Christmas Duds!

Here are the kids in their new Sunday clothes they got for Christmas.



Luke wanted to be in every picture, silly boy!



What handsome boys we have :)

Seth loves his suit Grandma and Grandpa and it fits him great!!

More Christmas Day

Can you see these amazing "Metroshka Dolls"? Sam's brother Shawn had our name for Christmas and his wife made these for us. Each of them are one of us and look remarkably like us. They are so cool. There is even a baby on the end. Erin does this mean there is another one?

Luke on his cool "cat" dump truck.

Kathryn and all her loot.

Sarah with all her presents.

Sam with one of his presents. Isn't the trash can lovely? I love that part of the picture, thank heavens for editing :)

Christmas Day!!!

Yeah!!! It's almost here....It's tradition to open one present on Christmas Eve and it is always pajamas. Here are Seth, Sarah and Kathryn in their new jammies. Luke fell asleep so we just laid his jamas on him. The things we do for a picture :)

Christmas morning we sort of got to sleep in. The wind was horrific all night so Sam couldn't sleep very well so he was up by 5 am, Seth got up at 6 and then the rest of us were up by 7:15. Here are some pictures that morning.

Trying to convince Luke to open his present. He is probably confused because we have been telling him for weeks that he can't open them and now it's okay. It took him about 3 presents in to figure out it was okay now.

Kathryn with some horses that Sarah gave her.

Seth with his Legos that he got in his stocking. He has played with them all morning, I guess he likes them :)

Christmas Eve

For Christmas Eve we went to our friends for dinner, games and the Nativity. The kids had so much fun and since we stay home for Christmas it was great to have a few more people for the Nativity. Sam got to be Joseph with Maddi as Mary and Brayden as baby Jesus.

Seth and Logan were the Wise Men, aka Wise Guys. Sometimes they have a little too much fun but they do have a great time together.

All Kathryn wanted to be was the camel so she was the Wise Men's camel and Sarah and Makayla were the angels.

Luke was suppose to be our shepherd but he had trouble figuring out what he was suppose to be doing :). Figures for a almost 2 year old!!

One of the other fun things we did was a white elephant gift exchange. This was the lovely gift that Sam picked. Luckily one of the girls stole it from him later :)

Sarah and Makayla waiting to pick their presents.

Seth being his usual self, very silly.

Sledding

On Christmas Eve, Sam only had to work a half day so we decided to go to the school by us and go sledding in the afternoon with our friends. We had tons of fun and the kids loved it, well most of them. Luke fell asleep on the way over and slept the entire time so he missed out.

Sam and the girls getting ready for their turn on the hill.

Sarah with her friend Makayla.

Seth with his friend Logan.

Kathryn with her friend Maddi.

Christmas Concert

Seth and Sarah's school has a Christmas concert every year. Each class gets to do something, so this year Sarah's class sang "12 Days of Christmas" and "Jingle Bells". Seth's class sang "Jingle Bell Rock" and danced to "I Saw Mama Kissing Santa Claus". His orchestra class played "Jolly Old St. Nicholas". They did a great job and it was so fun to watch them.

Merry Christmas!!

Christmas Tag

Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper!! I love being able to look at all the pretty wrapped presents under the tree.

Real tree or Artificial? Real. This is our first year of going to the mountains and cutting down the tree. It was so much fun.

When do you put up the tree? The day after Thanksgiving, we that's if we are home for it. If not the day after we get back from Thanksgiving.

Do you like eggnog? No way, it's nasty!!!!

Favorite gift received as a child? I don't know if I have just one. I loved my cabbage patch doll one year and the doll house "Santa's Elves" made me. Mostly I love anything that someone thoughtfully gets for me.

Easiest person to buy for? My kids, they tell exactly what they want.

Hardest person to buy for? My sister Jenny (sorry it's true Jen just cause I want to make sure you really like it)

Do you have a nativity scene? Yes...the willow tree one. I absolutely love it.

Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail, but that was one of the things that had to "go away" this year for my sanity. Maybe we will send them by email or just wait until next year, we'll see.

Worst Christmas gift you ever received? I can't really think of one.

Favorite Christmas Movie? I don't have exactly one but I love A Christmas Story, The Grinch That Stole Christmas, Polar Express and White Christmas.

When do you start shopping for Christmas? The day after Christmas. I try to pick up things all through the year so our budget doesn't fall to pieces in December.

Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Only once and don't ask who it was from or it was too, I will never tell!!

Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? sugar cookies, ham, rolls, caramels, barkies and grapefruit.

