Brynna and the 5 Day Old Ham & Cheese Sandwich

Once upon a time there was a little brown-eyed girl named Brynna. Brynna liked to eat school lunch, but sometimes she liked to take lunch from home. One day her daddy packed her a homemade lunch. A ham & cheese sandwich with Miracle whip, just the way that Brynna liked it. He also included pretzels and a fruit snack.

This day when Brynna got to school she decided to SAVE her homemade lunch and eat school lunch instead. Brynna completely forgot about the homemade lunch until the next week at school. Brynna remembered the home lunch and thought it would be yummy. She also thought her mom would be soooo proud of her for eating all her lunch, so Brynna gobbled it all up!

When Brynna's mom picked her up from school Brynna was eating pretzels. Her mom said, "Where did you get the pretzels?" To which Brynna replied, "From my lunch box." Then Brynna happily announced, "I ate ALL of my sandwich!" Her mom said, "Please tell me it was peanut butter and honey." Brynna smiled and said, "Nope, ham and cheese." Brynna's mom was not as proud of her as Brynna had hoped she would be. Instead her mother said, "Oh, no, you are going to be sick." But Brynna just smiled and ran off playing and eating snacks all afternoon.

The very next morning Brynna's mom was right. Brynna was sick! Her stomach hurt all night long and then the throwing up began. Brynna threw up and slept, threw up, and slept, and then threw up and slept some more. Poor Brynna! After being sick all day, Brynna was better! The next day Brynna felt great! She went to a school field trip to the Scera Theater to see A Year with Frog and Toad. And Brynna never ate a 5 day old ham & cheese sandwich again. The End


The moral of the story is...

For Brynna - Never SAVE your lunch!

For Mom - Teach your children about food poisoning before they learn it the hard way.

Written by Angie with help from Brynna.

The Snyder Family Annual Ice Skating Party

After going to the Draper Temple we went over to Astro Burger for the Snyder Family's annual ice skating party. We ate dinner and then headed off for ice skating. I am so glad we have this so I at least take my kids ice skating once a year.



I got to skate this year since Don was crying about some injury of his. Knee, ankle, old age, who knows!



Brynna really enjoyed it. She was planning on wearing a dress with tights because, "That is what the professionals wear!" Amazingly we talked her out of it.



Josh also had fun.


Maleah was a little bit moodier. Now she is happy....

And now she's not. I'm not sure this picture really captures the full extent of her sulking, but she eventually got through it. The reason for the sadness, her perfectionistic tendencies. She wasn't able to ice skate as well as she wanted to so she was frustrated.


Poor Jonah. He just got to watch. Maybe next year!

Draper Temple Open House

We had the wonderful opportunity of attending the Draper Temple Open House with my sister and her family. It was such an enjoyable experience. Big thanks to Grammie for watching Jonah so Don and I could enjoy ourselves. We traveled without fighting and the kids were generally well-behaved, except for one little fart while in the temple, but we will leave that offender nameless. Joshua said his favorite thing was the huge chandelier, Maleah's was the Celestial room including the chandelier and Brynna just grinned really big and said, "EVERYTHING!" She especially liked all the beautiful artwork. We are so thankful that we have temples so close and we have the opportunity to be an eternal family.


Special thanks to Brynna for the little head tilt that let us see Christ in our picture.

Christmas

OK, so the rule is you have to blog Christmas pretty quickly because after a couple of weeks pass you have no desire to blog it at all. I am shocked that I feel that way because we really had a great Christmas, but I have been really tempted to skip it, but since I do want a record of all the fun I guess I better just get it done.

The kids woke up about 11:30 all ready for Christmas, unfortunately I was just going to bed so it was a long night. We did manage to hold them off until 5:00a.m. I was just trying to talk them into waiting a little longer when they got Jonah up, after that it was a done deal.

Brynna with her dress-up trunk from Grammie. Look at that pure Christmas joy on her face!


Since Jonah had some practice 5 days before he was much better at opening presents, but he did think every present would be a train.


So I was a push-over mom this year. Maleah told me she wouldn't have a Merry Christmas unless she got a puppy. I laughed my head off at her and once again explained how we are not quite ready for that and why you don't want a a puppy in the winter, blah, blah,blah. Shortly after that when I couldn't figure out what to get the girls I made the small mistake of going to see a really well-priced puppy. Once I had him in my arms I was sold. It was all over, only I had to wait ten days and I just about couldn't stand it.
So on Christmas Eve Don went and picked him up. We have some fantastic across the street neighbors, the Gerbers who willingly took him for the night. I can not thank them enough. It was so nice of them to take on the burden of our puppy. Thanks goodness for great friends!
After all the ipods, snowboards, barbies, and trains had been opened I snuck across the street and got the puppy.

