Holiday Traditions

With Easter coming up in a couple weeks, I have been thinking a lot about family traditions. I am definately not very creative, and with a husband who prides himself in "under" celebrating all holidays, I find it kind of difficult to come up with many unique traditions for our family. I personally think traditions are one of the things that makes life worth while, so I am constantly trying to make a fuss over every and all special occasions. Here are a few things we do at our house (I admit most of them are things that everyone does, but they are still fun):

Easter: We dye Easter eggs, have an egg hunt Easter morning (Dad hides all the eggs sometimes in very difficult places), I make my yummy brown-sugar ham (this year with scalloped potatoes hopefully), and the Easter bunny fills the baskets with candy, toys, and a new book for each child.


Christmas: We take the kids to look at lights, make a gingerbread house (although, I am not sure I want to continue this one, since it is usually more of a nightmare than anything), open one present on Christmas eve, we all get a box secretly left on our pillows sometime during Christmas Eve filled with new PJs, pick out a "real" Christmas tree and decorate it together, all the kids get special Christmas clothes for Christmas sunday (hopefully made by Grandma Kurki), everyone gets their picture taken with all their presents, I stress over a huge turkey dinner with all the trimmings.



Halloween: Trunk or Treat at church, visit the pumpkin patch for pictures etc., trick-or-treat around the neighborhood, a visit to the corn maze, and a new tradition I want to start is watching the movie "Clue" after the kids go to bed (I am NOT a scary movie watcher).





Thanksgiving: This is one holiday that needs work. Since Canadian Thanksgiving is different than American Thanksgiving, I have a hard time with it. I never want to make a turkey so close to Christmas, so we started buying a rosted chicken and then making stuffing, potatoes, brussel sprouts etc. That is the extent of if for me. I also try to tell the story about the pilgrims (quite hilarious, since every year I have to look it up online, because I forget how it all went).


Wedding Anniversary: We always get sparkling cider and cheesecake (since they had that in our hotel our first night after we got married). We also have a no present pact since our anniversary is so close to Christmas. We try to go somewhere fun rather than spending money on gifts.

American Idol Groupie

I feel so lame, but last night when I was watching the results show for American Idol I was absolutely freaking out. I LOVE Chris and I admit I probably would have cried if he got voted out yesterday. Is that the most pathetic thing you have ever heard or what?! Seriously, it is hard to even admit this in my blog. It is funny how "into" a tv show I can get. I don't know about anyone else, but for me this isn't a new thing. I used to be a HUGE fan of The Bachelor, but I had to stop watching it because I got so upset about the outcome (I just couldn't handle when Jen didn't really pick either of the last two men standing, especially when Jerry was such a stud). I also took it personally each time someone I liked got voted off Survivor, AND I was sad for days after the series finale of Friends. I know, I am a geek. But hey, now I am motivated to stay up until all hours next tuesday night, with the other crazy pathetic AI fans listening to "Thank you for voting for Chris Richardson," and I am convinced it is because I went to bed early this week instead of voting that Chris was almost voted off (just kidding). But really, what would I do without the drama of my favorite TV shows in my life? I definately wouldn't have as much excitement.

A Day at the Beach

Going to the beach is one of those things that I should do more often. It has been such nice weather here lately that I couldn't resist a trip to the beach with the kids. As I sat there, I truly felt lucky; lucky to be in the sun on a beautiful day in March, lucky to have three beautiful, fun, healthy kids, lucky to have the ocean in front of me to admire. It was one of those magical moments in my life. Here are a few pictures to show the time we spent at the beach yesterday:

Business Trip to Utah

Well Mike was lucky enough to go to Utah on business last week. Since both of us went to school at BYU and we met, dated, got married and started our family in Utah, we were both pretty excited. So, I sent Mike on his trip with specific instructions to do all the things I would want to do if I could go back. He was going to eat at all our favorite restaraunts (Brand X, Maggleby's, Scoreboard Grill etc) and visit all our memorable spots on and off campus. We also bought our new camera for him to take on his trip. I was hoping for pictures of our first appartment, the hospital where Jordan was born, new buildings on campus, the place where he proposed, or maybe the Law Building where I used to work. Take a look at the ONLY picture he came home with. . .
Yeah, a picture of his less-than-cute rental car! If you look REALLY closely, you can see a few buildings in the background (but I am not sure that they are BYU buildings). So, I guess if I want some pictures of Utah, I need to go along on the trip with my hubby. In Mike's defense, he did do all the stuff we talked about and he claims that he forgot his camera on his SECOND trip to BYU. We are happy to have Mike home now! We even got to see his plane arrive at the Monterey Airport (which is so small that we could stand on the balcony and watch his exact plane land on the runway and watch him walk down the steps off the airplane. The girls thought that was very exciting). We even got to stand at the baggage claim and watch everyone's bag arrive except Mikes. Anyways, the bag was delivered to our house late last night and we are enjoying having Daddy home. Mike also brought presents home for the family! Here is Tyson sporting his new BYU t-shirt.

My New Neice

Janae

I became an "Aunt" again this week! Lisa had a little baby girl early Monday morning. She was 7 lbs 11 oz and 1 week early!

Congratulations Lisa and Jason!!!

Upgrading

Our Old Camera

Our New Camera

We bought a new digital camera over the weekend! We are the pround owners of an "ultra slim" Sony Cyber-shot camera. It is 6 megapixels, but considering that is double what our old one is, we think it's pretty great. We have been wanting a smaller camera (Mike insists he needs one that can easily be stored in his shirt pocket) for a while now, so we finally made our trip up to the Sony store (Gilroy) to pick one out. It is less than half the size of our old 3 megapixel camera that we bought when Kya was born. The great thing about this purchase is that because of our "sony points" from our Sony credit card, it was free! Now Mike has a "small"camera to take on his Utah trip this week AND more importantly we have a better camera to take on our Hawaii trip in May! Now we just have to figure out how to use all the new features on it!

Is It Ever Going To End?!

It seems like our little family has been sick for the past month. I think it started with Tyson, then Jordan, now Kya (and Tyson again). After a week of fever and no appetite, I finally broke down and took Kya to the doctor yesterday. The doctor said she has a nasty (I don't think that was the word he used) ear infection and prescribed her some medecine. Now the challenge is getting the medicine into that little girl! She definately is looking better today though. Tyson, on the other hand, was crying and pulling on his ear last night before bed. . .

Visit From the Tooth Fairy!!

Jordan finally lost her first baby tooth, although it didn't happen the regular way! Yesterday I took Jordan to the dentist because she had an adult tooth growing in behind her baby tooth. After all was said and done (and over $400 later) we came home with two fillings, a frozen mouth, and a missing tooth! Jordan was really great (the nitrous oxide helped with that I'm sure) and she said the whole thing didn't even hurt--she did refuse any and all pictures though(I managed to force a crying one). Today we are taking a trip to the Dollar Store to spend Jordan's very own $1 from the Tooth Fairy!!