Christmas Fun

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Our great neighbors hold an annual Caroling party. We usually carol around the neighborhood and deliver treats.
This year we went down to a different area of our ward as our daughters had all been assigned an older person in the ward that may need some extra "love" this Christmas.

The night was really magical. It was cold and nippy and a gentle snow was falling.



The houses we visited seemed really happy to see us. The kids were happy and enthusiastic. We were with people we love.



As we were walking up the street towards our cars, the power suddenly went out. It came back on fairly quickly, but for a minute we were all in the dark in the snow. It was magical. I can't even explain the feeling I had. It just felt like Christmas. We were full of love and good cheer.

When we got back to the Henderson's house for dinner, the power was still out in our neighborhood. They were brave as they still wanted everyone to stay. Can you imagine feeding soup to kids in the dark? What an adventure!




It was awesome. We lit candles and ran home for flashlights. We ate soup and talked by candlelight. When the lights came on later, everyone let out a disappointed "OHHHHH!!!!" We ended up turning most of the lights back off again.

It was a night to remember!!!

The secret to gingerbread success...... glue guns.

Light Parade

I love our community and all the traditions.
One of the fun ones is the Richfield Light Parade.
This year was cold and snowy.... it kept the crowds away but it made the lights and the streets and the experience that much more magical.
This is the first real snow we've had this year... it made it so we couldn't go watch E1 swim in SLC, but it did make it feel like Christmas!

E1 had a little "run in" with our local law enforcement the other day. She was pretty shook up by the whole thing. It of course happened right after school on the street all the neighborhood kids walk home on - so she was pretty mortified. In fact I first found out because E3 and N came running into my office bawling that E1 was pulled over by a cop by Kunzlers house.

In MY defense... I didn't know that her riding her four wheeler to the swimming pool was against the law. Kids here do it all the time. Darren said he knew it was illegal so he's the one in trouble. She did get kudo's for wearing a helmet. ANYWHO.... she is no longer riding an atv to swim practice. Her swim coach is really happy. Coach Crimin's husband is Doctor Crimin and their kids aren't even allowed ON a four wheeler. So there you have it. But to make E1 feel better, I changed the violation on her ticket. :)

It's a week post thanksgiving.... and I'm still dreaming of mom's yummy Cherry pie.
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
How many more days until next Thanksgiving?

Thank you mom for making it. Thank you Ashlee and Amber and E1 for picking the cherries. Thank you to Neighbor for not cutting down his tart cherry tree even though his wife hates it.....

Christmas Tree Lane

We enjoyed Christmas Tree Lane this year. We watched E1 perform with her studio, then stayed to watch another local studio, the gymnasts, and the singing group, "One Voice". It was a fun night. Saw lots of friends there. We enjoyed the beautiful trees all decorated for the season. Best of all was E1 and what a great dancer she is turning out to be. Check out her swimmer arms in the first picture....

CLICK ON PHOTOS TO ENLARGE:

Christmas Tree

Oh Tannenbaum oh tannenbaum.... how lovely are your branches.
We decorated trees for family home evening and gave the kids their new ornaments for the year. Grandma and Granda T gave them cute eskimo and moose ornaments from their cruise to Alaska. E1 received a vintage Steam Boat Willie ornament (thanks e-bay). E2 received a Hallmark Winnie the Pooh and Piglet ornament that says sweet things, E3received a Hallmark Princess Aurora ornament, and N a Hallmark Buzz Light Year ornament that also says phrases. These were to commemerate our Disney trip this year. I gave Darren a Statler and Waldorf ornament from Hallmark that says funny things. We always joke that we are a lot like those two muppet characters (they are the old guys in the theatre box that make fun of everyone). Not a flattering thing to admit about yourself, I guess. I have a little santa ornament and then last week found an alligator ornament to commerate our anniversary trip and the road kill alligator we saw.
All the trees are now decorated. YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CHRISTMAS IS HERE!

