Christmas

This holiday season has been really great for us. We have had so much fun as a family. We have done most of our holiday traditions and I got the shopping done early so it wasn't stressful at all.

On Christmas Eve we went to Jared's grandparents house (Mangelson). We had a nice potluck dinner and got to visit with many of our family members.
Santa also made it to our house. It was so much fun. Lucas is the perfect age this year and he was so excited about everything, which made it that much better. The girls were so cute helping him open his presents, they weren't even concerned with what they got.

He loves this truck. It does wheelies and makes noise. What more could a boy ask for?

Notice the tic-tacs all over the floor (they are green). Santa brought them to Lucas in his stocking and that's the first thing he did was dump them all over. He especially liked putting them in the back of his little truck and watching them all fall out when it would wheelie up.

Jared surprised the kids by getting them each a new bike.

Jared's parents came to visit us the day after Christmas. The kids had a lot of fun showing them what they got for Christmas.

What a wonderful Christmas season we have had. So wonderful in fact that I still haven't taken down the tree (which usually comes down the day after). Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas as well.

Gingerbread Houses

On Sunday the kids and I made a gingerbread house and lots of yummy cookies. MaKady and Paige each decorated a side of the house and Lucas just ate all the candy. I was busy cleaning up the kitchen and when I turned around he was running wild. It took him until almost midnight before he could calm down and go to sleep. *Note to self: don't let the girls feed their brother candy* Their house turned out cute and I loved eating all the cookies.

Ward Christmas Party

Last Friday was our ward Christmas party. It was lots of fun as always. We had a fantastic dinner, and then the a little program. The primary sang lots of cute songs and then the youth did a dance to "Once their was a Snowman". MaKady was the snowman.

MaKady

Of course Santa came. My camera was being a POS so these are the only pictures I took. Oh well. It was still a fun party.

Lucas was scared. He only sat on Santa's lap for 3 seconds before he was ready to get down.

Friend Birthday Party

We decided to have Paige's friend party early again this year. It seems to just work out better to have it at the beginning of the month instead of waiting until her actual birthday because people are way too busy the weekend before Christmas.

This year I also limited the number of friends she could invite because last year was out of control. The party was a ton of fun. The girls had pizza, played games like: musical chairs, freeze dance, hot potato, "I have never", and red light green light. Then we had a scavenger hunt and the prize at the end was a treat bag for each girl. We also had strawberry cupcakes and ice cream. Paige said it was a great day.

Nicole, Ellarie, Paige, Emme, Isabelle, Mia
Musical chairs

Freeze dance

Dance Recital

Last week Paige had her winter dance recital. It was really fun to watch and their costumes were adorable. She is doing really well in dance.

Thanksgiving Weekend

So I admit I didn't take very many pictures over Thanksgiving weekend. I was just having too much fun hanging out with my family and stuffing my face full of yummy food. Here is the rundown:

Thursday was spent in Nephi having a Thanksgiving feast with Jared's side of the family, then off to the movies to see "Tangled" (it was super cute by the way in case you haven't seen it, and I usually don't like animated movies)

Friday we drove up to my parents house in Brigham City to spend the remainder of the weekend. For lunch my mom and I made soups and we snacked on some cheese dip. We also got to see my brother Shane who drove down from Alaska and meet his fiance Dawn (we love her). Dad and Jared took the kids swimming at the hot springs and I babysat the little kids and hung out with my mom.

Saturday we prepared another Thanksgiving feast and some more of my sisters and thier families came up to visit. It was a mad house, but I like it that way.

Sunday we got up early and braved the storm to drive home, which took us much longer than normal. But we made it.

What a wonderful Thanksgiving we had. We are truly blessed.

Lucas spent time outside in the cold with my dad and Jared.

MaKady and Brock just hanging out

My brother Shane

Mary

My Mom

Bailey and Lucas were best friends, they played so well together.

Projects

So Jared and I have very little in common (actually almost nothing). HaHa. It is true that opposites attract. He's loud, likes cars, heavy metal, hanging out with his friends, going out, and bowling. I am not outgoing, I like a clean house, cooking, talking to my friends on the phone, and staying home. So at the beggining of the summer I started thinking about the time (that gets closer eveyday) to when we are older and the kids are gone. What the heck are we supposed to talk about? Do? Well I wanted to fix that so I thought we could try doing some projects together. It worked really well. So well in fact that it is now a fun hobby for us. Here are the things we have made so far.

Entry way table

Big Wall Clock (it's 38"x38")
A bench for my sister Tabi's birthday that she now has in her entry way

And a changing table for Tabi's new twins. The top part comes off for when they are older and they can use it as a book shelf.

I can't wait for the next project. But at this point it might have to wait until after Christmas.

Update on the babies

Tabi & Kole's babies are doing great. Check out their blog here for more details.

Halloween Weekend

On Friday I decided to take the kids to St. George for the weekend to visit my sisters and spend Halloween in a warm place. Jared ended up having to work Saturday so we left him and I took the kids by myself.

Saturday we took the kids to visit Tabi and Kole. Tabi was in the hospital trying "not" to have her babies. She has been in labor several times over the last three weeks and they just decided to keep her in the hospital so they could monitor her. So we went to visit. Of course Lucas was into everything.

After that we took the kids to the park so they could burn off some energy. It got cloudy and windy and we thought maybe it was going to rain. We ended up going back to Mary's house to take naps.

After naps we got the kids dressed in their Halloween costumes and looked outside. It was sunny!!! Yay!!!! We took the kids over to Mary's bishops house to have hot dogs and homemade root beer then we made our way through the neighborhood. The kids had a great time and got tons of candy.

Lucas & MaKady were super heroes

Paige and Trinity were fairies. Paige was a "light" fairy and Trinity was a "dark" fairy.

After trick or treating we went back to Mary's and I made some pizza and put Lucas to bed then I went back to the hospital to visit Tabi and Kole again. Tabi was having lots of pain in her back so I rubbed her back for a while. Then it seemed as if everything was calm so I left at about 10:00 pm.

It must have been the calm before the storm. I got a text from Tabi at 11:42 pm. saying that she was dilated to an 8 and they were switching her rooms. Her babies were born early Sunday morning "Halloween". They were born at 31.5 weeks. Kollin is 3 lbs. 10 oz and Kleytin is 3 lbs. 4 oz. All are doing fairly well. I am so excited to be an Aunt again.

Sunday morning we ate breakfast but the kids weren't feeling well so we didn't go to church. I made lunch around noon and then packed up and we headed home. We broke down in Scipio. But I was able to put some oil in my car and make it the rest of the way home.

All in all it was a good weekend. I'm not excited about the car, I have no idea what's wrong with it. But I have an awesome mother-in-law and she is loaning me her car and my sister and her babies are doing well.