John Family Christmas Letter 2007

Since I use this as memories of what our family does I thought I should add this so I have a copy. Some of you will get one and there are some of you that I couldn't find addresses for that I wanted to send to so now you get to see it anyhow.

It has been a good year for our family. The kids are growing up fast and keeping us constantly busy. We built a home and moved to Lehi last January. We love our neighborhood and ward, there are tons of kids, and we finally feel like we are at home!

Brandon is still working in Salt Lake at First Franklin as a loan account manager. He keeps busy with work and fishing and we see him in between!

Kristi’s time is spent driving carpool, or kids to various activities, helping with homework, cooking & cleaning, and other tasks that go along with being a mother of 3 The kids keep her very busy and on her toes, but she loves it and wouldn’t have it any other way.

Brayden is 6 and started kindergarten this past fall. He loves school and all the things that go along with it. He played t-ball and soccer this year and is taking after his dad and excelling in soccer. He loves to play with his friends, and we rarely see him till dinnertime!

Adisyn is 3 and started pre school this year. She is learning so much and doing so great! Adi did cheerleading and dance this year. She loves it and is quite the little performer! She loves being the “princess” and the second mom of the house.

Jace is 20 months and keeps Kristi on her toes! He loves his brother and sister and wants to do everything they do and go everywhere they go! Three days a week it is just him and mom and he is lost with out his brother and sister. He has so much energy and keeps us all laughing!

We are so thankful for this time of the year when we can reflect upon the Savior’s birth and what his life means to us. We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family that have made us who we are and taught us so much. We love you all and wish you a very happy holiday season!!

Love,

BJ, Kristi, Brayden, Adisyn, & Jace John

Gardner Village & Baking

Monday we met my mom, dad, sister, and niece at Gardner Village. We had planned to go Saturday, but with the storm we decided not to, and had to reschedule. It was early out day and both kids were home by 11:45 so we decided to go. I love Gardner Village, but especially around the holidays, they decorate so cute and always have fun stuff for kids. They had their elves out and instead of just being able to look at the elves, they have this list you can print off their website of different elves to find and when you fill it out you can take it to the bakery and get a cup of hot chocolate for the kids for $.25. The kids had so much fun walking around looking for the certain elves. Haylee and I got these super cute bags we thought would be great for diaper bags for only $10 and when we got home we both realized we should have got another to use for a purse, so I went back and got us each another one. After we walked around we went and had lunch at Archibald's, it was way good and the kids were pretty good. Haylee had to be back to Brigham by 4 so we left after lunch, but it was a nice couple of hours away! On my way home I called Julianne to see if she wanted to go to Home Depot to get wood. She is building me a few frames, I am so excited the projects are going to turn out so cute! Thanks to Julianne for helping me!
Tuesday my mother-in-law came over and we had a baking day. We didn't make too much just some christmas chocolate chip cookies(Brayden's request), and attempted to make some caramels, but after they were cooled and I tried cutting them they were so hard. I am not sure what happened, if we overcooked them or what, but we had a good time anyway! I had high hopes of getting alot baked, but with the kids and what not we only got a few done, but I figure over the next few days during naps I can finish up the rest. I am having a Christmas party here on Saturday and am trying to get the gifts and food ready. I think I way overdid it, but I just love this time of the year and parties and everything that comes with it!

Breakfast w/ Santa 2007

This year for our ward Christmas party we did a breakfast with Santa. I was so glad because this way my kids got to see Santa and we did't have to do it in the mall or wherever. It was a really fun party. We had a nice big breakfast, then they had activities for the kids. There was cookie decorating, and another one(not really sure what it was)the youth was in charge of these activities and then they had a little game in the gym for the adults. They had a nice little program with some musical numbers and then the primary sang a few songs. Adi just had to go up and sing with the primary and afterward Brayden told me how embarrassed he was because Adi isn't even in primary. Why he was so embarrassed, I am not really sure, but ok. It was so funny because when they started singing Santa Claus is coming to town, Adi was the loudest and knew all the words. I so wish I had that on tape, it was hilarious! Then Santa really did come. Brayden was being shy and when I told them to go get in line he threw a fit and wouldn't, so Adi went and got in line by herself. I finally got Brayden to get in line and Adi was way infront of us and wouldn't come back, so I figured when the boys got up there I would have her just come and get a picture of all 3 of them, but when I attempted to put her on his lap again she completely flipped out, screaming, & yelling "no, no, I already did". So I only got the boys together. Atleast this year I got all 3 of them to sit on his lap and pictures of it even if they aren't all together.

