Happy New Year!

What a wonderful evening we had to ring in the new year! Darvin, Lindsey, Thomas, Briana, Ivan, Alex, Emmett and I welcomed the new year by inviting our friends Wendy, Aaron, Mason and Evan Middleton over for a party. We enjoyed chatting with each other, eating tons of yummy food and also played some fun games including 'Scum' and 'Would You Rather?'. Alex and Mason met for the first time last Sunday, but I was pretty sure they'd be fast friends as they are both OBSESSED with monster trucks. And...well...pretty much they were both in heaven! I think we'll be having some pretty regular play dates between those two boys! Funny thing is Mason is a couple of months older than Alex and Emmett is a couple of months older than Evan. So it will be really fun to see all four of them play together in the future.

We celebrated the gift part of Christmas this past Friday as we wanted to wait to open presents until Thomas would be able to attend. We got a tremendous Christmas present on our 'Christmas' day. Ivan had a job interview at Bob Hall's auto dealership and learned that they want to hire him.


They'll be doing the background check on Monday, so he should know for sure if he got the job on Tuesday! Way to ring in the new year with a new job Ivan!! And HOORAY for a job in Yakima where we'll be able to continue to love on our little Pascual brothers!!

We got a White Pass Ski area gift card for Ivan for Christmas, so he and Thomas will be snowboarding at White Pass on Monday. Darvin warned Ivan not to break anything before he starts the job at Bob Hall's! lol I got a really nice Chi hair straightener from Ashley and a cool GPS from Darvin (it has lifetime free updates on it!) The Sesame Street jammies were an 'after Christmas sale' purchase made just for Alex's pleasure. And pleasure it was, he was enthralled with Nana's Elmo, Cookie Monster, Oscar, etc jammies. Yeah, I might just be the coolest grandma around!

It was a wonderful Christmas! As I mentioned we didn't open gifts until this past Friday, so on Christmas day we went to church and then had a family day the rest of the day with food and games. It was nice to have a more relaxed day on Christmas day to allow more time to celebrate the birth of the Savior as opposed to getting caught up in opening presents. Of course it was still fun to have the gift giving this past Friday. Between their parents and their grandparents the Pascual brothers made a big haul! It's really hard NOT to spoil the grandkids when they live with you! Alex got a bit overwhelmed with the present opening a few times, so he had to take a bit of a break for a little while. But overall it was a lot of fun.
Sweet little Emmett was quite content to either a) play with the bows from the gifts or b) play with Alex's 'discarded' new toys. So cute! And Emmett is becoming a bit of a monster truck lover himself. He's starting to 'play' with them.

Grandma and Grandpa Clement came over. They didn't make it for Thanksgiving dinner, but they never miss Christmas. They seemed to really enjoy themselves and didn't seem to want to go home.

A family Christmas tradition we have is to play the gift exchange game. We each get a gift that cost $10 or less and wrap it. We draw numbers and the person with number 1 gets to pick a gift first and open it. The person with number 2 either steals from player 1 or picks another gift and unwraps it. We continue in order of number.

A gift can be stolen twice and is considered unstealable on the 2nd steal. If your gift is stolen you can either steal from another person, or get another gift and unwrap it. This is one of the highlights of our Christmas each year. We can get pretty creative with what we are able to purchase for $10!


I fixed a pretty traditional Christmas dinner this year, although I kept it simple with ham, 'funeral' potatoes, brown sugar carrots, a veggie tray and fruit salad. For dessert I'd made M&M cream cheese brownies. They are pretty darn yummy. I also had made oreo truffles, peanut butter balls and cherry, raspberry, rhubarb truffles. If anyone went home hungry it certainly wasn't MY fault! lol

Emmett will be 8 months old on January 4th. It's so hard to believe! But you can sure tell that he's growing up. He's very 'interactive' these days. He doesn't like to be left alone when he's awake. He wants to be in the room where the 'action' is! He likes to hold his own spoon when it's time to eat, so you have to give him one to hold while using another one to feed him. Emmett doesn't crawl yet, but he doesn't really need to as he's perfected the art of rolling where ever he wants to go! He IS getting up on his hands and knees now and rocking back and forth, so he may take off any day now! He FINALLY cut his second tooth. Poor little man has been pretty doggone miserable for the last little while trying to work that tooth through his gum.

