Why We LOVE Winter!

Growing up in eastern Idaho there was always plenty of snow.  I remember snow so deep we couldn't open our front door.  I remember being snowed in for days and riding our snowmobiles to the store to pick up some groceries.  I learned to ski in 7th grade and I always loved riding the snowmobiles.  We would go outside often to sled for hours and hours.  Living on a hill helped.  Winter was a lot of fun.

Living in western Idaho, we don't get much snow.  I would say half our Christmases have been white.  This year was not a white Christmas.  We did have a snow storm about 2 weeks before Christmas, but it was all gone fast, and it hasn't snowed in the valley since. 

 This morning we woke up to a winter wonderland.  Jan. 31.  It was so beautiful I took a picture of our tree in the back yard before heading to church at 9am.  I thought it would be all gone by the time we got back.  I'm glad I took the picture because the trees were bare by the time church was out.  We did come home and made some snowmen before all the snow melted. 

Making snowmen has become a family tradition each winter.  When the heavy wet snow falls we run out and make our snowmen.  One year it happened in the morning before school.  I took the kids to school after our snowman was all done:) 

We went to Bogus on Saturday and had a really fun time.  We left Chloe with some friends and took Hailey.  Since she is a 5th grader she gets to ski for free 3 times at Bogus.  When you buy a season pass you get a free lift ticket.  Since we have 3 season passes I get 3 free tickets, so we headed up to Bogus for a day of skiing.  Hailey did really well.  We went on the back side of the mountain for most of the day.  It is full of black diamond runs and lots of powder.  She was a trooper and did a good job keeping up.  Joel and the boys are pretty good on their boards.  This is their 3rd season snowboarding.

Hailey...comin down!

This is what it's like to ride with Caden on the chair lift.

Wow... who is that!

Joel and Hailey on the top

Coelton

Caden

Happy Birthday Chloe!

My baby is now 6 years old.  How can I stop time?  I must know!  This can't go on! 
It seems like yesterday we had our little Chloe.  I remember when we had the ultra sound to determine if she would be a boy or a girl.  I was certain we would be getting a boy, no Hammer family had more than one girl.  When they said it was a girl, I remember crying, now Hailey would have a sister!
We couldn't decide on a name.  I liked Ellie and Chloe and Joel really liked Chloe.  We didn't want Hailey to be the only one without a C name.  But, Chloe won.
The day she was born the doctor said he thought she would be 8-1/2 pounds, and he was right on she was 8 lbs 8 oz.  Our biggest baby.  She didn't have that high pitch girly cry like Hailey did.  She was pretty loud.  I remember looking at her just after she was born and holding her close...she was mine, we were complete. 
After going through 3 horrible pregnancies, I didn't want to put our family through 9 months of a non functioning mother especially when the father is working out of town most days, with no one around to help.  I didn't think I could live through another pregnancy.   Hailey was 5 when we had Chloe.  It took a while to decide to have a 4th child.  I found a great doctor who put me on a great medicine that helped me not throw up. (sort of).  I was at least able to function.  He took very good care of me and monitored me closely. 
Chloe was an answer to our prayers, the icing on the cake.  She has brought such joy to our family.
 Her middle name is Judy, which is my maiden name. 
Chloe loves to color and draw.  She likes Curious George, Martha Speaks and Dinosaur Train on PBS. (the only channel we get that has cartoons)
She loves her big sister and is always playing with her.  She wants to be just like Hailey in every way.
  She gives great back scratches and really nice hugs.  She loves to give eskimo and butterfly kisses.
Chloe is a good friend to others and has a tender heart. She is always so nice to give compliments to everyone.  She is always giving her friends "presents".  A few times I have had to call her friends and ask for her (rather nice) toys back.
 She is a good little helper and does her chores every day.  She wants to be a clogger or a ballerina.  She is often found dancing all over the house.  She also loves to play with her toys; barbies, polly pockets, littlest pet shop and her american girl doll. 
She loves lip gloss and slip on shoes.  Her favorite song is" I know that my savior loves me" and the  #6 song on Taylor Swifts CD.   

She LOVES to play with her friends.  She has so many to choose from it's hard for her to decide who to play with.

This year for her birthday we took her out to breakfast!  She didn't have school on her birthday.  The waitresses gave her a frosted doughnut with a candle and sang to her!  She got some little pet shop pets and a zhu zhu pet and some outfits for her doll.

She got to go to the movie "The Princess and the Frog", with Hailey and Chloe's friend; Annalie.

Joel and Coelton had a campout with the Priests.  They went Cross country skiing near red fish lake, and stayed in a cabin.  So the rest of us enjoyed dinner together and some yummy birthday cake! 

