Last activities of 2015!

We spent our last few days of the year:

Building Legos for hours. Days. It was a peaceful, great time!!

hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa Murray!

Here's Maris and Cleo playing catch with Grandpa.

and Owen and Cleo having fun with the pool table.

We went to see the new Star Wars! Me, Eric, Kate, Whitney and Ryan and Cortnee.  Loved it!

Katelyn is so good at playing with little kids, good thing!  She happily let Cleo drag her all over the place.

Also one day whitney made a salad sandwich for lunch haha.

Eric and I greatly enjoyed our Thai food and mall shopping anniversary date!  We also stopped at Home Depot and a shake place- it's amazing how many places you can go in 4 hours with no children!  

Pretty Happy to have been married for 12 years!

New Year's Eve Day we went sledding with Kurtis in Layton, it was a great hill!

Unfortunately the girls BOTH broke their sleds early on and BOTH decided to be grumpy about it and not sled anymore for most of the time we were there because they didn't want to take turns.  Okay fine! Here's Eric with Owen and Maris:

Maris ended up being the most excited about sledding; she loved it!!

She kept saying "self" when we would take her down the big hill, so finally Eric let her go alone from the top, with me waiting at the bottom.  I barely caught her before she hit a tree, and she was like "no stop!" she was upset that I saved her! haha.  She had a great time.

Owen ended up just playing in the snow,

WHitney sulked in the bushes,

and here's Katelyn doing her spinning trick one last time before the end.

We had fun with one kid anyway!  And with Kurtis, too bad I didn't get any pictures of him!

Maris and Grandma just sitting and eating and talking.  maris thinks she is so big!

and before we went to bed on New Years Eve we read scriptures and had our last family prayer of the year!  And then a group hug. :)

One of the bright spots amongst the fighting and grumpiness and rudeness that so easily takes over these days.  But we will carry on and keep trying to do the right things! 

Here's to 2016!

Christmas Day!

This year we tried to take more videos on Christmas morning than in years past.  (due to watching 18 years' worth of Christmases on video the last couple of months as we transferred Eric's parents' videos to digital files! It was fun to watch and we wanted more video of our Christmases.)  But this may have come at the expense of less pictures!  Or less quality pictures. But it's okay, I just wanted to capture the happiness of Christmas morning, and I think I did that.  Note to self: take a selfie on Christmas so I'm in the picture!  I even had cute Christmas pjs!

Anyway on Christmas morning at about 7 am we woke up Owen and Maris and let Katelyn and Whitney out of their room :)  and came out to see our gifts from Santa!

Too bad she's closing her eyes, but Maris was delighted with each piece of candy she found in her stocking!

Katelyn got the book lights she's been dreaming of!

Owen got little tractor trailers he's been dreaming of!

....and a bike!  No more riding a pink bike around the neighborhood for this boy!  Not that he cared, but Eric did haha.

He rode it happily around the kitchen while we got breakfast ready.

And Whitney rode her new scooter-with light up wheels- around!

And Maris shoved as much candy in her mouth as possible!  Christmas and Easter are the only tiems she's allowed to do this.  Oh and Halloween. Live it up girl!

Owen got several costumes for Christmas, from various sources!  Here he is as Captain America.

Whitney DYING for the present opening to begin after breakfast!

maris opening a present from us- Whitney being overly helpful and my arm trying to stop her- you get a glimpse of my pjs! 

and Owen cutely congratulating her!

Owen as a knight.

Maris immediately reading a book she opened from Grammy.

Whitney got the Lego Friends Pop Star Bus she wanted from Grandma and Grandpa Murray! What a great face.

My Grandmom Wallwork crocheted these super cute headbands for us all!! Such a cool idea.  Oh wait I guess there is a picture of me, yay!

Owen opening a spiderman from Whitney!

a tractor from Grandma and Grandpa!  He LOVES it, what a great smile!

Owen as a ninja.

learning to block candy with his Captain America shield.

Superhero bouncy balls and tractor stickers from Grammy and Grandpa 

Maris pushing around her new cart from us.

Katelyn was surprised by her new Japanese music box!

And Whitney was not surprised by the boy Barbie she had peeked at a few days before! (Eric told her if she peeked in any more packages that toy would be given to DI!)

More Legos!!

Maris got pretty good at opening gifts!

"A Barnes and Noble gift card??!?"

Owen was surprised by a Japanese walking dog- he had forgotten that he asked for one!

Katelyn loves her rice owl from Grammy- she keeps it in the freezer in case she has an injury!

Whitney loves her owl sewing kit and enjoyed making a little owl last week!

Eric got the new hiking backpack he wanted-- and now I get his old one! yay!

Maris being silly with a mouth full of candy!

Blurry picture of Eric wearing the headband from my Grandmom- he wore it all morning!

a picture I sent to Mary of my 3 favorite presents from her- a big metal bowl, a beautiful decorative bowl, and a new, current, framed family picture!  Yay!

And for the next 3 days our house looked like this:

Lego land!! The kids were in heaven.  For the first time Whitney didn't need much help, which was good because Owen needed a lot of help!  He did great for his first time with little Legos though; he definitely has a good mind for building. :)

And once again we were reminded that all kids need is a BOX for Christmas haha.  Owen and Maris made this their boat and spent a few happy hours playing in/with it.

Christmas this year was wonderful for me because I really tried to do as Elder D. Todd Christofferson said in the December Ensign: take some quiet moments and reflect on the Savior.  Sit and let his love warm you like sitting by a fire.  When I would get worried that I wasn't doing enough or that my kids have too much I would sit and relax and think of Him.  And that is what Christmas is all about.  

Also we FaceTime-ed with Eric's family on Christmas, which was so fun to see them in CA with Elizabeth and her new baby Xavier!  And we FaceTime-ed my family on Christmas Eve to see everyone there.  It was great to connect with our families.

Merry Christmas!

And now we're moving on.