December 2010

December started out with Taisha all of a sudden looking like a Young Woman. I'm not sure when it happened.... but when she turned 12 a few weeks ago, she looked like she just belonged with the young women. She kept her birthday nice and simple this year: Bambinos for her dinner, sledding and swimming for her party, and Kiwi Loco frozen yogurt for her "cake."

Here are a few other pictures from December:

Anaya and Addison right before their dance Christmas dance recital.

Kayden was the "star" in the nativity.

Guess what we got for Christmas??

I somehow missed getting any pictures of the pinata this year.... which is too bad! It was cute, sweet smelling skunk. I must have been REALLY into my dessert that I was eating when the pinata was being smashed open.

Taisha got a cotton candy machine this year for Christmas and it has been a huge hit! We had banana cotton candy for breakfast Christmas morning. It felt more breakfasty eating the banana flavor.

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Ana and Dave had their baby!! Apparently they didn't consult me on how stressful December birthdays can be!! So happy she's here safe and sound!

Kamorah Thine Torgeson
Born: December 16, 2010
8 lbs 3 ounces 19.5 inches long

Christmas Tree Pictures Over the Years

Every Christmas, I snap a few pictures of the kids in front of the Christmas tree. Here's the first one I have (Kayden as a baby):

And here's the pictures I've been able to find of the kids in front of the tree through the years (starting with Kayden and Malia):

(Just excuse my awful glasses... this was right before I got my eyes lasered, and they wanted me contact lens-free for a while before the procedure.)

And finally, here is this year's picture in front of the Christmas tree:

Thanksgiving 2010

All 16 siblings along with their families in a church with yummy food = tons and tons and tons of fun!! It was so fun to see everyone, and was very hard to leave.









We had this whole week off from school and work, and it has been absolutely wonderful! I'm already looking forward to Christmas break.

Sometimes you just have to brag.....

Tonight was the cross country awards banquet for Kayden. It was also Malia's first Christmas performance with her singing group at the Festival of Trees, and *sigh* Rik's first board meeting for club volleyball. Naturally, the camera didn't make it to any of these events (my cell phone even went dead during Malia's performance), and we had to divide up as a family to make it to everything... (welcome to my November/Decembers.)

I don't know how the volleyball board meeting went, but everything else was awesome! Rik went to the cross country banquet, and was beaming proud as he showed me all the awards Kayden came home with:

Here's what he was awarded with:

• Received the Most Improved runner plaque for the 2010 cross country season (the coach made a point of mentioning that Kayden didn't even letter last year for cross country, but ended up placing 4th on the State Team this year.)
  
• Distinguished Team Scholastic Award (3.25-4.0 GPA)
• Outstanding Individual Scholastic Award (3.75-4.0 GPA)
• Hillcrest High School Athletic Award
• All Conference Honorable Mention Award (Awarded by District 6 Coaches Association)
• Hillcrest Cross Country Participation Award
  
• Dedication Medal (8 or more banked runs... he had 16 banked runs, so enough for two of these awards.)
• He lettered in cross country
• And he got the Varsity Runner trophy, for being on the varsity team for Hillcrest
  

(State boys team with their coach)

Kayden took a two week break from running right after state, but started training again today.

Malia's performance at the Festival of Trees also went really well. They have several more performances coming up, and I'll try to remember a camera. I was shocked at how much they have improved over the last couple of years (amazing what a little bit of growing up does... especially with the boys!) She loves singing and performing with this group, and I think the Christmas music is her favorite.

Since I'm on a bragging streak... might as well mention that we had parent teacher conferences last week and report cards home. Anaya was straight 5's (1st grade's equivalent to A's), McKay had one B+ and the rest were all A's, Taisha had all A's, Malia had one B+ (mostly because her honors science teacher hadn't corrected one of her assignments...), the rest were A's, and Kayden had one B+, and A's. Very proud of these kids! (Don't worry, I'll go back to my "lovingly mocking" style of blog writing.... just had to get this one out of the way!)

The New News for November

I realize that's it's only November 8th, but we started November with a bang! (Or maybe "crunch" is the right sound effect.... see below.)

McKay's best friend August was baptized last weekend. I get a little emotional when I think about how lucky we are to have these girls living next door to us, and it's a pretty awesome thing to have your best friends so close! It was awesome to see August get baptized, and awesome to see McKay so excited for her, and especially awesome when McKay "accidentally" kicked his football over their fence, and then had to go over during their post-baptism party to get it, and then ended up staying the rest of the afternoon!

I love these kids!!

This weekend was also Sadie Hawkins, Kayden's first girl's choice dance. The theme of the dance was Mario Party, so Kayden and Kaitlin have on their matching Mario shirts. The backs say "I Mario Partied With Kayden/Kaitlin" (depending on whose shirt it was.) And they also had on matching belt buckles. Kayden is now a BIG fan of girl's choice dances.

Kayden has decided to keep up our family tradition of only crashing our cars into parked or stationary objects! Those pesky parking poles kinda squished his car a bit on one side. *sigh* When I was his age and a little older, I only hit parked cars... or the garage, it was some kind of rule for me. And Rik has only hit parked cars and guard rails! It's nice that those traditions mean so much to Kayden, and that he has decided to incorporate them into his life as well.

(Shortly after I took this picture, someone saran-wrapped his car.... lovely!)

My favorite "crashing into a parked car" story is when Rik ran into a parked truck on the side of the road. We were living in Soda Springs, and had decided to take the boat out to the reservoir to wake board for the evening. He had just come home from work, threw on his swimming suit and was hurrying to get out there as quick as he could. Kayden was almost ready, but not quite, so I handed Rik his plate of dinner, he scooped up Kayden (who was about 3 years old) and got in the truck (I was going in another vehicle.) Kayden still had to finish getting his swim suit on, so he started undressing in the truck (ya, I know.... not so safe), and inadvertently tossed his underwear on the plate of food I just handed to Rik. In Rik's haste to get the undies off his dinner, he swerved a little, and dinged a truck parked on the side of the road. Bummer. I had an impossible time not laughing when Rik told me the whole story.

We've already started the second quarter of school, and so far, so good! It's going really fast this year though!

State Cross Country!!

State cross country was last Saturday, and it was held in Soda Springs this year! They took the top 7 runners for each team, so Kayden got to go. The team dyed their hair black for good luck.

We decided to take the whole family down to Soda to cheer Kayden on, and when he found out that we were coming he said, "What??? Noooooo... just stay home! You guys are always following me around!!!" Because I'm all pro on this whole "parenting a teen aged boy" thing, I knew that that was code for "Please come to my race, and bring my little brother and sisters too, because I would love for my whole family to find me before my race, when I'm hanging out with my buddies (because a lot of my best friends are on the team), and just be there... right by me... all the time! And then yell and be obnoxious when I'm running, and then find me after my race, and take my picture over and over again." That's really what he meant, and you can tell by the pictures I got:








It might look like he's going to take my camera, throw it on the ground and stomp on it, but that's just code for "Thanks for coming mom!!"

His team finished 3rd! Kayden had an awesome year this year, and we're really proud of him! (For whatever reason, he took one of the other boy's glasses for this picture.....)

Just for fun, after his race, I told him I already talked to his coach and had signed him out, so he could drive home with us.... the look on his face was priceless... zero sense of humor on that kid... zero.