Thanksgiving weekend

It feels like it was such a long weekend. We were so busy it went by so fast though. This year was our year to eat with the John side of the family so Thursday we headed up to Malad for our Thanksgiving feast. It was a delicious meal and it is always fun to see that side of the family who some we only get to see every other year at Thanksgiving. After dinner we headed back to Brigham to spend the weekend at my moms. I have become such a home body so it was hard for me to stay there for more than 1 day, but since my sister and I do the early morning shopping the next day I had no choice. This year we headed out at 3:30!! Some of the things we wanted were at the stores that opened at 4am, so we had no choice. BJ wanted to go to a movie Thanksgiving night, but I had to get up so early and the movie was at 9:30 so he went with my brother instead and I was in bed by 10. I figured since I was asleep by 10 I would be getting about 5 hours of sleep. Oh was I wrong! Adi woke up at 12 because she had to tell me she had to go to the bathroom. Thanks Adi!! And I couldn't go back to sleep. So I ended up with 2 hours of sleep! Haylee and I had so much fun shopping! We both got what we were looking for and it is fun to spend time with her and not get interrupted by our kids!! We got home about 8:30 and I was so tired! I wanted to do something fun with the kids but options are limited in Brigham, so we decided on bowling. Haylee, Adam, and Kyla came with us and Jed even came up for a little bit. The kids had such a good time bowling, they loved it and Brayden was actually pretty good! After bowling we went back to my moms and made us spaghetti dinner, and then Jed and Maegan came over and we visited and watched the basketball games. My kids love them so it is always a good time when we get to spend tiem with them. Saturday was starting bright and early(not as early as Friday)with my nail apt at 8, but I had to get upa dn get ready at 7 because as soon as I got home from my nails BJ and I were heading down to the BYU/Utah game!! BJ is a huge BYU fan, you may nto guess that because he refuses to wear any BYU gear or anything that says BYU on it, but he loves the cougars! We had such a good time, and it was the best game!! Thanks to my mom and Jed for watching my kids! After the game we hustled back to Brigham because Santa was coming to town and the kids wanted to go see. We luckily got out of Provo really fast and hit no traffic and were back to take them. I am not really sure why we had to go because none of them wanted to sit on Santa's lap, but oh well. After Santa's arrival we went to dinner. It was a busy weekend, but we had a good Thanksgiving and are so thankful for our wonderful families!!

Christmas Lights and Fun

Well Monday Julianne and I put up my Christmas lights. I really shouldn't claim any part of it, because she was the one on the roof, but I did put the clips on some of the light strands and hand them to her! I am terrified of heights, so I was so glad when she said she would get up on the roof and do it. BJ and pretty much everyone else thought we were crazy, but I would never get lights up if we hadn't done it. It was the perfect day to do it too the weather was warm and no wind it was great! So, thank you Julianne!!

Devon had on this mask that he got from primary called scripture specs. Well he had been wearing it and all the kids wanted one so Julianne made them all masks and then they came back over to decorate them at my house. They were so funny in them, pretending to be Indians and stuff. Gotta love imaginations!


