her blog and the whole time I was reading it I was thinking "That is me!!!" (except for the double jointed part) and then she coincidentally tagged me at the end. I really love blogging for the very reason that I get to keep up with friends I never see. So here's to Amber, 7 strange things...

1. I do not like shopping for myself. I love to shop for other people, (quickly), but most of my clothes and shoes are gifts or second-hand items because I can't stand shopping. Frustrating.

2. I dislike television shows. (Sorry Cami!) I do not enjoy them one bit. I just criticize the heck out of almost every TV show made with the exception of "the Office" and even that is lame sometimes.

3. I have no patience for primping. I only wear make-up for Jared's sake so he can feel like he his wife is not a hag.

4. I never kissed a boy until college, and Jared's was #2 boy ever I kissed.

5. I like giving talks and lessons.

6. I look forward to the day I die, I affectionately call it "graduation day."

7. I had one miscarriage, one c-section, two natural biths, and one epidural. All encompassing birthing experiences.

I tag Stacy H and Shelene W

I'm batman

Weston's Uncle Todd bought him a batman mask and cape just because. Weston loves it. He wouldn't take it off the entire fist two days of owning it, and he has me hang it up in the closet loveingly like a tuxedo. I'm sure it will be his halloween costume of choice.
Savanna opted to perform in her school talent show and memorized a piano number for it. I was a proud mommy when I heard her play for her 2nd grade class. She has also decided to participate in the school's extracurricular choir taught by her past 1st grade teacher. She goes to school at 7:15 on Mon and Wed!!! It's still dark outside then. But she is a great singer and will do well.

On Friday we went to Maceys grocery store in Orem for a tailgate party. They were offering steak dinners for 3 bucks, and they had free samples and inflatable slides. It was awesome! The best steak we ever had. The kids loved it, Savanna asked when we could go to that party again. Hopefully next year.

Strawberry Reservoir

We decided to have a picnic at Strawberry Reservoir. Actually, we were supposed to fish there, but it didn't work out that way. The banks were all muddy and mossy, impossible for kids to fish from. We got out 3 times and tried different spots, but alas, it was not use. Gma Rappleye, me, and the kids had a picnic supper by a boat dock and Jared got out on his float tube. Apparently the fish were all spawning up some river because he didn't catch anything that way either. The kids had fun, even though we all went four hours without a bathroom and Savanna was not patient on the way home trying to find a place to go. The next day she wrote in her journal that she had fun.


Jared in float tube




Fiora had a sleepover with her cousing Lucy so Savanna was jealous and called every friend she knew until she had a playdate too. She came home with her face painted like a cat.

Pictures and a funny story

Gearing up for Halloween. Our home comes complete with black cat.




Fiora and Weston dancing, someone cut in.

Pre-hair cut

Post hair cut
Jesse and Kelsy work graveyard shifts so they sleep in the afternoon and evening. Tuesday evening I go to class in Salt Lake and Jared has Scouts. I asked our neighbor to watch the kids during Jared's scouting but sometimes Jared figures we have two adults in the house and that's good enough, even if they are asleep. The rule is, we don't wake Jesse and Kelsy unless mom and dad aren't home and there is an emergency, like Weston get's hurt and is bleeding. One Tuesday evening during class I got a call from Fiora on Kelsy's phone, so I knew they had woke up the Barretts. I apologized to them the next day and asked why the kids woke them. Jesse said he didn't know, Savanna came into his room and said "Weston got cut!" So Kelsy got up and went to get him a bandaid and on closer inspection noticed the "cut" was red marker. Apparantly Savanna got nervous being "in charge" and conned up a reason to wake up the adults in the house. We had a good laugh.