Wishing you a New Year of health and strength...

It obviously worked for Phil.  We celebrated the New Year at our house around 9:00pm and worked the kids all up about a bottle of Martinelli's to celebrate the big event! Phil couldn't get the lid off with the 'church key' so he thought he'd try a pair of pliers from the garage....oops!

No Martinelli's for us.

Luckily, we had a bottle of pink lemonade in the pantry :) so we made a big fan fare for the kids benefit and toasted the New Year.

Welcome 2011!

 We're sure grateful for 2010 and the special gift it brought our family!

Merry Christmas 2010

The Kids with their favorite Christmas Gift...

Thank goodness Santa found Tanner a blue telescope,

as its the ONLY thing he asked for!

Christmas Sorenson Style

We were blessed to enjoy two Christmas Celebrations on Christmas Eve with our wonderful families.

We started with lunch @ my parents house.  My mom made the kids Christmas pillow cases to wrap their presents in...

They were so excited for their pillow pets!

 

We were able to skype Ryan and Sara in Australia (Christmas Morning for them) so they could see the kids open the presents from them. The best part was...

 

Meeting Baby Jack who was 6 days old!!

After all the hoopla of opening presents Becky helped the kids make these adorable cookie trains and we left them out that night for Santa's elves to fill with candy!

Christmas Kimball Style

Then it was off to Grandma & Grandpa Kimballs for dinner and our annual Talent Show and Christmas Celebration! Jessica and Taylor sang "Silent Night" in Chinese, and then Jessica played her recital piece on the piano.

Daddy and Tyson enjoying the show.

The best part of the evening...

The Nativity!

Jessica and Tyson were 'props',  Taylor was Joseph and Tanner, a shepherd.  Even though the older boys grumbled about being wisemen, I think they secretly enjoyed dressing up and posing for pictures;)!!

Christmas Crafting

I had so much fun getting ready for Christmas this year.

It definitely kept me busy, but good busy ;)
For Jessica's little friends I made bows, headbands, and clips. We had the good luck of finding Shade girl tanktops in size 7-9 @ their warehouse sale in October for only $1. So we loaded up bags with the tanks and a bunch of hair things and put a tag on it that read, "I'm 'tank'ful for you this 'hair'iday season."

For neighbor gifts I made gumball/candy 'machines' from terra cotta pots and glass globes, and 'Believe' blocks with this quote by Henry Van Dyke:

'Are you willing to BELIEVE that love is the strongest thing in the world- stronger than hate, stronger that evil, stronger than death- and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem nineteen hundred year ago is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love?

Then you can keep Christmas.'

Then for those cute sisters I visit teach, I made 'countdown blocks' with a tag, that now they can countdown to our next visit.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself, though my gym attendance lacked horribly as I was staying up late to get it all done so I could 'enjoy' Christmas, and getting up @ 5am to torture myself was near the bottom of the list ;)

First Recital

Jessica's first piano recital was perfect. Just what a recital should be. The students each had time to share their talents, but it was short, sweet, and to the point... oh, and it included refreshments!

Jessica playing one of her two pieces ;)

Happy Christmas

There are benefits to marrying a Kimball.

One of them being the annual Kimball 'Family' Reunion @ This Is the Place State Park. This year it was held at Christmas time instead of in August. It was a cold but enjoyable change...

Tyson racked out after all the fun festivities which included... a ride around the park on the train;
Activities for the kids; a live nativity; a host of people dressed in their best from that time period, all saying 'Happy Christmas'; Father Christmas, including a peek into his workshop; and hot chocolate and goodies... if you have ever been or married into the Kimball family ;)

Thanksgiving 2010

This unfortunately was the only turkey we enjoyed for our Thanksgiving Dinner this year.

My mom asked my brother Randy to put the fresh Turkey and Ham in the downstairs fridge. He made a critical error that wasn't realized until Thanksgiving morning and put them both in the freezer ;) We ended up enjoying the ham two hours later than planned, and the turkey we used for late night sandwiches while us girls did crafts that evening...

