MightyJohnsons

Over the last several years, I’ve reviewed the blog content of the entire year (2010, 2009, 2008). This is where I pick out some of the more memorable events of the past year.

January 2011: Megan got braces.

February 2011: For the first time in a long time(maybe ever?), we took a real family vacation to Disneyland. We had so much fun we wrote an article each day (day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4).

March 2011: Manina and Seth had a fun ski date at Deer Valley.

April 2011: After a long winter, we were excited for Spring. Seeing the tulips at Thanksgiving Point with Grandma and Auntie Rachel is a sure cure for the Wintertime blues. And a great place for lots of pictures.

May 2011: Oooh, la-la! The girls were feeling posh at their Missy Prissy Tea Party.

June 2011: Jacob garnered a lot of news in June (student body president, baseball, and Arrow of Light), but Grandma Ria’s summer visit was the highlight for sure.

July 2011: Drew learned how to ride his bike. The annual Johnson Family campout is always something the kids look forward to every summer.

August 2011: Despite a late start and hot weather Manina did very well at the Hobble Creek Half Marathon.

September 2011: We packed a lot of activities into one weekend — Seth did a 100-mile bike ride in St. George and Manina and the girls stayed an extra few days and saw the Little Mermaid at Tuacahn.

October 2011: Seth spent pretty much the entire month dealing with DMVs in several states trying to clear his name. Part 1, part 2, and part 3. He did finally get his license.

November 2011: Katelyn turned eight and made the decision to get baptized. It was a great day.

December 2011: December is always busy with all the Christmas traditions and happenings. This post summed up our entire month.

We hope your 2011 was as great as ours was in the MightyJohnsons household. We wish everyone a happy, healthy, and wonderful 2012! Happy New Year!

We had another fabulous Christmas this year. It began at Grandma and Grandpa Johnson’s house for our Christmas Eve gathering. We ate loads of yummy foods, did our annual sibling gift exchange, the kids performed the nativity and we ended by playing the candy bar game.

After we got home from Grandma and Grandpa’s house, the kids opened their pajamas. (*Yes, Jake got silk pajamas with a sleep mask. I know, what am I trying to do to this boy?! He was begging for silk pajamas since the girls get them every year and this was one of the few sets I could find and it just happened to have a mask with it!) Next we had our apple cider Christmas Eve toast and sang Christmas carols while Jacob accompanied us with his guitar. We finished off the night with Seth reading “Twas the Night Before Christmas.”

The kids getting ready to open their pajamas!

Singing Christmas songs

Christmas Eve toast

“Twas the Night Before Christmas”

The next morning the kids were calling us by 7:00 am. (We left a phone with them so they could call when they woke up.) We initially told them they had to wait until 8:00 since Ellie, Claire and Drew would likely sleep in, but honestly, Seth and I were so excited to get up with the kids that when they called at 7:00 we hopped right up!

Everyone took turns running out to see what Santa brought – youngest to oldest. A couple hours later, all the gifts were open. Thankfully all the kids were happy with their presents and super grateful for all they were given.

Merry Christmas to everyone. We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas holiday!

December has kept us busy! We have continued most of our holiday traditions, and added a few extra as well. We’ve been to see the lights at Temple Square and Thanksgiving Point. We also went to a live nativity, baked Christmas cookies, attended a guitar recital, a gymnastics program and school Christmas programs too. It has been a super fun and busy holiday season. See the pictures below!

Decorating Christmas Cookies!

Every year mom brings her trailer and we all load up and drive through Thanksgiving Point and look at the lights. Brrrr.

Claire’s Christmas Program

Katelyn’s Gymnastics Program

Megan as an apple seller handing out programs for her school play “A Christmas Carol”

Merry Christmas!!

The live nativity with camels, donkeys and all!

G’ma and some of the kids at Temple Square

Seth & I celebrated our 13 year anniversary as well. Love you baby!

Jacob entered the annual Reflections competition at his school last month. This year the theme was “Diversity means…” He chose musical composition. He wrote and played a short little number on his guitar. He ended up winning the highest award possible, “Award of Excellence” for Highland Elementary and went on to the next level of competition. In addition to the musical competition he had to write a short (250 words or less) paragraph on how his song related to the theme.

