Christmas Eve 2012

Bunker's big dinner is on Christmas Eve.  I always look forward to the potato soup in bread bowls eaten by candle light.  Then we usually have some sort of sharing of talents.  And a group reading/singing of the Nativity.  This year's Christmas Eve was one to remember!

The girls always get matching pajama bottoms!

 Our little family sang Silent Night.  Kylie even learned how to sign it....which she wanted to do on "stage" ->

Chris also sang "I Was Not His Father, He Was Mine" from the Forgotten Carols.

Casey and Ben did a fun rendition of "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" and Brooke sang us her arrangement of "Joy to the World".

Kylie rockin' it

Our finished puppet show theater we made for the girls for Christmas!  Didn't it turn out amazing?  Chris always does great work!  I made the curtains and helped paint, but Chris put the real hours into this.

We did the nativity story using our puppet show theater.  Originally, Chris and I were going to do the show, but both Kylie and Ellie really wanted to take part.  They refused to be part of the audience!  We let them help and they stole the show.... and for the audience, it was quite funny to watch.  I guess we got a glimpse into the future....the girls will definitely use their gift.

Ellie was excited to be baby Jesus.

Ellie learned how to climb out of her crib while we were at Grandma's.  Christmas Eve, the girls were already in bed and us adults were hanging out in the living room.  We then hear someone in the kitchen.  It was Ellie.  She had escaped her crib and pushed a chair to the counter.  Apparently, she wanted some more yummy soup before going to sleep.  Funny, funny girl.

A Very Bunker Christmas

BYU had three weeks of Christmas vacation this year!  Wow, were we lucky.  We spent the first week and a half in Vegas with Chris's family and then flew to Wisconsin to visit Chelsa's for a week.  We all had a lot of fun.  Here are a few pictures of our holiday fun.

The girls had fun making and decorating Christmas cookies with Grandma! 

(Don't ask my why Kylie is naked...she is almost 4 and does whatever she pleases!)

During the week before Christmas, each couple (Casey and Ben were paired as a brother-sister "couple") had one night to make dinner and plan an activity.  Mom and Dad B took us to Opportunity Village, an enchanted forest beautifully decorated with Christmas lights that raised money for a charity. Brooke and Mike put in a Christmas movie while the girls did their nails. Casey and Ben had us blow fire using powdered sugar and play the classic penny and flour game (look below for a couple pics).  Chris and I did minute to win it, Christmas style, which was lots of fun.  The girls would have won if it were not for Dad's awesome marshmallow throwing through a wreath skills.  Who would have known?

 

Chris enjoyed working on this all week....look forward to the next post for the finished product!

We went on the Santa Train in Boulder City, just a few minutes south of Bunkers house in Henderson. It was real fun, as any train ride is but it was extra special because we got to see Santa!

Our little reindeer 

One cool cat, wearing Ben's sunglasses

Casey (with a broken antler) and Ellie

Santa! 

And finally, a "Christmas Sunday" picture.

Chris's Billboard Project

Since most of you weren't able to see Chris's prints displayed on campus for his fine art class, I thought I would post the photographs from his most recent project.  A project that took a lot of time and a lot of driving around Utah and Nevada.  Chris's prints turned out great and it was neat for me to see them on display in the HFAC building.  His teacher was also very excited with his photographs and wants Chris to enter them into a contest.

Most people probably think that fine art is just landscape shots, but the art movement we are in today is called post-modernism.  One major aspect of post-modernism is agenda driven photographs/projects.  Below is Chris's artist statement....

During a recent drive home to visit my parents I saw a series of billboards that first made me laugh and then caused me to think about just where we are today as a society.  In many ways the world isn’t too much different today than it was hundreds of years ago:  As the saying goes prostitution is the oldest profession.  The difference is what we considered wrong, sinful, and immoral in the past is now held as commonplace, accepted, and in some circumstances even right by our society.

The purpose of my project is not to debate whether or not each specific topic is right or wrong.  My purpose is show the whole, to see society as it is now.  Is the world in which we now live better?  Is this progress?  What will the future be like?

In reality the actions and habits of mankind haven’t changed all that much and probably won’t in the future.  The trend is though, that as a society, what we deem immoral and wrong today could easily be defined as normal and good tomorrow.

