The Tucker Taj Mahal.

When fall started to turn, Matt wanted to make Tucker a dog house. He drew up plans and brought home some scrap wood from work. He measured Tucker's shoulder and realized that the door was too low so he up scaled his plans. See above...Needless to say the dog house turned out to be much larger than he planned.

Tucker is definitely Matt's dog. I love watching them play together.

I thought I had taken more pictures to show the progress but unfortunately these seem spotty. Bummer!

The handsome carpenter!

Matt has been teased relentlessly about the "spare room" about the dog house. It's been really nice to have it for dog food storage.

I love this picture. I have struggled to take a good picture and any of the camera features....I think this was a pretty good one.

The finished product! Matt painted it and I did the trim.

The king, Tucker!

Ode to a Combine....

This week has been a rather crazy week. Matt getting his elk on Tuesday was definitely a highlight! (I'll have pictures soon. Their not gory!) Hurray! Hurray! Hurray! We have tons of meat, thank heavens!

Wednesday I took some of the meat to Grace to have it ground into hamburger. And during a car ride back to Preston to get my spare keys with my parents, I learned that they had sold the old combine. I was quiet disappointed! I spent countless hours in on and around this combine during the summer. But Mom said it wasn't getting played with enough.

OH the memories...Like panting it with old makeup that we found/stole from the shanty. It was so greasy and oily. We got in a lot of trouble but we sure enjoyed it while it lasted. If I recall correctly that's why it's painted such different colors. Our punishment was to paint it...although that wasn't the only time it was painted.

I remember once Hyrum and I got stuck in it and were thinking the only way we would ever get out was to be cut out by the jaws of life. Needless to say I never wiggled my way back into that spot.

Or two years ago for Thanksgiving I took my sister's two girls and a boy out to play on it. They sat in the cab and drove it and wouldn't go anywhere but the cab. I had to coax them every where all the while them looking at me like I was some sort of crazy lady. At one point my niece asked why I was jumping on it and told me I couldn't. When I asked why? She told me because there are kids on here. I informed here that it wasn't doing anything to the kids. She went on like nothing had ever happened. But I got a hardy chuckle out of it...on of those moments when you realize they just repeated their parents.

I definitely will miss it! Guess Matt and I will have to buy a ranch or a farm so our children can play on old farm equipment.

For Dillion.....

I thought this was cute. On Saturday I watched Brandee's kids while they did some birthday shopping. As soon as Robert walked in he ask, "Aunt Alice, where's the kids?" I was baffled and told him I didn't have any children. He persisted, "Where's the kids? And then I realised that he was talking about Delwyn and Lachelle's four little ones. I tried to explain that they were at their house 3 hours away. He wasn't exactly buying or understanding. He asked at least 5 times where the kids were and at least 3 times where Dillion was. He even asked if they were coming tomorrow. It was dang cute!!!

Monkey Madness....

Delwyn and Lachelle celebrated their 10th Anniversary this week and so their four monkeys came to stay with Matt and I over night. I got a cast iron pizza stone for Christmas and was anxious to try it out. I found a pizza dough recipe in my Skookie cook book and thought it might be fun for the kids to make their own pizzas. (Makes a great family home evening activity by the way. Matt and I love it.)

I couldn't tell which Geran enjoyed the most eating the ingredients or making the pizza.

Dillion isn't sure why Aunt Alice has turned into a camera freak!

I think Braiden enjoyed the pizza making the best! But how could he not we had such a selection of pizza toppings!

And sweet Adaira and her perfect pizza crust! I was really impressed with how well her crust turned out... and a little jealous. My crust struggled...but it helps when you follow the recipe just so ya know. Yup another cooking blunder but if I keep practicing maybe some day I can cook with fewer problems. There's so much I want to learn about cooking... Perhaps I should start with healthier cooking this year.

Brandee and Reed had been looking at houses in Farmington and were on their way home and stopped because their Monkeys wanted to see us too. So here it is the Monkey Madness.

For cousins who don't see each other too often they get along really well. But this is a guilty tell all picture. I love Dillion and Adaira's faces!


I felt bad I asked Delwyn to bring the kids snow clothes so we could maybe go sledding. The poor children probably asked me ten times when they could go. We didn't go anywhere because the snow was really hard and crusty. So the kids sledded down the little hill Matt built off the back steps where he'd piled the snow from the patio. They had a ball for a few minutes till they got cold and we headed inside for some hot chocolate. The short span made me not feel as bad about not packing them up and taking them up the canyon.

Adaria tried to pull Geran up the hill and then they would slide down together. She needed a little help to get him to the top but she's a strong little girl.

She's so photogenic and beautiful! Thank heavens Delwyn married Lachelle his children might be hopeless without her...j/k.

Not being outside for very long made us a little stir crazy. After a movie, two board games, and a card game we were running out of things to do. I grabbed my craft box and dumped the contents I thought the children would enjoy on the table just as Delwyn and Lachelle pulled in to the drive way so the kids got to play with them for a minute while we chatted. They came up with some really creative stuff. What talented kids they are.

Dillion hard at work. Check out his concentration face.

Adaira's creative juices were definately flowing quickly as you can see it didn't take her long to build several things. And you'll notice Delwyn's creative contribution...Lee's doughnuts. They're the best!

Braiden and Geran weren't as intrigued with the craft stuff as the other two were so they played with a giant yoga ball in the living room. Braiden was the most stir crazy I think as you can see by his giggle.

