So this is Christmas...

MERRY CHRISTMAS Y'all!!
It's been wonderful (and busy) month as we have prepared to celebrate the day of our Savior's birth. I have been wanting to post for a while, but kept finding excuses of other things that needed doing first. So here's December at a glance...

We started the holiday season with a visit from Santa at our Ward Breakfast


( a typical Asay kids picture- no one's looking... Bella was ok with Santa for about 1 sec then changed her mind as you see here)Here's a better one

We had our polar express night, that ended with receiving the 1st gift of Christmas (hence the bells)Someone was naughty listed... can you guess who?...
yes, this "sweet" little princess has enjoyed watching things (i.e Santa) swirl down the toilet lately
We celebrated our 10 year anniversary on the 18th with the kids at home


fun at the class Christmas parties... pj day

Mrs. Z's class



Silly Zach decorating a sugar cookie for his class party while Bella...

was off making herself lunch in the kinder kitchen areaPlaying Bingo or rather eating all the bingo pieces

We took the 3 bigger kids to see the Nutcracker performed by the Austin Ballet this year. We learned that Josh LOVES music, Savannah LOVES ballerinas (no surprise ) and that Zach LOVES neither of those things. Note to self- don't take a 5 yr old boy to a ballet
this is what he would rather be doing than seeing men in tights or ballerinas prancing.

bustin a move on the strobe-light-floor thing outside of the Austin BalletDaddy/daughter photo op with the Austin skyline in the background

sillyness on the elevator

In lieu of the traditional ginger bread houses (which has gluten and casein that Josh can't touch) we made a holiday village on Christmas eve.

the boys were giants terrorizing the small village
Here it is almost finished

final touches...
the finished product. Living vicariously through our little village while dreaming of a white Christmas...

Reading Luke 2 and acting out the nativity scene
Sav- Mary, Mike- Joseph, Josh- Shephard, Zach- wiseman, Bella- cow that lives in the stable.

Bella was WIGGLY !!!the big kids thought it was funny that Bella kept laying by Baby Jesus and kept insisting SHE was the Baby

sprinkling our magic reindeer food before bed...

The stockings where hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nick would soon be there...

He came!!!


robot eye lamp thing

yay- princess stuff

Love at first sight, Bella couldn't stop kissing her new baby dollAdmiring the big doll house that Mike stayed up till 1am putting together, Thanks daddy (I mean Santa)

Savannah and her princess bottom coloring

Josh' s favorite present- the latest Leven Thumps book#4

excited faces

The presents were fun, but I'm thankful that our kids were able to comprehend the true meaning of Christmas. During our dinner prayer Zach thanked Heavenly Father for Christmas day and for the birth of Jesus. I'm grateful for this time of year and for the spirit that fills our home and the hearts of those all around the world as we celebrate the most important gift that's been given. We love you all and wish you a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Happy Anniversary !!! (well... almost)

In just a couple of weeks (12/18) Mike and I will have been married for 10 awesome years!!!
4 kids, 4 moves, 8 years of school , finally a career, and a bunch of other stuff later we are still madly in love!
I'm so grateful that I get to be married to my best friend and better yet that we still love to be around each other all the time :) I'm also grateful for all that we have been able to accomplish and learn together over the last 10 years- so here's to the next 10 + years!

To celebrate we went on a quick trip to Playa Del Carmen, Mexico for 4 days and 3 nights. It was SO relaxing and fun to get to be alone for such a long time!!! (I promise we do love our kids:) It was so nice to be able to have extended conversations over fancy dinners that I didn't make, hold hands on long walks, read, take naps(!!!), go on little excursions (like zip lining) and just do what ever we felt like doing for a few days- ahhh......fun fun!! This was our first vacation that we've ever taken alone together and I wouldn't have imagined that it would be so great! We can't wait to see what the next 10 years holds for us and then to get to celebrate it again together! Thank you to Grammy and Grampy (Mike's parents) and Abuelo and Abuela (my mom and dad, and the Grants for taking care of our babies and making this possible- we love you!!!

Into the mind of an 8 year old boy...

So as a huge chunk of Josh's TAG grade(talented and gifted class- and no I'm not bragging I promise) he was given the assignment to write a fairy tale... YIKES!!!! That was my initial response, for those of you that know Josh he loves to read, but HATES to write and he loves science fiction, but not fairytales so much. He's a bright boy but manual dexterity and penmanship are definitely not his strong suit. He's also not a big fan of expressing himself or sharing his thoughts with others but when he does I'm always wowed by him... After talking to his teacher she recommended he write up a plan with out worrying about the neatness part- but to just get it out of him and she would look it over, and once approved he could dictate his storyto me to type up . Well when I saw that he was writing about aliens and creatures, I was a little nervous that his teacher wouldn't be thrilled about it being FAR from a fairytale. I was ecstatic that she okayed it and so after he wrote up his plan he told me his story and I typed it up for him, in his own words verbatim. So for those of you that enjoy really young adult fiction here you go: (Warning it is quite lengthy, but worth your while I think) Enjoy!

