Gingerbread Houses!!

Many years ago, my Grandma started to gather her family together to make gingerbread houses. This has become one of my favorite Christmas/Thanksgiving tradition. Now that Grandma has gone, I use her handy-dandy book of instructions to make my own gingerbread houses so my family can continue the fun of decorating a house while stuffing yourself sick with candy. Last year and this year we invited my brother and his family to join us.

This picture is one of the first times we did gingerbread houses. Look at those sweet smiles!

This is Bob with his house. I must tell you, things are different with my boys than when I was little. We would decorate our houses with a color theme or make elaborate designs with the candy - or stuff as much candy on that could possibly be there. These things are also done with my boys but with a morbid twist... It is hard to see on this picture but there are gummy bear shrunken heads mounted in the front yard.


Spike made a cute sleigh with Santa on his roof - but there are also harpooned gummy bears in the front yard with more harpoons sitting by the front door. I'm not sure how this family got on the "nice" list with Santa...

Dad helped R2 with his house. Since we gave the other two houses away this year, he was charged with the task of getting as much candy on as possible. I think he succeeded at the expense of part of the roof falling off because of the weight of the candy.


Here is Isaac and my sister-in-law, Stephanie. He did a great job and was old enough to stay and help with the whole house.

Little Eden did a gingerbread man then ate candy.

My brother David helped Brooklyn which really turned out to be David did the house while Brooklyn played and ate the candy (which is I'm sure what David did when he was Brooklyn's age). But it turned out looking cute.

Fun was had by all!

One Less Tooth...

R2 finally lost his first tooth!! There was tears and screaming and tight lips so no one could get at the tooth for a while. Then when it was out, life was okay again. Garth is the designated tooth puller since Mom can't handle blood and things were pretty exciting for about 15 minutes.

What were his brother's doing while the tooth was being extracted?????

Bob was waaaayyy excited and wanted to be his helpful (NOT) self as usual. When the tooth was pulled he said "Okay now for the next one!" (Not the most helpful thing to say.) This is a picture of him looking in the mirror at Garth and R2 but that smile was on his face the whole time.

With Spike, it was a different story. Pulling teeth has been a very traumatic thing for him. His roots never fully disolved so it really hurt bad for him to get a tooth pulled. Plus, the last four were pulled by the dentist. The dentist felt so bad about how traumatized he was that he said next time he will sedate Spike to pull any more teeth. So the whole time the tooth was being pulled, he sat with his head between two pillows, almost in tears - poor Spike.

It wouldn't be any fun if life weren't so interesting...

Bob's birthday!

Bob is officially a teen now - 13!! We had a fun party for him with just our family. He chose orange chicken for supper and ice cream sundaes for dessert. After opening presents he spent his time putting together the bionicle and lego he got. What more could a boy ask for!

We kind of got him to smile.

The Mikesell boys...

This is his preferred face for a picture.

Ice cream! Yumm!

UEA

This year for our UEA break we went to Star Valley. Friday we went to Cottonwood Lake and walked around the lake. Then we went to my nephew's (Cameron's) football game. It was a really good game that ended with a huge win - always better.

The kids broke the ice on all the puddles along the way around the lake.

We have wanted to take the kids to the Intermitting Springs while it is intermitting and this was our chance. Bob and Garth went with the scouts just two weeks before we were up there and it was really nice. Then three days before we went, it turned cold and snowed. So it was actually a first for me. I haven't been up there when there is snow like this before. But it was still beautiful - and fun.

It was pretty slick coming down from the mouth of the geyser.

Here is no water coming out.

Now there is lots of water coming out.

Its always fun to see it stop and start.

Remodel

We worked really hard for about a month (it seemed longer) and got three bedrooms downstairs instead of two. After we got all the sheetrock up, we moved the boys into their rooms so we could have some order (i.e. no more sleeping on temporary beds in the living room) for school. We will eventually get them painted and re-carpeted. While everything was out in the garage being stored, I re-stained the bunkbeds and painted an old dresser that Garth used when he was growing up. It was a lot of work but they turned out so nice that I decided it was worth it. So here are some pictures of the rooms so far...

Also a big THANK YOU to all who helped with our project.

This is the room that was added so is the most changed. It is L shaped because it needed a window. This picture is taken from the bottom part of the L by the window looking into the main room.

This picture is taken from the door looking into the main part of the room.

A wall was added to shorten R2's room.

Bob had only minor changes. The closet was cut in half and the adjacent wall re-sheetrocked due to bad wiring.

Here they are waving from their own bedroom door.

The bunkbeds - which are in two separate rooms now, received a lot of sanding and a darker stain.

This is the dresser. I found out that it is actually 50 years old. Its held up remarkably well. It had an X carved in the top and some other scratches that needed to be filled in - otherwise it was in really good shape!

Star Valley

These are pictures from our trip to Star Valley. We went up Swift Creek Canyon (which is my favorite place to go) and got to see the new power plant that is being built. It is so beautiful there!

Mikesell Get-together

Garth insists that his family did not have a "reunion". So whatever it is called (not reunion) most of us got together at Oak City for a few days. We got to go to the sand dunes, play in the creek, drive up the canyon and build a fence. Here are some pictures.

Fishy got to chase a bull. It's like a dream come true for her.

Allred Reunion

Here are pictures from the Allred reunion. It was a crazy fun filled few days with lots of good times and good food.

Remodel

We had a crazy three weeks in June doing reunions for both families. I didn't take any pictures of my family's activities so I am still getting pictures from those who did. So the reunion blog is coming.

This post is dedicated to our recent remodel project. We are taking two bedrooms with two big walk-in closets and another hall closet and we are making three bedrooms downstairs. This week we have started the demolition. The first night Spike and R2 watched Dad and said "What are you doing?" and true to his can't-give-a-straight-answer personality, Garth would say "Making a mess." They finally figured out what he was doing and then it was fun to help.

The next night R2 said, "If you are going to tear down walls, COUNT ME IN!!"

This is what we found when we took the sheet rock off one of the walls. Yes, that is duct tape holding electrical wires together. We're lucky we don't have a fire in our house!!




Spike got right in there and wanted to help. It was fun to see Garth and Spike working side-by-side with the same look on their face. Spike was a great help.