Happy Birthday Chloe!

Chloe had a fantastic 7th birthday!  She had her first b-day party at age 5, and I have let the kids have a b-day party every other year.  I told her she should wait until she's 8 to have a party, but of course she wanted one this year! 

She invited 6 friends to go to "Bounce".  They had a great time playing on the inflatables.  We were there for about 15 minutes and they all said, "When are we leaving?"  We ended up staying for an hour and a half, then went to our house and opened presents and played musical charis and pin the tail on the donkey. 

 One of Chloe's friends gave her some pet frogs. She was SO excited. Chloe wants a dog so bad. Any kind of pet is so awesome. They are named Lily and Hopper. They are fun to watch and easy to care for.


She got lots of fun gifts. Chloe has the sweetest little friends!

Hailey invited Jordyn to keep her company.  Jordyn brought a present for Chloe!

The girls all got to eat a snowman cookie and make one to take home. 

I feel very domestic!  I made this cute skirt for her.  My sister DaNae makes cute skirts and she showed me how via a online tutorial.  I gave this outfit to Chloe for her birthday.  She looks so cute and was so excited!

She also got an art table with a chalk board, wipe board and paper.  She loves her new pillow pet.  She wanted the dolphin.  Who would have thought pillow pets would be such a big deal.  All the kids want one. 

 

The family took Chloe out to breakfast to our favorite Cafe Express, but it was so crowded we ended up at Denny's.  Joel left for England that afternoon, so we enjoyed a lazy day, Chloe loved just hanging out and playing with her gifts. 

Nephew Weddings

When I married Joel nearly 20 years ago, these boys were very small.  I remember Chad toddling around in his blanket sleepers.  We were all at his house in St. George and he tripped over Joel's  foot and fell.  He quickly stood up and yelled "quit it, dummy!" It was so funny to hear that out of such a little boy.
 Chad went skiing with us to Bogus a few years ago.  I was so amazed at how he could do back flips on his board.  I think he can do flips and all kinds of tricks on the tramp and just on the lawn.  Those Heward kids are amazing.  Chad is so friendly and is always fun to talk to.
 
I taught Taylor and his 2 brothers clogging lessons when he was in like 1st or 2nd grade.  He was at our duplex one day and wondered into my kitchen.  I had a book shelf full of food.  He came back into the living room and said "Aunt Natalie, do you have any Chips or Chili I could have?"  The funny thing is there was a big bag of chips and some cans of chilli sitting on the shelf that he must have scoped out. 
I always love how Taylor calls me Aunt Natalie.  He has always been a fun nephew to talk to and be around.
  
Chad Heward married Mickey on December 18th in the St. George temple.

Taylor Wray married Becca in the Bountiful temple on January 6th. 

I have no idea how to get these pics the right way.  I rotated them in my file before I download them into the blog, but they go in the other way.  If anyone knows how to fix this please comment.  Thanks.

Back to College

After the Judy family Christmas party, we stayed the night at Rhett and Claudine's house.  We stayed up until like 1am, so our hopes of attending a 9am church didn't happen.  We needed to drop Coelton off at BYU-I and then get back to Boise so the kids could go back to school the next day. We went to church  at Heather's 11am ward in Rigby.
We drove to Rexburg and went to Coelton's new apartment.  He used to live in 215, now he lives in 205.  He still lives at Nauvoo House.   His apartment was freezing!  He was the first one there, so we cranked up the heat and turned on his oven and baked some otis spunkmeyer cookie dough we had in the car.
We got all of his stuff moved in and set up.  We also went to the store and got him some food, since he doesn't have a car. 
It was time for us to hit the road back to Boise.  We gave him hugs and before we knew it everyone was in tears and it was very hard to say good-bye AGAIN!  It was so good to have him home for 3 weeks.   It was like he had never left.  We love having all the kids home and being a family.  It's not the same with him gone.

We were all so exhausted on the drive back to Boise.  It was a full 4 days!  Hammer/Judy families and taking Coelton back.  I looked in the back seat and saw this freaky thing.  Caden sleeps with his eyes half open.  The girls were crashed too. 

Judy Family Christmas Party

On New Years Day we left Albion, and the Hammer clan, and drove to Idaho Falls for the Judy family Christmas party.

We all met at Heise Hot Springs.  Yes...more hot pool soaking.  It's always a little un-nerving sitting in the hot water, while every stares at you.  I get a little grossed out if I look into the water very long.  There always seems to be band aids, scabs, hair and diaper particles floating around...and that's just the stuff you can see! 

As a kid our family would go to Heise a lot.  Always in the winter and usually for someones birthday or for FHE.  Lots of fun memories at Heise.

As we were leaving we saw a herd of deer in the parking lot.  

We went to Grandpa's house for our party.  He has been busy trying to get the basement finished.  All the sheet rock was hung and it was nice to be able to have room for all 41 of us.  17 granddaughters, 7 grandsons, 8 siblings, 7spouses and our Daddy/Grandpa.
We do feel the other two members of our family near.  Mom is always close by and Lori, our oldest sibling is there too.  We miss them very much. 

