Homecoming

Last fall when I was making holiday plans, I asked my out-of-town sister if they were coming to Texas for Christmas. She said she wanted to come in February when our youngest brother got home from his mission instead. That sounded like a great idea to us, as well as a potential photo opportunity for my Dad and siblings since the last family photo we took was in 2011. My brother Mark was still on his mission. The last time we had a family picture made with everyone there was ten years ago.

Megan Kunz Photography

Once we found out when Matthew would be speaking in church, we started talking photographers, meals, and fun activities for the kids, and things kind of got out of hand developed into a full-blown family reunion. It was really fun to have aunts and uncles and cousins arrive over several days, so we started out slowly and then went into crowd control mode Saturday and Sunday.

Friday afternoon we met for a picnic lunch and a tour of the train museum at the Amtrak station in Temple, Texas. The push carts were a big hit.

Evan, Garin, Caleb, Jack

Ellen, Karen, Eva, Rose

Liam, Lucia, MaryEllen, Jill

Eva, Jill, Ellen, Claire, Hannah, Rose, MaryEllen, Karen, Lucia

Lots of cousins, who immediately got up when our tour guide started explaining why we don't play on railroad tracks. Good thing these don't actually go anywhere.

Another try for cousins in front of the locomotive. Lots of wiggles in this crowd of nine years old and younger.

Saturday we beat the rain and had a great family photo shoot at this park I didn't even know existed near Waco. Waterfall, stone quarry, cave, green grass, but not quite spring yet.

Artistic Images by Brigham Mayfield

Saturday afternoon we had a "talent" show for the grandchildren, featuring piano playing, dancing, jokes, tumbling, and lots of belting out "Let It Go" from the movie Frozen. We had dinner and surprise cookies for my brother William's birthday.

Sunday morning we all went to sacrament meeting together, and I remembered that I should probably think about how Primary was going to handle twenty visiting children. I had also gotten permission for my family to sing an arrangement of "Abide With Me, 'Tis Eventide." My best family memories growing up involve singing, so this was a highlight for me.

We loved spending our Spring Break with cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandpa. We loved being together to welcome Matthew home. Hopefully we won't have to wait another ten years to do it again!

Holidays, holidays

Nana's Christmas gift this year was a huge joint effort. We all got together for Uncle Richard's wedding after Christmas. Aunt Jenny made the boys matching ties. I scored the cutest dresses on clearance at Wal-mart in Waco the night before we had to leave to get to Gilmer.

Aunt Jenny bribed the boys with the promise of candy, but the girls weren't feeling it. Typical.

This is when she was happy to take a picture :).

Choir practice

So when I tell the girls to stay on the bench and not move during choir practice, this is what I get.







Pretty sweet. And they stayed on the bench. Awesome.

More summer fun

When my husband let me know that he wasn't planning on taking a lot of time off this summer because of how busy he is at work, the conversation went basically like this. Me: "What about doing ___?" Jack: "Whatever you want." Me: "How about ____?" Jack: "Whatever you want." Me: "And what about ______?" Jack: "Whatever you want." Me: "So basically I'm on my own for summer fun?" Jack: "Yep."

So then I decided to take the kids to visit my brother in Houston for a couple of days during the week by myself. We had so much fun!! Thanks, Uncle David and Aunt Chelsea.

All of the kids had some breakthrough swimming moments. Ellen and Jack got really good at swimming under water. Rose got really good at getting in the water without screaming and crying and clinging to me. She figured out the noodle and worked on kicking and paddling solo. Elijah got really close to jumping in to me. Mostly he just leaned over until I pulled him in and caught him.


Ellen was a very willing beauty shop client.

They "cut" and "curled" relentlessly.


We ate popsicles.


We ate more popsicles.


We attempted cousin pictures.


And more pictures.


Aunt Chelsea knows how to French braid!


We ate popsicles and jumped on the trampoline.


Air shots are the best.


Jumping with cousins is the best.


Jumping with cousins


and getting air shots is the best.


Elijah took some time warming up to the idea.


But finally decided maybe the trampoline wasn't so scary, as long as Mom was there, and he got to bounce and run all by himself. No cousins. No air shots. No problem.


On our way out of town we went to eat lunch, say goodbye, and try for one final group shot. Apparently we were all funned and pictured out.

Actually, Ellen and Jack were mad that we were going home and would have happily stayed another week.

Thanks for having us!!

Independence

When I was a teenager, I would roll out of bed on the 4th of July, take a chair out in the front yard, and watch the community Independence Day Parade, which took all of 15 minutes. Then we all went inside for pancakes.

The parade still goes by my Dad's house, and in the past couple of years, a few friends have brought their kids for the candy and the quick parade.

We weren't there last year, because we were collecting our own candy in Idaho Falls with my sister and the rest of the city. Woodway is considerably smaller than IF.

We had 8 families and 33 people total on the lawn watching the five Woodway rescue vehicles and all of the kids riding bikes and walking after that.

Two of my sisters were there, one from way out of town, so the cousin action was fun.

