Walker Family Christmas Party

We got up to Morgan on the 22nd. We tried to get up there pretty early- but as is typically, getting out the door took a while and we did not get up there until around lunch time. However, we did manage to beat everyone else. We spent the 22nd eating good food, chatting and hanging out and even managed to play some games including Whatzit. Whatzit is such a funny game. It is probably from the 80's, early 90's at the latest. You have to solve clues and puzzles like this. 

So the top left, is a square meal. Bottom right is fish out of water (Lochlomond is a pond). Bottom left is painless operation (Shantel had to google the answer.) And the top right- we have no idea, if you figure it out, let us know. Some puzzles are pretty easy- but honestly- most of them are super hard. Partly, because some of these phrases are...well from the 80's when most of us were tiny or not born yet. It has grown into probably the favorite Walker family game and get played frequently. In fact, I would almost guarantee it has been played more in the last 3 years than in the previous 30. 

Anyway, the rest of the Walker Clan tricked in on the 22nd. Matt and Jacob and I actually stayed up super late chatting that night. 

The next day it was time for the Walker Cup. This has grown into a steadily more serious and important event. We won the first year, the Haderlie's won once and Scott and Jake won last year in the debut year of the trophy. This year, everyone was supposed to bring ideas for the games. We had lots of ideas and debate, but ended up with the following categories:

Gingerbread house building: Submitted by Shantel. This was probably the highlight of the day, everyone loved it and had a great time.

Trivial pursuit: Matt's idea and a huge hit.

Foosball: The Walker Cup classic.

Random stay on top game on the computer: 2nd appearance as a Walker Cup event. 

Pass the Pigs: The final event. 

Matt was also insistent that we have an opening ceremonies this year. So we announced each team as they entered the family room and even had olympic music and a torch. 

First up was the gingerbread houses. I honestly did not know how much work everyone would put in, but everyone was very serious and took a lot of time to make sure the houses were perfect. 

Matt and Brooklyn building their house. 

Grandpa Walker drove down to visit and he spent a long time helping Lydia build her gingerbread house. He just sat and let her put it together and did the frosting for her.

Scott and Jake- you can tell they are very serious.

Austin adding some nerds to his roof.

 Jenna working hard.

 Picture of the group.

Melissa and Blake even needed the glue gun.

Great picture of everyone.

Lydia and Grandpa Great with their final project.

Here are all of the final projects. They were incredible. We decided that you voted for your top 3 in order, you can't vote for yourself to determine the winner. We also decided that you had to give a presentation about your house. Shantel and I were up first, but had literally 0 time to prepare since it was decided to do presentation about 3 seconds before. We gave an awesome presentation on our "Christmas Cottage."

The Christmas Cottage by David and Shantel (Team Peapod). Look at the Christmas wreath that Shantel did, it was amazing. Also, the Christmas tree was awesome too. My touch was using the coconut on top as snow. Also, the log fire place is pretty sweet.

The other submissions from left to right were: Santa's Vacation (by Melissa and Blake), Christmas in Suburbia (by Matt and Brooklyn) complete with Rudolph and Santa, Big Ben (by Scott and Jake), Christmas in the City (by Jenna and Kevin) complete with a dinosaur destroying the skyscraper, and finally ours the Christmas Cottage. 

Your winner was....Santas vacation. Melissa and Blake did such a great job. Shantel and I ended up in second place.

In the afternoon we also did Trivial pursuit. However, Matt as the 2000's editions which is really fun because it is stuff we know, or that is at least related to our time period. We had so much fun (and also took 2nd place).

Next competition: Foosball. Jake and Scott dominated this competition.

Later we opened some Christmas presents for people who would not be there on Christmas and wanted to see others open presents to or from each other.

Also- we did some pretty great food. For lunch we did 10 minute tostadas (so good). For dinner we actually ordered Panda, which everyone (besides me) loved. In case it has not made it into this blog yet, Chinese food is not my favorite, but Shantel really loves it.

Then we finished our competitions. Melissa and Blake won the stay on top. That meant the competition came down to pass the pigs with everyone super close on points. Shantel and I ended up winning with the most points and it put us on top of the whole competition as the 2017 Walker cup champions. Here is the ceremony with the tied silver medalist teams as well.