We love you baby.

Chloe Judy Hammer

Green Smoothie

Check this out.  My birthday present from myself.  It's a BLENDTEC and I am in love.  It's got 3 horses under the lid and has 30+ pre-programmed blend cycles for my convenience.  It can make just about anything.  It even cleans itself. 
My very favorite recipe is the green smoothie.  It has tons of spinach, a pear or apple and a little apricot nector.  I add a bit of ice just to hear the motor roar. 

It is delicious and very nutricious.  The kids even love it! 

2009 in Review

2009 Movies that we saw in theatres.  The $ theatre is our favorite, $3 for movie, water and carmel popcorn.  Makes a great date night.

* 17 again  
*Hannah Montana
*Wolverine
*Star Trek
*Taken
*New in Town
*Up
*Transformers 2
*Night at the Museum 2
*The Proposal
* New Moon
*A Christmas Carol
*The Blind Side
*Avatar


The good, the bad and the ugly of 2009:

* Miracle on the Hudson.  Canadian Geese flew into a plane killiing the engines.  The plane crashed in the Hudson River and everyone survived due to Captain Chelsey Sully. 

*The swine flu hit in the spring and many people died.  A Vaccine was made to help stop it from turning into a pandemic.  It seems to have fizzled out,  if people do get it, it's not as fatal. 

*Susan Boyle,  an average...homely lady with a grea tvoice, from Great Brittain won Brittain's Got Talent. 

* Kris Allen beat Adam Lambert in American Idol.  (thank goodness...casue Adam is SYCHO)

*Nadya Suleman or also known as the "octomom" gave birth to octuplets.  She allready had  6 kids?  Not married and all babies were invitro...only in the USA.

*Carrie Prejean Miss California was asked a question in the Miss USA pageant.  Her reply was that she believed that marriage should be between and man and a woman.  She was called horrible names and stripped of her title as Miss California.  But she stood up for what she believed and that makes her awesome!

*Jaycee Dugard was kidnapped 18 years ago at the age of 9?  She was found and returned to her family. 

* The FAb 5 clogging group which consists of 5 sisters who are LDS competed for the title of America's Got Talent.  They made it to the final 3.

* My favorite Donny Osmond won Dancing with the stars!  I have loved Donny and Marie since I was a kid and watched them on TV.  I even had the Donny and Marie barbie dolls.   

*Michael Jackson died of an overdose and Farah Fawcett died of cancer and Patrick Swayze also died of Cancer.  Michael and Farah died on the same day.   Michael Jackson got his fame when I was a kid, I loved his songs.  I also pretended to be Farah on Charlie's Angels.  My friend had a Charlie's Angels Lunch box that we would stare at every day.

*Barak Obama becomes out nations president... ( Notice this makes the bottom of the list).

Happy New Year!

2010, now that seems like a really big number.  I hate getting used to writing the new year on my checks.  It seems like around march I finally do it without crossing out the previous year. 

This year we had a really fun new years.  But unfortunatley there is no pictures:( 

We had a fun party with some friends and neighbors.  The Eastman's hosted the adults at their house and our house was for the kids.  The Stirlings and Hawkins came and we played the fun "pirates dice game".  Then we played guesstures and then ended up at our house for a round of wii tennis and archery.   Of course there was lots of great food.

Caden went to the stake dance and Coelton went to a party with friends.

More of Christmas

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care.

My tree...fits perfect where the piano goes.

We went to SE Idaho for the Judy Family Christmas party on the 28th.  We drove to Pocatello and stayed the night at the Weston's house.  On the 29th we went to Shelley and attended Mary Ricks' funeral.  We met up with the family at the Pinecrest bowling ally and had a fun time bowling.  After that, we went to Rhett's and had dinner and our gift exchange.
DaNae's family fave us a new george forman grill with removeable plates and the game guess who!  Grandpa gave the girls an adorable necklace and the boys a cool hat.

We had a white elephant gift exchange that took a very long time with 42 gifts.  After that we were all tired and just enjoyed visiting and eating. 

We stayed at Rhett's that night and got up very early to attend the 7am temple session that my Dad was officiating.  He works in the temple on Wednesdays from 5-11am.  It was really special to see him in his white suit and to be with most of my brothers and sisters in the temple.  After the session we went to Smitty's and I ordered my favorite strawberry waffle and hot chocolate...a favorite since high school.  We hit the road back to Boise after we stopped in Shelley for a visit.

The 5 boys in their new hats from Grandpa.

I don't know about them, but I am folding my arms to hide the huge roll on my tummy.

Traegan, Caden and Blake

Cass, Kayla, Hailey, Ash, Linds and Kenzie

Our sweet gifts!