I had so much fun making place settings for this years dinner. The kids included coloring books, crayons, and activities to keep them entertained. Next year we'll inlcude those for the adults as well! Its the first Thanksgivng we've had with just "our" family on my side. Usually, its with my Grandma and all of my cousins from my dad's side. We've loved the traditions we created with everyone, but with all of our families growing it just isn't feasible to get everyone together in one place, so we had to make a tough decision and seperate. Now we're creating some new traditions... place settings included!

The "boys" enjoying their dinner

Time for pictures! The girls love every possibility to pose with their littlest brothers ;)

Thanksgiving this year fell on Grandma's birthday. So of course we needed a picture of the boys with her... easier said than done. Paxton wanted to make sure Keaton's red hair was authentic :) Keaton didn't find this at all entertaining...frankly, either did Tyson. Getting Grandma to look at the camera proved to be the most difficult ;)

Pictures cont...

With it being the "boys" first Thanksgiving we tried in earnest to get a picture of them all looking at the camera and smiling... This is the best of the bunch (the bunch would be at least 15 pictures ;)

Here's some amusing video of that endeavor...

Happy Thanksgiving

Bargain Shoppers Anonymous

I found these costumes the day after Halloween @ Walmart, each for under $1. Unable to pass up a good deal, I bought 4 of them. Best purchase ever! The kids and their friends have loved dressing up and playing all sorts of imaginative scenarios ;)...and posing for the camera!

Evidence...

The culprit... (we'll have to teach him to get away with a crime you can't leave this kind of evidence around)

The morning of Jessica's baptism brought panic.
Our "good" camera was nowhere to be found. I spent way too long looking for it. Phil went into action and started charging our 'other' camera, and I called Becky to be back-up photographer. I had remembered Tanner having it a couple nights earlier, but I was feeding Tyson at the time and asked him to take it back to daddy. He always listens to me so I thought for sure it was safe in Phil's protection, but alas Saturday morning was here and we had no idea where the camera was, and it had all the pictures from Jessica's birthday party, our ward party, and others still on it. Two days later, we found the camera... and where...
safely zipped inside Taylor's bag of Star Wars guys under their bed!

Entering mom and dad's room

Yep, I did remember correctly, here I was feeding Tyson. Thankfully, G rated.

Entering his room, where the camera was eventually found!


Now for your viewing pleasure, the pictures from the missing camera...
oh, and the ones from the 'other' camera we had to use for Jessica's baptism ;)
Enjoy!

Jessica's Baptism

Jess & Phil- all ready for her big day!

The four baptism candidates from our ward :)
Three of them are in the Chinese Program, so they sang "I am a Child of God" in Chinese
as part of the program, it was beautiful.
Its amazing that even though you may not know what they are saying
how strong the Spirit can be with that sweet song.

Our little family

After the Baptism, we went to our ward house for a luncheon with all our wonderful family and friends...The Spread:
We had sandwiches with all the fixings, and yummy sides, salads, and desserts which everyone was so kind and thoughtful to add to the menu.

The Kids Table
We chose the room next to the nursery and set the kids up on tables just their size.
The grown-ups were next door (through an attached door :) at tables their size.

Great Grandma Hughes, Great Aunt Kennie, Grandma Sorenson

Here are just a FEW pictures of all the wonderful family and friends who were able to be with us on Jessica's special day...

Aunt Liana, Uncle Russ

Uncle Remi, Aunt Mindy

Katie & Dave

Grandma & Grandpa Kimball

Aunt Tif & Aunt Lisa

Grandpa & the boys

Great Grandma Hughes
Sweet Gram brought her ever famous homemade oreo cookies for all of us to enjoy!

Jess & Kamryn

We are so grateful for Jessica's decision to be baptized and all those who are a tremendous support to her & our family.