Lights on the tree? Oh yes, lots of white lights.

Favorite Christmas song? Oh Holy Night (especially when it is sang by Sam :)

Travel at Christmas or stay home? We love staying at home.

Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? Yep!

Angel on the tree top or a star? Usually a star, this year it wouldn't fit.

Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? We do one present on Christmas Eve (it's always new jammies) and everything else Christmas morning.

Most annoying thing about this time of year? Starting Christmas before Halloween...come on people!

Favorite ornament theme or color? Snowmen.

Favorite time for Christmas dinner? Early afternoon so we have lots of time to talk and play games with each other.

What do you want for Christmas this year? earrings, books, more pieces to my nativity and list would go on but I will spare you.

I tag Tara, Jenny and Maria!

Saturday :)

What do you do with your Saturday when you have been completely out of your mind planning for a party for a week and now the party is over? NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Isn't it wonderful? As some of you know I am the Activities Chairperson in our ward and our Christmas Party was last night. We were trying to feed 300 people, put a program on and just have a good time. I tried to delegate a lot of stuff, but then it hit me that if it didn't work it would just all fall on me because I am the one in charge, so needless to say it kinda stressed me out. Especially since people started calling me and telling me that they couldn't come or help out with what they said they could. ARGHHHH....anyway after one really bad day on Thursday, one really good cry later and a super friend that watched my kids and made us dinner so I could work on all the stuff for the party, I was so much better. Now the party is over, all cleaned up, it's snowing and we don't have anywhere to go, life is pretty good!!!

Bad guy-girl?

Did you know that this is what a bad guy-girl looks like? Kathryn says you are one if your skirt is taped to the side like this. Who knew!!

Christmas Treats

Yesterday we made Christmas candy and treats for our friends. It was one very long day and this was the only picture I got out of it (a lemon coconut cake that looked so divine I just had to make it). We ended up making 20 wreaths that were filled with Barkies (a must have for Sam), Brownies, Muddy-Buddies and Hello Dollies.

Polar Express Night

Last Saturday night we babysat some of our friend's kids so we decided to have a Polar Express Night. We try to do this atleast once right before Christmas to get us in the "mood". The above picture is Luke and Gage drinking their hot chocolate.

We spread out blankets and pillows on the floor, got comfy and watched away.

We also decided we should have some popcorn with our hot chocolate. We had a great time and can't wait for Christmas!

Luke

Some pictures of Luke. He loves to get into anything he can. This is what I found Sunday morning after I had gone to help the girls with their dresses. Cereal everywhere and on the table, typical Luke.

Lately he wants to be dressed up, just as Sarah and Kathryn. Doesn't he make a wonderful princess :)



He loves this hat of Sarahs and wears it constantly. He also has chocolate all over his face which is his favorite thing in the whole world.

Pictures

Thanks Melody the pictures are great! We love them. Can't wait to see the rest :)

Christmas Tree

Here is our tree all decorated. We had a great time putting all the lights and ornaments on, except that this tree is super, super pokey!! We had pricks all over our hands by the time we were done. The good thing though is that it keeps Luke out of the tree, which is so very tempting to him.

Twilight

So does anyone out there read the vampire series (oh of course you do), but what I want to know is what you thought about the movie? I went and saw it today with some of my girlfriends, and both of them did not like it at all and I really enjoyed it (once I got over that that was not how I pictured Edward, but he sure is cute and really liked him by the end). So what do you all think? I hope you have seen the movie, if not go see it. It's a great chick flick :)

Playing

What fun times we have! (PS note what Sarah is doing in the background of Kathryn picture!)

Thanksgiving Day

Oh boy do we love Thanksgiving and all the food! Here is a picture of all our hard work.

My brother Ben and his son Bridon waiting for the food to be done, silly guy!

Spencer and Jessica enjoying their food.

Samm ,Chris, Jill and Emily waiting in line for their food.

Some of the kids waiting "patiently" at their table for dinner to get started. We had such a great time with the family and it was so good to see everyone again!

Uncle Spencer!!

One of the great things we got to do when we were up there was to see my brother come home from his mission to Guatemala. It was so good to see him, especially because he came home the night before Thanksgiving.

The funny thing was that the news showed up right when we were getting ready to get pictures and asked if they could talk to him and my mom and then it was on the 10 o'clock news. Now he's famous :)

Spencer with all the nieces and nephews.

The whole family!!

My four sisters holding Spencer's sign as we wait for him to get off the plane.

Boy does this make me feel old, my youngest brother 21 years old and home from his mission. Gosh!! Everyone grows up way too fast.