All in all, it was honestly one of the most enjoyable times we've had at the Walker house which is saying a lot. Most of the pictures our from the Walker cup events, and those were awesome, but there were tons of other things that made it so fun: Shantel getting to spend time with her mom and sisters, everyone just chatting and hanging out, eating so much delicious food (summer sausage and all sorts of treats) and just being together. We are so fortunate to have such great family and we love to spend time with them. They are the kind of people who are genuinely funny and make you feel better just being around them. We drove home the morning of Christmas Eve to make it back for church and just felt so full of joy and happiness from spending time with the Walker clan.

Here are a few other fun pictures from the 2 days.

Lydia building a bear with Melissa and Blake from a build a bear kit they brought for her and Camille.

This darling boy and his mom. He was so good and so happy to just sit and play or eat while we did so many things with family. Also- the kids did so so so good. We did some fun things with them, but they also were great to play on their own while we did some of the family competitions.

Finally, here are Melissa and Matthew building an awesome fort for the kids. They were so nice and spent so much time running around and playing with them and building them forts.

The first Walker Family Christmas party was so much fun. Merry Christmas. 

Christmas Cards

This Christmas Season, our hearts are full of the joy that comes from the good news of Jesus Christ. We know that He was born under a star that shone for all to see, and that the light of His life still shines brightly for us today. We love you and the way you give light to our lives. Merry Christmas!
The Peaden Family - 2017, David, Shantel, Lydia, Austin, & Caleb

Lydia Elise - She loves puppies, unicorns, and Kindergarten. She seems to big as she goes to ride the bus every day, and she's the greatest big sister around. Her favorite book is "Not Quite Narwhal". 

Austin Scott - He loves Caleb and can most often be found laying across Caleb's lap. He likes to sing songs and has the best sense of humor. His favorite book is "How to Train your Train." 

Caleb Samuel - Wins best third baby award hands down. He's super happy and loves when we sing "Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam." His favorite book is Lydia reading him "A Unicorn named Sparkle".

David and Shantel - David is a great dad and loves playing with his kids. This year he was selected as the UACPA Rising Star of all young accountants in Utah. He's super handsome and Shantel is really lucky to have him. (And because she's writing this, she can put whatever she wants). He's currently reading: The Jack Ryan Series and the newest John Grisham book. Shantel likes to buy things on Amazon and is trying to be a better mom every day, because she really really really loves her kids. She read the Book of Mormon in the 30 days leading up to her 30th birthday and it changed her life for the better. She's currently reading: The latest Jonquil Brother's book by Sarah M Eden, For Love of Honor. 

Love, The Peadens

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Lydia helped me address our Christmas cards this year. She wrote "The Peaden Family" on all the envelopes and it was darling. I can hardly believe how big she's getting. I love how involved she wants to be in things, and I'm glad when we can find things like this that she can do. (And it really was very helpful to me!) 

I love the way our Christmas Cards turned out. David and I felt like it was important to share our testimony on the card, and the few tiny things that we were able to write about each member of our family give a perfect little snapshot of our lives right now (maybe not perfect snapshot, but I really love the things we chose to include). 

Merry Christmas from our family to yours! 

Christmas Kickoff 2017

One of my favorite traditions that we have started is our annual Christmas Kickoff. Here is a rundown from our fantastic day. 

We did a special lunch (frozen pizza's for the kids). 

This year we decided to do a Christmas Kickoff box. We had some things in mind we wanted to do and thought it would be fun to have a kickoff box. Our box had: Cherry 7up (we bought this a while ago and the kids kept saying, this is for the Christmas kickoff, so it was a must have), a new game (Giggle Wiggle), a few new Christmas books, a Hickory Farms box with summer sausage (more for us than the kids), new stockings for the kids, new Christmas plates, a chocolate orange, hot chocolate and the Rudolph the red nosed reindeer DVD. The kids loved it and it was really fun having it in a special box since those were all things we wanted to do anyway.

We pretty much just did what the kids wanted in the order they wanted. We played the new game and then did our movie. We had soda and popcorn and watched Rudolph.

It started to snow and by 4 or 5 we had a good bit of snow so we (me and Lydia and Austin) bundled up and went out to play in the snow and build a snowman. Shantel and Caleb stayed warm inside and made dinner (Hawaiian Haystacks).

We had a great time and finished the day with hot chocolate, dinner and some Christmas books. Happy Christmas kickoff!