Chelsea, Riley, Brinly and Chloe

Christmas 2009

We had a magical Christmas! Christmas eve we spent in the mountains skiing. It was so fun to be in the snow. All the snow had melted in the valley.

We had our annual pajama hunt and everyone found thier new jammies. The boys got slippers.

We watched the movie "The Nativity" it came out in 06. It was very well done and we enjoyed watching it. It was a wonderful reminder of why we celebrate Christmas and what it truly means.

Chloe kept running down stairs to look at the computer to see where Santa was. The kids had the "Santa Tracker" on. She was very worried he wouldn't come to our house cause we were all still awake.

We made Santa some cookies and the girls put them out on the santa plate and they also gave the reindeer their 9 carrots. A tall glass of milk topped it off and also a letter from Hailey.

We read "The Night Before Christmas" book and then everyone hit the hay.

At 6am the kids found their way to our room begging us to get up. We all went to the living room together and found that Santa had wrapped everything this year. It was fun as we all took turns unwrapping our gifts. Chloe got an american girl doll, Hailey got an ipod, Caden and Coelton got ski passes and clothes, and Joel got a new snowboarding suit. I was especailly good this year and got a new laptop.

We noticed one gift by the fireplace and were very surprised that Santa left us all a wii!

We had a great day playing and being together. Joel tried to beat everyone on the wii, but Hailey punched him out in boxing and Chloe beat everyone in bowling and I hold the record in archery. Seems to me the girls in this family dominate!

The girls told me they wanted bath robes.  Everytime they would say it I would say, "what for...you would never wear it".  We would be in a store and they would go straight to the bathrobes and beg for one.  I never gave in. 

I noticed they were on a really good sale one day and bought them.  You would have thought they won the lottery!  They were so excited.  They actually wear then all the time.

(note to self...just buy bathrobes) 

We drove to the hospital that night and visited with Aunt Stephanie. She is expecting baby #5 and was only 25 weeks along when her water broke. She is in the hospital until the baby is born. (hopefully not anytime soon

Christmas Time

I came down with a scratchy dry throat that turned into a horrible cough that lasted 10 days...just so happened to be the 10 days before Christmas! I was miserable and not much in the Christmas spirit. I hadn't been sick since 2007.

I got some $10 off coupons at Old Navy and got the girls these sweaters for FREEEE! Love that.
Needless to say, with the way

I felt I didn't get our 12 days of Christmas ready. The kids got out of school on the 18th, so we had 2 full weeks off. We did try and do some of our favorite things. Here are a few.

We got a new "flip" waffle iron on black friday for $10, so we made strawberry waffles one night. YUM!

Coelton ran his first community race; The Christmas Race. It was a 10k, and really fun to watch. Lots of people dress up like various santas, reundeer, elves, even cousin Eddy in his bathrobe and rubber hose. Coelton ran the race in 38 minutes. Parker, his fellow XC team mate, neighbor and ward member ran it with him.

We went caroling to a nursing home that our friend runs. We went with 3 other families. It was fun to sing Christmas songs and bring some cheer to these people who go through so much. We went to our friends house afterwards for hot chocolate, cinnamon rolls and visiting.
(picture to come)


Hailey had her Christmas recital at her piano teachers house. She has a new teacher this year who is nice and close. Hailey takes piano in the mornings before school. She is a good little pianist.


BYU just so happened to be playing their bowl game the same day as our cooking and delivering of goodies. So, the girls and I tackled the project by ourselves. We made carmels, those pretzel,rolo,m&m things and ginger snap cookies. I bought a bunch of cute boxes at the $1 store and we filled them with the goodies and made cute tags. We made 11 this year...should have done more.


Visiting Santa in the mall is always a highlight. We all go and I snap a picture with all the kids. It's fun to see the boys talk to Santa and he always tells them they are never to old to visit Santa. They love it, and so do I.

We got a new game that I gave us early. Mexican Train. It was fun to play together. One night we ended up playing it for 4 hours straight!

We went to see some Christmas lights. I saw an article in the news paper about a really great place to see lights. We plugged the address in our handy dandy black friday find...a GPS for the car. We arrived at the most amazing house I have ever seen. They let people get out of their cars and walk around. The bad thing is I forgot the camera:(

The best day was Christmas eve, we took the family to bogus and went skiing...even Chloe. It was sunny and a beautiful day! Chloe and I stuck to the coach lift and by the end of the day Chloe could ski really well...all by herself. The boys and Joel got ski passes for Christmas, so they got them a day early.

Caroling at the nursing home.

I made the kids some Christmas pillow cases.  Chloe was so amazed that I could do such things.

Mexican Train Game