It's going to be a fun January. Two weeks from yesterday we'll be attending 'Monster Jam' at the Tacoma Dome with the Pascual's. The Middleton's have tickets as well, so hopefully we'll be able to hook up with them at least for the Pit Party. I can't wait to see the expressions on the boys faces as they get to meet the drivers and get up close and personal with their favorite monster trucks! Then the following weekend we'll celebrate Darvin's birthday by heading back to the western side of the state to attend a couples massage workshop. I purchased a groupon for the workshop and gave it to Darvin for our anniversary. We're attending the workshop the day after his birthday. Do you think I can get 'credit' for it as an anniversary AND birthday present?? Darvin's back problems continue so hopefully I'll be able to learn some good techniques to help alleviate his pain! We plan on meeting up with Mike Park for lunch or dinner while we're over there. I sure hope it works out as we haven't seen him in ages and really miss him. Mike sent us a game (Dominion) for Christmas. We've thoroughly enjoyed playing it over and over and hope he'll come visit us on this side of the state so we can play it with him too!

Actually I have a couple of pretty awesome birthday presents for Darvin's birthday. He tends to order his own present for his birthday. This year is his 50th and I told him NOT to order his own as I already had a present for him. He was pretty cute about it, he said, "You DO realize it's my 50TH birthday?" with the tone of "that's a BIG deal"! Of COURSE I do honey! I think you'll be pleased with my gifts!! OOOOooo, the suspense is killing me! And hmmmm, I wonder if he's been thinking about what to get ME for my 50th birthday, it IS a big deal after all!!! ;^)

Our church time has changed from 9 a.m. on Sundays to 1 p.m. Hip hip hooray!! I'm still not a morning person, even after 4 years of Seminary. It'll be so good to be able to sleep in on Sundays!

Jin-gum Bells, Jin-Gum Bells, Jin-Gum All The Way!

Today's post title is complements of Alex! The title is his version of Jingle Bells, and it's the cutest thing EVER! I keep trying not to think about how quiet life will be once this little boy isn't living in our basement any more! The Christmas holiday is in full swing now. And yes, that is Alex in the Bumbo seat telling me that he's definitely NOT too big for it! Briana, Emmett and I left Yakima day before yesterday and drove to Boise where we spent the night at Lindsey and Thomas's apartment and then we brought Lindsey home yesterday. Here's a pic of us at the apartment next to their cute tree.


The six hour drive wasn't bad at all either way as the roads were clear (just had a little fog on the way over heading out of the Tri-cities) and Emmett was a little trooper on the trip. Sweet little boy has been sick off and on for about two weeks with the snotty nose and off and on fever. I hope he gets better soon.

On the way home as we headed through Union Gap we stopped at Los Hernandez and purchased two dozen tamales. Had them for dinner and then took some over to Darvin's folks on our way down to the Valley Mall to see Santa. Those are GOOD tamales!!

Alex had a 'boys day' with Pops and his daddy. He and Pops took a drive in the 'monster truck' down to Costco where they got ice cream and then a hot dog. I'm sure they played their share of monster trucks too. Then Ivan took Alex to the park to play. With such a busy day Alex didn't get a nap, so on the way down to see Santa he fell asleep in the car.

Emmett was composed enough to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas!

Unfortunately Alex was just...um...too tuckered out!

Hope you enjoy the video showing Emmett and Alex's visit to Santa!

One last pic for the day. Here's 'Handy Alex' ready for any home improvement or repair project. Isn't he just the cutest little construction worker you ever did see?! A boy after his Nana's heart!

Christmas Baking and Live Nativity

I started some Christmas baking this evening. I feel much more motivated to bake for Christmas when there are more than two people living in the house. I'd made Thumbprint cookies last week for my Seminary class which I'd intended to give them until I realized what a mess they'd make in goody bags, so then made and substituted Snickerdoodles! Then tonight I made some fudge and started making truffles using my homemade powdered sugar. I love my Vitamix! You blend 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar with 1 tbsp corn starch on the 10 speed for 30 seconds and voila-it's powdered sugar!! Anyway, I'm making berry truffles using a cherry/raspberry/rhubarb jam I bought from Costco. I'm still waiting for the truffle mixture to set up. I may have added too much jam. If so, I'll try re-cooking the mixture and/or adding more powdered sugar and semi-sweet chocolate chips. It's been so many years since I made truffles, I hope they turn out!

