Merry Christmas!

Well our Christmas was very busy, which explains why it has taken so long to get this on our blog. My family was all together for the holidays and we spent about five continuous days with them which was a lot of fun and kind of exhausting! It was nice to get to spend so much time with my brothers and sisters-in-law and also for the kids to hang out with their cousins.

A couple of days before Christmas, we went to a live nativity that is put on by a family out west of Ogden. It was pretty neat with real live sheep, goats, donkeys and llamas.We spent a lot of time hanging out at my parents house,

playing in the snow,and enjoying cousin time.On Christmas Eve, we had a really fun time dressing up and acting out the nativity story. We haven't done this in the past because most of the cousins were too young. This year we decided we would dress everyone up, including most of the adults and everyone agreed that this should be a new tradition in our family.
We had our own little Christmas early in the morning before heading back over to my parents house for more family time. I was probably almost as excited as the kids were for Christmas morning. It's so fun to see how excited they get!

My sister spent the night so she got to witness all the excitement.
And here we all are! We tried to get a good group picture to hang on the wall so that my parents could take down the old one that had my brother's old girlfriend in it (his wife really appreciated that). Like my dad holding the camera remote?

3rd Grade Grandparent's Day

Emma got to have grandparent's day at school on Wednesday. I went to see the program and it was packed with all those parents and grandparents! They put on a cute program with all sorts of Christmas songs and Emma even got to be in a little bell choir that played a few songs. I wish I would have gotten a picture of her playing the bells but I was having trouble operating my camera while holding Hazel and keeping an eye on Brigham and Rachel! Afterwards, the 3rd graders got to have lunch with their grandparents in the cafeteria. I wasn't going to stay, but my mom and grandma talked me into it. I didn't anything done at home that day, but we had a lot of fun!

Guess who's 5?

Our little Rachel turned 5 on Tuesday. She's a tiny little girl who's full of spunk and we're so glad that she's a part of our family!
Our kids always get one present to open the morning of their birthday and Rachel got (what else?) a puzzle. She had it done in a jiffy!
Rachel chose to go McDonald's (again) for her birthday lunch with mom.Since Rachel is always wanting to use my camera she got her very own camera . She's had a lot of fun with it.

This kid...

...always seems to have some sort of bump, bruise or cut on his head. He had a black eye a few weeks ago and then last week he ran right into the kitchen table and got another big bruise next to his eye. I keep wanting to get his picture taken, but I can't seem to find a time when his face is free of owies!

Gingerbread Party!

We decided to have a gingerbread party for Rachel's 5th birthday. I was inspired one day a couple of weeks ago when Rachel and I were in the Christmas section of Walmart. We decorated graham cracker houses and it turned out to be such a fun theme!
We read The Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett.I had so much fun looking for all sorts of gingerbread themed items. Aren't these cupcakes the cutest?Who says December birthdays are no fun? More to come on Tuesday!

Christmas time is here!

On Friday, we got into the Christmas spirit by decorating our Christmas tree

and going to the Christmas Tree Jubilee in Ogden where the kids got to sit on Santa's lap. (Brigham was not interested in sitting on Santa's lap, although he was definitely interested in the bucket of candy canes sitting next to him.)
I love this time of year!

Thanksgiving

Ben and I started our Thanksgiving day by running our very first 5k. We got the kids up super early and took them all over to my sister-in-law's parents' house in Riverton. She was so sweet to agree to watch them while we ran in the Cottonwood Heights 5k and my brother came and ran with us. It was a fun way to start the day and then we could go eat all the turkey and pie our little hearts desired without feeling guilty!

This girl...

...is obsessed! Rachel currently has a puzzle fixation. She does puzzles all the time. And we're not talking dinky puzzles--these babies are 100 pieces or more. It's not the first time she's become obsessed with doing a particular thing--she used to have this thing about peeling the wrappers off of crayons and she would do it all the time. It was kind of messy. The puzzle thing actually isn't half bad. Whenever she's bored I just tell her to do a puzzle and it keeps her occupied for a good half hour or so. The down side to that is I can't tear her away from an unfinished puzzle for anything!I got her this one yesterday and she's already done it twice. Funny girl!

