Fiesta!!

We are back from our extremely fun Family Vacation to Nuevo Vallarta Mexico!  It went way too quickly and we are sad to be home and to have to wear socks, pants, and jackets again!!  We had a lot of fun though and built some great family memories.  Thanks to my Mom and Dad for taking us on this trip!  I love the tradition they've started of taking each of their kids and their family on a trip in alternating years.  Very grateful to have that opportunity to go places that are generally too expensive for us to take our family on our own!  Not to mention it is a lot of fun to have them with us and to have some extra help and company!  They are wonderful and our kids just adore them! :)
We went to the Grand Mayan which was probably the most beautiful resort I have ever been to - the grounds were immaculate and it had a lot of fun things to do. The entrance was super cool and had these tall Mayan giant statues and it was dark and had some creepy music.  Talk about a WOW factor when you first walk in.  Our rooms were huge and amazing as well!  We had so much space, it was great.  We had amazing weather the whole time too. We walked around a lot exploring, and ate at the restaurants on the grounds.  We thought we would spend most of our time at the kiddie play area, but instead we ended up spending most of it at the "warm pool" as we called it.  It had a bunch of fountains in the middle that Scarlett just loved, and since it was warmer, we could hang out there until past 5:00 and still enjoy ourselves!  Plus it was right near the entrance to the lazy river, which was another favorite thing to do.  Scarlett really liked sitting on the tube with her Daddy - she didn't really want to go with anyone else!  She is such a Daddy's girl and clung to him most the time.  The older kids were really able to enjoy swimming this year, and diving for things, going on the waterslide, etc.  They were really at a fun age!  The kids also loved the beach, jumping in the waves, building sandcastles and looking for seashells. We hadn't taken them to the ocean in almost 6 years, so it was pretty much a first for them!  They were very much in awe of it all!  Griffin was especially excited about everything, he gets such cute expression in his voice and was just so excited to be in Mexico!!  He still keeps talking about it and really wants to live there.
We also put them in the Kids Club for one day, since it was cheap and they offered us a 3 for the price of 2 deal.  They had a good time, but we kind of missed having them with us that day, so we didn't want to put them in there again!
One day my parents offered to watch the kids for us too, so Lee and I did the "Extreme Adventure Tour"!  It was a lot of fun and a rush of adrenalin!  There were lots of zip lines, including the longest and fastest one in North America, that you do headfirst on your stomach and fly like Superman!  It was pretty crazy!  We also repelled and drove ATVs.  Lee was a little disappointed that he couldn't take the ATV wherever he wanted and go as fast as he would like!  But he still managed to be the only one in the group to get covered in mud!!  Knowing him, I decided to take my own ATV instead of riding with him like the other wives!  That proved to be a good decision!  We had a lot of fun and it was an eye opener to see the poverty that we drove by in Mexico on our way.  There were huge lots where people were literally living in tents or other makeshift shelters out of scraps.  It looked horrible, and we were surprised to see it.  We are so blessed to have what we have.
Another favorite part of our trip was going to the "Beach Party" for dinner with the family.  It was amazing buffet style food and unlimited drinks, so the kids LOVED ordering as many pina coladas as they wanted, and grabbing all the yummy food and desserts they wanted too!  There was some Mexican dancing, and Dakota was actually brave enough to do the Congo line and limbo and then get on stage and dance!  She was shy at first but then she really got into it, and it was hilarious to see he doing some of the Gangham style moves and copying the Mexican dancers.  I don't know where she gets the guts to do stuff like this... she was the only child up there with a whole bunch of drunk people!  Some of the drunk guys even tried to dance with her, but luckily Grandpa was there to step in and protect her!!  The crowd just loved her though, I heard so many people saying how cute she was.  And then for the rest of the trip, she was a celebrity, and constantly had people coming up to her and saying, I saw you dancing at the Beach party, you were awesome!!  She loved it.
Anyway, all in all, it was a fabulous trip and we hope to go back there again one day!  The only bad thing was the 5 hour flight with Scarlett!   She was a bit of a nightmare!!  On the way there she screamed her head off and wouldn't go to sleep even though we drugged her with Gravol! (Perhaps it had the opposite effect on her!)  She slept a little better on the way home but we still had over 4 hours to try to entertain her in one spot!  NOT FUN!  But it was of course worth it when we got there, and it makes me feel better to know she is our last, and trips should only get easier from here on out!
Here's just a few pictures of our trip... okay fine, there's a whole bunch, I just couldn't narrow it down more than this... so many good memories!!

Great way to start my day!