Took a break from the baking this evening and Nana and Pops took Alex to the live drive through Nativity at one of the local churches. Alex seemed to really enjoy it. They have live animals, an angel on the roof, people dressed up reenacting the Savior's birth, life, death and resurrection. They even had a live camel this year! It's so fun to have little people around. It will break our hearts if the Pascual's move out of town!

I LOVE my freshman class!

Just wanted to say that I teach the best group of freshmen in the whole wide world. For any who may not know I teach an early morning Seminary class. This is a bible study class and there are 25 freshmen in my class this year. These kids are AWESOME!

The first 'incident' of the year I call: "A Seminary Teacher's Nightmare AKA We're In Good Hands"! Back at the end of September I awoke to my husband's alarm at 7:00 a.m. In my foggy brain I was thinking, is today Saturday?... Until a few seconds later the adrenaline jolt told me that NO it wasn't Saturday and it was indeed a school day which meant I was LATE for Seminary (which starts at 6:25 a.m.)!!! I jumped out of bed, ran into the bathroom, threw on my clothes & hot footed it down to the church, all the while worrying how in the world they would split my class of 25 up between the other big classes in our building?! The irony of this is that before the school year started we met as Seminary teachers and discussed backup plans in case one of the teachers didn't make it some morning, I assured the other teachers that it would never be a problem for them to have to cover my class because I live very close to the church, so even in inclement weather I'd be able to get to the church AND in the 3 1/2 years that I've taught early morning Seminary I had never overslept so they didn't need to worry about that either!!! Well...as I told my class that morning, I guess the lesson is, never say never!!

Anyway...when I arrived at the church building my first inclination was to wander around the building to see where my class ended up, but I heard sound from OUR classroom. So I rushed down there and SURE ENOUGH, there was the whole class listening respectfully/intently as some of the students were reenacting one of the scripture stories we'd been studying! Once that was over, the kids gave me the 'low down' on what they'd done. When I wasn't there as they arrived (I'm usually the first one in the building) they let one of the other teachers know. When I didn't show up after it was time to start they chose an opening hymn, sang it, had the prayer & devotional, practiced the scripture mastery, had 10 minutes of personal scripture study and then decided to split up into 4 groups and have the role play/reenactments. WOW!!!!! Have I mentioned before that these are the most AWESOME youth EVER!!!! My husband and I had previously discussed the fact that we see future Relief Society Presidents, Bishops, Stake Presidents and all manner of leaders in these youth. This experience just testified to me that it's true! They are AMAZING, and I am truly grateful and humbled to be able to serve as their Seminary teacher. We are truly in good hands in the church with this next generation!

I never knew for sure what happened with my alarm. When I got home and checked it, it was still set at 5:10 AM and was in the 'on' position. So I made the obvious choice and purchased a new alarm clock!

We just held our first scripture chase of the year today. We start with a breakfast and thanks to lots of generous parents this one was great as usual. Then we have the scripture chase. Each year the youth are asked to memorize 25 scriptures from the current book of scriptures they're studying (this year it's Old Testament), we also discuss personal and missionary applications for the scriptures. For the scripture chase we focused on the first 12 scriptures with clues from the personal and missionary applications, key words and first words. We also had a 'second chance' opportunity for each round where the kids could win points by finding and throwing an item chosen at random (like a black sock, set of keys, etc) into a square taped off on the floor, it made the scripture chase lots of fun!

Earlier in the year we studied the 10 Commandments, one of which is of course, to honor your parents. I told the kids that they would honor me as their teacher at this scripture chase by being good sports and doing their best. They did GREAT! They didn't win, but as one of the students pointed out, they didn't do bad at all as they only lost by 5 points. They made this teacher proud! GOOD JOB freshmen!!

