Christmas Vacation in Utah

Our Christmas vacation began a couple weeks ago when we loaded up in the van and headed to Utah. The kids loved all the snow there. At a rest stop on the Utah border, Derek ran out of the van, into the snow, and promptly did a snow angel. (As the snow started melting a few minutes later he realized why we wear boots and coats for that sort of thing!) Needless to say, the kids got lots of time outside and made snowmen as soon as they could. We also had a really fun sledding trip to the Old Main hill on USU campus. Even Lindsey loved it.
After looking through all the drawers in the house, Lindsey quickly mastered the stairs and walking- now she rarely crawls or goes on her knees.


Christmas morning was so exciting for all of us. I have to admit that I woke up at 5:50 and couldn't go back to sleep. Finally, a little after 7:00, I started slamming my bedroom door to wake them up! It worked, and the kids really ripped through all of their presents. Some of the highlights- Miranda got an easel and Barbie lifejacket, Derek got Star Wars stuff and baseball gear, Spencer got some train things and tools, and Lindsey got a doll and doll stroller. They got several collective gifts- Legos, Play-Doh stuff, and Larry's old Star Wars figures.

Merry Christmas!

We got our Christmas tree on Saturday- a beautiful Grand Fir. Our realtor treated us to a free tree and lunch. The kids ate their hot dogs, but used the buns to feed the ducks by the pond. Spencer loved looking at the ducks, and Derek harassed them by chasing them and yelling. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and the tree is great.

We also got an early Christmas present from my parents- a can rotater. Derek and I put it together, and the boys just loved "racing the cans" as you put them in the top and they roll down below. They think it's a great toy. Now all we need is to get more canned foods to fill it out! Thanks, dad!

Birthdays!

Derek and I both hit some big milestones this month. Derek turned 5 and I turned 30. Yikes!

Derek's birthday was a family party- all Star Wars themed. We watched Derek's first Star Wars movie- 'A New Hope'. It was funny because he already knew all the characters and the plot from his books and his computer game. He still enjoyed it, though- the Darth Vader heads filled with candy and the pretzel rod "lightsabers" helped make it festive. I made him a Darth Mal lightsaber cake. It is a 2-sided lightsaber, so I made his cake about 4' long. He got a bunch of micromachine Star Wars scenes from us (they are things like the Death Star that open up to have a scene from the movie with little characters to play with). He also got Star Wars Legos 2, a black backpack for school, and a magnetic calendar. So, all of his gifts were perfect.

Yesterday was my birthday. It was such a strange day! Some really unusual things happened- like the van battery being dead, so we had to jumpstart it, one of my spoons fell into my mixer while it was going and splattered my cake batter everywhere, Spencer peed in the sand outside, and the babysitter wasn't home when I went to pick her up. But, after Larry got home things were nice. He gave me 2 dozen beautiful roses, nice cleaning gloves, a big cheese grater, and some weightlifting gloves (all things I asked for, by the way). We had my favorite Jello cake, and then we went out for dinner with 7 other couples to my favorite resterant. Afterwards, we came back to the house for some games and a slideshow of me. It was really nice. Larry is such a wonderful husband for making it all happen. After everyone left we sat on the couch and fell quickly fell asleep.

Christmas Card Pictures

Christmas Letter 2007

Merry Christmas, Everyone!
As usual, it has been another wonderful, crazy year for us. It seems like days just zoom by with all of the activity that is in our home.

Probably the newest thing for Larry this year has been the weight loss competition that he started in April and ended in August. Through lots of running (up to 90 miles in one week) he was able to win the contest and use his prizes to buy his new plasma TV. Since then, he has been weightlifting to build up muscle again, and has met his goals so far. He is still at Intel, and continues to be a diehard BYU and Blazer fan. GO LARRY!

As for me, life is relatively the same, except busier this year. One big highlight of the year was my trip to Disneyland with my mom and sister. It was so fun to hang out and be kid-free for a few days! Let’s just say that things got a little wild at times! Other than that, I teach Spencer’s preschool occasionally, go to the gym, play the piano and organ at church, and teach the 8 year old cub scouts. Sometimes I even manage to read a book or go shopping.

Miranda is really growing up! She’s 6 ½ now. She still loves to be creative and make things. She even had one of her paintings in the Hillsboro Art s Center for a while. Miranda is now in first grade and laments that she doesn’t get to play as much as Kindergarten, but she is doing well, and enjoys her friends as much as ever. She is very sensitive to others feelings and is always ready to cheer up anyone who is feeling sad.

