To close the year...

As I have thought about the year 2012, I feel really blessed in my life.  I have four beautiful, healthy girls, a wonderful husband, and the gospel of Jesus Christ in my life.  Ciera hit her 12th year this year, and started in the Young Women class at church, and started Junior High School.  Autumn hit a milestone as well... Kindergarten!  Chloe started at Intermediate School, and Brooke began second grade.  Dave has found success at work... always inspiring a new set of students each semester.  He became the second counselor to the bishop of our ward in November and loves serving the people in our ward in that capacity.  I got a job in October working for a business owned by a family in our ward.  It is really great and allows me to be home when my girls are home, and only at work when they are all at school.  It has been a huge blessing to us.  We sold our home in Logan in February, which was a huge relief, but also made our move away seem more permanent, which is kind of sad.  We are starting to like Texas a bit more... we try to focus on the positive things and count our blessings instead of dwelling on the things we want to change.  Our attitude change has made a big difference.  We had a wonderful year in 2012.  There were a lot of happy things, and some not-so-happy things, but we come out of the year a stronger, happier family and look forward to a great 2013!

A White Christmas in Texas

Christmas morning began really early at our house this year.  Ciera woke up about 3:45, and the rest all followed (with help, I'm sure) about 4:00.  They came in to wake us up several times, and we finally got out of bed at around 5:50 to begin opening gifts.  Family and Santa were very good to us this year, and there were lots of things to open.

After lunchtime, rain turned to snow, and we got a good 4-6 inches of snow on Christmas Day.  It was really fun... except that we have no proper snow-gear anymore.  The day after Christmas, the girls sledded down our backyard hill in our laundry baskets... (We fit right in in Texas now, huh?!?)

I hope all our friends and family had as great a Christmas as we did...
Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas Eve Program

Every Christmas Eve, we do a program where everyone reads, sings, plays, acts out, or whatever-else-they-can-come-up-with something Christmas-y.  This year, was no exception.  Autumn started it out with reading "The Donkey's Christmas Song"... she only needed a little bit of help.  It was so cute!

Brooke, who is an excellent reader, read "How the Grinch Stole Christmas".  She used wonderful feeling and expression while she read... it was awesome!

Chloe loves to sing with her whole heart.  She sang all three verses of "Deck the Halls" with gusto!  It brought a light, fun mood to the evening.

Ciera did two musical numbers.  First, she did "Joy to the World" on the piano. She did a great job!  After that, she did "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" on her french horn.  She really did a wonderful job.  She has improved so much on her horn over this last year.

When she was finished, I read a story called "The Red Sweater" and Dave read "The Night Before Christmas" and Grandpa Tanner's story for this year.
 

It was a wonderful Christmas Eve! (We also continued the tradition of Clam Chowder... and added Oyster Stew this year too.  Autumn was the only one to eat any stew with Dave.  He said it turned out good, and wants me to make it every year.  We'll see...)

Christmas Dolls

Here are a few of my favorite things...

Happy Birthday Autumn Susan Tanner!!

Our little baby is six years old!  I can't even believe it!  She has been a wonderful addition to our family and I can't imagine life without her.  She is such a feisty, sweet, rascal, and we love her to pieces!

To celebrate her birthday, she had a birthday party with her friends on the Saturday before her big day.  She had just three friends that came, but it was perfect.  They had a really great time playing games and making graham cracker candy houses.  On her actual birthday, we opened presents in the morning and that evening took her on her mommy-daddy-daughter date night.  She chose Red Robin (same as last year), and they sang to her and gave her balloons and a sundae.  She LOVED it!  I hope you had a wonderful birthday Autumn sweetheart!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

The first weekend in December, we decorated our Christmas tree.  The girls love to put all the decorations on, and for years I didn't really like to let them, because it never turned out how I wanted it to look.  For the last two years, I have let them have free reign... and it has been wonderful.  We turned on Christmas music and just let them load up the tree.  It was really fun!

Dino-Kid Autumn

Autumn received the Dino-kid award for November!  She is such a great kid, and a great student in Kindergarten.  We are so proud of her!

Thanksgiving week fun

This year for Thanksgiving week, Grandma and Grandpa Elvester came to visit.  It was a really wonderful week... We hung around home for the most part, but were able to go out to shop and eat a few times... Grandpa came with us on a hike one day.  The weather was very nice... not too hot and not too cold.  Thanksgiving day was really great.  We made a turkey with all the fixin's and three different kinds of pie (Pumpkin, of course, and apple and pecan... Yum!).  I didn't get too many pictures, but we sure had fun!