To me, the Christmas season officially begins the day after Thanksgiving when Santa drives down Main Street on the fire truck. What a great way to start the holidays!!!

Thanksgiving

Had a great Thanksgiving day. Had turkey and all the trimmings (thanks mom). I tried yet again to make my Aunt Genie's famous jello and failed once again. The kids played nintendo and games with Aunt Kellee and Frank. We tied a BYU flannel quilt. We ate lots of pie. N kept trying to rough up Frank.... he may never come back! But Frank charmed everyone with his magic yarn trick. He was definetly a hit with the kids. It was probably the best Thanksgiving day I've ever had.

Christmas Tree Cut

Thanksgiving morning we headed up the mountain to find some Christmas Trees. It was fun as Grandpa T and Aunt Kellee and friend Frank came, too. We went up by Fish Lake. There was snow on the ground but the air felt really nice and comfortable. We tromped all over finding four trees. Frank is a Miami boy, so I am guessing this is the first Christmas Tree he has cut down. The kids made snow angels, had a snowball fight, and attempted to sled down the rocky, barely covered slopes. The kids were eating puffs of snow right off the trees. It was a great morning!

E1 the speedy fish

E1 broke the school record yet again and swam the 100 breast at 1:16.++ (I can't remember the hundreths part). We have been to swim meets in Price and Orem, and have hosted Salem Hills, Delta, and Viewmont. Our most recent meet was canceled as the pool is broken down. The swim team has not been able to swim for the past two weeks and E1 is getting a little nervous. They have been doing weights and aerobics to try and stay in shape. We have a huge invitational in SLC on Saturday. It is frustrating to not have the chance to show your best.
The swimmeet in Price was great as my favorite cousin Tosha brought her girls to the meet and then was a gracious host at her home afterwards. The kids had a fun time playing (at least until N roughed up Corinne.... sorry....). I was so happy to see Tosha and Justin. At our meet in Orem, David and Gaile came to watch E1 swim and then invited us to a delicious spontaneous dinner. We appreciate their hospitality. E1 was more excited and anxious to get to the Twilight movie than she was about her winning performance at the meet......

N is six!!!

Our baby boy is SIX. He celebrated with dinner at Pizza Hut and an Oreo icecream cake. He received some fun things especially some really cool Star Wars Galactic Heroes sets. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!

She does it again....

E1 had her second swim meet this week.
Our puny team only had 17 swimmers this meet.
We swam against Pleasant Grove who had 53 swimmers and Canyon View with their 37 swimmers.
Each swimmer can swim two individual events and two relays. Despite the large group of competitors E1 took first in the 100 Freestyle and first in the 100 breast-stroke. She broke her own school record again with a time of 1:19.12. What a girl!

Happy Halloween!

What a great Halloween! It was a fun week for our family.
On Wednesday we enjoyed watching N in his first Halloween parade at Ashman Elementary. He was pretty excited to be part of it all. I love this community and the great things planned for the kids.


On the same day our ward had a pre-Halloween party. I knew it was a bad idea to let the kids wear their costumes to it and boy was I right as N ended up dumping his entire chili-cheese potato down the front of his white mummy costume....!

After the ward party we were guests at the Crowther's house for their annual pumpkin carving extravaganza. The Crowthers are the only people I know who are crazy enough to have large groups of people over to carve pumpkins. They are awesome friends. They just spread out tarps and hand out knives and say go for it. It was a lot of fun. E2 did stab herself but at least she was not wearing her costume when she did it.....



Friday was Halloween. We had our yearly picture taken by Clark Knight and then the kids hit the streets in pursuit of candy. They hauled home quite the load. E1 went to a Halloween party. Darren had trick-or-treat supervision duties, while I got to stay home and pass out candy. This is one of my favorite parts about Halloween. The weather was so gorgeous this year. It really was a perfect day.

Below are some pics of the kids in their costumes. You can click on them to make them larger.