Our Secret Creature Pals

By Josh Asay

The evil aliens of Zepharnos would take over the universe if it weren’t for our heroes CJ and AC. I don’t think it would be a very happy place if the evil aliens of Zepharnos took over the universe. CJ and AC are currently having a very long conversation in their secret hiding place. Let’s see what they’re talking about…

CJ talking to himself says “CJ my old man you need a break, you turned 123 last August”. “Well I’m too young to save the world, why I only turned 12 in September”, chimed AC. “Well then, who will do it?” demanded CJ. “I think it’s time to make a new creation” AC said quietly. “Well if we’re going to make a new creation we better get to it!” exclaimed CJ. CJ wearily said “If I haven’t forgotten I think that about 71 years ago I learned how to do it. It was a recent discovery made by Dr. Slinky. A few years ago they brought in that silver object over there, do you see it AC?” “Yes, what’s it for, do we have to do anything with it, and does it hurt?” asked AC as he eyed the long, silver, suction looking object with great dislike.

“Yes, we have to do something with it, no it does not hurt and I’ll tell you what we have to do with it when we have to do what we have to do with it” replied CJ. So finally the time came. “Just put it on one of your scales, count to about 30, and the scale will be gone, and you’ll grow a new one in about 20 seconds. You see it has sucked up your scale and will squirt it out into a plastic container and then I’ll do the same to a patch of my hair. Then we’ll put the hair and scale under a DNA scanner and it will scan the hair and scale. Once it has read the DNA it will produce a creature that looks half like me and half like you and will be 65 ½ years old.” (half of the age of CJ and AC's ages combined- he loves math can you tell? :)

So they did all that CJ had explained, and they were successful. It produced a creature that was half hairy and half scaly. It was about the size of an average creature (most all are about the size of a pygmy marmoset- the smallest type of monkey in the world). It was young, but old enough and ready to save the universe from the evil aliens of Zepharnos and best of all his name was AJ (a mixture of AC and CJ). So they watched the radar and watched for any reports of attacks from the evil aliens of Zepharnos. They had not attacked for the last 48 hours, though they usually would attack every 24 hours. But after 96 hours of waiting the evil aliens of Zepharnos finally attacked. First they released sleeping powder to put the universe to sleep then after that they sent AJ out to fight off the aliens. All the humans were asleep while the creatures were safe because of their bullet proof and toxic sleeping powder repellant.

AJ sent the aliens flying just by thinking about it. He had mental powers that could allow him to do anything he wanted by thinking about it. AJ felt good and flexible as he burned 5 more aliens. He went into a pattern of burning them and sending them flying each time doing 5 more than the time before. Eventually he destroyed 1000 aliens and forced them to retreat. AJ came back and AC and CJ rewarded him with a special helmet that helps him think. They explained that if he could think more that he could do more things with his mind and become even more powerful. Though we humans may not know it, we would be destroyed if it weren’t for AJ, CJ and AC our secret creature friends who we do not know.

THE END

(as a side note Josh's full name is Calvin Joshua Asay= AC , CJ, AJ)

Our Thanks and Giving Tree... For family home evening last night we had our thanksgiving lesson. We made a list of the things we were thankful for and read "It could always be worse" (a funny book about being grateful) and learned the importance of giving thanks always and counting your blessings, regardless of your current circumstances, because it could always be worse. We then read "The Giving Tree" (one of my favorites) and from that we learned that we are happiest when we are giving, and not necessarily presents but of ourselves, just like the tree did. And so the idea for our thanks and giving tree was born. Since we give thanks by prayer and give and serve with our hands we decided to make the leaves out of our hand prints, we also decided to put it up in our toy room where we could see it and be reminded of all of that we have and all that we should give daily. On some of the hand prints we wrote just a few of the many things we are grateful for , and on others we wrote ways we could give of ourselves ie. sharing toys with each other, obeying mom and dad, patience, showing love to each other etc...None of the pictures of the giving hands were turning out, but here are few pictures of the tree and some of the thankful hands...

Savannah is thankful for rocks, preschool
and Bella



Zach is thankful for frenz, sckool, and the
sripchurs (scriptures:)


Josh is thankful for cub scouts, FHE
and his school teacher

Caroline is thankful for Josh's GFCF diet progress,
sweet kids, and the gospel

Mike is thankful for cuddles, 1/2 day fridays and
the chance to be his own boss

Bella is thankful for her family

I'm grateful for my kids who teach me to be thankful for the little and simple
things that matter most and sometimes get forgotten (like rocks:)

HOOK EM' HORNS





Mike and Josh's Daddy son date! The Horns won and they had fun!! Thanks Lowes!