New cousins

On December 28th we were happy to hear that 

3 new cousins were born.

  Nate and Liz are now a family of 5

and we are so excited for them!!!!

 

First Date

And this is what happened 17 years later.......

 

 

For the past couple years we have taken the kids to Sconecutter on December 27th.

  It is a way to celebrate mine and Jim's first date in 1997 :)

Christmas 2014

 

Christmas Morning

 

Here are the kids ready to go downstairs to see what Santa brought and begin Christmas morning festivities.  They are waiting to hear the special song "Here Comes Santa Claus" by Gene Autry,  and then they go down youngest to oldest. 

 

And it begins..... checking out their stockings.

 

   Two cute girls got a Barbie LeapPad 2!!!

 

 



A very happy 6 year old with her new Elsa doll.

 

Lizzie made Lilly a Frozen pillow and Frozen pajama bottoms. '
 She loves them.

How you know if your present was a success :)  So cute!!!
I actually think Lilly just opened up some 25 cent bracelet Afton got her. 
 Lilly really liked it :)

Lizzie with some more Legos

Lizzie and her lastest WebKinz. 
Lizzie also got a sewing machine which she has been very busy with.

 

Ethan got Legos -AGAIN!!! 
He still loves them for like the 8th year in a row.

Jim and I decided to welcome Ethan into the land of cell phones
and got him his first cell phone. 
 He was quite surprised but has already figured out how to use it a lot already.
Funny how quickly kids can text their friends.

And the aftermath.......

Legos

All the kids got a Lego set for Christmas. 

So part of our Christmas day was spent Lego making.

Fitting as many Lego projects as we can at the kitchen table.

Afton had to be set up at the counter but she didn't seem to mind.

 

Snow Cones

Lizzie got a snow cone machine for Christmas. 

She thinks it is so cool and was taking anyone's order on Christmas for a snow cone.

Making the crushed ice

Finished products and happy faces for everyone!!!! 
Notice the snow outside :)
Perfect day to have a snow cone right?

 

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

December 24th 2014

 

On Christmas Eve we headed over to my parents around 4. 

 We had a little dinner and opened presents together. 

 My kids think it is pretty cool that they get to open a

whole bunch of presents on Christmas Eve at Grandma and Grandpa's :)



Grandpa with the grandkids



Traditional reading of A Visit From St. Nicholas by my dad.



Later in the evening........

 Once we got back home, the kids got to open up their Christmas pajamas. 

Then of course we had them pose in front of the Christmas tree.



How lucky are Jim and I to call these 4 (and the dog) ours?

Afton and Lilly

  Dose of 6 year old cuteness

 

 

So after Santa came, we caught Lucky downstairs protecting all
 the presents until the chaos of Christmas morning began :)

 

Nativity 2014

Harrison Nativity

December 23, 2014

All the cousins/ grandkids did a great job again.

Always fun to watch them do this each year.

 

A couple of the angels before the show

Afton- 6 years old

I love 6 year old smiles  especially when 3 teeth still need to grow in.

Lilly- 6 years old

Lizzie was Mary this year

Checking on her baby

Mary and Joseph.  Lizzie is actually holding the baby with care here.
  It was quite amusing to see her put him in the crib.



And action......All the grandkids doing an awesome job!

Cast picture :)

Lilly getting ready to play Jolly Old Saint Nicholas

Piano Guys

Last May I decided to splurge a little of my first paycheck and bought some tickets to The Piano Guys Christmas Concert.  It was Saturday December 20th.  It was an absolutely amazing concert.  Their music is beautiful, inspiring and it  really was a fun entertaining concert.  I am so glad we could all go as a family.  The kids seemed to like it too.  A little too late in the evening for Afton and Lilly though as they both fell asleep about 3/4 of the way through :)

Our seats were super high up (sometimes the sacrifice pricewise when you are a family of six.) 
 Thank goodness for the Jumbo Screen so we could have a great view. 
Plus for this type of concert most of it is the sound anyways.

I promise she really did enjoy the concert. 
She is so funny when cameras come out for pictures



3 of the four kids



Me and my Afton who currently has 3 missing teeth :)

Ran a little late into the evening for this 6 year old :)

Kinda a date night. 
We just had kids on each side of us :)

 

Temple Square

Last Thursday we decided to head down to Temple Square to go check out the festivities there. 

• We walked through City Creek and saw the fountains  that are set to Christmas music .  They even had fire with the water which was pretty awesome.
•  Saw the candy display windows at Macy's. 
• As we were walking around Temple Square we were invited into the old Tabernacle to watch the Christmas Program on big screen videos.  It was going on live at the Conference Center across the street.  It was the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with Sesame Street Muppets and Santino Fontana (voice of Hans on Frozen).  It was pretty awesome. 
• After that we walked around Temple Square again looking at the lights.
•  Then we went back to our car and had some hot chocolate we had packed in an insulated thermos. 

 

Love how this picture captures the meaning of Christmas

Zoo lights

On December 9th we decided to go see Zoo lights up at Hogle Zoo.  I had heard there were discount coupons at Wendy's to justify the cost of going for our family of 6.  We stopped at the Wendy's on Foothill only to discover the coupons were only good for Thursdays (this day was a Tuesday).  We sat in the car for a minute trying to decide if we still wanted to go.  We decided to still go and just use the discount on our zoo membership, only to discover once we got there our membership had expired :( 

 

We were a little worried how the rest of our night would go......

 

 Despite being more money than we originally planned, it was a great night out as a family.  We had lots of fun and the kids though it was great.  That might also be due to the fact we let each of them have a hot chocolate too :)