All I have to say about this picture is I know he ate well! I didn't realize how dirty his face was until I was looking at these pictures today.

This was Dillions creation.

And Adaira's... I didn't get good pictures of her's or Braidens.

Kids say the darndest things. If you ever want to know random facts about a family spend a day with the children.

I gave the kids hot chocolate with their breakfast (what fun is it going to your Aunt's house if she doesn't shake stuff up, right?) After asking for marshmallows to put in her hot chocolate she told me she liked it better without having to "dodge all the marshmallows."

Or at lunch when I told the children they were being spoiled because they had hot chocolate and popcorn during a movie shortly before. Dillion asked what spoiled meant and Adaira explained that it meant "you got more things that other people didn't" or things you usually don't get.

Oh they made me laugh and we had a good time. And unfortunately Delwyn and Lachelle your four children did not convince Matt or I that we didn't want children but nice try.

Each time they drank hot chocolate they would sing, "...we only have one rule. Never ever let it cool." It took me a couple times of them singing it before I realized it was one of the songs from Polar Express.

Naughty or Nice list....

So I had this picture on last nights blog and apparently deleted it some how but I couldn't resist putting it on here. These boys fought all day over toys. If one pick up the other one's toy it wasn't two seconds before the owner wanted it regardless of what he was playing with. But at like 10:30 P.M. they decided they could play together.

Christmas......

Well here it is the New Year and I'm finally getting around to posting a Christmas blog! Ridiculous! I didn't get any pictures of our naked tree but that's probably best because my sister said it looked like a Charlie Brown tree. Oh well... I loved it and Matt was excited to have our very own. I was too but a little worried about leaving it naked. I started getting excited for Christmas in like October because I knew we didn't have many ornaments and I didn't want to try to pay for decorations and presents all in the month of December. I asked Matt when we could start putting up Christmas decorations. He teased me "Christmas Eve and take them down the day after." However like I mentioned in a previous blog we went the Saturday after Thanksgiving to get a Christmas tree. I don't think it was a full week before Matt asked when we could put up the Christmas tree. And bless his heart he had to ask more than once.

What tree is complete without a STAR!

I was so happy when our star turned out. I wanted a Western themed tree but had the hardest time finding a star that fit the bill. I had seen these barn stars that I feel in love with at a local department store and thought about just wiring them together with lights between them but I wasn't sure how to then attach it to the tree. The night we picked up our decorations, I saw this star and thought maybe I could settle for just it. Matt thought that the barn stars were about the same size as the clear plastic stars that originally adorned this star. He was right! It worked. And Bonus the barn stars were like 60% off!!! Can't beat that!

These were some of our ornaments! I was grateful for leftover fabric scraps that I've saved from about a million finished and unfinished projects (an old trick I learned from Mom). The rest were glass balls.

We probably took seven or eight pictures trying to get one with us and the tree. We have a few of us and the tree but one or both of us is not looking a the camera or smiling in any of them. Besides I like this picture.

And here you have it! The final product.

Christmas between three families can be a bit of a zoo. We had a wonderful dinner with the Wheelers on Tuesday and with the Alders on Christmas Eve but I forgot the camera for both. Bummer!!!

Christmas morning...

We spent Christmas Eve night with the Johnsons. There were three VERY, VERY, VERY excited little boys who could barely stand to go to bed and wait for Santa. Here are SEVERAL Christmas pictures and our Christmas story...

Logan could not be torn from his train for several hours, not even to open his other presents from Santa. (Heaven knows Santa must have appreciated his interest. As is must have taken the Elves a while to assemble his train.)

Baby Nana! She's such a doll and what a priceless picture(Thanks to Matt's camera skills... I can't take credit for half these pictures. He's the master mind and I'm still learning how to use the darn thing.) Baby Nana is just young enough to not want to get far from her mom without sounding an alarm but Grandpa Johnson has her captive and enjoying every minute of those three little boys.

A scooter for Hunter.

This picture was a half second behind the huge grin as Baby Nana open her Cabbage Patch look-a-like. It was definitely her favorite.

Surely you can't forget sweet Grandma Betty, who got a wonderful REAL LIFE FAIRYTALE of her and Grandpa Buck's love story. She was so pleased. When I helped her pick up her mailbox this week she was still raving about how much she loved it.

Even after three, yup that's THREE invitations for breakfast these boys still couldn't be torn from their toys. But we all have enjoyed movies with Dad's new surround sound system.

Shooting on Christmas Day, I have been told is a Johnson family tradition and since Matt got ammunition from Santa we had to go. Pity we left it at the house so we will have to go again.

I loved the color in this picture. Oh yeah and the man in it. He's one of the many reason my husband is the wonderful man he is...he's a very BIG REASON Matt is the way he is. It was a beautiful sunset but man alive it was cold but maybe you can't see that from my rosy cheeks from the picture below.

I teased Bryce about being paparazzi for these next few shots but the camera got bumped to multi-shots. However it turned out to be some cool shots of Tylor's fancy western pistol slingin'!

And last but not least my wonderful husband! Schooling us all with at a clay trap shoot. Five targets. Five shots. I didn't hit a single one and neither did Bryce. I think Dad hit three and Ty hit one. But Matt hit a whopping four! Nice work, Babe!

Have you ever watched a movie and wondered what the gag reel would feature...
















The Gag Reel...

Just so you know this is what happens to the Christmas tree when you leave a bored house wife with an axe, a wood burning stove, and a naked tree.