This morning we had absolutely nothing to get up for. Neither of the kids had school, BJ had work, but as for the rest of us we had nothing!! So I was sleeping in and not getting up. Of course Brayden woke up at like 6:30, but I sent him down to watch tv for awhile. About 8:00 the other 2 woke up and Brayden was ready for breakfast, but I still didn't want to get up so I told him to get his own bowl of cereal. I knew he could do it with out making a mess. So he starts making his breakfast and Adi wants him to get hers so he does and then Jace wants some, and I hear Brayden tell Adi to come get me to get Jace's. So I yell down to him to just get Jace some too. Brayden replies with "Ugh!! It is so hard to take care of 3 kids" I yell back "Welcome to my world!!" He is so dramatic and funny sometimes, but I wonder where he hears these things;)!!

Our weekend

We had a crazy weekend, or I guess I should say I did. BJ left friday afternoon to go to Wyoming with some friends for the BYU game, and left me home with the 3 monsters! Before he left Friday we had Lynette take our family pictures. Jace was a stinker and wouldn't really cooperate, but oh well, I hope we got atleast one we can work with. As soon as we got home from pictures BJ left to go to Wyoming. For the record I think he is completely crazy driving 6 hours to watch a football game, but oh well, I think he had a good time. All was fine till about 5:30 when we left to go pick up a movie and a pizza. Bad timing to try and do that in American Fork. It took us over an hour to go pick up the reserved movie from redbox, grab a pizza and breadsticks from Little Ceasars, and some chips and salsa from Chili's. Over an hour!!! By the time we got home Adi had to go to the bathroom so bad I am surprised she didn't wet her pants, Jace was starving and freaking out, but Brayden was being "the man of the house" and behaving just like his dad asked him to. I was so grumpy by the time we got home and the house was a complete disaster that after dinner instead of enjoying the movie with the kids like I should have I cleaned the toy room for over an hour!!! While I was cleaning Jace started getting really tired and just lost it! Poor guy screamed hysterically for about 20 minutes and nothing Brayden, Adi, or I could do was working to calm him down. Finally he let me pick him up and it took me another 20 minutes to calm him down enough so he would go to sleep. Then Brayden had a primary program practice/pizza party at 9am Saturday morning. After he got home my sister came over and we headed to the mall so the kids could play and we could do a little shopping. We planned to eat at Red Robin, but once we got there dealing with the kids at a restaurant didn't sound too great so we ate in the food court instead. Once we got home we cleaned, did some cooking and got ready for Sunday. My family was coming down for Brayden's primary program Sunday so we had to have things ready for that. I got the kids all bathed and in bed and I went to put Jace in his crib and I could smell baby powder. So I put him down go into Adi's bedroom and I about died! She had dumped about half a bottle of powder on her carpet and then tried covering it up with her blanket and along with the baby powder she had 2 bottles of lotion she had partially dumped on the carpet as well. Her reason for why she did all this was she itched and needed some lotion! It was a good thing BJ came home about 2 minutes after that because I was done!! We were so happy to have him home! Brayden's primary program was Sunday and he did such a good job. I know he only had 1 line, but I was very proud of him. I went to church 40 minutes early so we could sit in the front and be able to see him and not clear in the back in the gym liek we usually do. BJ thought I was completely crazy and didn't come up till 11:00! It was a good crazy weekend, but glad it is over so we can have a few days before we start antoher one!

I love times like this when they are all getting along! They don't come often at our house so I capture them when I can!


Jace's new pajamas. Don't know why he had to have shorts on over, but he did I tried taking them off and he freaked!!


After Jace's freak out he snuggled with his brother.


This is what I found Saturday after I got out of the shower.

Happy Halloween

We had a fun and busy Halloween. Both Brayden and Adisyn had school so it was a busy morning trying to get everyone ready. After I dropped Adi off Jace and I went to Brayden's school where they were doing a Hallween parade. It was so crazy there were so many people there we had to park clear up the street, but it was so much fun! I had never seen anything like it, we never did it when I was growing up. But it was alot of fun to see all the kids in costume and Jace would clap as the kids went by.

Brayden during the parade.