Chris Bunker

Thanksgiving and a Birthday

I know that I am way behind on the blogging, so I thought I would do a couple make-up posts, starting with Thanksgiving....

We spent the week of Thanksgiving in Vegas, where it was nice and warm...even getting up into the 70's.  The girls were in heaven and played outside LOTS.  Chandra came down with Nicole and Josh (we actually drove down the Saturday before Turkey day for an extra long week) and she spent most of the week with us.  Chris was super busy working on a couple of school projects, but he did find some time to play with us.  The whole Bunker clan visited the Springs Preserve, a natural museum of sorts one day and later Dad B. took us big kids to Fremont Street....the original Vegas strip.

Thanksgiving day was fun.  We played some basketball in the morning, baked pies, ate yummy food and went to see a movie.  Chris photographed a wedding the day after Thanksgiving and since there were plenty of babysitters, I got to tag-a-long and help.  My favorite day during the break was when we all went outside to play a little croquet and bocce ball.  Chris won croquet, but Josh and I creamed everyone in bocce ball!

And finally, on Sunday, Chris turned 30!  Unfortunately, we had to make the long drive back to Provo on his birthday, but I think the day still turned out well, especially since it included some presents and pumpkin sheet cake.

 As I said before, the girls loved, loved, loved being outside.  Running, jumping on the tramp, going for walks, collecting pinecones, whatever.  Oh, and playing with Cazador of course.  Ellie even enjoyed the occasional snuggle with him.  

                                 Chelsa                                                 Casey       

Chris

Josh just relaxing.  Can you guess who he cheers for?

                         Ellie wants to play!                                      Benson

Dad measuring......not that we were competitive at all :)

Kylie was super excited that she got to pick out a balloon for Daddy!

For Chris's main gift I put together a basket full (more like overflowing) with 30 of Chris's favorites!

He got some clothes as well!

A close-up of his "basket of favorite things"  Hopefully those snacks will last him a while!

Happy 30th Chris/Daddy.  We sure do love you!

Indoor Fun

Since it has turned cold, the girls have struggled with having to stay inside most of the time.  Yes, we did play in the snow after our big storm here, but now it is just wet and chilly outside.  Ellie doesn't understand this and often is seen (and heard) banging on the door, wanting to go out.  Well, here is one of the girls' newest indoor activities.....

A Tangled Halloween

Kylie was counting down to Halloween this year (well starting with "5 more sleeps").  I haven't seen her this excited in a while.  One day we even played "trick-or-treating" because she wanted to go so badly.....the girls would knock on their play room door and I would answer and give them some play food once they said the magic Halloween words.  It was fun (at least for the first half an hour).  Even though Ellie didn't really understand all the fuss about the upcoming holiday, she was excited too.  She loved it when she would spot pumpkins on someone's porches while were out on a walk or would see the Halloween decor in the grocery store.  She would raise one fist up in the air and yell, "Weeeeeeen!"  Grandma Bunker took both the girls to the pumpkin patch earlier in October and they loved that they got to pick out pumpkins.  We haven't had time to carve them (yet....Kylie still wants to do it), but Kylie had fun decorating one of hers with crayon drawings and stickers.

Kylie chose to be Rapunzel this year.  Though her hair wasn't long and magical, it did have flowers in it.  Ellie was Pascal and could do a pretty good chameleon tongue to accompany her costume (which I made!  I was actually quite proud of how decent it turned out.  I just used one of her sweatshirts and pants as a pattern.  It was my first time ever sewing sleeves, which was a little difficult.).  The first time Ellie realized she had a tail, she gave it a big hug.  Chris was Flynn Ryder.  I wanted him to be the King (since I was the Queen), but Kylie insisted that he had to be Flynn, I mean Eugene.  So Chandra was the King and Casey was Mother Gothel (it's the hair!).  

 

 

 

 

Always....two fingers in the mouth and the other hand playing with her bellybutton.  Had to make sure she had a two piece costume!

Trick-or-treating was of course fun, especially since we didn't stay out too long.  The girls were plenty pleased with the candy they got.  We just picked a few houses in our neighborhood, mostly those belonging to our ward friends.  In retrospect, maybe we should have gone to more houses so that I would still have some candy to snitch!