Emma sings! - take 2

After playing, it was back to choir for Emma!

Emma plays!

Emma sang in the choir, then dashed to her seat in the band to play a tune. And when that was done, she would dash back to the choir. Quite a musical workout!

Emma sings! - take 1

As noted in the photos below, Emma had quite an active Christmas concert at school, with both singing and playing her euphonium, so I thought I'd share a few samples for you.

Max is three!

We've fallen behind on videos, just like we fell behind on photos, which means we're only now posting this video from Max's birthday. But we thought you'd like to hear him talk about how old he is now! Hard to believe, isn't it?

Weird hair days

One thing I've learned about our girls: they love to have Stacey try different hairstyles out on them. As you can see from the results of some recent experiments, that styling can result in some interesting looks the next day.

Musical munchkins

Our little ones showed off their musical talents before Christmas. Em participated in concerts for both band and choir, including one concert in which she had to run back and forth between the two. She loves playing the euphonium and singing.

All of the girls also took part in a Christmas piano recital, playing both solos and duets. They're getting quite good!

Jumpin' January

We've jumped right into the New Year, none of us more than Max, who has developed a new game involving him leaping off the arm of the downstairs couch onto Mommy. As you can see, he loves it!

Greg and I have been joking that we're moving into that ultra out-of-it phase where our kids get New Year's Eve invitations and we don't! Emma and Grace had a sleepover party that night at their friends, the Gracias, so the rest of us went to ZooLights at the Hogle Zoo (along with Kate's friend, Izzy) and then Kate and Max had a sleepover of their own in the living room, watching "Kung Fu Panda." Ska-DOOSH!


The kids have found plenty of ways to have fun at home, too, as in this pic where Em and Max make use of the overturned couch in new and creative ways while Greg and I give the living room a good post-holidays cleaning.

We love how much our kids seem to like each other. We know it's not just an automatic thing, and we feel very blessed because of it. Despite what Greg and I call Em's and Kate's "personality conflict," they all love playing together and just being together, so much so that the other day when I had all of them with me in the store, a woman stopped me and said, "Your kids are so good! They're having such a good time together and I love seeing siblings who like each other so much!" I guess I could have told her that they don't ALWAYS like each other that much, but instead I took the emotionally healthy route, said thank you and savored the moment.

They spent more than two hours this past Sunday playing together in Emma's room.

Happy MYTHday to Emma!

We finally got around to having a birthday party to celebrate Emma turning 11. She chose a "Mythbusters" theme, and she and I had a great time figuring out a color scheme (yellow, black and silvery-gray, reminiscent of both caution tape and duct tape — plus yellow's her favorite), food (make-your-own skewers with ham, turkey, cheese and veggies for one and grapes, oranges, pineapple, apples and cherries for another, plus mini bagels, plus lots of dip/spreads for everything, plus chips and dip and drinks) and activities. We started things off with a "Mythbusters" quiz show where three teams of kids had to guess whether real myths from the show turned out to be Confirmed, Plausible or Busted. The kids chose team names for themselves, so our groups were Team Nerds, Team Uuuuhh... (Caution) and Team Waffle.

I read them the questions and they conferred among themselves before guessing, and Gracie kept track of points (she felt a little too shy to participate on a team at this point).


We had other activities, as well. In homage to the "Chicken Gun" episode, we found a plastic "Chicken Chucker" gun of our own that shoots tiny rubber chickens, and the kids competed to see who could shoot the chicken the furthest. We also had a pirate myth (of course!) where they wore an eyepatch to see if it helped them read a sign in the dark (the sign read, "I reject your reality and substitute my own," one of Em's favorite quotes from the show!).


We divided into two groups, and one tried to see how many times they could fold a piece of letter-sized paper (the best anyone did was 7, tying the Mythbusters!) while the other tried to construct a usable rope from toilet paper to test if it's plausible that prisoners could escape from jail with toilet-paper ropes (it is: all of our ropes held at least 10 pounds). Then we came back together for food, present-opening, in which Emma scored big-time, and cake (with sparklers instead of candles for that explosive "Mythbusters" touch), plus the grand finale: exploding five bottles of Diet Coke using Mentos (we did this outside, of course!). It was quite a day, and the 23 kids in our house (yes, you read that right) had a great time!

Hot new looks

A few days after Christmas, Em and I discovered a new use for the chopsticks she got for Christmas from her friend, Alex. Lookin' pretty good considering no brush was used!



