Merry Christmas!!

Thanks to Charles and Melissa's camera, we can send you a picture (I've got to tie a string around my finger and remember to get mine fixed SOON)! This is just a random shot in front of the tree after church today but it took massive amounts of convincing and rounding everyone up to stay in one place for 30 seconds. I am just glad that now there are witnesses that have seen how much I go through to get 4 boys-- no, 5 boys-- in a family picture. But, I will enjoy these moments while they last and time moves on too quickly...


Christmas Highlights:
1. Having Charles, Melissa, Henry, and Eric home
2. Tom's body building picture (Go to Grammy and Grandad's Blog)
3. White Christmas Eve
4. Kaden's sax performance
5. Zach's guitar performance
6. Grandad's pizza services the whole last week (My favorite highlight of all)
7. Paintball guns that were shot all across the backyard and fence
8. Going to bed at 4:30 in the morning on Christmas Eve
9. Taking a nap on Christmas Day
10. Daddy Baird's gift to Tom... It was awesome. (Hint:The color BLUE and a man named RAY)
11. Eating chocolate truffles for 5 days straight. Someone please come to my house and take them away.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!

Love, Us

Bairds and Drapers--We love them

Somehow I have really bad luck with digital cameras and another one has broken. They seem to last about a year with me-- constant use I guess ( or Tanner and Ryan playing with them).

I thought I'd dedicate a blog post to the two groups of people we love the most.

Last night I was telling a friend how between the two families we have fourteen brothers and sisters (16 total). She first she laughed and said, "You crazy Mormons!" But then she recognized how great it would be. Now there are seven more spouses married to them that we love just as much.

The bigger the family, the bigger the support system, the more love, the more friends... You guys are awesome.

Tanner's Cake Smile

Tanner is 7!

Look at that grin... He had an awesome birthday complete with superhero gifts from almost every Marvel character you can think of. He loves pretending that he is a different superhero almost every hour. Here are my favorite things about Tanner:

5. His giggle when he is teasing his brothers.

4. The fact that he is still trying to run faster than Dash off of The Incredibles (he used to wet his hair down and brush it backwards just to look like him, AND HE DID).

3. He hasn't started complaining at Family Scripture Study... he still thinks it is fun to read as many columns as he can before we stop him. (I wish that some older brothers would pick up on that trait).

2. He has dance moves that would put John Travolta to shame. Come to one of our Late Night Dance Parties and you'll know what I mean.

BEST ALL TIME REASON:

1. Tanner likes to CLEAN the house. I know. I can't explain it, but give him a job and he will ask you to time him to see how fast he can do it. Recently it has been sorting. My drawers and closets are really getting worked through. To all of you that are losing hope with boys and cleaning, just keep 'em coming and eventually you will get one of those. But probably just one.

We love you, Tanner!!!!

Halloween Cuties and Scaries

Ok. We get a little silly around here at the Draper house and Halloween means dress up time all week. Instead of running out to the store to buy costumes this year, it became "invent your own costume" time. We made up names for all of them, but our favorite was Zach in the SUPER UGLY costume (I am sure that you can guess which one that is). The picture of Tanner as Iron Man and Ryan as Cookie Monster was taken after Trick-or-Treating. You can tell they were a little more subdued after the other dress up nights.

Season Finale

Go Kaden!!!
After a tough season and a knee injury midway through, Kaden impressed us all again with a drive for football and the will to not quit. He loves football and his team was sad when he couldn't play for a few games, but to Mom's surprise Kaden said that he wanted to keep playing until the season was over without quitting early. It has been 2 months of practice almost every night in Notus with weather extremes of hot and cold. He was able to play the last two games and finished strong with another season under his belt.

Bunkbeds and Leaves

Just had to show the new bunk bed in Tanner and Ryan's room. They are so excited that they hung out in there all day just playing on the top. I remember the bunk bed we used to have when we were little and how we put stickers all over it and colored underneath the top bunk when we were laying on the bottom. I climbed in with Ryan tonight for a minute and to just remember the good ol' days and how claustro-phobic it actually feels! Oh well, they think it is a new adventure.

Somehow we ended up in the back playing in the leaves and everything was calm until a leaf-throwing-fight broke out. Kaden and Tanner went full force and so Ryan buried himself in the leaves to hide. Never a dull moment

around this joint...

The Birthday Boys

October 21st is a special

day around here-- Tom and Zach's birthday! What a cool thing to share your birthday with your dad. Double cakes are the highlight and this year it was the sparkler candles that were fun to watch as they tried to blow them out. Notice the BSU colors and new jersey on Zach. It was all about BSU as Zach got a nice Hoodie from Grammy & Grandad, a Big Blue body pillow, and Ian Johnson's jersey #41. Can you tell we are from Boise? He was excited to get Gpa and Gma's package with a new video game for his DS, too.

Thanks to all of you that called to wish them a happy one... You guys always make it special.

Trains and Pumpkins

Yesterday was a special day that both Tanner and I will never forget. I was able to go with his school class to Horseshoe Bend and ride the Thunder

Mountain Train Express to a Pumpkin Patch. Thanks to Grammy and Grandad's help with Ryan for the day, Tanner was so excited to have me alone, which is something that doesn't happen often when you have 3 other brothers. We had a blast riding the train over bridges and through the hills on a sunny, warm fall day. On the way back we even rode outside the whole time and Tanner had fun with his buddies looking over the edge at the tracks. We got to pick out a pumpkin (of course Tanner picked a huge one and guess who got to carry it all day) and eat lunch at a park back in Horseshoe Bend.

It is days like these that make life magical. First graders smiling, laughing and walking up and down the train eating popcorn and licorice. Parents sitting close and spending time with their child, sacrificing whatever else they could have been doing on a Friday in order to relax while staring outside as the train moves, just knowing that being there was worth it. Sometimes it just takes that little 1st grader's face begging you to say, "Yes, I can come on your field trip" in order to stop everything else for a day and make a memory.

First Timer!

I have to admit that I am a little nervous to be a blogger. There are some amazing blogs out there and so I am just testing the water to see if I am even smart enough to do it. If any of you have an good tips or cool ideas that you have found please let me know (aka Kelly, J, Taneil, Kym, etc)!


It will be fun to chronicle the highlights, blessings, and laughs around our home with our family. That is truly where the name of "Draperland" came for this blog site. Partly because of the theme park feeling with raising a family of all sons and partly including the wonderful neighbors we have in the driveway. This is indeed Draperland and we are loving just about every minute of it...