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!