Derek just turned 5. Since his first introduction to the world of Star Wars his summer, he has been ADDICTED! It’s all he can talk about. You should have seen his excitement to get the ‘Star Wars Visual Dictionary’ at the library. He poured over it for hours. Other than that obsession, Derek has learned to write, and loves to watch sports (thanks to Larry). He wants to know how everything works and why. He loves to read, play with his best friends, and dance around and make silly sounds. He’s quite a character.

Spencer continues to be our fun-loving little boy. He’s now 3, and says the funniest, most random things. He constantly thinks that his finger is falling off because he has hangnails. He also says that there are dragons under his bed, but they aren’t scary. And whenever we eat grapes, he sticks them in his cheeks and says, “Touch my cheek!” And you’d better, or he’ll keep asking. Spencer has a VERY active imagination and can spend long periods of time playing in the sandbox, with his stuffed animal dog, or with a pile of blankets. Once I found him with two orange cones on his feet. “Mom, look at my ice skates!” he exclaimed.

Lindsey is 1 now, and finally walking. Actually, she walks 1/3 of the time, crawls 1/3 of the time, and walks on her knees 1/3 of the time. She is quite opinionated with the foods she likes. She really loves being in water and watching people do silly things. She has even started some antics herself. She’s got us all wrapped around her little finger!

We hope you have a wonderful Christmas Season!

Love,

Larry, Michelle, Miranda, Derek, Spencer, and Lindsey Dickinson

Funny Faces

We were goofing off at lunch one day. Making faces is one of my specialties, so we all practiced. I think Spencer was growling, I was looking scared, Derek was mad, and Lindsey was just watching it all. (It's scarry to think about what she will percieve as normal- living with the rest of us). By the way, Larry realized that I hardly ever have pictures of me on the posts, so it was a shame to put such an ugly one on as this one. If you want to see a nice one refer to my Disneyland pictures in Sep and Oct.

Blast from the Past

I recently found this picture again, and thought it was a fun to compare it to the shot of Larry a post or two down the page. That's me, Michelle in front with Ryan and Cory in back. Katie is looking up at us.

A few daddy dates with kids

So I have continue the Daddy dates every week and been great for me and the kids.

1. Derek and I went to Greg Oden Bobblehead night blazer game and it was awesome, he loved it. It was a perfect game and 4th quater he was dancing around as the crowd went crazy. He likes it Bobblehead and Derek is fun blazer game.

2.Spencer wanted to go a train so we went on Max to Mcdonlds and he sure loves trains. It was rainy day but did not matter he loved it.

3. Miranda and I went to blazer game with Burdicks, Dad, Hiedi Luke, Lucy and was great game and Miranda really enjoyed it with me.

Thanksgiving was my Birthday and it was fun and I did hit my 3 month goals of lifting wieghts, 185 lb benched 2 times, when I started 2 months ago after losing all the wieght I could only lift about 120lbs. We also had great BYU vs Utah football party with about 30 people at our house it was lots of fun and great win.

2.

Fun with Daddy

Having four kids isn't all fun and games as you can see! I commented to Larry that he has a funny face that really looks like he's in pain. He quickly interjected, "I WAS in pain! They were jumping up and down on my back!"

Kids will be kids

Here is Derek holding his beloved Star Wars Visual Dictionary. He COULD NOT put it down for the first few hours after we picked it up at the library. Every minute or two he would shout out little comments like, "Did you know that Chewbacca is a Wookie?!?" The obsession grows ever stronger...

This is Spencer wearing the "throw up" bucket- fortunately he didn't have to use it.

Lindsey just LOVES necklaces. As soon as she sees one it's around her neck and doesn't come off until bedtime. Isn't she cute in black?

This week was mostly uneventful for me. The kids were a little sick with a mercifully short stomach bug. I was actually really excited when Miranda's school called to see if she could come home. You see, Derek and Lindsey were already sick and I was so glad that at least they would all be sick and the same time and be done with it by the weekend. Sure enough, we are all good and the rest of us avoided the sickness.

Can I just tell you all what a fabulous wife I've been this week? Larry went to two blazer games, while I stayed home with the kids. I also moved a 3 cubic yard pile of bark dust into the backyard during the week by myself and have kept the house pretty clean. I'm RAD!

