Christmas 2015

We had a lovely, wonderful, magical Christmas.  Granny was here to spend the week with us and we kept her very busy. We spent a night in Williamsburg, VA visiting Busch Gardens and celebrating the holidays and Nash's birthday at Great Wolf Lodge. It was fun for all of us except Scott who lost his phone on the scariest roller coaster ever, The VERBOLTEN!

 Christmas Eve was spent with our good friends The Johnson's. We ate,  reenacted the Nativity, ate, Granny bought the kids a pinata, and we ate.

Christmas day was quiet.  We were all tired from the previous few day's festivities.  We actually, had Mac & Cheese for Christmas dinner. Most of our day was spent being entertained by Scott as he attempted to get Atley's new drone out of a tree. The kids spent the day playing with their new toys and a trip to the movie theater to finally see the new STAR WARS movie. 

To ease the tinge of sadness that always arrives the day after Christmas, we drove to Delaware to watch one of our favorites, Jimmer Fredette play basketball. We even got to meet up with him and former BYU pitcher Kolton Mahoney after the game.

 Harley's favorite part of the day was getting her face-painted and the battle balls.

Here is wishing everyone a wonderful New Year!

ICE at National Harbor

Harley literally crawled into the fountain during the water show and had to be yanked out. She was completely mesmerized.  Good thing it was an unseasonably warm winter's night because she was soaked to the bone.  

One place it was certainly cold, a balmy 9 degrees, was inside this year's ICE exhibit. The theme was from the movie Santa Claus Is Coming to Town!

 We love Christmas time, especially in the D.C. area!

Happy Birthday Boys!

I love these two A LOT!

Harley made Nash the most thoughtful book full of all his favorite things, Big Nate, Angry Birds, and the Baltimore Ravens.  So sweet! 

Tonight we celebrated the birthday of two of my favorite people. I won't get too mushy about the husband. I will just say he is a great husband, a great dad, a great provider, a great cougar fan, a great popcorn and pancake maker, a great fixer of anything, a great karaoke singer, a great Mountain Dew drinker and a terrible impersonator but I thank him for still trying and for always making me laugh.

My sweet baby Nash. My beautiful baby boy.  My baby that refused to open his eyes for at least a week. My dark-haired angel. You are the heart of our home.  You are our dancing bear and our sports fanatic.You are a peacemaker and you have the kindest soul of anyone I have ever known. You are keenly aware of the needs and desires of others and gladly put yourself second to help another. You are such a hard worker and a natural leader.  You have been given some tremendous gifts from your Heavenly Father, that not only influence the members of your family but all those who come in contact with you.  We feel so privileged that Heavenly Father sent you to us.  We love you forever and always! 

Happy 9th birthday Jo Jo Pet!

A Camel, A Shepherd and A Wise Man

. . .walk into a bar.

No just kidding! Those were actually roles played by our children in the Church Nativity.

Gingerbread Houses 2015

You have probably heard me complain about this tradition before but I'm not going to complain this year. You want to know why?  Because I hot glued the houses together before we decorated them.  The kids could eat all the icing and candy they wanted, just not the houses themselves. It worked beautifully because, honestly, who really likes gingerbread anyway!  Well, actually the dog apparently loves gingerbread seasoned with hot glue, because the houses were destroyed within 10 hours of construction and there was an abundance of dog barf under the Christmas tree. Well, it was fun while it lasted. Shout out to my favorite gingerbread houses from IKEA.  I make a special trip there every year just to pick up the gingerbread kits and it is well worth my time.

 

'Tis the Season of the Elf

Ispy turned our window into a winter wonderland.  Apparently, he is a BYU fan. He brought us tickets to see ICE and introduced the kids to Snoballs, of which they were not fans.

Ispy showed off his engineering skills by rigging a tire swing out of a Mason jar ring.  One night he ran into some trouble when our evil cat trapped him in her kitty food. He fashioned a cardboard Rudolph that he rode through the house.  He even created his very own "Kiss"ing booth. 

 Ispy is always mischievous and left us a few naughty little notes.

One night he brought one of his favorite reindeer all the way from the North Pole for the kids to enjoy and then he turned one of our doors into Frosty the Snowman! 

He brought us the beautiful book entitled, A Christmas Spider's Miracle along with some golden icicles to go along with the story and for the kids to use on the Christmas trees.  

Well, I don't know about you Ispy but I am exhausted and we still have 11 more days until Christmas.

Thanksgiving 2015

For the first time in seven years we actually stayed home and I cooked Thanksgiving Dinner. Much to my surprise it was actually pretty nice and relaxing. The kids made pilgrims and tee pees for our place settings. Never mind, Harley's Klan hood, we had a disagreement about pilgrim hats and she obviously won the argument.

The weather was beautiful so we spent an afternoon at George Washington's boyhood home, Ferry Farm, on the banks of the Rappahannock. We saw George's cherry tree, tobacco plants, and played with the cotton blossoms. By the way, the Ipad that appears to be permanently attached to Atley's arm is actually part of the tour.

At home the kids and Scott worked on the log chicken cabin that they have been building and had plenty of time on the tire swing Scott rigged for them in late September. 

And Harley taught us all about the first Thanksgiving by making a bracelet with  beads that represented all sorts of important things.