The Orchard Team Huddle

Stockton brought this home from school and it was so cute I had to share.  His assignment was to draw a timeline of what he would consider his perfect day.  It was on a long skinny strip of paper that I cut down to make scan-able but you can still get the idea.  I particularly like the simple pictures with the captions!  You need to click on it to get a larger view! 10:00 Wake Up 10:10 Watch TV 12:00 Eat Breakfast    (French Toast, Orange Juice, Bacon) 12:30 Play Video Games 2:00 Go to a World Series Game    (San Francisco Giants vs. St. Louis Cardinals) 5:30 Sit In Hot Tub 6:00 Have a Bathroom Break 6:10 Plan Party 6:20 Invite Friends to Party 6:30 Have Party 12:30 Go to Bed Such simple pleasures!  Oh, to be 10 again!

I was going through the pictures on my phone and decided that I needed to get some of them to a more permanent home...here. Over the Christmas break we had a great evening riding Trax, seeing the lights at Temple Square and attending a Jazz game.  These were our Jr. Jazz seats.  For those of you unfamiliar with those particular seats, you get 2 tickets for signing up to play.  They are clear at the top and every other young boy or girl in the valley gets tickets for the same night.  There is A LOT of energy up in those seats but it is kind of fun to watch the youngsters cheer.  Taking our friend Chandler and free hot dogs and drinks were a bonus! I love Mason's hat.  His grandma made it for him and he looks so stinkin cute in it!  I wish you could see the pom pom on top.  While we were riding the train the recorded voice overhead announced "This is the Sandy train."  Mason was so excited..."this is Santa's train!"  So CUTE! Also ...

We have a tradition of hosting a family friendly party each year.  We used to be really lame and celebrate New York time and send my siblings home so we could put our little ones down and go to bed ourselves.  Now, we stay up until midnight and the kids do too!  It is really one of my favorite nights of the year.  This year started off with a yummy dinner of sweet and sour chicken, egg rolls and ham fried rice.  BYO snacks made sure we were more than sick before the midnight hour!There were meatballs, 7 layer dip, chips, pork rinds (who brought those?), caramel popcorn, chocolate and candy galore.  The boys/men watched football, the ladies played Dominoes and the cousins played for hours downstairs.  Douglas went to a party at a friend's house where there were females present.  I knew that day was coming but I hoped it would be when he was 21!  Despite that fact, it really was a great night! You can always count on Uncle Dallas an...