Brayden's good friend Carson(Wolverine)


After Brayden got home from school I loaded the kids up and we drove to BJ's work so he could show them off at work. They got to trick or treat around his office and ride the green bike they love to ride everytime we go there. We had to stop at Sam's Club since I was in Salt Lake so it was 3:00 before we got home and we had trunk or treat(which I hate) at 5:30. So the kids ran around and played with friends and we decorated the trunk with spider webs and our carved pumpkins. Our ward did trunk or treat and we ran out of candy and had to give Jace's away. Then we ran out of Jace's and Adi was having so much fun handing candy out that she started handing hers out and then all of a sudden she realized it was hers and said "I don't want to give mine out anymore" so we closed up our trunk and came home. We were home by 6:15, and I had bought like 9 bags of candy and I thought that would have been plenty! So I didn't have any for if we had trick or treaters at our house, so I went through the kids bags and took out all the gum and crappy candy they wouldn't eat and handed that out. It was mostly older kids that came and had already been to the trunk or treat, so I didn't feel bad!

Sabertooth Tiger



Tinkerbell



Peter Pan(he wouldn't keep his hat on for this one)

Thanks again to Julianne for making Brayden and Jace's costumes, she did a great job, they all looked so cute!!

Night at the Museum

Last night for FHE we took the kids to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point. Every Monday night they have some sort of activity in the lobby and last night was their annual Halloween party. They had some games, a few crafts, face painting and then as you went through the exhibits they had the dinosaurs dressed up. It was fun, and the kids had a great time! They got to wear their costumes and Brayden thought it was really neat because we took his picture by the sabertooth tiger exhibit. Jace loved running around and Adi tried climbing on every single exhibit and every time BJ and I would say "Adisyn get down!!" and the very next exhibit she would try climbing up, it got old fast, but it was fun to spend time together! We came home and Jace was so tired he fell asleep at the table while we were making dinner, I thought for sure he would wake up hungry, or something because it was so early(6:45), but he slept through the night till 7 this morning! What a good boy!

Halloween Party & Pumpkin Carving

I just love this time of year! I already have a few Halloween posts and it isn't even Halloween yet, so there will still be atleast one more Halloween post. We had Grandma Bus' annual Halloween party Friday night. The kids love this party so much, we look forward to it every year! We have been doing this ever since I can remember. Not much of it has really changed. We still drink the orange punch with dry ice in it (so it smokes, Jacey thought that was great), and eat donuts. The kids get to see their cousins(my cousins kids)that they don't get to see very often and they have so much fun!! BJ and I don't usually dress up, but Brayden really wanted us to this year. As you can tell from the pictures BJ is less than thrilled about it, but I will say he was a good sport!

We finally got around to carving a few of our pumpkins. Brayden has been so excited to carve his big pumpkin, and as Adi was saying "it is the biggest pumpkin in all the lamb" It was so funny! The kids had a good time and we even got BJ to carve the faces after I dug out the guts. We'll see if we get around to carving anymore of the 15 that are still sitting on our front porch!

Halloween Dinner

Couldn't get all 5 of us to smile at the same time!

Saturday we had our annual halloween dinner. We just started this last year, after we would go to the pumpkin patch we would go back home and eat dinner in a pumpkin, breadstix with sauce in a pumpkin, and apples with caramel dip. Well this year since we had our own pumpkin patch and the weather was crappy we skipped the pumpkin patch and watched movies instead. And next year we will skip the dinner in a pumpkin because after I made it I learned no one likes it! It is rice and hamburger, what's not to like? Appearantly it is tasteless(according to BJ.) Jace took a big bite and I said "that's my boy" and as soon as the words were out of my mouth he spit it right back out, not even he would eat it, so next year we are ordering pizza. Also this year instead of apples and dip we made gourmet caramel apples. We dipped them in caramel, then white chocolate, then rolled them in crushed oreos, YUM!!! (Shalene over cooked the caramel a little so they were a little hard, but still delicious!)My parents and sister were going to come too, but because of the weather we decided it wasn't worth it. It was a good thing too because Jed and Maegen had to come down for Maegen's nieces birthday party and were going to try and stop by, but they ended up not making it down because they got in a wreck because of the bad weather and my dad had to go pick them up. Thank goodness they are both ok, the car just got messed up.


