Idaho

We went to Idaho over New Year's. . .It was wonderful! VERY relaxing and VERY fun - just what I needed.
This kid cracks me up (with a little help from Stacy).

Playing fox and the hare with Grandpa, Stacy and Devin? Maybe. I'm not quite sure what this is called but the kids loved it.

We love to play in the snow
with so
many cousins!

Dallin fell in love with Kristen. One time during a family prayer, he started out on my lap and by the end of the prayer I found him on Kristen's lap. I'm not positive, but I think her iphone had something to do with it:)
New Year's Eve with the kids. They celebrated with New York.
Having fun.
The food. . .lots of it and very tasty.
Hey, I want some, too!
The New Year's Eve toast.
Scones in the morning by Erin.
We went to Richard and Kristen's New Year's Day and went snowmobiling. It was ridiculously cold but so much fun!

Dallin's first ride
Sledding
Its really cold
I agree!

Little angels. . .most of the time!
Why do we need to throw a snowball at the camera man?
We had tons of fun and are grateful to mom and dad for all they do to help us and make it great!

Christmas

The girls decided they wanted to wait for Aaron to do chores first and then when he got home we would all go out and see what Santa brought.
By 7:45 they were had. "Dad will never get home!", "Can't you see how light it is outside?" "We are not doing this next year!"

I even had snacks for them to eat.
Gratefully he did come home. They only had to wait till 8:30, (ok, I even thought we had to wait forever:)) But it was worth it. Christmas morning lasted a long time for us!
I think I surprised Aaron for the first time EVER with a chain saw.

Just what Ashley wanted.
The skirt screams Kailyn.

Dallin was not into opening presents. He wouldn't open one present. He would just turn his head and pretend it wasn't there. Wyatt had fun opening them for him.
He did enjoy spreading his onesies everywhere. He also LOVED the chocolate. He climbed up on the table and was digging into the chocolate. He ate quite a few before we noticed.
We had aebleskivers for breakfast with apple and buttermilk syrup. Delicious.
We spent the rest of the day playing with all our presents and eating dinner at Grandma and Grandpas. It was a great day. We are very blessed.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was pure delight. I can't remember the last time I have enjoyed it as much as I did this year. It might have something to do with the fact that Aaron's day off was that day. I know he has had that day off before, but my memories of Christmas Eve is trying to get the house, kids and dinner ready by the time he got home from work and it NEVER worked. Usually I was a tired and annoyed mom by the time Christmas eve night rolled around. This year it was bliss. It was crazy to only have half the jobs to do. He helped deal with kids and we got EVERYTHING done pretty much in time.

We enjoyed crepes for breakfast.
Its funny to me that my kids love crepes so much. They don't like anything in them. Other days I try to get them to put something somewhat healthy in them. For Christmas Eve they enjoyed whipped cream crepes to their hearts content.
Mary and Marty set the table. It was beautiful.
The kids table.
Wyatt enjoying his soup bowl how he wants to. . .
Most years I buy the bread bowls. They are huge and we throw most of them away. Last year I attempted to make the bowls with a new recipe and they flopped. They were tiny and not very good. This year I used my Grandma Luke's french bread recipe and they turned out delicious. They were just the right size too. Mary brought the drink. . .Lime Rickies (sp?) It was delicious!
Our nativity was great. They all got into character superbly. The only problem occurred when Dallin (the shepherd) lost his head towel and Wyatt spent most of the time trying to fix it. It gave us all a laugh.
New PJs.And we ended the night with reading "The Night Before Christmas".

Nutcracker

The girls were in Nutcracker this year. The girls had a blast and did so well. They loved every minute of practice and performance. It was so fun to watch the ballet come together and very entertaining watching the little ones dance around the stage.
Their faces glowed for 2 days straight during performance. It was definitely a high that was fun to be a part of.
Backstage there was quite the action. Moms had activities to keep them busy.

I'm not sure this will be a repeat event. This required every Saturday from September to December which was exhausting for me. Chasing Wyatt and Dallin around during practice wore me out! I can't say it was all hard. I had lots of help - Maria was also in it (Brad was in it for the last month) so this helped with trips to the studio, but it still was quite the commitment and all 5 of us were exhausted once the ballet was over. We had a week left to prepare for Christmas and I felt that I missed out on enjoying the holiday all month long. But, over all, it was very fun and we will just have to decide if this is something we want to add to our Christmas activities.