Michelle's Halloween

Halloween came and went too quickly this year. I decided early on that we weren't going to spend a lot on costumes, so I was glad to convince Miranda to be a princess. She conceded as long as she was able to wear makeup.
Derek, who is always in a Star Wars frame of mind, wanted to be a Jedi. I used one of Miranda's robes as a pattern for his outfit, then made a belt with a place to snap in his lightsaber. Those of you who know Derek will not be surprised at his persistent reminders, "Are you going to work on my costume today?" So, we worked on it for a few minutes everyday. He even helped by taking the pins out while I sewed. I was SO glad to be done with it, so that he would stop bugging me!
Spencer, with his easy-going nature, was easily convinced to be the skeleton (Derek's costume from last year; I wonder if Spencer will ever refuse to wear Derek's discards). He insisted that he wasn't a scarry skeleton because he didn't have a mask- he was a Happy Skeleton.
Lindsey was a very cute spider. I'm not sure who suggested it, but I thought it was a fabulous idea because it is so funny to see her crawling in it. I made the extra legs and just pinned them across her back, with the spiderweb design to cover it. That way, I could take off the legs if they were bugging her too much, and I would have a cute black outfit for her to wear for the next few months.
On Friday night, we had a fun, carnival-type Halloween party at the church. The trunk-or-treat followed. Derek loved seeing all the Star Wars themed costumes there. Miranda really liked playing all the games and getting prizes. We all had fun getting candy and seeing friends. Larry's pirate themed trunk was a big success, too.
On Halloween, Larry's brother, John was in town and he joined us for treat-or-treating. The kids were pretty good about Halloween door etiquette this year, except for the numerous, "How many can I have?" comments from Derek. After covering quite a bit of the neighborhood, everyone came home while Miranda and I worked our way to her friend's house down the street. I think Miranda enjoyed looking at people's carved pumpkins and decorations more than the candy.
I've been letting the kids eat as much candy as they want after meals and during snack time, but we STILL have a ton of candy. At last count, Miranda still has 71, and Derek has 40. Spencer's is going fast. Lindsey likes to chew the candy and spit it out or throw it. Even Smartees! What a weirdo. She does love Chocolate, though, and doesn't spit that out.

Kids Halloween Pic

Blazer Party at my house 1st game of season

GO blazers, so far I found 3 dedicated fans. Michelle was at scouts.

How awesome is Grandpa

He rocks, look what he does with the kids for an hour or so when David came to town

Hallween ward party

I am activites leader in the ward, which as you know I am a stress case but the activity turned out great. (Much thanks to Michelle to help me keep my sanity) We had around 300 people there. Here are so pics. Derek loved it since his best friend was O-b-one and Derek was Luke Skywalker and there were tons of star wars costumes. It hard to see in pictures but Lindsey was a spider which Michelle made which work well.

Also the best part of the night was trunk or Treat.

I decorated my van with Pirate theme, red lights,loud pirate music, pirate flag,spider crawling on ground,several hanging down and of course blazer skull dude and gold candies it was fun watching the little kids stop and freeze until thier parents pushed them forward. Lindsey was rocking to music and towards the end was throwing candy at the kids ( she was trying to help)

Dickinson's hanging with blazers

So if you don't know, I am a die hard trailblazer fan. So as family we went to blazer Fan Fest with dad it was fun. We were able to sit close to game and see lot of trailblazers close up. Wife liked the dance of the players it was funny, and kids liked that our team won and the popcorn.

Dad, Mark and I are going opening night next week.

Update from Michelle

Larry has taken over my blogging for the past couple weeks- I hope you've been entertained! Just so you all know, I am feeling great again. I was even able to sing in church with zero coughing! Yay. I've been slowly getting back into the swing of things with my calling and housework. Derek's been bugging me every day without fail to work on his Luke Skywalker costume. It's almost done- just need to finish the belt and figure out a way to attatch his lightsaber.

Lindsey and Spencer have been LOVING the sandbox lately. (We always move it to the covered back porch and refill it with sand in the fall). I have to suit Lindsey up so that we don't get sand in her diaper. She loves it, though. She will play for about an hour out there if one of the other kids stays with her.

My dad was here this past weekend. He and Larry got really ambitious and rototilled one whole side of our yard to expand our garden and add more flowerbeds. My landscaping wheels are turning. I'm trying hold off on that project until the costumes are all finished for our Halloween party on Friday.

Life is Good!

just playing with kids this evening

Not much to say other than Lucy and Miranda play real well togeather and were Lucky to have Lucy around, Miranda and kids love it.

Gary in Town

Michelles Dad Gary was in town and turned out great. Other than the parade and football game, we went dinner and apple farm which was fun. The best part other than my kids loving to see him play with him was working on the yard. I had a Roto tiller he helped me fix and we were able to expand our garden alot for next year. Gary made a slide for kids off the couch the kids enjoyed.