New Years Eve

It's the last day of 2018, can you believe it? We opted to stay home tonight, which is my preferred way of ringing in the new year. My parents came over and we put together a great meal--steaks, scalloped potatoes, veggies, and Ava's homemade brownies. Afterwards, we played some card games and Chippo (a golf chipping game Dave got for Christmas). 

This is a pretty fun game. It's obviously meant to be played outdoors, but it was pouring rain here tonight. Obviously Dave is really good at this game, and Tyler started to get the hang of it too. The big surprise though, was that my dad actually started to get pretty good too! 

Speaking of trying new things--here is Grandpa on a hover board. Grandpa tried it while holding on to our kitchen island and counter top, which is what we should have had Grandma do too. She took a bit of a tumble when trying to ride it. They're not the easiest things to ride, and we really should have made sure she had something to hold on to. Sorry Grandma! I know you could do it, you just need to start by holding on to something! Or, maybe she should stick to yoga.

We managed to make it to midnight. Tyler found some party poppers somewhere in his room, and we had kid and grown up champagne ready for the toast. We didn't quite have enough champagne flutes for everyone, so Dave and I had to break out our wedding flutes. It's probably the first time they've been used since that night. 

We headed outside at midnight because we heard quite a few fireworks being shot off in our neighborhood. It was a cool, rainy night, but it didn't stop our neighbors from lighting fireworks. There were even some pretty big ones! Cheers to 2019! Let's hope it's a year filled with good health, happiness, peace and great memories. Lots of love to all of you heading into the new year.

Ava and Natalie

Ava is really good at making friends. She always has been! She has a new friend from school that she's been talking about quite a bit lately. She went to her birthday party at the beginning of November, and has been talking about her ever since. She's been asking if Natalie could come over sometime, and we finally made it happen. I texted Natalies' mom this morning (luckily still had her number from the birthday party), and she said it'd work for her to come over for awhile today. Ava was waiting very patiently for her to arrive. 

I'm not sure what all they did to keep busy while Natalie was here. They hung out in Ava's room, rode the hover board (Natalie's first time), Natalie played Christmas songs on our piano, they went to the park for a few minutes, until it started to rain, and they baked a pan of brownies from Ava's cookbook. I thought to snap a picture shortly before Natalie had to leave. They were all smiles! I think Natalie might be asking for a hover board next time. 

Baking with Ava

Ava got a couple of cookbooks for Christmas, and she's bene excited to try a few things. She set her sights high today, wanting to make cinnamon rolls from scratch. Any time you have to use yeast, it's tricky, at least for inexperienced bakers like us. I didn't even know how fresh the yeast packages were that I had in my pantry. We managed to find a few that hadn't expired, and we were off! She had to kneed the dough, let it rise, kneed it again and then roll it out. It was a big job! I thought this was pretty funny--here she is in her apron and on her hover board. I doubt there are many bakers out there who are preparing bread on a hover board!

She is spreading the butter, brown sugar and cinnamon on the dough, and the rolled it up and cut them into pieces. 

They look pretty good, don't they? She was proud of her work. It wasn't the best dough ever--I think it got a little tough from the 1/3 whole wheat flour (I ran out of the white stuff), but it came together ok.

While waiting for the dough to rise, she picked out another recipe from her book and made some crepes! She didn't want me to do anything for her, and even poured and flipped them herself. I love that she's learning how to do all of this!

With half of the dough, we made a loaf of bread too. It all turned out well for the first time. Nice job Ava! We'll have our rolls for breakfast tomorrow morning, along with some homemade frosting. What is she going to make next?