We had a girls night out tonight.
While Darren and N worked in the yard, we went to see High School Musical 3. Actually I tried to talk both of my boys into coming with us but for some odd reason they didn't want to come.
We really enjoyed the movie. I am a big fan of the franchise.
After the movie we went and bought the soundtrack from the movie. Also went to Maurices and found the cutest little black dress on clearance (yeah!!) for Emily to wear on our cruise next September.
Got to shop with my girls.
Had a great time.
Feeling very blessed to be a mom.

It is a great feeling as a parent to be humbled by your own child.
E1 has been training hard with the swim team since mid-September. They lift weights each morning at six for an hour and then swim for two hours after school.
She gets herself up each morning and has arranged her own ride to the school.
She rushes home at 7, eats, changes, and is back out the door to catch the bus to school at 7:20. She is home long enough after school to grab her bag and ride to the pool.
I am just so proud of her. It also hurts me. I can see how tired she is. She has sore muscles. It has been hard to juggle practice with her school work. She has lost weight (or maybe just toned up even more than she already was). Her skin is already just destroyed and we have had to start using special cremes to counteract the chemicals. She always has a clean chlorine smell to her. She has worked so hard. I just love this girl.


Her first meet was Tuesday. We swam against Juan Diego and they absolutely destroyed us. But I have to brag that E1 set a new Richfield High School speed record in the 100 yard breast stroke.
The record has been held since 2002 and E1broke it by two seconds.
In her first meet of her freshman year.
What a girl.

I know hard work does not always get rewarded in such a big way, but what a great thing for her to have happen. I would be proud of her even without records and ribbons. But it was such a glorious moment for my little baby dolphin who is now a Richfield Wildcat.

One of our fall family traditions is to visit Sterling Hansen's pumpkin patch in Elsinore. Mr. Hansen is just the nicest man - every year I get as much pleasure seeing the joy on his face as he runs his pumpkin patch as I do picking out a pumpkin. I hold him in the highest regard.
Our family visited last week during the UEA holiday. We rode the haywagon to the fields and then each picked out our perfect pumpkin. We also gathered indian corn, fun mini gourds, and some unique varieties of squash to make a great Thanksgiving centerpiece once Halloween is over. I also got a spaghetti squash and a huge banana squash (which reminds me ... it is still sitting in the garage and I need to take it to mom's house for her to bake and bag for me. I seem to be squash incompetent or honestly more like squash unmotivated).
We also rode the tractor train and the pentawhirl. All this for the bargain price of $15.00. The kisses from Mr Hansen's dog were free.

Last week was our Daddy - Daughter date for Achievement Days.
E2 asked Grandpa to come as her date while E3 asked Darren. We had a princess theme with a fancy dinner. Then we taught the dads and girls to waltz. They were really really good sports about the whole thing even though I'm sure they wished they were home watching the Utah game (hoping they would LOSE to Oregon.....)
ANYWAY
It was fun for me to see how cute Darren is with the girls. Grandpa showed up the 20 other dads by giving E2 and E3 wrist corsages to wear. They really felt like princesses.




















It was fun for me because I kind of got to go on a daddy daughter date with MY dad, too :)!! Found this picture of a date when I was 8.

TIME FOR THE GREAT PUMPKIN

I LOVE FALL!!!!
Darren and I had the chance to go with N last Friday on the Kindergarten field trip. This is one of the great things about working four day work weeks. Or course N did not really seem to care we were there as soon as he saw his buddy, Will!
The air had that great crisp fall feel to it. We rode the hay wagon out to the fields where N proceeded to find the perfect pumpkin. He only dropped it three times on the way back.....
We are hoping to get the rest of the family out to the patch soon but the weather on the weekends does not seem to want to cooperate. We are keeping our fingers crossed for a late indian summer.

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS, MY FRIEND

E2's team, the "RABID CHIPMUNKS" won the city league soccer tournament last week for the 6/7/8 grade division.
I was so proud of E2.... she had not played for years so I was worried she would even "keep up". She had a great season and really worked hard. She even got $10 out of me for stopping the ball with her head. This was quite a feat of courage for her :). WAY TO GO!!!!