Seems like it's not very often these days that I would consider Mason to be "sweet" but I woke up to this note in the morning and thought it was pretty cute.  He had gone downstairs before I woke up and wrote it for me.  He struggles sometimes, but he sure tries hard to be a good boy and I love him!  Dakota also wrote me a note later in the day, and Griffin, feeling the need to follow suit, made me a picture!  What cute kids I have!  In fact, lately they keep telling me how much they love me and that I am the best Mom ever!  Of course that often comes immediately after I have bought them something or given them a treat, but hey, that's got to be just a coincidence!  Still makes me happy to hear it! :)

Finding the Time...

Wow, I can't believe it's already almost the end of January! We have been so busy, and it's been hard to find the time (and motivation) to blog!  But I don't really don't want to get out of the habit, so here's a bit of catch-up!
Lee has really committed to working out and eating healthier so we've both been exercising quite a bit, (although I have still not found the motivation to give up my desserts! For me, the purpose of exercising is so that I can eat what I want!)  But it's been fun to work out together sometimes and to have something in common.  He even did Hot Yoga with me, it was pretty funny, he looked like he was going to pass out after so he made me run into a convenience store to get him some electrolytes!
Dakota has started Musical Theatre, we were sad to find out the Hip Hop class was full, but she seems to be loving this class too!  Basketball has started up again, and piano lessons, and we've gotten into a new system of chores which the kids are pretty enthusiastic about right now.  I love Griffin's attitude, he is so happy and excited to be given the job of drying dishes this week instead of emptying the dishwasher.  He is anxious to learn to wash the dishes too, but I'm not sure I'm quite ready for him to do it yet... Dakota just barely started and that already takes a lot of patience to help her do it instead of doing it for her!  Oh and Scarlett has just started Nursery - HALLELUJAH!  Church was getting so tough with her!  She has been only one week on her own, but it went pretty well actually.  They obviously gave her a sucker to keep her happy though because I picked her up in quite a stick mess!  Oh well, it's worth it!
Anyway, it's nice to be back in routine, and Lee's work schedule has been quite slack lately, which is wonderful!  Assuming he can still make enough money to pay our bills!
We have our trip to Mexico with my parents coming up in 18 days too, so we are all looking forward to that!  Griffin always asks when it will be warm outside, so he is thrilled at the idea of wearing his bathing suit outside!  Speaking of Griffin, he said something that I thought was just hilarious yesterday, so I wanted to write it down.  We were talking about the older kids taking swim lessons with school right before our trip to Mexico and that they would be able to swim and show us what they learned.  Griffin says, "But if you drown, that is NOT floating!"  Ha ha, you think, Griffy??!  Thanks for pointing out the obvious.  What a funny kid.  And he started the dinnertime prayer last night by saying, "1, 2, .... oh".  Oops!
Here's a couple pictures of random moments lately.  First of all the pictures of Scarlett with Lee are so sweet... she is such a Daddy's girl and always snuggles up to him, wants to give him hugs and kisses and never wants to let him go.  He left to go home-teaching on Sunday and when he got back she was so happy to see him she just smushed her little face right into his chest and didn't move for several minutes.  She is not sleeping, she is awake and just snuggling him!  So sweet.

And the other pictures are from Wacky Tacky day at school!  We kind of went all out with Dakota and when we asked her if other kids were dressed as crazy as she was, she said, "Not really".  And then we asked her if she was embarrassed and she said "Kind of".  Oops, maybe I overdid it!!  Didn't mean to make my care free child embarrassed at school!

And Christmas came and went...

Christmas is over :( so sad.  But it was wonderful and I definitely need to write about all the highlights!  We also feel VERY fortunate to have all been in relatively good health for Christmas Day, since, two days before Christmas, the flu seems to have hit our house!  We had 3 kids puking, and Lee and I felt terrible as well.  Luckily though, it was short lived, and we were feeling a lot better by Christmas Eve - still a little low on energy and being very cautious about what we ate, but good enough to be able to enjoy the festivities!  Thank goodness!  And by Christmas Day, we all felt great.
On Christmas Eve, our children were very sad to say goodbye, to Candy Kane, our Elf, who had become like a member of the family!  He left a note on his last day to which included a section that told the kids that Santa was going to lift the magic for a few minutes after they read the letter so that they could give him Hugs and Kisses goodbye!  The were thrilled at finally be allowed to touch him and they said their sad good-byes.

We had didn't do a whole lot Christmas Eve, as we were trying to conserve our energy for the evening, but we did have a lot of food and things to prepare!

We spent Christmas Eve at Jordan and Melanie's house this year, with my parents, Sis Darker, Grandma and Grandpa Cooper, and Ashlyn and Jeff.  It was a lot of fun!  Great food, and great company!

