Cole's Favorite Present

So...Cole's been begging us for 2 years to buy him a snowboard and we finally got him one for Christmas this year. He's loves this board and is dying to take lessons. We're the mean parents and are making him ski before we let him board. He's been able to walk up the hill and get lots of practice though! Great job Cole.

Playing Around the House

New Year's Eve we always like to

sled and snowmobile, literally,

around the house. This picture shows it well.

The pic with Cayli laying down on

my snowmobile, you can see the front of our house

above her shoulder. On the other pic,

the back of our home is next to her head.

Cole was too busy snowboarding down the big hill

to ride around with me and Ron was

too busy working. Unfortunately the

hospitals don't close over the holidays. :)

Beehive FUN!

So...my cute little Beehives didn't get to enjoy the Stake New Year's Eve dance, so we decided to welcome in the new year sledding and watching a movie. We just met at my home and then walked to the end of the cul-de-sac where we always sled. They had a great time!

We started with 4, ended with 6 and were missing 2. Not too bad for having an activity over the holidays. I just love these girls, but BOY can they eat popcorn. Ron thinks they're worse than the YM, I don't think so. :)

Yes, we still need more snow to cover these weeds, but we had enough to have fun.

Cayli is NOT a Beehive yet, but she had to show them how to climb up the big hills cuz they were all beggin' me to get out my snowmobile. :)

(Notice how loose Cayli's top tooth is!)

We had a great time sledding and then enjoyed some hot cocoa,

popcorn and watched the movie Zoom!

Merry Christmas

Christmas morning was quite peaceful. The kids slept in until 7:30 and the hills were barely lighting up from the morning sun. Santa found our house, but Cole was most excited about his snowboard that we got him. I don't think he's gone a day (besides Sunday) without strapping that thing on his feet. Cayli is just waiting for a day to come where our cul-de-sac is dry so she can take a spin on her little scooter. She think's she's so old...it cracks us up.

This was late Christmas Eve after Santa's elf dropped off the kids' PJs.

Lance, ShayLyn, Cole & Cayli

(Can you stand how tall Shay is?! She's a Niederhauser...how did she rate getting tall genes?)

Yes, I'm all grown up, but still a daddy's girl! What a great man.

This is my sweet Oma (grandma). We love having her join us at my mom's for Christmas Eve. She wasn't thrilled about taking my grandpa's place in reading a

Christmas story, but we loved it!

We took this before we began our Christmas Eve program at my mom's.

Family traditions are so special.

Behind the Scenes of our Christmas Picture

You all know the drill:

What are we going to wear?

Will her hair stay curled while I hurry and curl mine?

Is he going to get all wrinkled?

What kind of mood will he be in?

Anyway, that's what I went through Sunday after my mom called begging for me to just quickly take a family picture and send it to her because the last one she has of us is WAY out of date. I thought I'd hurry and do it right before church. I wish it was that easy. :)

Cole's being so patient and Cayli and Ron are way too busy teasing each other.

I asked Cole to sit on the chair so I could figure out the lighting. He is such a little goof-ball, I was more distracted laughing at his funny faces, than taking care of what I needed to.

This is a very typical sight: Ron getting ready to give Cole a "beat down" and Cayli is loving every minute of it. Good thing Cole loves these fun moments. You can see Ron's handsome grin under his teasing snarl.

Just one more of the MANY silly faces of Cole. Now Cayli is the one trying to help mom. I love these two little stinkers.

Pinewood Derby 2009

Once again Cole was able to help Ron with another Pinewood Derby car. It was quite comical when the night he got his block of wood, he turned on Down and Derby. LOL Of course, Ron wasn't watching the show because he was already out on the work bench cutting away. Hopefully this is their last derby...it's been fun while it's lasted, but it's lasted too long. :)

Cole and his buddy chillin' out after many races. Both their cars did great.

Yes, it IS a good-looking car and is was quite fast. Great job Cole (and Ron).

Hunter's Moon

WOW...isn't this something? As the kids and I pulled up to the school, we looked over at Snowbasin and all commented on how amazing this moon looked. It really was breathtaking and I feel blessed that the kids and I were able to take a moment to recognize such beauty.

Halloween

The kids loved carving their pumpkins. Look carefully at the pumpkin on the right. Cole loves the Yankees (mostly because Ron loves the Red Sox) and since they were playing in the World Series on Halloween, he thought it would be a great jack-o-lantern. I'd have to agree. :)

Both kids went as China children. A special thanks to our fabulous neighbor who bought these outfits on her trip to China this past summer. Unfortunately, Cole left in a flurry with one of his buddies before I pulled out the camera so I didn't get a pic of him.

You can kind of tell by the look on her face, she didn't like the feeling of digging out the seeds and slime. She did like cutting though - she made me extremely nervous!

On the other hand...he LOVED the goo!