Justin was in charge of the Christmas party and had a nice french dip dinner for us all.

We rotate family names and buy a family gift.  Dad is also in the rotation, but he still buys for all the grand kids.  Clint had our family this year and gave us movie tickets!  We love the movies, so it will be nice to use.
Claudine gave out the traditional family calendar.  She did a beautiful job! 

This year we had Heather's family and we gave them Mario Cart and some wheels since they got a new Wii for Christmas!  Tyler was so excited he ran over and gave Joel a big hug.
We also gave Dad some new clothes and socks.  He looks so handsome in his new vest.

Dad is not a shopper, so he hires a few elves to help him out.  DaNae is the head elf and she made all the granddaughters adorable headbands!  There were Aeropostale shirts for the grandsons.  The little boys got trucks...of course.  Dad loves to get his Santa bag and sit in his chair and call up the grand kids one at a time and he gets a big hug from each of them.

Hailey and Kayla got a lot of the same items for Christmas this year...their mom's must be sisters.  Great minds think alike.  We find our kids have a lot of the same clothes. 

Macey has a little crush for Coelton.  He loves it, and loves to tease her whenever they are together.

Hammer Family Christmas Memory

The Hammer family decided to do something different this year for Christmas.  We decided to pool or money together and create a memory instead of buying gifts.  It was a great idea...until they put Joel and I in charge. 
We all decided we wanted to stay together in a cabin somewhere.  All we had to do was find a cabin that would sleep about 45 people for 2 nights.  It was a lot harder than it sounds.  Most cabins wanted a 3 night minimum stay and not many cabins can sleep 45 people.
It was October and we still didn't have a place.  I was searching again on the Internet and this time found a place called " Grove" it was an old college dorm in Albion Utah with 15 bedrooms and 8,000 square feet!  A bed for everyone!  The only problem is the cost was too much, and we didn't know if the owner would let us stay for 2 nights.  When we called the owner agreed to 2 nights and also knocked some money off if we paid cash up front.  It was perfect!
The Hammer family had their family reunion last summer near Albion, which is outside of Burly and also  near the City of Rocks.   We all loved the area and loved that everyone had the same distance to travel...roughly 2.5 hours.  

 This is the lower level of the dorm.  There is a kitchen and large eating area and several rooms.  Most bedrooms have sinks, showers and toilets in the rooms.  Each family had their own toilet and shower.  That's 9 toilets and showers!!

This is the second floor which is all bedrooms and showers.  The end of the hall is a sitting area and balcony.

This is a picture from the balcony.  While we were there is snowed every day.  It was also VERY COLD!

This is the 3rd floor, a gaming room and movie room.   The big boys loved this room!  And the adults loved a place to send all the kids.

Playing games with Grandma.

We all arrived at Campus Grove on Thursday the 30th.  We had plans to go skiing at Pomerelle.  There were about 25 people who wanted to go, so we headed up the mountain 7 miles to the ski resort.  It was snowing and blowing so bad we couldn't see the road.  There were several cars stuck and I had to roll the window down and hang my head out to even see anything!  I would tell Joel if I thought he was driving off the road.  We had 10 people in our Yukon.  We did make it up to the top, but it took us an hour.   We decided to drive back down and try again the next day. 

On Friday (New Years Eve) we all drove to City of Rocks and went for a soak at Durfee Hot Springs. 

After our soak, the skiers went to attempt getting to the top of the mountain again and the others went back to Campus Grove.  We were happy to see clear skies!  However, when we actually saw what we drove on the night before we were scared.  If we would have driven off the road, we would have rolled to the bottom!  We were excited to finally get to go skiing with everyone, only it was -10 degrees!  Brrrrrrrr. 

We could maybe do 2 runs and then had to go in the lodge to thaw out, then back out for another 2.

Austin and Coelton

Jan, Cade, Caleb, Joel and Chase

Jace and Caden

Donald and Julie

McKenna Hailey and Jeff

Joel and Natalie

We left after about 3.5 hours...none of us could feel our fingers or toes.   When we arrived back at Campus Grove we enjoyed playing games and eating good food until we rang in the new year. 

~2011~

January 1, we took lots of pictures.  Grandma wanted to get a picture of the kids who all graduated last year.  Connor is in this group too, he doesn't graduate until this year.  He had to work, so couldn't come.

When I finished taking all of these pictures, Grandma kept finding more and more people to take pictures of.   I didn't mind, because I love taking pictures.

Coelton and Paige are at BYU-I.  Austin is at BYU.

Paige is 6 months older than Coelton and Austin who are just a week apart.

The kids in order from right to left.

Brysan, Caden, Cade

Alyssa, Maiya, Mckenna. Hailey

Chloe, Izzy, Hannah  (all have January birthdays)

This picture has Riley, who is Andrew's little girl.

Jared, Hunter, Taeson, Stockton, Logan, Jackson