Posing with friends and the 12 Irish Tenors, Piper awaiting Prince Charming for a kiss!! and caroling with friends and the Sister Missionaries. This is cute, we went with our crazy friends the Andersons to hand out awards for "The Best Christmas Lights" to random strangers's houses around Branson. So fun, and so rewarding. They got a Video copy of The Nativity and a Certificate. We figure next year we'll hand out records with the Mormon Tabernacle choir on it, to keep our anachronisms appropriate....

The Showboat!

Branson has a really cool showboat dinner cruise and show that we've really wanted to go see...but it's expensive! One of my Curves friends asked me if we'd ever gone, then offered us her discount so we could go as a family. Imagine our surprise when I went to pick up the tickets...she and her coworkers had paid for them, and placed us in the best seating on the boat! Thank-you Sharon and friends! We had a wonderful time, riding the boat off into the sunset on the warmest night in December. We wore our special sherpa lined sweatshirts I bought for special family gatherings, and had so much fun on the "big boat." Piper was so excited and hyper, she wore herself out and fell asleep during the dog show that she had so anticipated, cute.

Christmas In Branson

Doesn't this Santa have the nicest smile ever? We had a surprise visitor a week before Christmas, Santa stopped by to visit and bring presents for the kids!

Other Pictures to Choose From!

Our favorites...

Family Pictures for Lucinda's Calendar

Birthday Pictures!

Sorry these are after the fact, I did the blog on a computer without my pictures saved. Here they are! Oh, and doesn't Monte make a fabulous Harry Potter? That's from Halloween.

Monte's Birthday Party

Every year we've picked a fun theme to celebrate Monte's birthday. This year we picked Indiana Jones, thinking it sounded fun. (I'm always tempted to re-do the superman party, it will probably always be my favorite, and so appropriate for our little hero!)
With all the craziness that happened the weekend before and of the party, I could not have pulled it off without a team of willing volunteers! (Ok, and some slightly unwilling, but they healed fine...)
As I thought more and more about our theme, it seemed to perfect for Monte! I ended up giving a short, teary speech, and here's the gist of it. Like Indiana, having Monte in our lives has been a terrific adventure! Filled with peril, (no explanation necessary) skeletons, (how many MRI, CT's, and x-rays has this kid had!!), fear, excitement, and a strong belief in our Savior Jesus Christ. As Indiana could not retrieve the cup without recognizing the hand of Jehovah, so we could never have made it through this far without our faith. We're so grateful for our Heavenly Father who has given us such a special son, and entrusted us with this adventure. We stumble and fall, and bleed a lot, but we have gone to places we never knew we could, and seen things I never would've believed! And how thrilled we are to be celebrating 8 YEARS! We are so excited that even after 44 surgeries and countless other crisis's, he's doing great!* ish. (We'll let that go for now).
Anyway.
Here's the details of the party:
I gave Garrett Anderson, our favorite nerd, the assignment of drawing in chalk letters on the driveway with the words "Iehova" in them. You know, to represent Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail. He not only did the word Jehovah, he also added all the letters to spell Montgomery Tyler Fogelquist, Monte, and mixed it all up, making the biggest scrabble game I've ever seen! We had great fun hopping from letter to letter!
Doug's dad, Dave, it the ultimate hard worker. Anything I asked for, he was thrilled to produce. He managed to hang a rope swing on our 30 foot branch. We placed a pool of freezing water filled with snakes underneath. I admit a little snickering when a few of my "favorite" kids fell in!
We also had a balance beam set up where we took turns throwing huge "stone" rocks at the kids to see if they could make it across. (beach balls covered in duck tape). We also had a treasure coin sand dig, a diamond sand dig, and a blind simulation. We hid the holy grail and other random cups in a dark playhouse, blindfolded them, and sent them in two's to retrieve it.
Most popular might have been the snake cake...I'll post pictures later!
I sent them home with homemade white chocolate skeleton skulls and skull rings.
We invited our favorite families. This too is interesting. I initially wanted to invite just the kids that are special to Monte. Ie, his church class. But as I thought about it, I realized that those kids also had siblings that were Monte's friends, and that their parents were also his favorite people. So instead of a small intimate party, there were probably 45 people. So, it was a huge, awesome, amazing bash! The lesson here is simple to me. The parents that embrace kids with a difference, and want to befriend them and be a part of their life...had kids that also realized how special it is. We sure love them, and all of our friends that have been a part of Monte's life. Thank-you for caring for him and us so much!

Monte's Birthday Bash...The background!

So in spite of the elements combining against us, both physical, temporal, and emotional, we managed to throw a heck of a birthday bash for Monte. After-all, it's not every year that a boy turns 8 years old. In our church, the 8th birthday is usually a special milestone marked by baptism and a huge family celebration. In our special situation, however, it was a bit different. Luckily we had 8 years to prepare emotionally for that difference. When you have a son with a "Go directly to the Celestrial Kingdom" pass, baptism is one of those earthly ordinances that the celestial need not bother with. Like I said, it's been an emotional year!
Anyways! My parents came out to visit right before, and Doug's parents came the weekend of to help make it special for us. Monte loved the attention from the grandparents, and it was fun to see them again, and in our own elements. Speaking of the elements, let's not forget that the eve of the party our house was hit with Missouri RAIN. So, yes, it flooded. Yippe. So as our welcome to our home party for Doug's parents, we spent all night moving the contents of the master bedroom...everywhere else. If you need a reason to declutter, having your in-laws and friend's husband unloading your master bedroom is a great one. Wow. (I've been de-junking ever since!)
So the birthday bash scheduled for Saturday couldn't happen. I sent a text to our close friends, asking them to evaluate the evilness scale of having a birthday party on Sunday. Since one happens to be in the Stake Presidency, I was a bit worried. Luckily, they're all just as evil as us, they thought it was a great idea! Hooray!
Another birthday tip: if you hold a party after 1-4pm church, everyone will LOVE anything you serve them. The nachos and homemade root beer in industrial size containers were decimated! Ok, enough background, check the next post for the details!