We had the usual talents performed - some piano solos of course (Mason and Dakota included, and of course Scarlett had to take her turn as well!)

And of course the evening wouldn't be complete without my Dad's amazing Magic Skills!!  He always has a few tricks that he's obviously spent hours perfecting (ha ha!).  It's actually hilarious, he seems to somehow mess up or forget every single magic trick he does!!  You'd almost think he plans it.  It's so funny to watch him stumble and try to figure out what he's doing wrong, or to hear the children saying that they know how he did it!  I love this picture of him, it shows his fun loving personality!

We also did a whole bunch of Minute to Win It games this year.  We had a lot of fun with it.  We did Team Loewen vs. Team Nielson, and the kids loved it.  Here's a picture of our strong looking team! (We also had my parents join us!)

And here's some pictures of a few of the games!

And now see if you can guess what is going on in this next picture....

Come on, isn't it obvious?  We are acting out the nativity, of course!  Funny how the usual costumes we wear, although cheesy, really do add a big effect to the pictures!  But we did it just the same and it didn't seem to make a difference to the children, and the adults were probably happy to not have to wear one!
Anyway, after a fun night, we ended with the usual opening of Christmas PJs!!

And then we took the kids home to bed to await Santa's arrival.  They were pretty thrilled and I think they got way too spoiled, yet again!  I always seem to buy way too much for them, I just can't resist when I find something on sale that I know they will love!!  It probably brings me even more joy than them!  Grandma and Grandpa joined us this year for breakfast and present opening, and it was a really nice addition!  One other fun thing we did this year was to have the kids each make something special for eachother for Christmas and to wrap it and put it under the tree.  They had a lot of fun doing that and it was nice to be able to teach them the fun of giving and not just receiving.  Mason made Griffin a drum and Dakota a necklace, Dakota painted them each canvas art work, and Griffin made Dakota a jewelery box and Mason some church puzzles.  Overall a very fun and memorable Christmas!

 

  

Santa comes to the Ward Christmas Party

We had our Ward Christmas party last weekend, and once again, the highlight was having Santa come to Visit!  It always takes an hour for the ton of kids in our ward to get through the line, but it's fun to get their photos with Santa (and not have to brave the mall!)

You can sure tell how thrilled Scarlett was to be put on his knee!  She squirmed and tried to get away right from the start!  She really doesn't even like to sit on MY knee, let along a stranger's knee!! Ha ha

We actually had a great time at the party because we brought some non-member friends that Lee met through work, and they really enjoyed themselves and had a lot of questions about our church.  She even talked about her experience going through our temple a month or so ago and how she felt like she could feel God's spirit in there.  She though it was wonderful.  Anyway, it was fun to have them!

The primary kids also sang Feliz Navidad - which was quite entertaining to hear all those little kids try to sing some Spanish words, or at least use words that they thought the singing leader was trying to get them to say!  Pretty funny.  See if you can find my 3 primary kids in the pictures!

Girls Getaway

For 4 days this December, I was lucky enough to get to go to Arizona with a few of my girl friends for a Girls Getaway!  I was pretty surprised that Lee was actually quite willing to let me go while he takes care of the kids for that long, but he was very good about it all.  He admits it was quite tough, especially with Scarlett being his little parasite while he tried to get some work done, but he seems to have held the fort together quite well actually!!  He got the kids to help him do a thorough clean of the house, doing little fix-its that needed to be done as well, and he even took the kids to the MALL to do some Christmas shopping for me!  I wouldn't even attempt that myself!!  I thought it was really sweet though, and it made me come home feeling so grateful for him and his positive attitude and willingness to do anything to make me happy.  He really is a wonderful husband and I'm lucky to have him.

I really did have an amazing time on the trip too, it was just what I needed.  We had time to relax by the pool, eat out at wonderful restaurants, get pedicures (my first one ever!), see a movie, and most of all, SHOP!  I have never shopped so much in my life!!  It was so nice not to feel pressured by time in the least, we just spent full days going from store to store, especially making sure to hit some of the good outlets and stores we don't have in Canada.  I had so much fun with my friends too, we had lots of laughs and it was a confidence booster for us that we were able to figure out everything on the trip on our own without men to help us!  I came home feeling happy and refreshed!  I was pretty excited to see my kids again though, I felt bad for leaving them again so soon after our Bahamas trip.  And when I got back, Scarlett wouldn't even come to me!!  I think I've given her abandonment issues!  But it definitely didn't take long for her to become my little cling-on again!  Love that baby!