it's the most wonderful time of the year!

Our Christmas Eve festivities started with a dinner. Ham and scalloped potatoes with spinach salad and rolls. For dessert: banana cream pie and apple dumplings with vanilla ice cream.
Next came opening up Christmas pjs
Our Christmas pageant was a success. Bridget made a lovely hand written program to follow. There were narrations for the Dad's to read, Songs for everyone to sing, with a solo of Joy to the World by Lola, Actors and actresses with cosumes and gifts to present to the baby Jesus, piano numbers by Luke and Bridget, and a dance by Bridget to finish it all off.
Then we listened to Dad read Twas the Night before Christmas with props for the kids to wear!
Then they snuggled up in their beds.

Only a few pictures on Christmas Day...I'm afraid I took a break and just enjoyed the day. We got some video of it though.

It was a lovely Christmas. Nice and relaxing and enjoyable to have Olivia, Tyler, Lola and Jake with us.

December 26, 2010

A ticklefest.
Adam snoozed.
Liv whipped up something yumming for us in the kitchen.
We love Christmas time!

Christmas train ride

Our friends the Higbee's invited us to come to their family's place for a "polar express" ride. It was a fun little train that went all over their large property with lot's of light displays, a visit to the North Pole to see Santa, and at the end a visual walk through Jesus' life with large paintings of Him lining the way. There was music playing and the pictures were beautiful and it helped us all to feel the true spirit of Christmas. The highlight was seeing a large picture of our cousins, Ben and Isaac Atwood that Simon Dewey painted with the Saviour!

December Saturday

The Temple was beautiful surrounded with all the trees covered in lights. And the nativity shining on the water in the reflective pool was beautiful too.

Bridget's dance was awesome. I hope to have some video footage on here soon...I'm learning.

Break time

During the thick of getting over the flu, putting away all the Christmas decor, and de-cluttering the house, I found that I could go no farther without stopping to create something. The item I chose: Capes! It turned out to be the perfect solution to stop the monotony - if only for one afternoon. Jonah and I worked on his while the children were still at school. He chose the colors and we made his initial so that everyone would know he was super. He happily presented it to the kids when they got home and they immediately put in their orders...they were going for more of a Harry Potter style. We turned on a new cd I got for Christmas (thanks Amy) and the kids went crazy dancing and jumping and jumping and dancing. I bet you can tell who wanted me to take a hundred pictures! And all this simple fun took us all the way up to and around dinner until Dad got home. And then they were completely prepared to go easy to their beds and go to sleep.

I hope Spring comes early!

Violet Jane age 10 1/2 months.




This week Violet has been sick with a fever - and she is not her usual bright happy self. And yet she still tries to give us smiles even if they are mild ones.

Powder Mountain

A weekend getaway up Ogden Canyon for a little skiing/snowboarding. A friend in the ward has a condo in Eden where we stayed. And it was just a short drive up to the ski hill. The kids skiied all day Saturday and Monday with Adam while Jonah and Violet and I hung out, reading books, watching movies and going on sledding walks. I was so impressed with the kids skills when I joined them on Monday afternoon for a while.

Will worked on fine tuning his snowboarding skills and by the end of the trip said, "I've got carving (caw-ving) down, now all I need to focus on is having fun!!"











On Saturday Night after the kids and Adam finished with their day of skiing, we ate, got the kids bathed and settled and then Adam and I went out for a couple hours of night skiing. It was fun and not as bad as I thought after a 10 year lull from skiing....and even back then I was very much a beginner. Anyway it was a really fun date for us. We came back to find Luke watching a movie with Bridget and Will sleeping on either side of him on the hide-a-bed.

On Sunday we found a ward to attend in Eden. Then had Adam's cousin Tom Toronto and his wife Jess and their two little girls Kyla and Abby over for dinner and a traditional game of Yahtzee.