Smørrebrød Party 2016

We signed up to feed the Sister Missionaries this weekend so we decided to make it into our annual Smørrebrød Party with a few other friends.

A little Christmas Name-that-Tune with the sister Missionaries! So fun! My kids blew them out of the frozen water!

• mtseamonsfamAnnual Smorbord Party! (Extra memorable since Bestemor passed away this year) Thanks to the Sisters, the Tubbs, the Coils, and some of the Nielsons for coming & sharing in our Norwegian tradition. Next year Justin's bringing lutefisk! Lol

• jbnielsonIt's a Smrdbra party! That's what the text invite I received from Brett said, "Smrdbra". That's what I couldn't pronounce it. But I can say "loot-a-fisk"!
• jbnielsonPS everything was awesome, especially the flat round ginger bread Carmel cookie things. Thanks for having us over.
• crumra53I have missed those parties over the years. I'm glad you've kept it going

"Homeless, Homeless, But there is hope because..." burning styrofoam cups in the snow is Awesome!!! Lol Teenagers.... what?? Where do they come up with these things?

Coil Ugly Sweater White Elephant

We were lucky enough to be invited again to the Coil's Ugly Sweater/ White Elephant Party again this year. It's always a hoot. And super fun to get reacquainted with our old Ward friends. We pretty much laugh the whole time. So fun! 

We started out with some amazing food- soups, appetizers, delish!!! Then we voted on the ugliest sweater and the most Christmas spirit. I forgot to take pictures of the winners. Oops! I can't even remember the ugly sweater winner. Andy won the most Christmas spirit but declined the gift since it was his party. His suit was pretty stellar though!!! LOL

Here's the cute friends that came this year. I was brave and got a pic of everyone. Cuz last year Iwas super sad that I missed some.

The White Elephant Exchange is so hilarious! It has gotten a little crude the last 2 years but it IS funny! Some of our favorites from this year were:

* The Squatty Potty (see Shay squatting in the left bottom pic)

* The Goldfish Box full of a live goldfish (Reid in right top pic)

* The Correct Anatomy Roaster Sticks (Kyle in the lift top pic)

* The Selfie Stick in the "Cruise Survival Kit" (It got passed around a lot)

* The Pad-About Slippers with it's bonus gift

* Capn' Crunch- BooYah!

What a fun group of friends!!

Here's what we came home with. Taking into consideration that my family has had experience with boobs that you can handle and store on your shelf, the kids thought the boob was hilarious. They have been many "Hot Potato Boob" games going on at our house since. LOL

 Here's the gifts we gave this year. I seriously almost peed my pants. They turned out awesome!

 Closeup of the notes:

Love these people! Merry Christmas!

GDO to Bozeman

I went with a few of my girlfriends on a road trip to Bozeman today. We just headed out on the road to get away from Helena for the day. We drove, ate, visited, laughed, shopped, ate some more, shopped the boutiques, tried on fur coats and shopped some killer GAP sales repeatedly! LOL Then we headed back. What a good break! And what fun, beautiful friends to be with! Love you ladies!

Clark's Bay

We were supposed to meet some friends out at Clark's Bay today. They didn't show. (Sad Face) But we did run into some other friends. Yeah! We enjoyed the day on the beach and in the Kayaks. The weather was perfect!!!!Love being close to the beach!

Beach fun: 

The Coils tried to catch a seagull! Too funny!

Water fun:

Kids learned to stand up on the kayaks. Super cool!

Vegas Bowling

We had a Date Night to go do some Vegas Bowling tonight. Oh my Heavens! It was a blast! We had no idea what it was until we got there. Basically there are colored pins and if they come up in a special order, the lady calls it out for your lane AND you get a strike-- you win some money! OR if you leave only colored pins up- you get a quarter. We were rolling in the quarters, Baby! Jason even won $7. Way to go, Man! What a fun night! 

I loved our code names! The girls were ZBra, Booty, SxKtn, BtyJr. The guys were Cap, BooYa, Gimo, Hoyt and Footy. We are SOOOOO funny!

Beer, Boobs and Beads @ the Coils

We were fashionably late to the Coil's for their 7th Annual Ugly Sweater White Elephant Party. We LOVE this party so we didn't want to miss it. We left our Ward Party after dinner to make it out there in time for the White Elephant part. Luckily we made it for the sweater judging and a group picture or two. Guests included Coils, Sanders, Lays, Stovalls, Fuhrimans, Fifes, Binghams, Christensens, Guymons, Schoenfeld, Bywaters and us. Fun people!

Here's the sweater winners this year. Schoenfeld in his gorgeous elk/deer- too small sweater. (It was a deer until he flexed. LOL) And Fuhriman in his National Lampoon's Christmas outfit! Too funny!