Update:

After winning at his school he then went on to the council level, which is all elementary and junior high students that will attend Lone Peak High School. He also won first at this competition. He went to the awards assembly last week to receive his award. He was also asked to perform his piece for everyone (see video below). He now moves on to district.

We are super proud of Jake and the effort he put into this. Way to go Jake!

Drew has been waking up nearly every night. The excuse is usually that a witch is in his room and he is scared (*Note: Three year-olds are too young to watch Wizard of Oz). I always take him potty and tuck him back in bed. After a couple of weeks I started getting frustrated. I decided something needed to change. I started trying bribes and promises (ie. no friends, a treat from the treat jar, etc.) but nothing worked.

We happened to be at Walmart that afternoon and he saw these super hero juice bottles. He wanted them so bad! I told him if he slept through the night for five days in a row I would buy them for him. I was sure it wouldn’t work. No other begging or pleading had worked thus far.

After night one, he had done it! He slept all night without waking up. I couldn’t believe it and attributed it mostly to coincidence. We marked off day one on the chart, completely confident there was not way he could make it two days. I couldn’t have been happier to be wrong. He did it again. And so it continued for five full days without waking up. It was truly fabulous.

I am still confused how he did it for five days when he couldn’t do it for one night, but I am thrilled. Of course last night he got up again. I am hoping it was a fluke and tonight will be another good night. I am not sure what to think of this whole experience. Perhaps that Drew could do it if he really wanted to, but nothing I had offered up was worth doing it for. Thank goodness for super hero juice cups!

Here is Drew pretending to be asleep for my photo.

This year Ellie’s birthday happened to fall on Thanksgiving so we chose to celebrate on Wednesday instead. We decided to keep things fairly simple so we did what Ellie loves most, going swimming! We went down to our ghetto pool in American Fork. We nearly had the whole place to ourselves. Ellie had a blast! She went down the little slide over 20 times, each time with the same enthusiastic waddle up the stairs and huge grin coming down.

Afterward we came back to the house for cake and ice-cream. She happily blew out her candles and dove into the cake. Then she opened her presents. She got a baby doll, a pretend phone, a pair of shoes and a giant roller coaster slide from Grandma and Grandpa. She loved everything and spent most the evening trying to decide what she wanted to play with most.

I love our sweet Ellie. I can’t believe she leaving the baby stage and becoming a toddler…makes me sad, but happy at the same time. She is a very determined little girl and, for the most part, manages to get what she wants. She loves her siblings, but especially loves to follow “Drew buddy” all around the house.

Her vocabulary is huge and she says pretty much anything she wants now. She has a special love of shoes and loves to wear anyone’s shoes but her own. Jelly Cat is still her best friend and she can be found snuggling up to it’s tail regularly. One of my favorite things Ellie does is likes to play with people’s hair. She will sit behind me while I am on the computer or at church and just rub my hair. It is so cute (and feels good too!). Megan and I fight over who’s hair she will play with first!

Happy Birthday Ellie! We love you so, so much!

Here at the Johnson household we got Christmas started a little early this year. The previous evening of snow brought with it the Christmas Spirit. After building a snowman in the morning, all the kids were begging to set up the Christmas tree. After a little persuasion, I agreed. Normally I wait till the weekend after Thanksgiving, but with Ellie’s birthday this coming week I thought it might be a good idea to get it done.

We bought this tree at the end of last season not knowing what it looked like all set up. I was pleasantly surprised. It was beautiful! It might be partially because it is the first pre-lit tree I have ever had, but even beyond that, it is so tall and bright – I couldn’t be more pleased. After an eggnog toast, a few letters to Santa, and picking names for gifts, we are ready for the holidays to begin!

We probably got just an inch of snow but the girls still managed to make a snowman with it!

Today is Katelyn’s 8th birthday. The celebration began yesterday with a group of eleven girls meeting up and going to Crafter’s Corner for a little crafting fun. Each girl got to decorate the first letter of their name with paint, glitter and ribbons.

Katelyn painting her letter

While we waited for the paint to dry we opened presents and ate donuts!

Seriously, could she be any happier?

Dunford donuts!

And for the final product…

Katelyn’s actual birthday happened to fall on her baptism date. I will be doing a separate post on that event, but here are a couple pics of her opening her presents and eating these yummy mousse-filled cupcakes.