Joslyn's Frozen Birthday

We were able to go see the new Disney movie Frozen over Thanksgiving break it was SO good! We loved it! Joslyn loved the princesses in the movie and commented about them and their dresses, "OH she's cute!" "OH that dress is so cute!"
I really didn't think much about it, after that except for how "cute" it was and how I wouldn't mind seeing it again! Well once I knew I was totally ready for Christmas, ideas started popping into my head and pretty soon Joslyn's Frozen Birthday party was born.

I found these blue, white and silver glitter balls at Michael's just before Christmas and that became my color scheme! Looks pretty Frozen to me!

 

  Every year the orthodontist in town gives us a smoked turkey breast so we borrow my moms slicer and slice it up for lunch meat and it is SO good! Since we have enough lunch meat to feed an army we decided to have sandwiches with all of the toppings!!

 

 

Blue Jello "Ice Cubes"

 

I follow the Best Bites girls on Instagram and just before Christmas Sara did these fun build-a-snowman treats for her son's class.  She mentioned that she would put the post up sometime in January but if anyone thought they could use it before then to email her.  Well I knew these would be perfect for the Frozen party so I emailed her and she sent me the printables! They turned out to be a hit!! The snowballs are powdered donut holes. The snowman arms are stick pretzels. The snoman buttons are whoppers.  The snowman noses are carrots and the cute mini water bottles say, Melted Snowman!! I also had ranch dip nearby for the "snowman noses." ;) Here is her post, it's up on their blog now if anyone wants the printables.

 

 

 

Blue and silver and white balloons

 

 

I found these blue to white ombre cone trees at Target after Christmas for 70% off!! For the little white ones I bought some fluffy white yarn and wrapped it around Styrofoam cones!

 

 

We even had blue punch! It is blue Hawaiian Punch mixed with Sprite.

 

 

These little snowflake strings are inspired by a picture out of a Frozen coloring book. There is a scene where Anna, Kristoff and Olaf are standing in the woods and the snow looks just like this! I used white shimmer cardstock and cut about 50 large circles and 50 small circles with my cricut and simply sewed them together!

 

 

Here is Joslyn's cake, white to blue ombre

 

 

And Here is our Princess in her "cute" dress. She is 4 years old! can you believe it?!

 

Make a wish!

 

Time for presents!

For the activities I had a coloring table set up full of coloring pages both boy friendly and girl friendly for the kids to color. And we played pin the nose on Olaf, very fitting if you've ever seen the movie.

 

Nate drew our picture (with the help of a projector ;))

 

Since Joslyn turned 4 on the 4th of Jan it was her "Magic Birthday" it was a pretty magical birthday for our Princess!

 

Christmas Eve

For Christmas Eve we went out to my parents' house for hors d'oeuvres and Christmas Eve activities.

The kids colored pictures of the nativity. Some didn't last very long.

 

 

They opened their Christmas jammies from Grandma and Grandpa

 

 

These guys know the routine now, they would say things like, "I wonder what our pajamas will be like this year." or "I can't wait to open our pajamas from Grandma."  Little stinkers. ;)

 

Back at home we had to get our yearly pics in front of the tree.

Ready for Santa to come:

Catmull Christmas Party

This year the theme for the Catmull Christmas party was The Polar Express! We came in our pajamas and had breakfast for dinner. Now that's my kind of party!!! Nate's cousin did an amazing job, there was every kind of cereal imaginable on the cereal bar, as well as all the traditional breakfast foods.  I really do need to take better pictures of her work. We got our tickets punched and boarded the "train" headed for the North Pole, and guess what? Santa was there!!

Braiden:

 

Santa should have brought one of these for all the kids so they don't fight over it during church. ;)

 

Hudson:

All things Ninja Turtle for this kid!

 

Brody:

 

Brody got a Boise State football.

 

No tears this year!!

 

 

Joslyn is saying, "I wanted this!"

 

Such a fun evening, and a fun tradition!

My Tiny Dancer

Little Miss is loving dance class, the cuteness of it all kills me week after week!

 

 

These are a couple of our favorite dance outfits:

 

 

 

This is her winter performance costume:

(love it!! very practical!!)

 

 

 

Dance hair:

 

She loves her dance hair and even sits nice while it gets done! WOW! Such a girl.♥

 

Here they are at festival of trees! When my friends see my boys at the performances they are always amazed that I was able to get my them to come. :D 2 things...  1: they didn't have an option and 2: Do you know how many of their ball games x 3 she has sat through!!! They can surely watch their little sister dance for 1 hour 5 times a year!!!

 

 

Here are her two dances for your viewing pleasure!

 

In both dances she is the fourth one in from the right...the one hamming it up on stage!

 

Sugar, Sugar

 

 

 

If All of the Rain Drops

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These videos were of the very first performance, they got much, much better by the third! Still, SO. DANG. CUTE!! At least everyone was dancing and no one was bawling. :)

Trick-or-Treat

 

How did August turn in to November??? I feel bad that I have neglected my blog for so long. 

I've been working on Hudson's baby scrapbook lately (when I can find the time) and I realized something, this blog is very valuable!! There is a ton of journaling to do but he was born 5 almost 6 years ago!! There's a lot that I don't remember, little details you know (which is sad.) So I turn to my blog, I love, love, love, looking back and reading and watching my little munchkins grow and change!

 

We made it through football season, 3 boys on 3 different football teams, it was pretty wild! They love it, and I love it when it is over...I mean when it is over I can look back and say, that was fun! :) My 11 year old knows more about the sport than I do. He knows the calls the refs on TV are going to make before they make them!! eiyiyi! I'm glad they love it and I'm glad that they can share that with their dad.

