It's. . . . . the birthday boy!

It always takes me forever to get around to the blog, but Matthew turned 5 last week. I can't believe our youngest is 5! I will really miss him when he goes to kindergarten next year. It will be too quiet without him.
He celebrated his birthday by going to lunch at Chuck E. Cheese with a few of his friends.

Here he is wearing the preschool birthday hat.

A few things about Matthew at 5 years:
*He is totally and completely obsessed with all things Star Wars. He has a Star Wars figure or two in hand most of the time.
*Matthew LOVES going to preschool.
*He is a very affectionate boy.
*He's in a phase where he thinks it's hillarious to joke about kissing. Especially on the lips.
*He tells me, "you're so cute, Mom" several times a day.
*He takes his shoes and socks off everytime we get in the car, first thing. So if we are running several errands he has to put them back on again everytime we stop.
*His favorite way to get in the van is to climb through the trunk.
*He was reverent in sacrament meeting 2 weeks ago. I don't remember the last time that happened. Usually he is in his own imaginary lightsaber battle world complete with sound effects throughout the whole meeting.
*He has night-terrors almost guaranteed when he gets overtired.
*His favorite lunch--Nachos & salsa (this if definately Tom's son)
*Doesn't care much for breakfast or dinner--would rather scrounge the house to find candy or a bag of marshmellows when I'm not looking inbetween meals instead.

Saturday Adventure

The kids have been begging to go rock climbing at the Rec. center for a few weeks now and we finally got a chance this Saturday after Logan's basketball game. (Tom was on a snow-trip with the scouts so he'll have to come next time) Even Matthew gave it a couple tries. He reached the age qualification on his birthday last week, but he was still just under the weight limit so they had him drink water until he qualified. He was also too short to reach the first footholds so he needed a boost.

Courtney made it all the way to the top a couple of times.

Logan and Ashley kept at it making more progress each time.

You don't want to see the pictures of me. Well maybe you do. . . you'd be feeling pretty good about yourself right now if you saw how I looked from these angles :)
It was a really fun Sat. activity.
(If you live in Las Vegas check it out. I had now idea how reasonable it was at the Henderson Multigenerational Center. It's open Tues & Wed from 4-8 and Sat. from about 10-4 or so. It's $1 per climb or $3 per person per day for unlimited climbs. There weren't too many people there so all of us got several climbs in during the hour and a half we stayed. They have easy, med. & hard routes to the top.)

New Years Eve

I don't know why I feel like I need to get the holidays covered before moving on but here goes.

We saw advertising for a New Years Eve "family friendly" concert in Orem that was featuring David Archuletta & Ashley Tisdale. I thought Ashley and Courtney would really like it so we went and when we got there they explained that there was a mix up regarding who was performing and that David & Ashley would not be at that concert but at the dance party/concert right after it. We weren't excited about staying out that late or buying additional tickets or dancing with college age kids so we missed out on the "big" names. However, we did bring in the New Year to the tunes of "the Osmonds 2nd Generation" & "Rockapella" :)
It was actually fun and my Mom/Grandma Larsen came with us.

When we got home everyone had already started into a game of Kings & Serfs. It's played with Rook cards. I think it started as an Edington game, but the Larsen family now plays it on New Years. Whoever looses the round is the "Baby Peony" and they have to do whatever the winner, the "King" tells them too.

Here's my Dad after he lost. He had to serenade my Mom with a song (something by Neil Diamond I think) and dance with her.

Some of the other peonies had to drink goats milk, do the running man while singing 2legit2quit, & eat mystery concoctions from the kitchen. I don't remember what else this year. At least no one was washing their hands in the toliet bowl or having to lick a carbon-mon-icicle from the fender of a car like they have in years past.

Utah Trip Highlights

Well, I'm still catching up. Our favorite part of our trip to Utah this Christmas was getting to spend time with EVERYONE in the family. We were only ALL together for a short time, but we also got to spend time with each person throughout the trip.

This was an attempt to get everyone in a photo. We almost broke the couch in the process (bad idea to try to move a couch while people are sitting on it), but here's everybody.

Other highlights:
*Going to see the lights at temple square. (In this picture: Amy, Logan, Bryn, Olivia, Matthew, Alison & Ashley--Tom was taking the picture and I'm not sure what happened to Courtney & Brooklyn but I know they were nearby)

*The kids goofing off with Uncle Brett & him brainwashing them (well Ashley's not convinced that "Brett has the power," but Matthew is definately a believer, especially after he helped get our car un-stuck from the snow and up the hill to my parent's house)

*The Ehlert (my mom's side) family party. We haven't been to one of those for several years. It's a big enough group that we have to meet at a church building now. I think there's 101 of us dalmations, I mean, family members (dumb joke). We used to meet at my Grandma & Grandpa's for Christmas day dinner. Now it's inbetween Christmas & New Years & since it's at the church we can do a pinata (a Bennion (Grandma's mom) fam. tradition). My Aunt JoAnn made the coolest pinata I've seen. It was shapped like a large square gift, but the cool part was that because of the construction it released candy several different times. There was a shoe box in the middle with a rope running all the way through the bottom so it could hang. That was full of candy. Then she had four cereal boxes of the same size attached to each side of the shoe box. Each cereal box was seperately filled. Then it was wrapped with wrapping paper and tied with a bow. So each box released on a different hit so it spread out the fun. She is really creative. Here's the kids collecting their candy.

*All the SNOW! Sledding, building, running in it, getting stuck in it.
*Staying up late talking with family.
*Getting some time in with Alison before she leaves on her mission this month. Running with Alison.
*Being in the temple when Alison went for the first time.
*Linnae's baby shower.
*Ashlynn, Reagan (my nieces) finally warming up to me and learning to say my name.
*The kids getting to play with their cousins.
*Going to Gardner Village with Chrystie & Stephanie.
*Mom's good cooking, her cinnamon rolls, cream cheese rings, mint chocolate cake. . .

*Guys fishing and Cabelas trip
*Rootbeer taste testing (thanks Jeff)

Christmas Recap (better late than never)

I'm pretty behind and a little overwhelmed with the number of photos I've taken during December so instead of trying to tell about everything I'll just give a quick recap of Christmas.

This is Mark's (Tom's brother) anual Christmas Party/Dinner/White Elephant exchange. He made amazing enchilladas (I tried to make some this week and they didn't come close to comparing with his). We had fun with the Marshmellow Shooting Bow (one of the White Elephants). I think the directions warned about not shooting them into people's mouths but what's the fun in that.


Santa dropped off a few things to our house a few days early since we wouldn't be able to fit it in the van on our drive home from Utah. He came while we were at church. Matthew really enjoys posing for pictures these days.

On Christmas Eve & Day we were at my parents house (the Larsen's) in Utah. Christmas we had dinner and I was able to see some cousins, aunts and an uncle that we don't get to see very often so that was really fun. The kids did the nativity play too (thanks Brett & Sean for being willing to be the donkey & wiseman). Christmas morning we had to wake the kids up. Most of the adults we up and it was almost 9am. a few hours were spent playing outside in the snow. There was SO MUCH snow! Brett, Alison & Sean all jumped off the 2nd floor balcony into it. The next snow activity was building a ramp up to the top of my parents back fence and tubing over the fence and into the empty lot behind it. Logan & I spent some time in the afternoon building a helicopter with his new Erector set.