Merry Christmas

Ward Christmas Party

Last Saturday was the ward Christmas party. After dinner the kids lined up by the stage to watch a really fun Christmas show.
Cole and his cute, messy face.
Mia played the "pipes" for part of the show. She was excited to contribute her ONE note. Way to go Mia.
And we can't forget the men's synchronized swimmers. Such talent.

And is that a familiar face I see in there? The President is showing up all over the place these days.

"White" Christmas

The Whites hosted an awesome Christmas party. We had dinner and played fun games. And they served their traditional English Christmas Pudding... or something like that. I was too focused on the flaming sugar cubes to pay attention to the name. I thought it was yummy and fancy. Two awesome adjectives.
It's always fun to exchange white elephant gifts. This was the winner of the night.

The Nutcracker

Mia's adorable friend Makenna, invited her to the Nutcracker Ballet today. She was so excited to get dressed up and see the show with a wonderful friend.

Kinder Christmas Program

Meet Dasher...

Cole was Dasher in the kindergarten Christmas program. He did a wonderful job singing and acting like a real reindeer.

He just loved his reindeer nose. I couldn't get him to wash it off until 7pm that night.

Silent Night...

All is calm.

GingerBread House

Here are my tips for successful gingerbread house decorating.

#1. DISTRACTION: You must distract the little one. Luke was given Mia's Leapster, and that kept him busy for a good 15 minutes.
#2. ALL IN ONE GINGERBREAD HOUSE KIT: What a great invention. No hassle on my part. The kids know what they have to work with. They just need to use their imaginations to make it look special.
#3. A GREAT LEADER: In this case, Mia was a great leader. She and Cole worked together to make the house look ultra charming.



Distraction only works for so long. Luke discovered the yummy house. Mia and Cole did a great job making it look beautiful, and the house lasted a good 12 hours, before Luke pulled it off the counter the next morning and ate half of it. Ahhh, Christmas memories.

Little Miss and Mr. Christmas

Mia performed in the winter academy showcase last week. They performed a play based on the popular 1970's series of books about Little Miss and Mr.

Mia was Little Miss Helpful, which totally fits her true personality. She had lots of lines and did a great job memorizing them. I was so proud of her. Here's a photo of Mia and her drama teacher before her evening performance.
And here are some photos during the show.

Tree Trimming

Last night the kids decorated the tree. And they did the whole thing by themselves. Well, most of it. I had to hang my hand painted ornaments from Great Aunt Betty, but they did the rest. It was so fun watching them, especially Luke. You can see he really got into it.


Cole doesn't look excited in any of the pictures, but he actually had a great time. I think he was just concentrating on making sure the ornaments were evenly spaced.
Mia wanted to show off her Disneyland ornament from last year.

Cole, trying to look cool.

Thanksgiving 2009

So our holiday week started off with a bang. The day after arriving in Utah we woke up to this. It was the first time in 5 years that I scraped snow and ICE off of my car. (Don't tell anyone, but I kind of enjoyed it.)Going to Drew's home town for a few days was WONDERFUL! The kids loved spending time with Grandma and Grandpa, and riding on the mule and horse walker. The high light of my trip there was having a wonderful Thanksgiving eve dinner with Dixie. No chaos... just thankfulness. I loved it.
On Thanksgiving morning we drove out to Jill and Brock's house. It was fun setting the tables.
The girls exchanged lots of secrets... that is, in the few moments they weren't arguing.

And Mom watched over us, monitoring our fabulous cooking skills.
The deep fried turkey was Juicy! And Brock can carve a turkey in no time at all. It's actually quite a show... watching him at work.

Leave it to me to forget to take pictures during the dinner. I did the same thing last year. But here is a photo of most of us before we headed to bed. Thanks Jill and Brock. We had a great time.