Christmas Fun

We had fun preparing for Christmas by: 

using our many countdowns,

 Doing secret acts of kindness for each other all month long, as I explained in my last post,

buying and wrapping gifts for cousins and siblings,

reading our beloved Christmas stories every night!!

going to our ward Christmas party:

 Owen and Maris wouldn't get close to Santa, and when Santa said "you know what I give little boys who won't tell me what they want?  Socks and underwear!" Owen nodded and smiled enthusiastically like that was great with him! Haha cute kid.

 Whitney being brave, and wearing her cute/silly party outfit. :)

Kate didn't care to talk to Santa :)

 Eric took owen and Maris up onto the stage for a minute during the party, and Maris went right up and picked up the baby Jesus out of the manger!

 so sweet.

 Eric helped her gently put him back.

 Another new thing we did this year was the 12 days of Christmas/Secret Santa.  I prayed to know who we could do it for in our ward and an older lady I know came to mind-- I visit-taught her daughter in Santaquin and she is a recent widow.  So every night we would doorbell ditch a treat or piece of the nativity we had bought for her.  It was so fun!  Then on the last day we went caroling to her and revealed ourselves.  She was so sweet and grateful!

I gave the kids their Christmas pajamas a little early so they could actually wear them a bit during the Christmas season.  Here they are being silly together-- I have to capture these moments when they are playing together nicely!  

 They were doing Motorboat.  Maris loves that and Ring Around the Rosie.

 And making "snow" angels; Maris was trying to copy!

 I tried to take a picture of snowflakes on the stroller when I ran with Maris in a snowstorm while Owen was at preschool. :)

 Whitney was in a Spanish Immersion Christmas Concert, it was fun and cute. She is top row second from right.  She was animated as usual! She did great.

 We made gingerbread houses of course!

 When owen said "can I eat it now?" I didn't expect him to do this!!  Lol.

Fun times.  We also went caroling to about 10 neighbors-- Katelyn did half with me one night and Whitney did the other half with me one day.  As a family we all went to our old neighbors in Santaquin, the Wheelers and Johnssons, and to our friends here, the Petersons.

It was a wonderful December!!

Random December

 Maris with a classic messy Spaghetti face!!  My only child who currently eats spaghetti sauce!

 Maris's first time putting on her own shoe!!  Cutie.

 I made my goal!!  I actually made it down to 128.6 by the time I stopped counting calories.  14 pounds lost, in 13 weeks, woo-hoo!!  I am so grateful that I was able to do that.  My Fitness Pal app is awesome.  And I rocked it with willpower and daily exercise.  I feel so great and my clothes fit so beautifully!!  So happy to be back to pre-pregnancy size.

 Owen and I were watching some special features on our Arthur Christmas DVD, and he saw this random guy and was like "hey!  that looks like one of the apostles!  that looks like..... Elder Rasband!"  and it does a little, the squinty eyes and bald head, but I was amazed!  Great job Owen, I couldn't believe he even knew Elder Rasband's name, he's a brand new apostle!  So cute.  But Owen was really paying attention at Conference when the new apostles were called, because he had been pretty concerned when the 3 recent ones died.  

 I'm doing separate Christmas posts, but these were some of the acts of kindness done for our straw in the manger family Christmas tradition!  Maris's bed by Katelyn and Eric's stuff organized by Whitney.  So cute!  And it was cute to see the kids really think of things on their own this year, and deal with getting a person that it was hard for them to be nice to.  It brought many happy feelings to our home and I loved it.

 Maris's cool highlighted-looking hair!  :)

 Sidewalk chalk on a cold day with Owen and Maris, and Maris LOVES this bunny hat the girls brought her from Japan!  She says "bummy" it's so awesome.

 Having a librarian for a mom is the best!  She gave us some great Christmas books this year!

 Facebook for this one:

Classic mom moment. Kate comes home yesterday needing to make a Native American shoebox diorama....due TODAY. She's known about it for a MONTH. And that's how we spent the rest of our day. 😁 oh and Samuel the Lamanite is now Navajo. ‪#‎notaprocrastinator‬ ‪#‎justaspacecadet‬‪#‎mykatierose‬ ‪#‎navajohogan‬

 another hat Maris wouldn't take off.

 sunrise run!  so glad Katrina is running a half with me in February, it has made this December my best running December ever!  I usually don't train much!

