Christmas

Merry Christmas!! These are our Christmas Eve and Christmas pictures.

Playing with Grandpa Murray on Christmas Eve while we waited for the Trax to take us to Temple Square. So cute!

waiting for the lights to come on!
Opening stockings Christmas morning!
happiness that only cost pennies. balloons and rings from Santa.

this is what Whitney did as soon as she saw her new Dora sleeping bag from Natalie- flopped right down on it!

Katelyn with ponies from Aunt Melissa
Whitney squeezing her "boy boybee" (boy barbie) so tight!
playing in the tunnel from Grammy and Grandpa Jamie- they love it! Whitney goes crazy in there, it's hilarious.
We had a really good Christmas morning. Then we went to the Murray's for Christmas dinner and many hours of fun playing Wits and Wagers. One of my favorite things from the day was when Katelyn said in the Christmas dinner prayer that she was grateful she wasn't sick on Christmas. We had actually been praying for that the whole month, because last year she was sick on Christmas and it was really sad for us all that she couldn't be as excited and joyful. So our prayers were answered!

Also we had a quick post-Christmas visit from my parents as they brought Donny to Provo- we're so excited to have him close! The girls had a lot of fun with them too and I forgot to take pictures.

And I forgot to mention our favorite parts of this Christmas season: reading stories every night was SO fun, and the girls LOVED caroling and Whitney even learned a couple of songs all the way through.

I love the Christmas season and how much more often than usual I thought of Christ this month!

santa whitney

Christmas traditions and fun

Here's a peek at our December fun, not necessarily in order...

Whitney at the height of our snow this week! Eric was pretending to fall off the deck and Whitney went to save him.... and stepped right off and sunk right in up to her armpits! Later I was making a maze with the girls and snow was up to my thighs in some spots!

Whitney making her gingerbread house in what I like to call "jonathan style"- after my brother who used to just pile as much candy as possible on his plate!
Katelyn pointing to the smiley face on her creative house!

okay this was hilarious. playing Santa and his reindeer.

we had fun seeing the lights at Salem pond

Then we had a bunch of snow this week- this was on the beginning of the first day when we only had a few inches. We ended up with at least 2 feet! Here are the girls trying to catch snowflakes on their tongues.

We made a ramp again going down from our deck- perfect for little sledders. Oh and Whitney threw the snowball in her hand at Kate right after I took this picture!
making snow angels...
and acting out the Christmas story. This is the camel and the 2 wise men/astronauts. :) And yes I had just gave Eric a haircut. a buzz. the only thing he'll let me do to his hair. :)
good times.

more thanksgiving pics I stole from my sisters

me and eric at the beach, cute.

Melissa took this so-cute picture of my girls
Thanksgiving scripture skits- Whitney was a cricket and Melissa a seagull from the pioneer story, it was HILARIOUS.
All of us who were there- we miss you Derek and Jonathan!

Thanksgiving

So my sister Allison invited my whole family over for Thanksgiving this year, she is brave and awesome. We had so much fun spending 3 whole days together in her house in sunny Southern California! It was so funny, when we got off the freeway in her town there were flowers growing by the side of the road and they looked so pretty- I realized I hadn't see flowers growing in almost a month!

Anyway, we did SO many fun things and the girls had a blast with everyone. The food was great (all of the meals!) and we got to play lots of games and watch lots of great basketball and lots of heartbreaking football. We spent time outside each day enjoying the blessed sunshine. We siblings and spouses went to see Harry Potter 7 while Grammy and Grandpa Jamie watched the kids! It was a great vacation.

Here's Katelyn gobbling up apple peels while Jenae, Katrina and Phillip peeled apples for pies.

Here's Whitney and Eric "playing badminton"- Whitney got SO excited each time they hit the ball- I mean the shuttlecock? Badminton is Donny's new favorite sport and Eric took a badminton class at BYU and loved it, so he was really excited that Donny brought his net!
While others had turns playing, the girls had races around the court.
We also went to the beach! Here's Katelyn with her cute name.
Whitney loved the waves of course!
The young ones- Jenae, Natalie, Whitney and Katelyn got in the water. Us wise older folk did not.
Oh and these young ones braved the waves too a little- Donny, Melissa, and Phillip!
We also found a cute short tree, like Whitney. The Whitney tree.
And a tall skinny tree. The Katelyn tree.
And that's all my pictures. Thank you again to the MacKays for hosting!

last fall pics

Since we have had snow on the ground for a couple of weeks now, I thought I'd finally post the last of our fall pictures. Here are the girls in the leaf pile!

and Whitney totally buried
and the girls burying Eric :)
Oh and here's my latest hobby- making fabric flowers with layers of silky cloth with melted edges! So fun. I've made hair clips, necklaces, and flowers to pin on shirts. Here's a couple of my favorites.
and my new work-in-progress fun hairstyle.

the reason for the season

It was Christmas time, and a little girl named Katelyn was 4 ½ years old and just starting to learn how to read. One day she was in the kitchen, trying to figure out the saying on a decorative plate her mom had put up. She sounded out “We”, her mom helped her with “believe”, and she got “in”. Then on the last word she said “sss” and “aah”, then her face lit up and she exclaimed “Savior!”

Her mom was surprised, then a little embarrassed, and with great love for her daughter she said “Wow, you’re right, that is what we believe in. It should say Savior, but really it says “Santa”. ‘We believe in Santa’.”

Katelyn replied “Maybe we could make a new plate that says ‘We believe in the Savior’.”

Her mom smiled and said, “that’s a good idea,” and was grateful for the reminder of the reason for the season.