The White Elephant Game is always my favorite. Oh. My. Heavens!!!! The things people find! LOL It seemed that a lot of gifts had a theme of poop and pee, for some reason. There was the "Bumper Dumper", the PooDough and Hunting TP, the Poop Soap, Subtle Butt, Pee Pockets and the "I Pee in the Shower (and so do you!)" T-Shirt. Pretty funny! But the most hilarious to me was that the Fife's family received Beads, Boobs and Beer. So hilarious! [See left top picture] Steve got a Redneck Boob Kit which consisted of a big bag of pink balloons. ;) Heather brought the a bunch of girls some"beads" so Kris got beads and a big can of Bud Light. LOL

I had slacked and was just going to do something simple for my gift but then I decided at the last minute to get to work and make something "personal". A couple years ago at a White Elephant Party, I got a Jane Fonda Workout record. I decided to use some selfies that Shay had taken with my camera and make it the "aka Shay Coil" record. I included leg warmer, tights, a headband and a workout shirt. I added a couple people to the playlist as well- such as "Bow" Stovall, BMan Seamons, Dr. Andy Coil, and Micah the Rockstar. Shay LOVED it!

Brett and I ended up with some pretty awesome gifts. We got the Couple's Travel kit. And some cookie, hot choco and an Ugly Sweater Card Game. We loved them!

Thanks for inviting us, Coils! We love you Party!

1st Official MT Pie Night

Technically, we had a pie night last year with the Lay Family. They invited us to enjoy some pie with them after all the Thanksgiving festivities. But this year was our 1st Official party throwing of our famous Seamons Pie Night here in Montana!! We had a fabulous time! Thanks to the Lays, the Coils, the Izatts, the Schoenfelds, and the Stovalls for joining us in our fun tradition. We are grateful for you in our lives!

Scones with the Coils

We have decided to make sure we use our new larger space to have more friends over. Tonight, the Coils joined us for Scones. So fun to have them over since they are so amazing about having people over to their place. Yummy!

4th of July Breakfast- Shay Style

Our Ward usually does a big 4th of July breakfast. BUT somehow this year- it fell through the cracks. 

Shay C. and I were talking Wednesday at the Lake and chatting about how sad it was to not have a celebration with our Ward Family. So... we decided to throw one ourselves. Neither of us have been to one (in Helena) before but we just decided to do it- Shay Style. ;) [Some of the older members kept telling people- "That's not the way we usually do that". Shay and I had a good laugh because it wouldn't have happened at all if we hadn't done it. Take it or leave it, people! LOL]

We talked to the Bishop and the RS Pres to let them know our plan. (Neither came anyways but it was out of courtesy) We made assignments and sent out an email. Only one person  RSVPed so we weren't sure who would come. However the turnout was amazing!!! I believe about 75 people attended. Wowzers!

We had everyone bring breakfast casseroles, bagels, donuts or muffins and fruit. The RS provided the drinks. We could have used a couple more breakfast casseroles but other than that- it was a pretty perfect 4th of July breakfast! So glad we got people together.

Here's our cute Ward Family (plus the Brotherson Family who we luv as well) that attended. Only a couple of them threw a fit about me taking their picture. ;):

Jen Listerud offered to sing the last verse of the Star Spangled Banner. She did an amazing job! Then we all said the Pledge of Allegiance together.

Funny side note:
We have a bunch of patriotic songs on Brett's iPod. We brought it to play in the background. One of the songs happened to be The Star Spangled Banner. When it came on a few people stood and put their hand over their heart. We didn't have the big flag out at the time so everyone just faced Brett (He looked like a flag anyways). Then everyone stood and followed suit. When it finished everyone clapped and thought we were starting our Program. ;) Jen thought we had forgot that she was singing and asked if she should sing something else. Oops! We explained the situation and we all got a good chuckle.

Brett did some Flag Trivia with the kids. They earned candy for all their right answers.

We made a poster of a big flag that said, "We Love the U.S.A.!" We had everyone sign it or write something that they loved about the U.S.A. Then we hung it up in the hallway of the Church.

P.S. Unfortunately, the poster fell down overnight, I guess, because it was no where to be found when we showed up for Church. Bummer! Wish someone would have at least rolled it up and left it there. ;(

1st 2014 Beach Day

The Coils invited a bunch of us out to the lake today for lunch. So fun! It was perfect weather. We love being so close to the lake! What fun friends we have.
Beach fun:

A couple of the families have kayaks. ALL the kids love them! We so need to get some this year! Here's the water fun:

Park Lake Lunch

Some friends of ours invited us to go camping this weekend. Unfortunately, all our camping gear is still in storage and with our Church meetings, we couldn't make it. BUT we did ask if we could come up and hang out with them for lunch.
We headed up to Park Lake to join the Coils, the Stovalls, and the Guymons for some outdoor fun.
The kids played tag with Andy. The big rock was "base". They also ate lunch, made s'mores and played in the dirt. And Glory played with the dog. That's her favorite part!