This is the look on Maleah's face when she saw what I had.


Then the kids just lined up in order. Josh was first to get a hold of him. Josh loves him. He is so good with him and helps take care of him a lot!


This is Maleah's face once she got a hold of the puppy.


Brynna...well Brynna likes the puppy, but right after this picture she promptly dropped him.
She has a lot to learn.


And here is Jonah trying to hold him. I think that pretty much says it all.


And here is why we have the puppy, I just couldn't resist he is so sweet and snuggly. Unfortunately he also pees, poops, chews on things, and barks. Lucky for him he is cute!


This is Koda. He is a Sheltie and was born October 26th. I didn't think we were ready for a puppy, but so far so good. He is a lot of work, but a lot of fun, just like most good things in life!


As a final note, it only took Maleah two days to hate the puppy. We were at the mall and had to get home to let the puppy out. She was so mad at the inconvience that she said she hated him. Wow that was quick! Fortunately we didn't get him just for her. She did take it back shortly after that. The kids had no idea what we were getting into when we got him, thank goodness Don and I did.

Jonah's 2nd Birthday

Five days before Christmas we get to celebrate Jonah's birthday. It was pretty low key. He is still unsure about the whole thing. It took a lot of coaxing to get him to open any presents and most of the presents were opened by the other kids.


Jonah was very excited about his Thomas cake.

Presents, cake and ice cream is all you need for a fun 2 year old birthday. He got Thomas trains and some Tonka trucks. He also got a cute tent (thanks, Grammie & Grandfather) that the other kids sure had fun with. It was a sanity saver for me right before Christmas, but still a little sad when the kids would lock him out of the room because he was messing up the tent. Poor youngest child :(

He is growing up fast. He is talking more and more and has more ideas about what he wants. He is such a blessing for our family! We love our Jonah Bear!

Some December Fun

Each December we sit down and make a list of all the fun things we want to do that month together as a family.

We always start with the decorating. We go get our tree the first Saturday in December and then the festivities begin.

Here is Brynna with the Christmas countdown. This year they got a piece of candy each day from the Countdown to Christmas elf. Brynna was very excited, but also a bit confused when the elf would miss a day or come at different times in the day. I told her he must be a new elf, still in training :)

We made gingerbread houses for FHE with friends and afterwards all piled in one car to see the Festival of Lights at the Spanish Fork Golf Course.

Here are the houses.

Joshua and Brynna proudly posing with their works of art.

Here is Jonah's reaction to the first little snowfall. That face expresses it correctly. He was stunned. It was difficult to get a picture because he was too busy checking it out and yelling, Oh!

This year for the first time ever in our lives we put up Christmas lights. I was stunned when Don told me he ordered some lights, but it was fun to have them.

And yes I say "We" hung the lights because I cheered him on and even held the ladder when he was at the very highest point of the house. I didn't know what I would do to help him if he started to fall, but I guess I can call 911, fortunately he did a wonderful job without any mishaps.

Fun things we did that I didn't get any pictures of include baking Christmas bread for friends and neighbors, this year I baked 24 loaves. Sorry if you missed yours, the family rule is you must be home to receive it, if not, better luck next year. We celebrated Jonah's 2nd birthday, had a candlelight dinner and Christmas lesson, visited Santa with all the Snyder cousins, and various other parties. It was a fun December. The only thing on the list we didn't get to were the lights at Temple Square (the weather didn't cooperate with that plan very well) maybe next year.

Thanksgiving

I am playing catch-up. I know it is after Christmas and I am just posting Thanksgiving, but sometimes life happens and blogging just doesn't.

Here is our lovely chef with some of the delicious dishes. We ate at my mom's house where she did most of the cooking.


Cute baby Nico (Nate's son) and Jonah.


Yes, I took a picture of my Thanksgiving feast. I mostly wanted to see my cute place card made by Brynna. She made one for almost everyone. Mine had hearts around my name. I was a little concerned when I saw Maleah's place card. Brynna put "It is all about me!" multiple times on Maleah's. I was thinking that we had some serious sibling issues that we might need to talk about until I asked Brynna why she put that on Maleah's. Brynna said, "That is what it says on her jacket." Sure enough Maleah has a sweatshirt that says that on it. (It was not a purchase of mine, but given to her by a friend) It is always interesting what you learn just by asking your kids, instead of jumping to conclusions. I've learned my lesson...again.


There she is. She took the job of making place cards very seriously and she was so proud.


Josh, Jonah and Garrett ready to eat.

Dan and Chris got put at the kid table, just Big kids.

It was a great day and since this year it was my birthday also I didn't have to cook or do dishes and my mom watched the kids so that we could go and see a movie after dinner. Plus I got lots of yummy pie, (thanks Heathe) which is better than birthday cake any day!