Gooseberry

E3 and I survived Gooseberry. Barely.

What is Gooseberry? Our school district for the last 30 odd years has taken the entire third grade class camping overnight each September. It is held at the Fishlake Forest Service campground called Gooseberry. (As a bit of local education... you don't say it as two seperate words. It is not "goose / berry" is it more "goozberry".

This year the class arrived around lunch time and had a scavenger hunt. They then made headbands by pounding leaves and berries onto cloth strips with rocks. The rest of the afternoon was spent circulating through different classes such as archeology, orienteering, stream ecology, etc.

Dinner was spent with any parents who could make the trek up the mountain. There was then a fireside program on what to do if you get lost in the mountains and stranger danger. After this we enjoyed a demonstration from a local artist who makes large wood carvings of animals with his chain saw out of big logs of wood. He made a bear peeking out of a log. The kids loved that.

All of this is leading up to the highlight of the whole two days.... Annie Bangs. You are not a true resident of Sevier County until you have experienced Annie. I've heard lots of version of the legend of Annie Bangs but basically a little girl lived in a cabin at Gooseberry with her family a long time ago. By some catastrophe or another the entire family is killed but Annie. Some versions of the legend have Annie being raised by wolves. Despite the version told, a few points are the same.... Annie still lives in the mountains of Gooseberry. Being raised as a wild animal, she has no social skills. She loves the color red and thus whenever she is seen she is wearing that color. She is drawn back to Gooseberry out of curiousity whenever she hears the sound of children.....

Each year the experience is basically the same. All the kids turn out their flashlights and the lights of the campground are put out. A ranger tells his version of the story of Annie Bangs around the flickering light of the fire. The tension builds. It is dark. It is cold. The students then go into the clearing in the middle of the campground and sing the "Annie Bangs" song to draw in Annie. It is a horrible song that goes something like, "Annie Bangs.... you have the cutest little Shiny Fangs"..... (I'm not kidding here). Just when the tension is at it's highest, you will start seeing glimpses of someone in a red dress in the trees. It is pretty freaky even when you know it is really one of the High School track team in a dress and mask. Sometimes Annie will charge out of the trees and get kind of close to the kids. They all scream. Some cry. It is traumatic. The kids love it.

Well Annie Bangs was REALLY scary this year. Maybe they figured that these kids are used to more violence in their world as this year they had THREE Annie Bangs appearing at different times out of nowhere. She buzzed THROUGH the crowd, brushing up against people. She leaped picnic tables and threw metal garbage cans. She even grabbed one child and ran off with him for about thirty feet. It was really freaky. Elissa got seperated from Darren and I in the mayhem and was a blithering mess by the time we found her. It sounds absolutely barbaric, and really it kind of is. When I first heard what happened at Gooseberry I was wondering what kind of uneducated redneck tradition this was. Until I experienced it myself. And now I fully support Annie at Gooseberry. You may ask why.

It is true that each time I've experienced Annie (this was my third time) the kids scream and some cry. But the kids wear the experience like a badge of honor. Their siblings and many of their parents have all experienced it and survived, and now they have, too. It is the Sevier County rite of passage.

One year Gooseberry got rained out and a whole class did not get to come. Over the next few years the parents of those students brought them up to Gooseberry as an older child just so they could experience the legend of Annie for themselves.

I'll agree it's strange, but it is part of living in Richfield. A strange part, but part of it just the same.

It's soccer time in Richfield. E2,E3 and N are all playing this year so this means we get to spend a lot of time at the soccer field every Tuesday and Thursday.

E3 is our veteran player. This is her fourth year playing. She is NOT aggressive in any way but loves to run up and down the field with the ball. When she engages, she is a good little player.



This is N's first year. He is euphoric every time he plays. His team is really lousy but he is having fun so that is good. I cannot even express how happy he is to play. He is in little boy heaven.