What's a party without Dr Pepper?!

Our delicious apples!!

Hee Haw Farms take 2

I was able to go with Brayden's kindergarten class on their fieldtrip today.(I thought I was going to have to say no I couldn't go because of getting Adi to and from school and someone watching Jace, but of course Julianne was there to help me out even tho she had a million other things to do.) Originally when they asked if I could go they were going to Thanksgiving Point's pumpkin patch, but then a note came home a few days later saying it would be Hee Haw's which I already went on a fieldtrip there with Adi, but oh well. It was fun when I went with Adi and I had thought Brayden sure would like this, so I was glad he got to go too and Adi told him about everything there would be for him to do so it was kind of cute. We always take the kids to a pumpkin patch and let them pick out their Halloween pumpkin, but since we had our own pumpkin patch this year we really didn't need to go and so it worked out nicely that they each got to go with their school class. I was in charge of 4 kids from Brayden's class, Brayden, his friend Carson, and 2 little girls. They were easy to watch none of them ran off and we got to do all the fun things at the farm. We went in the first phase of the maze and the kids went down the 30ft slide they have in there. They loved it, it was really cool!! We went on the hayride around the pumpkin patch, they drove the pedal karts, looked at the animals, and huge pig, Leroy, then they got to go into the pumpkin patch and each pick out a pumpkin. (Warning!! I'm going to brag for a minute about my son!)I also got to chat with Brayden's teacher on the bus on the way there and she told me what a great student Brayden is and how he is doing so good. She told me about a project they did where they had to cut out things from a magazine that started with the same letter as their name. She said alot of the kids struggled with it, but it took Brayden about 5 minutes and he was done and wanted to know what was next. She said he is always the first one done and is doing very well. I figured he was doing ok since I hadn't heard he wasn't, but it is always nice to hear it straight from the teacher, BJ and I are very proud of him!!
(I forgot my camera, so these are taken with my phone, but I figured it was better than nothing)
My 4 kids with Leroy(can't really see the pig tho)

Brayden & Carson

Brayden's getting tall!

I had a really cool picture of Brayden going down the 30 ft slide, but it won't let me upload it to blogger, I will keep trying!!

Crappy, crappy day

Yesterday was one of those days that just couldn't end fast enough. I was in one of those moods where nothing goes right and my take on everything was negative.The kids didn't have school yesterday because it was some teacher prep day or something. They had been out since last Thursday for Fall Break, so they were getting antsy and so was I. Brayden even told me that morning that he was "missing school", so was I!! Anyways we had to take our van into the shop that morning because the transmission was leaking.(We found out Friday that it needed 3 things fixed $700 worth of repairs, not horrible, but not great either)Anyways, so we dropped it off first thing in the morning, so I was carless all day. For some reason that annoys me when I don't have my car, I am always afraid of something happening and me being stranded with no car. BJ had the day off and had gone fishing in the morning and was out playing t-ball with the kids and their friends in the afternoon when he got back. He put the pirate boat a few feet away from the T so that when someone was batting they had to stay BEHIND the pirate boat, well sure enough someone didn't listen and WHACK, go hit with the bat and split the eye open. Poor guy went down, luckily BJ was close by. It wasn't one of my kids, but I wish it had been. When it happens at your house you feel so bad and responsible. Anyways Brayden's poor little friend ended up having to have 5 stitches, so sad! Then we go to pick up the van and I am driving it home and it is doing this weird lurching thing that I can't even describe, but it wasn't doing it before we took it in. I thought maybe it was just a one time thing so I wasn't too worried. I was on my way over to Target to return something and it did it like 3 more times, so I turned around and came home and took BJ's car. I get to Target and realize the thing I was returning was in the back of the van!!! Are you kidding me!!! I was just about to break down, not that it was of most importance to return this item, but it was just my luck for the day! So I bought some new throw pillows for my couch and came back home. BJ wasn't having any of my "poor me" and knows how to make me happy. Thanks honey for making me realize life isn't that bad ,I love you tons!!(sorry no pics of the crappy crappy day, I didn't want to have visuals to remember it by)

