Thief!

Our Christmas garland for the birds was stolen! I wonder who did it? At least there was still stuff left for the birds!

Christmas Day!

We are lucky, our kids don't get up to early on Christmas. We started the day about 7:30. We saw what santa brought. It was hard for all of us after that because in years past we would then go to have breakfast with Pat. We really miss him. Later we opened presents. A highlight was the gifts the kids made each other! They really did a great job this year! Jessi made Brecken a soccer bag out of duct tape and a heat sack, Tyson made Jessi a belt out of pop can tabs, Justin made Tyson a clock out of a cymbal, Shonee made Justin a Wrestling bag and Brecken made Shonee a wrap around skirt! They all did great with their poems also. The birds liked their present also. We were glad when Grandma and Grandpa came over. Later we went for our family party at grandma and grandpa's. We got to talk to the Pontes and the Ashes through Skype. Thank you Ashes for the game! We love it! Thank you everyone for the great gifts and love!

Christmas Eve

We enjoyed our traditional Christmas Eve with Grandma and Grandpa Skinner. We had all the foods we love! Jackie, Darrick and Olivia and Robyn, Dave and Talan were there too! We read stories, read the nativity and opened pajamas!

Christmas for the birds

We had fun stringing garlands for the birds. We strung raisins, Cheerios, rose hips and popcorn. Then we painted a Christmas tree with peanut butter and sprinkled bird seed over it. We put it on our deck so we can enjoy watching the birds.

Senior Ball

Jessi went to the Senior Ball with her friend Adam Hanover. She made her dress and she looked beautiful! They also made the boutonniere and corsage
.....out of duct tape!

Gingerbread Houses

My friends Paul and Lisa and their family made gingerbread houses and put them on their blog. It got me excited and we did some for family home evening. It was a lot of fun. Just like Lisa I thought gingerbread was to much work so we used grahm crackers.

We have a wrestler in the family

Justin has started wrestling. He loves it. He really takes it seriously! He has been exercising a lot and watching what he eats. He has lost 9lbs! His first tournament he won 3rd place. Yea Justin!

Christmas Tree Hunting

We love our anual traditon of going to Bear Lake with our friends The Alexandars to cut down our Christmas tree. It snowed this year and was a lot of fun!

The Great Silver Grab!

My dad has a tradtion called the Great Silver Grab. He keeps a can full of coins. Once a year, before Christmas, he lets everyone put their had in and with one grab pull out all the coins they can. Then he lets them keep the money. It can get pretty wild! There is usually money all over the place. The kids love this and use the money for Christmas gifts.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a great Thanksgiving! We enjoyed spending it with Mom and Dad Skinner, Lezlie, Nate, Laila and Ayva, Jackie, Darrick and Olivia, Robyn Dave and Talan, and Chris Flavel. It was Lezlie's birthday also! Happy Birthday Lezlie!

What kind of a hair cut is this?

Todd gave Brecken a haircut. Brecken didn't like it when he looked in the mirror! Do you blame him?

Congratulations Casey and Elise!

We enjoyed Casey and Elise's wedding and reception. The sealing was wonderful and the reception was beautiful. It was good to see the Oswald's and Loa! It is always great to be with family!

Idaho Falls Temple

We got to go to Casey and Elise's wedding today! We left early and had some extra time so we drove around the falls and the temple.

More on the music

I got a lot of advise but I am still undecided, so I am posting again. Please read the comments on the last post and see if your views have changed or are still the same. Here is a follow up from me ... The radio edits the swear words but that is about it. The school plays everything (radio edit) I know you can't protect the youth. That is really not my intent. We don't police them. I have had to tell my chaparones not tell me if they are smoking or drinking unless it comes in the building or they are being destructinve to the grounds. (Insidently, we have never had drinking. I did have a chaparone come and get me becasue she was sure some boys had been smoking. She was positive because they all came in chewing gum and you know what that means!.... I thought it meant they didn't want to have bad breath for the girls, but hey what do I know) I also tell them that it isn't church and we don't do the book of mormon apart thing. I don't care if they are close. Now vulgar dancing is another thing. (I also had to describe that to a chaperon....I think she was quite embarrassed) but we have never had a problem with that either. You would be totally surprised about how they dance. It is awesome to watch. But back to the subject. At this age they need to decide for themselves where they stand. They can have, hear, or do anything they want to. I just don't want to have problems with parents. That being said, who chooses what is right? Can one make the choice for all? For instance, at our last dance we used a strobe light. Everyone loved it. But one girl came up and said that her friend could have seizures so we had to turn it off. So does everyone miss out because she might have a seizure or should she have to leave? See the connection. That is why I am so undecided about this. More help please. By the way monica we have all the songs as well. Along with some others I would really be embarrassed to tell you. You know things weren't so different when we were that age. Remember Pour Some Sugar on Me, Big Love (we all know what the ooh ahh means), Excitable etc. etc. Help!