HOPE YOUR HALLOWEEN WAS FABULOUS.

Happy Birthday Ron, 29...again!

A few weeks ago I got a brainiac idea to have one of our local pilots take Ron for a spin in their plane for his birthday. It turned out that he ended up riding with a guy in this plane and doing all sorts of fun tricks in the air. It was a great surprise and I know he totally enjoyed it by the grin on his face. HAPPY BIRTHDAY sweetie...I love you!

Black Island Farms

Every year we enjoy going to Black Island Farms. It's such a fun place for the kids to play and also a great family field trip. This year, we had a HUGE group from our community take the trip out there all together. It was great. We had the day off school when all of Weber and Davis County was in school so there weren't that many people there.

The North wind made it VERY cold.

We had such a fun time and I saw a handful of students from my school class there. Everyone had a great time together.

Sweet Six (Going on Sixteen)

Time flies when you have such a fun girl like this...can't believe she's 6! Unfortunately I had Parent Teacher Conferences, but that put the ball in Ron's court and he did a great job running with it. They enjoyed a great daddy daughter date at Red Lobster and she LOVED the crab legs.

Harvest Carnival

Our community had a VERY fun Harvest Carnival and Chili cook-off. There were about 20 rooms with different activities and an awesome Spook Alley. You'd think that Cole would want to dress up as something other than a football player, but NO...he hasn't had enough. The balloon room was a fun idea. They sure were loud when they popped though. Luckily they only lost a few of those honkin' big things. Cayli liked wearing her outfit from China. We probably should've invested in some black hair paint.

Wangsgard Gathering

As our families get bigger and lives get busier, it's so hard to get everyone together. My Aunt Annette decided to get us all together again. We didn't have a large turn out, but it was GREAT to see those who did come. Here's a few pics of some of the fun activities we did.

Ron just LOVES me and my camera - OK, not my camera...he just humors me.

What a sweet guy!

Cayli totally loaded up from the pinata. Notice the bling on her shirt. We spent the morning at Cole's 2 football games and I told her if she has to wear a football shirt, we'll make it look good.

Oh, my dad. What a great guy. I feel so blessed to have a dad as amazing as him.

Cole LOVED getting back to his baseball swing as he tried to break this pinata. He eventually did break it for all the little ones and OH, you should've seen the candy! What fun.

I'm Going to Try to Be Better!

I love the honesty of my darling cousin Lori. We were laughing about blog stalkers, Facebook happenings and she expressed, in a sweet way, her disappointment in me that I never update my personal blog. Well, I'm going to re-commit to it. I will try to update my blog as often as I update my classroom blog. Thanks Lori :)

Labor Day BBQ

Make a Smilebox slideshow

The Littlest Angel

Cayli and her friend Alexa have been dancing at Imagine Ballet Theatre since the fall and they were able to perform in their production of The Nutcracker. What a fun experience for them. For each performance the dancers were expected to arrive and depart the theatre in dresses. Don't they look beautiful?! (Sorry I caught you with your eyes closed Alexa.)

I didn't think to take photos during the dress rehearsals so I only have these images from my camera phone - UGH! No cameras were allowed during the performances. I've circled our "Littlest Angel" in each pic. I'll do better next time. IBT brought in a few guest dancers - boy, they AMAZING ballerinas! It was fun that Cayli was able to rub shoulders with such beautiful dancers. In all, they did the production 7 times in 2 weeks. It was quite the hectic schedule, but well worth it. Thanks IBT for such an amazing ballet program!

Haul Out the Holly!

The kids had a great time decorating for Christmas. Yes, Ron was out on the roof trying not to fall off the ladder while putting up our Christmas lights. He had a few close calls and unfortunately I missed those "kodak moments" so I can't post them. I'm sure you can picture the images in your mind and giggle a little like I did when he was explaining his near death experiences to me. Hahaha - we appreciated his sacrifices though cuz the house looked great all lit up. :)

Thanksgiving @ Niederhauser's

Make a Smilebox photobook

Thanksgiving @ Omi's

OK, so I'm a dork...I love to bake! This is my favorite thing to make for Thanksgiving. I think I've made it every year for the past 8 years for both sides of the fam. I can never make just one pie though - that's too boring. I usually pair this with Ron's favorite Black Bottom Banana Cream and a great Chocolate Raspberry Cream. It wouldn't be Thanksgiving with out LOTS of pies.

My kids' favorite food is ham. Mom always has the best spiral honey baked ham. I swear they eat it like candy. They had lots of fun playing with their cousins and Omi's cute dog Boots.

Ron and I have lots to be thankful for this season. We really were SO blessed in everything that went along with our move: our home sold quickly last spring to a darling couple that all our old neighbors really like, our new ward and neighborhood feels like "home" already, I got back into teaching at a great time and at a great school, and our kids are adjusting well. Happy Thanksgiving.