Four other families from the ward came, which made it even better.

Seeing as how the fireworks didn't quite work out as planned later that night, I'm glad we had this little party.

Let's do it again next year.

So I was just thinking...

that maybe I should change my tagline to "I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried." Just saying.

Ellen has had cousin Joshua's birthday written on our calendar since January. His birthday is the first day of summer, which is apparently a big deal. So about a month before his birthday she started asking if we could go to Joshua's birthday party, and I kept telling her I didn't know. Thank goodness Rebecca invited us over for trampoline jumping, cupcakes, ice cream cones, and swimming on his birthday. Ellen was preparing to throw him a party at our house, and this turned out to be much more fun.

Eating cake and ice cream in a big box, because, hello, where else is better to sit and eat than a big box?

Two days until Christmas!

We've been counting down with our nativity calendar. A friend gave me a foam nativity kit from the Oriental Trading Company the first year I was married, so I put it together and made pockets for all the pieces. We've been using it ever since, and the kids really look forward to putting a new piece up each day.

My mom made a block countdown that displays how many days until Christmas that goes up with the other decorations at the beginning of December, and whoever wakes up first gets to move the numbers. They also get to plug in the Christmas lights on the tree, the mantel over the fireplace, and in the kitchen. I looked for an outside plug to hang some lights on the front door, but I didn't find an outlet so we had to make do with a wreath on the door.

We've been singing Christmas songs and carols and listening to Christmas music on the radio. Current kid favorites are "Jingle Bell Rock," "Feliz Navidad," and "Picture a Christmas." I love, love, love this version of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and "Angels We Have Heard on High" by the a cappella group Straight No Chaser.

This year when we set up our decorations and nativities, I told the kids about how I got my Mexican nativity, and the tradition they have of starting the wise men far from the scene and moving them closer each day. They were excited to do the same with ours, so I've let them be in charge of that, after telling them to be careful because they break easily. I found one wise man on my vanity countertop a couple of days ago with a severed head. When I asked the kids what happened, Rose told me Elijah played with it. How could Elijah get it? He's not that tall. Rose answered, "Maybe I gave it to him." Okay. Thanks for letting me know, and next time, please tell me if I need to glue something back together.

We've made treats. I'm not that great at English toffee, and I definitely prefer peanut brittle made in a pan on the stove to the "easy" microwave recipe I tried, but we've had some yummy gingerbread cookies, and the Reindeer Treats were a hit at the family Christmas party yesterday. 1 package semi-sweet chocolate chips, 1 package butterscotch chips, melted, remove from heat and stir in 1 plastic canister of dry roasted salted peanuts (make sure they don't have garlic powder on them!) and then stir in 1 package mini marshmallows. Drop spoonfuls onto waxed paper and let cool completely, and then make sure you have someone to share with, because you may just end up eating them all on your own.

The kids and I made a small army of ornaments from green and red fabric circles sewn into yo-yos and stacked to make mini Christmas trees to give school teachers and Primary teachers. We also made and decorating gingerbread houses with friends, which was so much fun. I took Rose and Elijah with me to make special gift deliveries to the ladies from church that I visit teach.

We took a weekend to visit cousins in Houston, and then spent the next weekend having cousins visit us in Waco for the first annual Jackson family Christmas party. Oh, and I spent some time organizing said party. It was really neat to have 39 of us at Dad's house to act out the nativity. Since most of the kids wanted to be angels, we had no problem assembling a heavenly host to visit the shepherds. We plan to make the nativity and dinner a standing family tradition, so let us know if you'll be in Waco around the holidays and want to participate!

We have been generally enjoying the season (and not blogging about it). As I told the kids today, they get two weeks out of school and we haven't even started counting that down yet, so there's lots of fun and family time to go.

I did write a guest post for my friend Sheila over at Pennies of Time, so check it out if you're interested in her amazing project to teach children about serving others and providing children of any age meaningful opportunities to serve others. Perfect for the Christmas season and always.

Farm Day

The Heritage Homestead Fair was so much fun! We met up with cousins the Friday after Thanksgiving and spent the morning petting goats, holding puppies and bunnies, running the hay bale maze, washing our hands, watching sheep shearing, plowing, a barn raising, eating kettle corn, pretzels, cookies, and going on a hay ride. I was the mom who dressed all my kids in t-shirts because it was sunny when we left the house. Then it got cold so we borrowed what we could. The kids still had lots of fun, and when Elijah's lips started going blue we called it a morning. :)

Joshua, Eva, Ellen, Caleb, Aunt Rebecca, Maylee
Evan, Jack, Claire, Garin, Aunt Heather, Lucia
Karen, Rose, me, Elijah (13 out of 23 grandkids)
Not pictured: Uncle Travis, Uncle Allen, and Grandma Shutt

Ellen was not feeling the cousin picture. She was cold.

Rose hanging with the boys

This plowing was serious business. Super manual labor here. No John Deere.



Uncle Travis helped raise the barn.

Waiting for the hayride and finishing off the kettle corn.

Thanks for a fun morning, cousins!