Music Approval ...... Some help please?

With the dances we do for MCYC comes the responsibility of approving the music. I am having a hard time deciding where to draw the line. For instance, who's values should have the last word. When we used the church it was cut and dry...church standards. Now we are in the new school. Should things change? We are not church sponsored. We are city sponsored. So should I force my values on the rest? If it is OK for radio should we play it? What if they play it at the school dances, is that OK then? What if it is regularly played in my own home? If we don't play new music will our dances be considered lame? Wouldn't it be better to have a safe place for kids to be, then to have them do something else, because our dances are lame? Is it "safe" if we play all the music we want? See my dilemma? Most all of the songs the kids hear now are about sex. Some are worse then others. And yet some of the really bad ones are cryptic and hard to know what they are really about. That is unless the urban dictionary is your best friend. Let me tell you, sometimes ignorance is much better! So what should I allow. Absolutely nothing? Just a little bit of garbage? A lot of garbage? Give me your opinion? Some of the songs in question are: "Shake it" by Metro Station, "Soulja Boy" by Soulja Boy (if you don't know what this is about, don't look it up, you don't want to know), Hot and Cold by Katie Perry (the only thing in here is the "B" word) and Low by Flo-rida. There are many others, these are just the ones I could think of at 10:30 at night. So if it was you, what would you do?

One more dance under our belts

Saturday we had another MCYC dance. It took us four hours to set up .... again. At one point I yelled at one of the kids and told him if he picked up that ball again I was going to stab it with a knife. Later I told another that if he made that noise with the megaphone again I would shove it down his throat! What a good role model for today's youth, right! Well we finally got set up right in time for dance instruction. We go through that just fine. We were having trouble with the volume on our amp but we thought maybe it was just the high ceilings in the gym. Well about 3 songs into the dance the music started sounding pretty bad. By 5 songs we had nothing but bass. We were losing kids at that point. We call for another amp and we got our dance going again. In the end we had about 130 kids. I don't know how many left. But all in all it was a fun dance. We had a cha cha and swing competition. Jessi and David won the cha cha contest. No I wasn't the judge! We also played a couple of hip hop songs on a trial basis. Apparently only about 8 kids knew how do dance to it because the rest did the boot scoot boogie! The Boot Scoot Boogie to "Church". Ok even I was disgusted! Even I am not that out of touch!

Rise Against Concert

Jessi went to the Rise Against Concert with Zach on tuesday night. Before they left I gave all my motherly advise. Why why why is it so hard to take? I told them not to get in the middle of the croud yada yada yada. Well they didn't listen. They got on the second row. Jessi said she had her face smashed in the back of the person in front of her all night! She kept getting hit and smashed. It brings back the memory of the Def Leppard concert of 1988 I went to. She is now sore and bruised all over! Tall people just don't understand!

Jumping to conclusions

As you know Todd and I were gone over the weekend. Thursday Mandy stayed with everybody and Friday Shonee, B, and Justin went to Robyn and Dave's. Jessi and Ty stayed home. Sunday we were told that there was a sleep over at our house on Friday night. I started to get mad. But then we were also told that one of Jessi's guy friends spent the night! I felt like a Tea pot building steam! We had Jessi and this friend come over to talk to them. At this point my tea pot was exploding. Talk isn't quite the right word. I was so mad I couldn't controll myself. I told him he had one chance and once chance only to tell me the truth. Come to find out our information was wrong. There was a sleep over but not with him! :) I feel bad for giving him a heart attack. But I guess a healthy amount of fear is good. Right?

80's .... Lets party!

Our friend Brett had an over the hill party yesterday. It was an 80's party! It is surprising how fast everything comes back! For some reason we didn't get a picture of the Birthday boy. We will try to get one and put it on the blog.

Beaver Creek Get Away!

We enjoyed a weekend get away to Beaver Creek Lodge. This is our annual trip with our long time friends. We talked and laughed and even cried. It was a great time. Thanks everyone!