Christmas Eve

 On Christmas Eve we went out to an early dinner with Ryan, Cortnee, Cleo and Vivi, and Grandma Grandpa and Kurtis. Then we came home to act out the Christmas story. We had never done it with Grandma and Grandpa and Kurtis before!  So it was really special and fun.

Grandma was Mary :) and Kate was all the angels in the story.

 Grandpa was Joseph!

 Whitney and Maris were very cute shepherds.

 and one shepherd wanted to touch the baby Jesus,

and have her lamb give kisses to the other lamb. :)

 me, Owen and Kurtis were the wise men, and Eric was the narrator.

 Then the kids got into their hilarious matching elf pajamas,

 goofed around a little, 

and we sang a few more songs and went to bed!!

Whitney Spanish Video

Whitney had the honor of being chosen to give the Spanish Greeting for her class' Dual Immersion Christmas Program.  We have seen a couple of these programs now, and I was always super impressed by the Spanish of the kids who did the Welcome, so I was really excited for Whitney to get to do it!  She has the cutest great Spanish accent and is so expressive!  She practiced with her teacher Senora Lambson and she geve her some ideas of how to do it, and then Whitney just memorized and practiced it.  So cute.  And then this video shows the first part of the Frosty song, before the camera ran out of memory! :)

Fun Christmas Activities

This year my favorite Christmas activity was of course, caroling!  We went on several occasions (Eric just once, that's our deal haha) and the kids were great about singing loud and strong.  I was grateful that I felt good enough to bake lots of treats and go caroling! What a blessing to be over morning sickness by Christmastime!

My next favorite Christmas activity was singing and reading Christmas stories every night in December.  Eric bought these fun laser lights that we would turn on in addition to the tree lights, and it was very festive. :)  I just loved looking around at all the cute faces in the light from the tree.  Also we kind of started giving hugs after our family prayer for a few nights in a row, and now Maris definitely thinks its a thing!  So after the prayer every night she yells "hug time!!" it's the cutest thing ever and of course we all have to comply. :)

Here are the pictures from all of our other super fun Christmas activities.

Grandma took us for a ride on the Polar Express!

Owen was excited to be on a real train!

It was fun, they had lots of singing and hot chocolate and cookies, and Katelyn and Whitney were even brave and competed in a solo singing contest!  Katelyn sang Jingle Bells and Whitney sang Frosty the Snowman in Spanish. :)

The highlight was meeting Santa!!

and being with our real Santa aka Grandma!  haha.

Ward Christmas party- the kids dressed as shepherds or angels and sang two very cute songs. Owen is the shepherd second from the right in the front,

And Katelyn's an angel in the back and Whitney's a shepherd in the middle.

Our cute Sunday Christmas outfits!

Katelyn worked really hard on these cute sock snowmen to sell in the school economics fair.

Making gingerbread houses!

and real gingerbread cookies.

Eric took the kids sledding by himself twice during Christmas Break!  It was awesome.  I was grateful to not have to go (let's be honest, I like sledding but I hate being cold!  So pregnancy is a great excuse to not have to go!) and the kids now think it's just a special thing they do just with Dad-- I'm totally fine with that!  Eric is so much fun.

The Thanksgiving Post

We had THanksgiving with these great people!  I was super impressed by all of Melissa's cooking and Jonathan's 7 bottles of Martinelli's. haha.  Also the Cravens came over for a couple of hours, it was lots of fun.

Facebook post for the picture below:

Yesterday was Thanksgiving 2. Pie and potatoes for breakfast? Yes please. Turkey sandwiches and cider for lunch and all the leftovers for dinner? There's nothing better! Add in a full day of Christmas decorating and it couldn't have been better. :) Oh and actual Thanksgiving with 3 of my siblings was pretty great too!!

I'm picking up in my kitchen/dining area and I found ALL of these books lying around; some open, pages down, a couple with various bookmarks as you can see. The culprit? KATELYN. And these are just the ones she left sitting around! I have seen her reading at least 3 other titles that I can think of in the last couple of days! #sheisoutofcontrol #needsachallenge#wonttakemysuggestions

I had so much fun making this apron for Maris to give Lydia for Christmas for the cousin exchange!

And Katelyn and Whitney made these for Caleb and Seth!

Last pic of the old table that has served us well for 8 years!

Our second snowstorm of the year started out with a crazy windy thunderstorm, and our playground got blown over!! I couldn't believe it when I looked out the window!

Then is got covered with snow,

And the next day we got like 8 neighbors to come help us put it back up. :)

Silly Owen.

Eric and owen got to go to a BYU basketball game!

Kate had a fun volleyball season!

The Eric Catch-Up Post

I finally uploaded Eric's pictures form the last several months....so here are a few gems I didn't want left out.

Face painting on the 4th of July.

 My birthday!

 Salem Pond with the Harveys! Whitney, Matthias, Kate

 Matt, Whit, kate, and Hannah

 Eric at Scout Camp. :)

 Eric's scouts at Scout Camp- River Trip!

 Our Uintas trip.

 Skinny Rebecca and cutie Maris

 At the end of the hike we had piggyback time!  Eric carried Katelyn with her hurting, too-small shoes, I carried Owen and Whitney carried Maris!  

 What a kind sister!

 Lagoon pics:

 Salem Days Duct Tape Regatta with the Scouts

 The girls were in a funny dance for the Salem pagent.

 Maris about to go off the diving board at oakridge!  

 She loved it!  Even Owen was brave enough to try it this year.

 The boy cousins! Owen and Xavier.

 Bubbles with cousins.

 Eric has gone fishing a couple of times this fall with some guys from work and a client!

 Silly pose from Maris before church one day!

 Whitney and her team after their last Fall game.

 Adorable cousins!!

 More pumpkin carving:

 the cutest little elephant!

 Scouts at the sand dunes campout in November.