Christmas Time!

It's Christmas time! And of course it started with a tree :)

 The Angel on top

 Oh how the kids love to decorate the tree! (And oh how I spend the rest of the evening after they go to bed re-decorating the tree :)

 Elise enjoyed the decorating just as much, but in a different way.

Luke's preschool Christmas Program

 Santa!

 (Or as Joey would say, "Sansa!" He also went around saying "Happy Holidays!!" instead of "Merry Christmas." I'm not sure where he got that, but clearly he's very P.C. ;)

We managed to squeeze in a little date night :)

And the top photo of the season goes to...ELISE! This is our favorite picture ever! She was so funny! She was smiling away as I held the camera, but when that red light would flash right before the picture, she would make this face. I guess she wasn't so impressed with the light. I love it. :)

 This was the closest I got to a smile. These pictures get included in the Christmas post because of her cute Christmas bow :)

 Family Christmas Eve party singing Christmas carols. 

(Caroline, Olivia, Anna, Luke, Ben, Mikey, Kate, and Amanda)

  

Christmas Morning!

 

 Stockings first:

 (It's morning after a Christmas Eve that lasted until 2am--give my sleepy face a break)

 Superheros...

 ...and princesses. We're so stereotypical ;)

 Elise was sick :( Poor thing. Luckily we could spend plenty of time sitting around holding her.

After a long and painful breakfast the kids finally made it to the tree:

 A cuddly dog was just what she needed :)

 And thanks to the many snow storms we're enjoying, conditions were perfect for sledding. That's Joey in the mask. The snow was flying up into the kids faces while blazing down the hill so Lance pulled out his old wood working/cutting mask. Worked like a charm.

Mikey's first tooth--FINALLY

Mikey has finally done it. He has lost his first tooth! He has been waiting for this day for a LONG time. You see, he is 6 1/2 years old and it seemed like he was the ONLY 6 1/2 year old left who had not lost a tooth! In fact, it's probably been about a year since he started noticing his friends were losing teeth and started asking about it. So it's been a long wait. (He actually didn't get his first tooth until he was about 1 so I wasn't surprised that he had to wait awhile.) 

But it finally happened! And he already has another loose one!

 And so he finally got his Tooth Fairy pillow (made by moi) and had a visit from the Tooth Fairy.

(Now we just have to help Luke be patient because now that Mikey has lost a tooth, Luke is asking when his turn will come. It never ends.)

Happy Halloween!

Finally, here are all of our Halloween pictures (aside from the Pumpkins, of course.)

I admit. I was not great at taking Halloween pictures. But we have at least one of everyone in their costumes so that's at least good. (I also admit that part of it might have a little to do with this cute little lady distracting me from my regular photographic duties with her cute little face...my camera just keeps finding her. :) 

 Elise probably had more "Halloween clothes" than all of the boys ever have had all put together. :)

 Luke was hanging out with her and really excited about taking pictures with her.

 In case you haven't noticed, she loves to stick that little tongue out.

Pretty much all of my pictures of everyone in their costumes were at our family Halloween party.

Three generations of witches! (Heather was actually also a witch, but we never got a picture with us all together.)

I think this is the first year we have all done completely random and unrelated costumes (aside from us girls). Here we all are. Lance actually MADE his costume. Pretty impressive, huh? (I actually made Elise's and mine, but those were nothing compared to Lance's creation.) Then that's Joey the dragon, Luke as Luigi, and Mikey as Bumblebee the Transformer.

 My cute little witch

Little Eliza (as Dora)  loved just sitting there by Elise and taking pictures with her.

Kate and Mikey

 Here are Ben, Luke, Anna and Olivia in the front

 Olivia

 On our way into the ward Halloween party, where I did not take any other pictures...

 Mikey in his Halloween parade

On our way out to the neighborhood Chili party on Halloween night before trick-or-treating

 She loves grabbing faces

 See what I mean? Distracted from taking pictures of the other kids getting ready to trick-or-treat to just take a picture of Elise playing on the floor. But she's just so darling!

Happy Halloween!