Petrucka Family Reunion, December 28th - January 3rd

A few days after Christmas we had a visit from David's brother Mark and his family from Alabama. On New Years Eve we had a big Polish feast together at the church, took pictures, played games, and had a talent show. It was so much fun!

This is Jennifer, Emily, and Mary doing chin faces up-side-down for the talent show. It was pretty funny.

On New Years Day Mark's family, Page, David and the four older kids went snow tubing in Provo canyon. We had so much snow that week, it was perfect, but VERY cold! You could connect the tubes together to go down together and faster, then a lift would take you back up. They had lots of fun and came home utterly exhausted!
Here's Page and Adam excited with anticipation!

Joy and Mary, waiting for the go ahead to start snow tubing!

Emily and Mary passing the time.

Lydia and Brandon ready to go! Looks like a beautiful day!

The next day, Sunday, Hazel was finally feeling comfortable with all the new faces, and was running back and forth to Mark and Page hugging their legs. They were thrilled!

This is what the boys Adam, Bryce, and Brandon did with a lot of their time together, play the Wii and the DS. Why are boys so much more drawn to playing computer/Nintendo games?

We braved it one night and had Jennifer and Megan sleep over with Mary and Emily. The four had a blast together and were very well behaved!

Here's our five with Mark and Cindy's four. We love them all and are so happy they are such close cousins.

The night before they had to go home, we had a birthday party for Mark. Here, the kids are enjoying rootbeer floats, a Poppop classic!

Lydia very quickly had her Uncle Mark wrapped around her finger! With no kids her age to play with from his family, Mark gave her lots of attention which she soaked right up! She was very sad when they had to leave the next day.

Joy and Natalie. Cheers!

Mark took advantage of the situation and fed Hazel some icecream.

Hazel and Joseph. So Cute!

Back at our house, Hazel decided to cuddle up with her Aunt Page. She stayed like that for a good 15 minutes, very content, and so was Page!!

This is on Tuesday the 5th of January, the day Page had to head back to Texas. Mary was in the play Taming of the Shrew and she was thrilled our very own professional in the family could come see her!

My Daughter's a Spy, Shhh, don't tell!

As we were getting in the car to pick up sick Adam early from school, this is the conversation I had with Lydia.
L: "Sometimes I get a little tired when I'm spying on people at night."
M: "How do you spy on people?"
L: "I climb up on the wall and stay der for like 20 hours! Dat's why I get so tired at night. I like da left (wall) da best."
M: "Who do you spy on?"
L: "My family and Kristine (her friend). Sometimes I even spy in YOUR room!" Giggle, giggle "Once I even climbed on the ceiling! Once I even spied on Natalie (another friend)"
M: "How did you get to Natalie's house all by yourself?"
L: "Oh, I have an invisible car dat I drive in!"
M: "But, I'll worry about you too much if you go out by yourself at night."
L: "Don't worry, I have a force field around me dat protects me, and I have oder spies with me."
M: "Are the other spies your imaginary friends?"
L: "OF COURSE! Who else would it be? Oh, and one more thing. Last night I went spying with no shoes and no socks! Just bare feet!" More giggling, she was actually giggling through this whole conversation.
M: "I just love your stories, Lydia."
L: "It's not just a story!"
M: "Oh, I know, it's a real story though, huh?"
L: "Yep" Giggle, giggle

December Festivities, 2010

Every year the kids really, I mean really look forward to making their gingerbread houses. Sometimes I dread it because it is a very messy process, but it was really fun this year and they turned out great! I love seeing how each of them have their own uniqueness.

Here Lydia is helping me bake Christmas cookies while being a beautiful ballerina at the same time. She's really learning how to multi-task! You can see the traditional Swallow Swedish cookies and the Snowball cookies behind her. Mmmmmm, that makes me want the Swedish cookies! I can smell them right now!

Christmas Eve with Aunt Pagee! We were so excited to have her stay with us. We've missed her terribly since she went back to school in Texas!

It's not Christmas Eve without new jammies!

CHRISTMAS DAY!! Joy was very anxious to hang up her Young Women Values posters she got from Grammy Jane and Grandpa Tim. If you know anything about Joy, you'll know she had everything perfect and in place within hours after opening her presents.

Monks #1 Fan! Mary only has two seasons left to own out of eight. Guess what we watched that day?

I don't know what I was thinking, but we got Adam a new pocket knife, a BIG pocket knife! Just for the record, I didn't realize it was going to be that big! You should have seen his eyes when he saw it though. He was in love!

This was Lydia's reaction to every present. She makes life exciting!

Hazel was caught eating her stocking candy! Once she got the hang of things she was trying to open everyone's presents!

Treasuring her new books from Grammy Jane and Grandpa Tim. One of them is already looking pretty worn!

Lastly, something I am starting to regret getting the kids, their new pets the Degus. I'm not sure how long they'll stay around, but Mary and Lydia are loving them! They named them Scooby and Twitty. Twitty is officially Adam's, but Mary does most of the work for them.

First Snow Fall, November 2010

The first time Hazel played in the snow. She LOVED it! It looks like her face is frozen!

Someone's been eating the snow!

Look who got a hold of Mommy's lipstick!

Hungry??

This is how Hazel gets ready to watch her favorite show, The Wiggles.

She just can't wait for the show to start!

Halloween 2010

We started a new tradition a few years ago to make personal pizzas on Halloween before they go out trick or treating. Each of the kids decorate their pizzas. You use string cheese to make a Mummy, pepperoni or other meats to make jack-o-lanterns or other scary faces. It's really fun, unfortunately once they're baked, you can't really tell what it is, it just all slides together.

If any of you are familiar with the show Ghost Hunters on the Sci Fi Channel, David is a big fan. Here he is dressed as a ghost hunter.

Mary as and angel, Adam as the Grim Reaper, Joy as a Pirate, Lydia as a NICE Witch (she made that very clear!), and Hazel as a pumpkin.

We went trick or treating with David's brother, Seth and his family. Here's the clan ready to go!

Mary was hording all the ring pops. Here she is enjoying her treasure!

This year I had gotten them all Halloween shirts. Lydia's looking at Mary like she's crazy!