 Lego tower contest- 2 minutes to build something creative!  Did this while Whit and Eric went to see Star Wars- Whit took my ticket because I had to stay home with sick Kate!

The Harveys' visit!!

On December 1st I got to spend a whole day with Kristi!!!  It was so great.  It took the kids a while to get warmed up to each other since they hadn't hung out in a couple of years, but once they got going they got along swimmingly and I really do want to arrange a marriage between two of our children!!  Not sure which two!  But it was a fun day.  Owen was in HEAVEN playing with Matthias (9) and James (almost 11).  Owen is 9 months older than their little brother Hyrum, so they were used to playing with a little boy and they were SO nice to him!! It was so sweet.  This picture was when Owen brought these keys to Matthias and said "we should use these in the game" and Matt was like "yeah, these are the keys to the Force!" and was talking about what each one could do, it made Owen feel so cool.  So cute.  I also enjoyed watching them play with Maris, they were so sweet to her too.  Their little sister Grace is just 6 months old so they thought Maris was fun.

 Katelyn and Whitney played with Hannah (almost 7) for the first couple of hours, but then they all ended up playing together; here is James, Katelyn and Whitney in the basement.

 and the 4 oldest kids playing.

Planning their haunted house they made in the basement!

Whitney and Hannah totally hit it off and kept hugging goodbye at the end. :)

Hyrum being Batman.

 At the end we tried to take a picture of all the kids-- we have 9 children!! 

 And it didn't really work, haha.

 But really the best part was talking to Kristi for like 9 hours!  

And the 4 of us hanging out after Taylor got done with some errands and Eric came home from work!

 Too bad they love Texas and will probably live there forever :( :( 

But good thing they will have to keep coming back to visit their families in Utah!

 We love the Harveys.  

Friends for 15 years and counting!

October and November by Eric

Apparently I hadn't uploaded Eric's pictures in over 2 months!  So I had to add some of these gems.

Camping in a trail tunnel with Jacob, jack and Glavin.

around the campfire.

Katelyn and Dad Date: Trafalga!

camping in the sand dunes,

with Michael, Jordan and Glavin

Haha nice profile Eric.

Eric's old scout, and our awesome neighbor, Ryan Craig, got his eagle and asked Eric to come and do the Eagle charge for him.  It was a fun reunion with several other friends from Santaquin!

camping at the Lava tubes/hot springs- don't know which boys but they had about 6 on that campout.

We got free tickets to a BYU basketball game for all 6 of us!!  

The first half was pretty fun, but then all the kids got bored and Maris just wanted to walk up and down the Marriott Center steps repeatedly, so we tried to bribe them with treats.  We almost made it to the end but finally had to give up and leave.  It got so bad at the end that Eric swore he would never take the kids to anything ever again!!  Haha.  I think it's true though; the girls don't love watching sports for more than 5 minutes, and Owen and Maris are so young.  Maybe someday we'll try again, or better, just go on a date to a game without the kids!!

Maris is cute. 

Apparently 2 pictures were taken on Eric's phone at Thanksgiving!  This was the day after Thanksgiving pasta dinner at our house.  The cousin tables, with Owen, Ryder, Lydia and Jenna laughing hysterically at the front one!  So cute.

Some of the others.

This picture.  Eric found the weird sloth in a spacesuit picture a few years ago and died laughing and texts it to me periodically for a laugh.  We just can't get over his stupid face!!  So this year he found a Christmas version, haha.

Eric had to go to Arizona for work one day, and got to stop for a minute at the Hoover Dam!  He likes that kind of thing. :)

One day we randomly sledded down the driveway!

And last but not least, Katelyn is a talented Etch-a-Sketch artist!  Eric took these pictures of her work a couple of weeks ago in Sacrament Meeting... a little inappropriate, sorry!

A robot.

and a Nativity scene!  Very cool!!