A few days after that, we got a package from Grammy and Ba Johnson with new finery for the kiddies. Here they all are modeling it, with Max sporting a kung fu-Cars accent,



Emma being goofy, as usual (in a few years that wave'll be "Live Long and Prosper"),



Gracie looking disturbingly grown up (she loves this top for three reasons: 1) it has pockets, 2) it has sparkly jewels on the front, and 3) despite the jewels, it's soft!),



Kate showing off her pretty dress AND the new CTR ring she got in church that day (that's a sign for LDS kids that they've moved into the bigger kids' classes, though not the BIGGEST),



and all of them looking darling, if a bit silly as well!

Our Merry Christmas

Christmas this year was much more low-key than in years past. For one thing, we weren't at anyone's house, and we didn't have any company! This turned out to be a good thing, since Greg had pneumonia the entire Christmas-to-New-Year's period.

But as you'll see from the pics, we had our share of merriment, mainly on the part of the kids, who always make it a merry day for us. They loved their own presents and loved one another's presents almost as much. We laughed, because they liked the teeny-tiny games of checkers, chess and snakes and ladders that they got in their stockings almost as much as their "big" gifts. Emma got a rock tumbler and quite a few pirate-y things, including some hilarious pirate panties and washcloths from Aunt Jen (the washcloths have useful tips on them like "A clean booty is a happy booty," "No one likes a smelly pirate," and "Live clean. Fight dirty!").




Grace got such a load of Tinkerbell stuff that I can't describe it all, but here's just a sampling: Tink sheets, Tink pajamas (two pairs), Tink shirts (two), a Tink art set, the Tink movie, Tink purses (two), Tink books, Tink coloring books, Tink jewelry ... the list goes on.



Kate got a lot of princess stuff: slippers, lap desk, movie, tea set, etc. She also got lots of cute clothes, something she really needed. The whole family seemed to tune into this: besides Santa, Grammy, Aunt Jen, Aunt Cass and Aunt Lisa all pitched in to stock up Kate's wardrobe.





Shockingly, Max got a lot of car-related items, including the movie "Cars" from Santa, a Doc Hudson car from Mommy and Daddy, a "Cars" car hauler from Aunt Lisa, "Cars" socks and gloves from Grandma and Grandpa Kratz and a "Cars" cup and robe from Aunt Jen and Uncle Brad. At one point he was watching the movie while using/playing with nearly all the others at the same time.

The kids also got a lot of shared gifts: a "marbleworks" course (you build a sort of roller coaster for marbles in lots of configurations), tons of art supplies and several games. They've had a great time since then playing with everything and watching all their movies. Daddy's favorite part of the day was Christmas dinner; we did lots of his favorites: baked ham, cheesy potatoes (or "funeral potatoes," as we call 'em here in Deseret), crusty bread, fruit and broccoli, plus pumpkin pie and carrot cake for dessert. Pretty yummy!

Johnson Family Christmas party

The Orson Johnson family Christmas party is a big part of our Christmas every year here in Utah. This year, my cousin, Nicki, and I were in charge (representing our dads' extended families). The past few years, we've had the party as a brunch, and that's what we did this year, as well. We had it in the Clover Town Hall, which used to be a little LDS church and site of the Gold and Green balls I attended with my gram and gramp Johnson as a little kid. I remember falling asleep under the chairs while the grown-ups danced. But now, the place belongs to the town and has been nicely refurbished, so it's a great spot for our party. We did all our traditional Johnson family things: the nativity (see first picture and below, featuring the whole scene, Gram and Gramp reading the Christmas story from the Bible, a shepherd and a familiar "sheep," three possibly wise and definitely goofy "men" and a whole troop of beautiful little angels seeing Baby Jesus),in which the kids wear improvised costumes we all bring and then put together in about 10 minutes; lots of food and conversation; and, of course, the white elephant gift exchange, which makes us all laugh — well, almost everybody! A few of the kids were a little jealous of the gift Kate picked, a brand-new walking robot with big guns and everything! Not exactly in the grubby, find-it-and-bring-it spirit of the White Elephant, but fun anyway! Gram and Gramp scored a jar of truffles and some old episodes of "Bonanza," so their entertainment needs are taken care of for a while ;-)! And just as we were leaving, Emma found a huge icicle "sword" on the side of the building — she was totally thrilled.