Big boy bed!

We've finally got Brigham sleeping in a big bed. It's actually been in his room for a few months now, but he was really attached to his crib for some reason so it took awhile to make the transition. Now if we can just get him potty trained!

Snow!

We had our first real snow storm of the season. The kids were so excited and couldn't wait to go out and play. Of course, they lasted about five minutes in the freezing cold wind before they were back inside again sipping hot cocoa.
I got Brigham all bundled up to play outside, but he decided to hang out with dad in the garage instead.
He had fun playing in the van while Ben played mechanic in his coveralls.

St. George Trip

We just got back from a four day trip to sunny St. George. We'd been planning it for a little while and wouldn't you now it--four out of the seven of us were sick (Ben and Emma were both sick the week before and Hazel stayed amazingly healthy). Fortunately, we still had fun and it was nice just to relax and get a break from our normal routine. I mean, when else do you have time to sit down and watch all eight hours of Anne of Green Gables?

We stopped at Cove Fort on the way down. I think this place is so neat and it was a nice break from driving in the car.

The weather was beautiful and we spent a lot of time in the pool.

It was the first time that the kids had ever seen palm trees!

The St. George templeSnow CanyonLots of fun!

Halloween!

I'm a little behind on my blogging. I seem to be getting sick on a regular basis ever since Hazel's birth and I'm usually doing good to even remember to get the camera out. Unfortunately, mom's don't get much of a break even when they're sick, so we've been just as busy as ever. Here's some of our Halloween highlights!

We went to a fun Halloween carnival that our ward puts on for the neighborhood and I was so sad that I forgot to bring my camera! They had lots of fun games and activities run by the mutual kids. They also had a clown making these cute balloon animals that the kids thought were great.
I got to go to school the other day and help Emma's class make these neat haunted houses. It made such a cute centerpiece for our table!

My brother, Marc, and his wife, Colleen, came from Boise to spend Halloween with us. I was busy trying to get ready for St. George so they took the kids to a neat hands-on science fair for kids at Weber State. They got to play with hold bubbles, make slime and watch a movie at the planitarium.

We'd been passing around a nasty bug all week and Eliza was the unlucky one who happened to get sick right on Halloween. She kept insisting that she felt fine all day, but by the evening there was no denying the fact that she just didn't feel well at all. Marc, Colleen and I took the other three trick-or-treating and Aunt Colleen was so nice to collect candy so Ellie wouldn't miss out.

Isn't she cute?

I'm always trying to capture Hazel's adorable smiles on camera. I got a pretty good one yesterday. She's getting so big and is still just as sweet as ever!

Moms and muffins

I got to go and have muffins with my two big girls on Friday. My mom watched the three little ones while we went. It was really nice since I haven't been able to spend much time at school this year.

2 month check-up

Hazel had her two month check-up this week and I am amazed at how much she has grown! She now weighs 13 pounds and is 24 3/4 inches long. She smiles all the time and actually sleeps 9-10 hours a night! It makes me a little sad that she's getting big so fast, but she's such an angel and I'm just trying to enjoy every minute!

Pumpkin Painting Party!

Last weekend, while Ben was running in Vegas we attended the annual Barfus pumpkin painting party. As always, we had a great time and enjoyed being with Ben's family even though he wasn't there!

We had a heck of a time trying to get a decent picture of all the cousins. It was difficult, to say the least!
Here is Eliza's very colorful pumpkin creation. True to form, she spent a lot of time on it, and was the very last one to finish.
Emma's pumpkin was a cute witch with green hair.
Ben's brother, Josh, and his wife, Cheli, made this awesome pinataand the kids each got a chance to take a whack at it!