Post Christmas

The day after Christmas we headed to my parents' house.

My parents gave the girls matching outfits for them and their new dolls.

Emily



Megan



The next day we went to Rexburg, ID.  Greg and Brooke have been foster parents to little Silas since he was 3 months old.  (He's now 2 1/2 years old.)  Last month they were able to officially adopt him and then on December 27 they were able to have him sealed to them in the temple.  What a wonderful, beautiful day!



My kids loved meeting Alex and Carolyn, Derek and Tansy's twins.  They thought everything about them was so tiny and cute.  Here is Tyler and Alex.



And here I am "living the good ol' days."  (Although, I never did attempt a selfie "back in the day.")



The kids had so much fun playing with their cousins.  They put on a "talent show" for us.

Olivia and Megan



Olivia and Emily



Olivia, Megan and Emily







Tyler and Kyle

 

 

Tyler discovered the Wii and Mario Kart and was hooked. (Tyler, Daniel, Nathaniel and Kyle)



Olivia and Megan playing games



Laura and Emily doing a puzzle



Emily and her bead art



It was SO cold, but the kids braved it to be pulled in a sled behind the 4-wheeler.

Emily



Megan



Tyler

 

 

 

Going for rides

 

We were able to celebrate Olivia's 8th birthday with her.



And then attend her baptism.

 

 

Megan got in on the Wii action too.



Doing art with Aunt Brooke



Tyler and Emily loving on  Uncle Greg

 

 

Celebrating the New Year.  We watched the ball drop at 10:00 p.m. and then headed to bed.  I caught a stomach bug the night before so I wasn't feeling up to partying much anyway.

My mom, Kyle, Megan, Tyler and Olivia

 

Emily

 

A cousin sleepover on New Year's Eve

 

 

 

 

We had such a wonderful time all being together.  My parents will be missionaries in the Lubbock, TX mission from January until July, so it will be a few months before we are able to get together again. 

 

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

For our Christmas Eve dinner we had ham, funeral potatoes, Rhodes rolls, red and green jello parfait cups and Martinelli's.  We ate the meal by candle light.



Emily thought the parfait cups were fun to stack.



The kids opened some new jammies. (Megan, Tyler and Emily)



Then we acted out the nativity. 



Emily was Mary this year and Darrell was Joseph.



Megan was an angel.  Here she is announcing the birth of Baby Jesus to Tyler, the shepherd, who is holding a broom as his staff.  Megan and Tyler then became wise men and brought the Baby Jesus gifts.  (No pictures of that, though.)



We watched the movie "Maleficent" to kill time and then put the milk and cookies and laid out the stockings.  (On a side note, the kids were SO excited for it to be night time that they got jammies on at 3:15 p.m.)

The kids woke up at about their normal time of 7:30 on Christmas morning.  They had been anticipating "the big day" for so long, and it was finally here.  They were super excited.

Santa Claus brought My Twinn dolls for the girls and a Lego Castle for Tyler.

 

We had this yummy monkey bread for breakfast.



Then it was time to open presents.

Megan



Emily



Tyler



The kids had a great Christmas and were so cute opening their presents.  They would say, "I always wanted one of those" about almost every present.  So cute!

Megan



Emily



Tyler



(I forgot to get the box for Tyler's Hot Wheels track in the picture.)



Tyler worked and worked for hours on this Lego Castle.



I was so proud of him.  He did the majority of it by himself.

 

 

It was a wonderful Christmas Day.  The kids are at the perfect age to be so excited for everything.  They kids were content to play with their toys and I was content to be a mom and absorb the perfectness of the day.  I'm so grateful for the Christmas season--for the opportunity to remember the birth of Jesus, to be with family, to give gifts and to remember what life is all about.

 

 

 

December

December was a busy month.  We decorated our tree at the beginning of December.  The kids were so excited to help. 



I had to go back and rearrange some of the decorations...too many balls together



and too many hanging off the bottom of the tree.



Tyler was V.I.P. in his class one week in December.



Megan and Emily celebrated their half birthdays at preschool.

Megan



Emily



The girls decided to combine all of the nativities on the piano and bring them all over to the stable.





We had a special Stake Conference.  Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles came and spoke.  It was SO AWESOME!  We got there about 45 minutes before the conference started so the kids played with these magnetic Book of Mormon figures.  We were SO squished in the gym so lots of people could get in, but it was worth it.

Emily



Last January I decided to start a school choir at Tyler's school.  We had 75 kids participate this fall.  They performed at a local mall and at a cultural center, besides doing a concert for the parents and one for the school.  Here they are performing at the mall and here is a link to the concert.



My parents came down to watch the Rocketeers (school choir) concert.  We went out to Menchie's afterwards for frozen yogurt.



We attended a Stake Christmas activity at the church.  Emily didn't want to dress up and participate in the nativity, but Megan (Mary) and Tyler (a wise man) joined our neighbors for a picture.



The girls inherited these cute stocking caps from their cousins.



Emily decided to sleep in hers one night.



I went with the youth from church to see the lights on Temple Square.



December was a pretty warm and mild month, but we did get a little bit of snow.



Tyler, Megan, and Emily



I made lots of cookies in December and the girls liked helping me.



There was a "photo booth" at our ward Christmas party and the kids loved playing with the props.

Tyler and Megan



Emily, Megan, and Tyler

 

 Tyler and Megan pretending to be "bakers" at a store.

 

After I took a picture of the "bakers," Emily wanted me to take a picture of her too with her "cat."

 

We saw two of  Santa's reindeer outside the mall. (Not the best "phone photo" of Tyler, Emily and Megan)



We went as a family to see the lights on Temple Square.

 

Megan, Tyler and Emily

 

Megan, Emily and Tyler

 

 

 Megan, Emily and Tyler by a huge nativity.

 

 

Tyler singing with the other first graders at the school holiday sing-a-long.

 

Christmas outfits on Christmas Sunday. (Emily, Tyler and Megan--don't ask me why the girls thought the headbands were the perfect accessory, but they did.)

 

We did our annual sugar cookie decorating.  The kids wanted to do everything by themselves this year, and it was a little stressful for me--there was frosting everywhere, sprinkles everywhere, and licked knives and licked fingers.  I just had to bite my tongue.  Darrell was awesome and took on broom duty (1/3 of a bottle nonpareils (those tiny, little ball-type sprinkles) got spilled all over the floor) and the kids had a grand time.  It can only get better from here, right?

 

 

 Megan



Emily



Tyler

 

 

 The final results



We had our annual sleepover by the tree on December 23.  The kids loved it.



We started on a puzzle.  It has 530 pieces that come in 3 different sizes.  The kids loved the 30 huge pieces, but found the other ones quite challenging.  That's OK.  I love doing puzzles so I didn't mind having an excuse to work on one.