Merry Christmas!

Snowman and The 1st Day of Christmas

We don't have a lot of snow left, but we were able to scrape together a little snowman this afternoon.
We are trying a new thing this year to help us get in the spirit of Christmas, spend time together as a family, and especially to remember Christ during this special time of year. We are doing The 12 Days of Christmas. Each day from now until Christmas Eve we open one gift. The gift could be an object or an activity. Today was the 1st day of Christmas. We opened some hot chocolate mix. For our activity we drank hot chocolate with peppermint marshmallows, ate popcorn, and played Memory Game together. It was a lot of fun an the kids loved it. I really hope this all works out. Our evenings are always hectic, as well as our lives in general, and I'm hoping this will help us slow down a little, enjoy each other's company, and get to know our Savior better.

Jace

Today Jace hit the mail lady in the chin with a snowball. I was just telling her how it was so nice of her to lean clear out of her car to put our mail in our broken mailbox which is propped up on a snowbank. Broken mailbox due to a snowplow (a whole nother story - that was for you Tia). Jace sneaked out of the house and was throwing snowballs at my back. I told him to go inside and stop throwing snowballs. All of a sudden a snowball flew past me, into the mail car window, and right at the mail lady's chin. It scared the daylights out of her, and mortified me. I spun around and saw Jace's guilty little face. Oh, that boy. I hope the mail lady still likes us enough to lean over and put our mail in our box until we get it fixed.

Deck the halls

I love decorating for Christmas! Taking each decoration out brings back all kinds of good memories. Now that the kids are getting a little older they love finding their own special ornaments from years past. One of our traditions is for the kids to get a new ornament every year. Scott's family did it when he was growing up and I love it! We also get new ornaments when we travel...a great way to remember places we've been. All of that makes it so fun to decorate our tree every year.

Keep in mind this is a mountain tree, and a very good one at that. I've decided that ribbon may not look the greatest on a sparse mountain tree, but it works. We also have our traditional dried fruit ornaments from my college days. I used to make these new every year until I recently discovered that these ornaments keep from year to year. That made it a lot easier for me this time around.

Gage is our tree attacker this year, although it's died down a little as the days go on. Now we have presents under our tree and he loves to rip and carry those around. Nice. Thank goodness the ones he ripped are undetectable in a big brown box.

I love these three pictures of the kids taken right after we finished decorating the tree. Silly kids.

p.s. Gage tipped over a dining room chair with him on it this morning. I'm thinking Jace had something to do with it, but I can't prove it. Gage came away with a cut, fat lip and a bloody nose....but thankfully not stitches. Poor little guy.

Thanksgiving and getting a tree

I hosted a mixed family Thanksgiving this year. My parents, brother, and sister came, as well as Scott's parents, sister, and her kids. We had lots of yummy food, relaxed and visited, and the kids took sled rides behind the four wheeler. It was such a nice day and I just felt so happy and thankful for all of the good things in my life.




We went up to the mountains the Saturday after Thanksgiving to get our Christmas tree. We usually don't have to deal with too much snow, but this year there was a lot! We had fun sledding while Scott and my dad hiked around for a tree. Poor Jace and Gage quickly tired of the deep, cold snow. Luckily, the guys found a tree quickly and we headed home for a nice, warm lunch.




So excited for Christmas! I'm even almost finished with my Christmas shopping!!

Ouch!

I'll start with the visuals first...

Poor Gage has had no luck in the broken head category. This is the second head related mishap for him in 6 months (see the post from May 24). This time Katelyn tried to pick him up and he fell forward and banged his head on the edge of the window sill. He is now our first kid with stitches, and I'm hoping we don't have to ever do it again. It was horrible! Gage was so afraid, and we had to hold him down while the nurse stuck a nasty looking hooked needle through his eyebrow over and over again to sew it up. And I know it's very superficial, but I hope he comes out of this with a normal eyebrow. It wasn't the best sewing job, although it is hard to sew together a moving target. But, I guess it's not the worst thing that could have happened so we're grateful. And the best part is that Gage does not even remember what happened last night. Once in a while he'll point to his eyebrow and say 'Owie' but that's it. Poor little buddy.

Happy Halloween (finally!)

We....

...watched Katelyn's school Halloween parade and party...

...went to our ward dinner and trunk or treat...

...and trick or treated with cousins in Grandpa and Grandma Allen's neighborhood.

Whew! We had fun, but we are sure tired! I love this time of year though. So much excitement and anticipation for all of the fun holidays and activities. Hooray!