We also took a little hike down to the lake. Kids waded in the water, played in the sand, threw rocks and did a bit of fishing.

What a fun group of people! Thanks for inviting us!

Date with Shay

Need I say anymore about how beautiful, crazy and fun Shay is?? ;)

I forgot my camera in her truck.
She took the liberty to make sure
I would remember our day together! LOL

Thanks lady for the fun GDO today. I had a great time in the bathroom. LOL (We got MEGA-sized drinks at the theater and had to pee most of the movie.) Oh what fun memories! When it's not 14 degrees and snowy- we will definitively have to brave skiing.

White Elephant Ugly Sweater Party

The Coils invited us to their annual White Elephant Gift Exchange/ Ugly Sweater Party. What a fun, hilarious night! They had a really large turnout and I took the opportunity to take pictures of all the couples. {along with ShayC.- we are 2 peas in a pod, for sure! Sorry for messing with your flash, lady! LOL} Aren't they so adorable? We have made some pretty awesome friends here.

After a delicious dinner of soups and salad and bread and treats, we started the White Elephant Exchange. At first, Brett and I thought we may have to sneak out before they got to our gifts. ;) Some of the kids stayed upstairs and our gifts are a bit on the funny/ embarrassing side. We were nervous how people would take them. But all the gifts turned out so fun! There was the Guymon's big TeddyBear that they could never get rid of no matter how much they begged people to take it. There was a pair of HAND-er Pants (underwear for your hands), large googly eyes, a few Duck Dynasty gifts, a sweat suit, some chocolates and the Honeymoon version of dice. Brett and I ended up with a pack of Hot Chocolate- Yeah!!! and a singing Mistletoe which we totally LOVE and is annoying as all get out!!! So fun! We thought our gifts [we gave] were hilarious! And we're glad that others did too. (See at the end of the post for closeups of what we did) It was a lot of fun!

We voted for the Sweater Contest. They had 2 categories. The Most Christmas Spirit and the Ugliest Sweater Award! There was some pretty hideous sweaters so it was hard to choose. Although- Reid and Nate, that won- were pretty right on for Ugliest all around! LOL Congrats guys!

Here's a closeup of what Brett and I did for our gifts this year. We are SOOOO funny! We crack ourselves up!
The first was a N'Sync Christmas Ornament from 2000 that we doctored up a little. The funny thing was that I had to point out for them to look a little closer. Apparently I did a good enough job that they didn't know it was actually the MEN from the party that made up the Boy Band. LOL It was fun to have everyone see if they could figure out who everyone was. Several of the men even got to see what they look like with hair. So funny!

Brett's gift was in honor of our Host- Dr. Coil. LOL We did a Info-mercial theme and attached it to a Doctor kit along with a silky white robe and a bottle of Calcium Supplement (ReddiWhip). It was so funny! Shay even exchanged for it so she could have it. [Not sure if it was because she wanted it or because she didn't want anyone else to have it!] She was laughing so hard she was in tears by the end. 

Andy thought our gifts were awesome so I made sure that he knew that this ensured that we would get invited back next year! LOL

Thanks Coils for such a fun evening. We had a BLAST!!!!! You're awesome! Merry Christmas everyone!

Thanksgiving with SHAY

We joined my friend SHAY and her family for Thanksgiving Lunch this year. It was extra fun because her dad & step-mom were there. Every time they would say, "Shay....?" I would answer. LOL It got to be pretty funny so they finally just started calling their Shay- "Gertrude". Hilarious!

We had a fabulous dinner! Shay (the original one) made the most amazing Rainbow Jello Salad. It was a masterpiece! Everything was so delicious! The missionaries joined us for lunch as well. And we didn't even kill Elder Burrows with our gravy. Go me! [He's extremely allergic to tons of things!]

 We are grateful to the Coils for having us over. We had a great time!

Firepit with Friends

Did I mention that I am not the only Shay in our Ward? Isn't that crazy? We even spell it the same. So I have become known as the "other" Shay. So funny!
Anyhow- the weather here finally cooled off a bit so, the original Shay and her family had us over for a Firepit tonight. It was fun to get to know a few other families from the Ward. Thanks guys for inviting us to your beautiful home. We had a great time!