Our surprise star of the season is E2. She has not played since second grade so we were surprised (and a little apprehensive) that she wanted to play again. She is in sixth grade and the league is for sixth/seventh/eighth graders so it is pretty competitive. She has jumped right in and has shown a real stick with it attitude, team spirit, and a willingness to work hard. We are really proud of her efforts. She is doing awesome. I'll add a picture of her this week.

N first day of school

Forgot to post pictures of N's first day of Kindergarten.
It was an emotional day for me but he was sure excited.
I called him from work after he got home and asked him what he did. He said, "Papers. Lots of papers. It would be just too tiring to tell you about all of them".
Had to laugh.
My baby boy all grown up.

BYU vs No Iowa

First BYU football home game today against the Northern Iowa Panthers. We bought tickets for the entire family this year. D and I are hoping to build family memories and unity as we spend this time together. Our first tailgating experience was certainly memorable as we had trouble getting the new grill lit (mainly as I forgot to pack matches). We finally resulted to a borrowed blow-torch. Now THAT is a memory maker. I think we'll carve pumpkins with chainshaws this Halloween just to round out the experience.

After out meal we watched the band march into the stadium then went to the parking lot party to experience all the pre-game excitement. At one booth E3, N, and I won BYU T-Shirts by throwing a football through a hole. We then entered the stadium and enjoyed the band on the field. We went down to the tunnel and watched the players run in. Saw LaVell Edwards leading the pack. Didn't see Fui Vakapuna however so I was disappointed. He could not play this game as he was academically ineligible until yesterday.

It was rewarding watching the kids enjoy the game. I loved when they participated in the BYU fight song. They seemed to enjoy the game although I admit the two gameboys I packed saved the day during the second half. Also some clouds finally moved in which helped with the temperature. Before that we were melting away.

E1 prepared for the game by watching every football movie we own (We are Marshall, Rudy, Remember the Titans). I love her enthusiasm.
Dand Grandpa Glen were the closest in their predictions to the final score which was 41 - 17. Go Cougars!

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!

Tuesday was the first day of school for the girls. N starts on Monday.
E1 starts at the High School, E2 at the middle school, and E3 at Pahvant. When N starts at Ashman we will have one child in each of the four schools and each in their first year at that school. Pretty crazy.
Ever since Aunt Ashlee and Aunt Kellee were in school it has been our tradition to go to Ideal Dairy for an after-school treat. As part of the new Sheffer family budget we made shakes at home this year instead. It was still fun and very tasty. I must say working at home has been GREAT. Darren and I like being here when the kids get home from school. Pretty awesome.

PHELPS PHAN PHAMILY

Okay so we are all Phelps fans here in the Sheffer (Shepher) household.
A few nights ago we talked about what Olympic Sport we'd want to gold medal in if we could and why.
Here are our responses:
D - Team Diving (if Sonja will be my partner)
S - Track and Field
E1 - Swimming
E2 - Diving
E3 - Equestrian events
N - Rowing (or in his words, "boat racing")

See the poll on the left and offer up YOUR VOTE. Enter your reasons why in the comments.

The Sheffer clan headed to the northern reaches of our great state last weekend. We enjoyed spending time with our cousin JB and helping her celebrate turning nine. We enjoyed Logan and the American West Heritage Center as well as the AirForce Museum in Ogden and a side trip to Antelope Island. Thanks to Aunt Regina for always making us feel so welcome.

RAH RAH RAH RAH RAH

Written by: SONJA
Only 24 days until the first game!!!! This year the whole family has season tickets. It was hard to enjoy the games when Darren and I were wondering if the kids were home burning the house down.
We bought new BYU shirts for everyone to promote family team spirit. Nathan's is a mini football jersey that is SOOO CUTE. Elissa's is pink with the Y symbol. I could not resist temptation and bought me a new jersey, too It has the number ONE on it - (GO FUI!!!!!!!!)


With Tonga out I am hoping he gets more playing time and can have a great senior year.


GOOOO COUGARS!!!!