 

I am enjoying my new calling, I am learning so much! It really makes me study and rely on the spirit.  2 weeks ago my lesson was on How Can I Develop Christlike Love?  I fell in love with the talk by President Uchtdorf The Merciful Obtain Mercy I read that talk over and over I even made handouts to go with the lesson.  Well, Saturday night rolled around and I was putting together my lesson, organizing all of my thoughts and not one part of that talk made it into my lesson, I even threw the handouts away. I ended up doing my whole lesson on President Monson's talk: Charity Never Faileth.  It was the Lord's way of telling me, "Yes, you needed to hear, The Merciful Obtain Mercy. But the girls need, Charity Never Faileth. I am so grateful for the spirit to guide me though this, I could not do it with out!! I showed this video, I bawl and bawl every time I watch it.  This Church is amazing!!!

 

Little Joslyn is in dance and she is loving it!! Her first performance is tomorrow!! I can't wait to watch her. She asks me just about every day if she has dance. If I say no she gets mad at me and says "you always say no dance today!!"

 

Hudson is in kindergarten and is doing so great! I am amazed at the stuff they are learning!! WOWEE! But they get it, those young minds are little sponges soaking it all in.  I help in his class on Tuesdays for 30 min.  It is so funny to see those little kids, they are always excited to see me (I'm not sure why... ;) ) "Hi, Mrs. Catmull!!!" They say, so cute!

 

 

Here are my kiddos on Halloween:

 

 

I made Hudson be Peter Pan, he was OK with it in the end.  Joslyn was Tinkerbell & we had that awesome costume from when Braiden was Peter Pan hmmm 6 years ago (?) When he was 5.  So he had to! At first he'd say everyone is going to think it's dumb! :( But when it all boils down, all they want to do is dress up! Mom and I bought Brody's costume the day before at Target, it's pretty much all they had left. He is out growing the cartoon character or super hero costumes, so this was our choice.  I don't care for the disgusting mask but there again, all they really want to do it dress up & he thought it was fabulous! Braiden was a Hobo. He is at the age where you have to be creative with costumes.  He came up with the idea, I made it happen! I'm all about that!! I guess on Halloween his school is on the 1:00 bell schedule and then at 1:00 they have a Halloween dance in the gym.  Imagine my relief when he told me that he forgot his activity card and $2.00 and didn't really care to go.  So he and his best friends went to his Advisory teachers room and watched The Croods. Fewsh!! I'm glad we're not there yet!

After school we went over to Nate's grandma's to trick-or-treat and the kids found her GIANT leaf pile! I've never seen them have so much fun!! I love this pic of them smiling so big and having fun together! Brody is off to the side raking the leaves into a bigger pile.

Here I think Tinkerbell is throwing leaves at the two boys.  She really is a rotten little stinker in the movie.  In the Tinkerbell movies she is sweet and creative and friendly but in Peter Pan she is a naughty little fairy.  We're going Secret of the Wings here! :)

Happy Fall Y'all!!

Random August Happenings

 

 

Ready for school, I love buying school supplies. As soon as they hit the shelves I am there!

 

 

Cute cousins, Lilli and Joslyn are great friends! Luckily we have got to hang out with these guys quite a bit this summer!

I thought this picture was funny, all the boys were dressed up having a nerf gun war.  Love the shades Brod.

Poor little Brody had to get 5 teeth pulled.  We took him to our good friend Jeff DaBell who is an oral surgeon in Pocatello, because he needed to be put out.  He had an extra tooth called a mesiodens behind his two front teeth, they had to cut the roof of his mouth and dig around to find it but we got it out. (the little trouble maker) (the tooth ;)) plus 4 baby teeth pulled. so 5 in all.  Poor little buddy. So now he has stitches in the roof of his mouth. makes eating not so fun.  He is sick of yogurt. Do you want to know what surprises me? This picky little eater loves himself some CHOBANI!!!

 

My mom kept the rest of our kids while we took Brody to his appt. When we got home they were playing on the slip n' slide.  Notice Joslyn...she thinks she is one of the boys! Hilarious.  They were all wearing shorts and no shirts so that is what she wore too!!! :)

And...I got a new calling. I am the Mia-Maid advisor.  I am nervous/excited.  It will be good for me to study these lessons each week.  I gave my first lesson on Sunday, it went good, I have some great girls in my class.  I didn't even use 1/2 of the stuff I planned but that is good to have too much and not enough.  So here we go, It's been about 7-8 yrs since I've been in young womens and a lot has changed.  Here's to a new learning experience.

More in June

The kids begged to set up the tent in the basement:



 

Braiden earned his Arrow of Light:

June= baseball every night of the week.:

And swimming every morning. Braiden and Brody were on the swim team, it was a great routine to be in, and they really improved their swimming. Hudson and Joslyn each did 2, 2 week sessions of lessons. I was one happy mama when they were done! Swim Team practice continued every morning (M-F) through July!

Here's Hudson:

I finally joined the 21 century and got a smart phone. The first app I downloaded was Instagram, LOVE IT! Maybe Instagram is to blame for my absence here. :}

Playing catch with dad in the back yard.

 

Hudson's t-ball game:

I snapped this picture of the outside temp on the way to a baseball game. GAG! That is too hot!!

Finishing up with baseball (the week after the 4th) Braiden's first year in live pitch baseball.

Brody's team played in the championship game and they got creamed! It was a hard loss. They were undefeated all season. :(

 Second Place:

 

 

Somehow in between all of that I managed to find time to read. (I can always find time to read)



 

 

Son was the last book in Lois Lowry's Giver series and it was such a good book!!! Loved it!

 

The best day of the month:

♥♥ June 30th- Nate and I celebrated our 13th anniversary! ♥♥