Brayden

Brayden brought home a paperdoll last week and the instructions said to dress up the doll to look like your child will look on halloween. Brayden is going to be a sabertooht tiger(thanks to Julianne for making that happen!)We had already bought the material for his costume so we took some scraps and cut them out to fit the doll and since I didn't have any tooth picks for the teeth we used a spaghetti noodle instead. Brayden was very proud of his little sabertooth tiger and is so excited to be one on Halloween!

Jace

Last week Jacey wasn't feeling too good. I figured it was just teeth, so I wasn't too concerned. His temperature did however get a little high to be just teeth, but this picture was taken before I knew it was that high. Poor guy!! I put him up to the table to have a little snack with Adisyn, and I was in the kitchen cleaning and I hear Adi just laughing so I ask what is so funny. She said "look at Jacey he is making funny faces at me". I turn around and look and the poor kid is barely holding his head up and his eyes open. It was so sad!!

Since all the kids have their backpacks Jace wanted one too, so Adi helped him get one and get it on, he was very proud of himself!

** Sorry about Adi and no clothes. I couldn't get her to keep her robe or pj's on and she would NOT get out of the picture either! Sorry!!

Hee Haw Farms

( All the kids in her preschool have matching shirts that they are suppose to wear on fieldtrips, kind of a good idea, easier to keep track of)
Today was Adi's preschool's first fieldtrip. We went to Hee Haw farms in Pleasant Grove. It was a beautiful day and the weather couldn't have been better. I had my great neighbor watch Jace so I didn't have to worry about chasing him around and keeping track of Adi at the same time. Now if I would have known that Adi wanted nothing(and I mean nothing) to do with me I would have just taken Jace with me. Thankfully Adi warmed up to the idea of me being there toward the end and we had a fun time. Each student had to have a parent go so she really had no choice, I had to be there, but it was fun to see her interact with the kids in her class and be able to talk to her teacher about how she is in class. I am glad she isn't clingy and wanting me to be with her every second, but it would have been nice to be acknowledged. I thought they didn't start that whole thing till they were teenagers. Oh well guess we started early!!

This is Adi and her friend Easton and Isabelle. She LOVES Easton. Her teacher told me the really like each other and always want to sit by each other in school. She would NOT leave his side during the fieldtrip. Everytime I would say Adi lets go she would say "NO, I'm going with Easton" Ok, sorry!! And a few times I would look over at her and she would have her head on his shoulder. Wish I had my camera ready for that one!

Adi going through the mini maze. We could have gone through the big corn maze where they have a 30 ft slide in the middle, but I was afraid it would have taken me too long and I had to be back by the time Brayden got home from school.

Adi and Leroy, the 1200lb pig!! I am not kidding this thing was huge I had never seen a pig that big... EVER!!

Fancy & Fantastic Day

Last week in kindergarten they had a Fancy & Fantastic Day. All the kindergarten classes had to dress up. For girls they suggested a princess, or queen, and for the boys they said a superhero. Brayden has never really been into superheros, so for us this was kind of a hard thing to find a costume for. So I called my mom and had her dig out old Halloween costumes to see what she still had left that could work. I ended up with some bat ears, a vampire cape, and a superman cape. Not much to work with, so Brayden decided on superman. I thought I would just run to Target and grab a superman shirt and call it good. However, I could not find a superman shirt. Spiderman I found a ton, but no superman. Finally I found one, but as you can see from the pictures not really a traditional one, but this is all I could find in his size. So we were kind of lame. Brayden overheard me saying that on the phone before he left for school and he said "mom, please don't say I look lame cuz I think I look pretty good." And he was right he did look pretty good! (Brayden doesn't give me much detail on what he does in school, so for what they did during Fancy & Fantastic Day I am not really sure, besides they went on a parade through other classrooms in the school.)