Merry Christmas!!!

We hope you all had a very nice Christmas with your family and friends! We have just enjoyed a nice Christmas morning with the kids! They all slept in past 8:00. It was GREAT! I will post pictures after the remainder of our festivities, but that may be a few more days...so enjoy the rest of your own holiday celebrations! We are so thankful for our Savior Jesus Christ and the peace that His gospel brings into our lives! May His choicest blessings be with you and your families in the new year! Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

Bad MOM!!! Cute BOY!!!

Oh, once again I'm a BAD MOM! Yesterday I posted that I was looking forward to what Kyle would bring home from his preschool to hang on our tree! AAAHH, I said something to him about it, and he said, "I already made one Mom. It's right there!" I totally forgot that he made a DARLING gingerbread boy and it was totally hanging right by where Chad hung his! Well, here's a picture of Kyle's first preschool ornament!

He and his cute class sang Christmas carols to all of the parents when we picked them up today. Wait, all of the other kids sang to us...Kyle didn't WANT to! It was VERY windy and FREEZING, so I don't blame him. At least he stood there while I videotaped! I'll have to watch carefully to see if he even tried to sing. Let's hope he WANTS to smile when we take a family photo tonight! (Kyle is on the front row in the dark blue coat!)

Newest Ornament On The Tree!

Can you spot our newest ornament?

Yes, sweet Chad brought home our very first homemade paper ornament with his picture on it!

As my mother just reminded me, of course you make room for these! My Mom still has a hand-painted snowman with googly eyes made by me, AND she has the box I made to put it in! It doesn't go with her decor anymore, so I'll probably inherit it this year, but props to my Mom for hanging it up all these years! She used to even hang up a styrofoam cup that was baked so it would shrink to look like a bell that I made! Sometimes it was in the back of the tree, but it was there year after year! I'll try to be a good Mom like her! Let's see what Kyle brings home tomorrow! :)

Chad sure is handsome, huh? Check out Alison's teeth in the post below, and don't worry Karin, I'll be fair to Kyle and do a post all about him tomorrow after he does his pre-school Christmas caroling!

All She Wants For Christmas...

...is her two front teeth! Finally! For the last couple of weeks, Alison has been "teething" and now these two little crooked bottom teeth have broken through at the same time! Yeah! She is sucking and biting on EVERYTHING! Getting a picture of them was QUITE difficult (especially by myself), so ENJOY!

It's Beginning to look A LOT like Christmas!

At least for those of us who are used to TONS of snow dumped on us! Those of you in St. George, California, Arizona, Florida, OR Australia may not relate! WOW, most of you live in WARM places! What are WE thinking? No, I know most of you have lived in this kind of weather at some point in your lives...so you know what we're going through... tons of shoveling and scraping car windows, tons of runny noses, tons of nervous trips on slippery roads, but still tons of fun!

Favorite Decoration(s) This Year!

As I get more and more ready for Christmas, I am getting more and more excited for Christmas morning with the kids! We have been reading a lot of our Christmas books, singing the few Christmas songs that the boys know over and over again, and playing "I SPY" with our decorations! I do wish it was O.K. to leave the decorations up all year! I love when our house is decorated! Here is a picture of our little tree and a picture of my favorite Christmas display this year! This is a nativity that my parents gave us from their mission to the country of Georgia. I LOVE the nativity, I LOVE the people who gave it to us, and I LOVE the new creche' that I made with my friend Camilla at her Fabulous Friday Enrichment night!

Thanksgiving . . . A Little Late!

I, like many of you, have a MILLION things I SHOULD be doing, and blogging really should be done after my list is completed, but here I sit writing this very long run-on sentence! :) In order to change my background on my blog, I need to hurry and post about Thanksgiving! We had a wonderful Thanksgiving up at Jeff's Dad's place in Idaho. The trip started out more like a very LONG adventure for my sister-in-law Tricia who got a flat on the side of the freeway on her way to pick the kids and I up! BEEN THERE! But we were thankful that it all got taken care of and that we arrived safely! It was very nice of my mother-in-law to let us use her van so we could all ride together while our husbands worked a little longer! All in all we had GOOD food (Alison really enjoyed her very first turkey dinner), GREAT company, FUN with cousins, YUMMY treats, VERY LATE game nights, and Jeff's brother Clay even DID SOME DISHES!!! Hah! I am thankful for an amazing family, extended and all!