Movie shoot with a police visit

Tyler was very excited for winter break because he thought he'd have all kinds of time to shoot movies. What he hadn't considered was that it's a tough time to get his actors all together because of their own family plans, and that his dad was still working on weekdays and wouldn't always be available to chauffeur him and all his gear around town. He's been wanting to shoot this one particular scene for awhile, but it had to be done on a weekend because it takes place in an empty parking garage. The one he had scoped out was in downtown Mesa near the courthouse. He managed to get his actors all together (Peyton and Camryn from school, Lacy and Ava) for a day of shooting. Have I mentioned how cold it's been here lately? It was another cold and windy day, so being inside a parking garage with the wind blowing through it did not make for a comfortable shoot. Grandpa met up with them too, and I showed up with some pizzas after I got done flying. Here is what I found when I arrived. 

Here they are taking a break for some pizza, and so Tyler could apply some makeup on his actors. Peyton is supposed to look like he just survived an explosion.

I forgot to mention that Dave is one of the actors too. He plays a character named Michael, and he's the father of Ava and Lacy (who are sisters with super powers). 

This looks pretty harmless, right? They're not disturbing anyone, despite the sign overhead that said No Trespassing. We saw two other cars drive through the garage and didn't think much of it, other than to assume they were probably wondering what the heck we were doing there in the corner of the garage. 

Well, apparently one of those passersby was concerned enough to call the police. Three Mesa Police cars came flying into the garage, clearly prepared for there to be some serious crimes being committed there in the corner of the garage. The one guy got out and asked what was going on and I explained that our son was shooting a movie with some friends. "Do you have a permit?" Um...no. I said something like, "our 12 year old son is an aspiring film maker and he's just shooting a little scene with a couple friends from school." The officer was really nice, and acknowledged that if it was any kind of 'real movie' (he obviously hasn't seen Tyler's work), we'd need to get a permit, which is quite a bit of work. He also said they got a call from someone who said they thought they saw a shotgun when they drove by. I'm not sure what they would have thought was a gun, but we obviously didn't have anything even remotely gun-like. They stuck around for a couple minutes, but didn't tell us to go home. They were really nice about it. As they were getting ready to leave, I joked with the one officer that he probably has a scene somewhere in his script where he'd need a police officer, but he laughed that off and said they're not allowed to do that. It was a good lesson to Tyler that confirmed what we've been telling him about using fake guns in his films--you never know when the cops are going to get called and come upon a scene when they think there are guns present. It's just not something you mess with. Sorry dude, no guns! It was nice to see the quick response by our Mesa PD though--and I'm glad they didn't make him shut down. I'm actually a little surprised that they didn't. It was pretty exciting! 

Thanks for the video, Google!

I love Google Photos. Sometimes it puts together some really great videos, collages, and flashbacks. There have been a few that have showed up in my Google Photo Assistant called "They Grow Up So Fast," and it's a video of photos of a certain child over the years. This time, I got one of Ava. It's so great! We love this sweet girl so much. How fun is this video?!

A cool weather hike in the Superstitions

Karen was back out at her favorite valley campground for a few days after Christmas, so I planned to take the kids out there for a hike one day. Ava stayed overnight at her friend Rowan's house last night, so after we picked her up, we stopped to pick up Grandma, and then we headed out to meet Karen. It was a cool and windy day, so we had to layer up. It's definitely felt like 'winter' around here lately. 

Ava stole Grandma's hiking sticks on the way up.  She had to give them back for the way back down though. It was a good hike for grandmas and kids--not too tough, but a bit of a challenge.

The scenery in the Superstitions can't be beat. 

Tyler likes hiking with Karen's dog Leia because he said she helps pull him up the hill. I think if it were up to Leia, they'd be moving much faster. She's probably wondering who this kid is behind her that is holding her back from charging up the mountain. 

After we stopped for that photo, Grandma and the kids decided to turn back. I continued on with Karen and her friend Leslie. We didn't go too much further, but we got to a really pretty area with a bench to take in the view. The hike we were doing was the Treasure Loop trail.

We didn't stay long after we finished our hike. The kids were both ready to go (Ava was really tired from her sleepover), and being a Thursday, I'm flying tonight. It's cold though! I'm sure glad I'm not sleeping in a camper outside tonight. Karen sure loves this though, and I appreciate having a good excuse to getting my kids out for a hike. Thanks for the invitation Karen! 