Can't wait to have a Christmas party with these great kids over the Christmas break!

November and a few days of December in a Nut Shell

I don't know why it's so hard for me to make the time to keep the blog updated!! I'm pretty sure I need to 'schedule' it in my planner so time doesn't get away from me.

I didn't mention in my previous post that Darvin and I returned to Texas for baby Bryn's baby blessing. It was a very short trip (only a long weekend) but we were very glad to have the opportunity to be there. Isn't she the most adorable little thing you've ever seen?

Here's a picture of the Chatwin family on Bryn's baby blessing day (sans Karlee who was already in her Sunday School class).

Have I mentioned recently what a wonderful husband I have? My dryer recently gave up the ghost and my sweet honey not only bought me a replacement dryer, but also a matching front loading high efficiency washer. Thanks Darvin, I LOVE you!!!

Thanksgiving was awesome as Lindsey and Thomas were able to join us, so we had half the kids home. And FINALLY I didn't have to keep the secret any more. They announced that they're expecting a baby the end of May!! Ashley is also expecting in mid-June!! Wow, the Clement clan is now starting to multiply like rabbits (that's for you Grandpa Larkin-lol!)! Darvin and I will be blessed with 7 count that SEVEN grandchildren, with 6 of them coming within 3 years. Way to multiply and replenish the earth my awesome daughters!!! Your gift of making us grandparents is the BEST gift in the whole wide world!!!

So, about the secret! One day a while back I called Lindsey who didn't sound like herself. When I asked what was wrong she said she wasn't feeling well. I talked to her a couple more times that day. Well...it turns out that she was in the hospital on an i.v. because she had morning sickness so bad that she was severely dehydrated. She and Thomas hadn't announced that she was pregnant because she wanted to see everyone's reaction in person at Thanksgiving. After I'd called a couple of times, she told Thomas she was tired of keeping the secret, so he told her to tell me. I think it was a relief for HER to be able to finally share the secret, but boy was it a hard secret for ME to have to keep! A couple of times I was SURE Briana had figured it out (once walking in on a phone conversation), but apparently NOT, because you'll see her reaction on the second video URL. I thought it was HILARIOUS that she didn't 'trust' Lindsey's cupcakes (did she think they'd been spiked with Exlax or something?)! Not only do I love Briana's reaction, but Alex's in the background is priceless!

So another funny about the baby announcement secret. Lindsey had made me swear to secrecy, so I didn't tell a soul not even DAD. Well....Ashley called Lindsey to make her own baby announcement and somehow Lindsey got confused and thought I'd told Ashley and that Ashley was trying to trick her into spilling the beans. Ashley didn't know a thing UNTIL Lindsey DID spill the beans because she was sure I'd told Ashley. It's a little insulting to think that Lindsey didn't think I could be trusted with her secret (just kidding ;^)!) Good times!!!

There's nothing better than having little folks around during the holidays. Last year Alex liked our reindeer, so this year Nana decided we needed to add Santa. Walmart had a great sale on black friday that helped encourage the purchase! Here's Alex and Pops checking out the newest addition. In the beginning every day when Alex got up he had to look out the dining room window and talk about Santa!

Whenever Briana is home for Thanksgiving we HAVE to get the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving! And every year we have a discussion about how we get the tree from a fruit stand down in Union Gap that sells Christmas trees, and she says I don't know what I'm talking about because we ALWAYS get our tree from Home Depot. The mystery was solved this year when I realized that when she's not here we DO get our tree from the fruit stand. They don't always open the day after Thanksgiving so THAT's why we get the tree from Home Depot! And here are some photos of our tree 'shopping' trip to...Home Depot! lol

Alex enjoyed the experience!

So did Lindsey and Thomas!!!

Sisters...

We've got a bunch of...............................

GOOF-BALLS in the family!!!

Feliz Navidad from Alex!

Emmett giving us his adorable one tooth grin!

Alex scored on the way out when he got to play with his friend Elmo!

This year Pops decided he was getting too old to shovel snow off the driveway, so we 'bit the

bullet' and purchased the 'stuff' to outfit his 4 wheeler with a snow plow blade. He had a bit of 'retro-fitting' to do, but I'm proud to say that he got it all figure out and put together. Here's a picture of the end result and two of my boys showing off the new blade! (Oh and now that we're all ready for the snow storms, you can thank Darvin if we have a record breaking dry winter here in Yakima!)

And this is what 'the boys' do to relax once they're done with the tough outside work!

Today, Pops, Alex and I went on a little 'excursion' to grocery shop for Grandma and Grandpa Clement. We delivered the groceries and visited for a while, then on the way home stopped at the Granite Construction Company food drive and dropped off some food for the under-privileged. Alex thoroughly enjoyed checking out the dump truck while we were there.

"Look at the size of those tires."

After admiring the dump truck it was time to visit TSS Yogurt where Alex enjoyed sharing frozen yogurt with Nana and Pops. He also enjoyed socializing with the little girls, but apparently the feeling WASN'T mutual! lol

Then to put the finishing touch on a wonderful day we headed down to Sunnyside for the 22nd (I think) annual Sunnyside Lighted Farm Implement Parade. Here's a sample of the 50+ lighted entries:

Pretty sweet huh?! And here's the fam enjoying the parade: Look closely and you'll see my personal ninja in the photo!

Sorry folks, he's mine and I'm NOT sharing!!

And here is the Pascual family:

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

Time Flies When You're Having Fun

Wow, get back home and real life gets in the way of blog updates somehow. So, while I'm 'on vacation' again in Texas I'll try to do a little blog catching up! When I arrived home about 4 p.m. from Texas after having an unexpected 'sleep over' at the Denver airport on Monday October 17th no one was home, so I started the long overdue process of coloring my hair. Alex and company got home a few minutes before I was supposed to rinse my hair, so I jumped in the shower before he got in the house because I figured my hair would be fried by the time I made it to the shower otherwise! Almost the whole time I was in the bathroom I heard pounding on the door and giggling and hollering 'NANA, NANA' giggle, giggle, giggle, giggle! It was hilarious! I kept hollering back at him and then he'd holler at me again. He left for a few minutes and then came back with Briana. Just as I'd put my underwear and robe on, the door flew open (I hadn't locked it and smart little Alex can now open the doors). Would have been a bit of an embarrassing moment for all of us if it had been a moment sooner! Anyway, it felt good to have such an enthusiastic welcome home committee!

I've got to say I'm super grateful for a wonderful friend who's always willing to substitute for me in my Seminary class. Thank you Jon Snider!! He subs for me short-term, long-term, spur-of-the-moment, etc. My biggest concern 3 1/2 years ago when I accepted the call to teach early morning Seminary was that I wouldn't be able to find subs when I needed them. I have had a number of wonderful friends that have willing volunteered to fill in for me over the years, but Jon has been the most regular and diligent of the them all. He has been a great blessing to me throughout my Seminary teaching career so that I can take time off to attend my daughters' weddings, grandchild births, baby blessings, birthday parties, etc.

We had a super fun Halloween season. It's so nice to have little people around again for the holidays. Alex dressed up as a fireman (he loves having a fire station right across the street from his house) and Emmett was his cute little fire dog.

For family night we all went to one of the local orchards that has a pumpkin patch and hay rides. Unfortunately we went during the week and they only had the hay rides on the weekends.

Alex thoroughly enjoyed picking out pumpkins from the pumpkin patch, but the highlight of the trip was his opportunity to be 'farmer Alex' and 'drive' the tractor that they had setting out for photo ops. He was a super happy camper as long as we let him sit on that tractor. And boy was he mad when it was time to get off of it. Isn't sweet little Emmett adorable with those big blue eyes and that sweet little expression of his?! And I just have to mention that every time I see him in a picture it reminds me of my Dad. Emmett has his great-grandpa Larkin's ears!

Later Darvin, Briana, Alex and I had some pumpkin carving fun. Pops was in charge of the first 'attack'. After some initial intrepidation at the prospect of sticking his hands in the pumpkin innards, Alex soon decided it was great fun to pull out the slimy, seedy pumpkin brains! I had downloaded Lighting McQueen & Tow Mater templates, so Briana and I got to work. Alex was thoroughly pleased

with the results.