Multitasking at its finest

I was waiting for this post to write about the Christmas gift we got from my parents. You know you're an adult when you get excited about a vacuum! But, I think any age could be excited about a vacuum as awesome as this one! It's the Dyson cordless, and it really SUCKS, and I mean that in the literal sense. Even though we also have a robot Shark vacuum, that goes on it's own throughout the day, the canister on this thing is practically full after just a room or two. It's kind of gross to think of what a good vacuum can pick up, even after it's been vacuumed regularly. I never thought I could enjoy vacuuming so much, but this thing is seriously awesome. It's so easy to use, even a kid on a hover board can do it.....

Riding a hover board, vacuuming the carpet, and chewing gum. Multitasking at it's finest.....

Thanks for the vacuum, mom and dad. I love it! My floors have never been so clean.

More Christmas fun

Here we go--one last round of Christmas celebration with family. This time, it's with Dave's side of the family, our traditional Christmas day. It was a little different than other years though. Dave's aunt Susan hosted instead of it being held at Claire and Ed's house. I hope Suz isn't reading this (doubt she is) because I wouldn't want to hurt her feelings, but the kids were not happy about it not being at Grandma's house! "It's always at Grandma's, why? What are we going to do, it's too small...." the reasons went on and on. I do agree that it's nice to have it at Claire's for one simple reason--the HUGE park that is right outside her back gate. Talon even asked if he could get a petition signed by everyone to get it back to Grandma's house next year. I must say though, it was a great day. Once we were all there, the kids forgot all about their complaints and had a good time. She lives in a quiet enough neighborhood that they could be outside playing in the street. Go play in the street, kids! 

After a great meal, of which everyone contributed, we started the cousin gift exchange. We had all of the cousins there this time--Josh, Matt, Talon, Sydney, Hailey, Tyler, Braden, Lacy and Ava, and then the kids belonging to Dave's cousins--Aiden, Gavin, Brecken, Siler, and baby Theresa. It was a full house! I say it all the time, but my kids are very lucky to have so many cousins around. We had Siler and Aiden this year, and since we started from youngest to oldest, Siler was the second to get to open his. We got him a set of some sort of connecting blocks to build a variety of stuff.

One of Tina's boys had Ava's name, and she asked for "Jolly Ranchers and clay," so that's what she got! 

This was probably the funniest gift. When Kathy asked Josh what he wanted, he just said Ranch sunflower seeds. When she verified that was all he wanted, that's what he got!  $25 worth of seeds. He was not upset.

Tyler got some sort of light up drawing board (from his list) from Braden. We also had Aiden's name, and got him a gift card to Bass Pro Shop. Easy! 

Little Theresa loves Ava and Lacy. She was getting fussy with her mom, so I told the girls to go and distract her. It worked! She immediately started playing with her baby doll and cradle with the big girls, and forgot whatever it was she was mad about. 

After that, it was more playing in the street. Tyler, Matt and Josh were taking turns playing with the game that Karen gave our kids last night. They had fun! I look forward to trying it out too. It looks like a great game that can be played even without much space. 

Next up was the White Elephant gift exchange, which is always a highlight of the day. We're all getting better at picking out appealing gifts, so there is more and more "stealing" each year. I was very happy with what I took home, a large green Hydroflask cup. There were some great options!

One last picture opportunity for Christmas 2018. It was a great year to add to the memory banks! The kids were very fortunate to receive so many awesome gifts from the people who love them. Thanks to all who helped make this a special holiday for all of us. For those who we didn't get to spend time with this Christmas (my family in ND, especially), I hope you all had an enjoyable holiday surrounded by loved ones and happy moments. 

Merry Christmas from the Horihans!

To see an album that includes photos from all of our various holiday preparations and celebrations, you can click here to see more.