Isgetts!!!!

One of the families we grew closest to during our time in Mississippi is the Isgett Family. We would trade off babysitting with them and we also carpooled with them. We spent a lot of time together. They brought the kids out for a ski vacation on the 26th so we got to spend a whole week with them. It was fantastic! The girls slept in Sarah's room and Nicholas mainly slept in Steven's. I took these first two pictures on the 27th, and that is kind of what the week was like. The girls had structured girl time and the boys were boys. :)

The Isgett's are from the south, so they don't have a lot of experience in the snow. We helped remedy the situation by going sledding. The main hill we went to was sledded out, but we found a great bowl to sled on. It was pretty icy and treatcherous. Steven made Laurie a $20 bet that she couldn't go down a particular path with a jump and not get hurt and we made him pay up when she did it.

Here's a cute video of the kids sledding. It was so cold we cracked three or four of our sleds

Rachel came to visit, which was a treat for Lindsey and me.

On the 28th we went to see the lights at Temple Square. We didn't make it last year so we were glad the Isgett's gave us an excuse to go this year. It was beautiful as always.

I like to think that all the red is a tribute to the University of Utah ;)

On New Years eve we went skiing and it was CRAZY! So...Many...People! I probably won't go on that day again although I've heard it's streaky on whether or not it's busy. I took Adam on the bunny hill but because of the crowds and lines he was not in the mood so we ended up leaving shortly after lunch. The Isgett's got quite a bit of skiing in during their visit.

Mike and I have a GREAT New Years Eve tradition we've done for pretty much our whole marriage. We put the kids to bed at their regular bedtime and are in bed by ten or eleven and sleep through the new year. It's worked swell for us. The kids wouldn't let that happen this year. The insisted they be allowed to party until midnight. We let them watch a movie and some of them passed out. Steven told me he wanted to go to bed and have me wake him up at midnight. I let him know he could stay up or go to bed, but I wouldn't wake anyone up. :) Here are the dads and boys after the movie and our midnight toast. 

This picture doesn't really do his eye justice. Their first night here Steven and Nicolas were having a snowball fight and Steven's had some ice in it. Nicolas came in with it bleeding and it turned into a nice black eye. :)

We're hoping they liked it enough to make this a regular thing. Thanks for the visit Isgetts!

Tracy Aviary

On the 29th the kids and I visited Tracy Aviary. I'm guessing because it's sometimes free during the winter months. We got to feed the conures, which the kids loved. The spots fill up fast during the summer, but there wasn't a lot of competition during the winter.

Merry Christmas!

 It's only January 9th as I write this, so I'm not too far behind. (yes I am, I'd drowning in potential blog posts) ;) We had a wonderful Christmas this year. (It's now February 4th, so I'd better finish up and publish this)

We started a new family tradition of being bell ringers for the Salvation Army. I didn't know who was allowed to volunteer, or what needed to be done to do it, but there was an article in the Deseret News saying they were short volunteers, so we contacted them. We brought candy canes to pass out to everyone that entered the store and I think it helped. The donations came in abundance until we ran out of candy canes. I tried to buy more, but the store had already sold out.

Children's Nativity at our ward's Christmas Party

We ran into Mr. and Mrs. Claus while looking at lights

As I've mentioned in numerous posts before, I should never be the designated picture taker on holidays. I looked through our Christmas morning pictures and I failed to get one of each of the kids. Well, just one kid. My baby. :( At least he won't see this for a few years and when he does, he'll forgive my absentmindedness. I did however get quite a few of Mike and his Christmas toys.

My baby sister Ashley acquired a beautiful set of china for me, so I finally got to set my table all fancy shmancy. I loved it. We decorated the kids table as well, although Sarah wanted to eat on the fine china. I can't blame her.

I should have taken pictures of the kids with Mike's parents but I didn't, because I stink at this, so next year. NEXT YEAR! Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you all had a wonderful time with your family and loved ones. I did.

Star Wars Baby!

I wouldn't normally blog about a movie, and this one wasn't really all that worthy of its own blog post, BUT, we did have some great photo ops. Our HOA gave us four free tickets, but there were seven of us, so we bought three to a showing about the same time. Mike, Sarah, Steven and Amelia had the great seats and Adam, T and I were off to the side but the boys didn't mind. Now for the cute pictures.

Happy Birthday Princess!

Since Sarah's birthday fell on Thanksgiving weekend so we headed to Colorado for a VERY busy weekend of family excitement. Her birthday wasn't the focal point it usually is but thankfully she was grateful to be spending it with family and her birthday "twin" so she didn't mind at all. It was cold and snowy so the kids hair froze when they got out of the hot tub. I used to LOVE rolling around in the snow and then getting in. Then I got old. Enough said.

Sarah's big gifts this year were her bedroom makeover and the quilt I made her that I finally finished in January. For her birthday she got a new set of pj's and the Fablehaven books. I'll post pictures of her bedroom makeover when it's finally finished. (Will it ever be finished?)

On Saturday My sister Jessica and her family were sealed together in the Denver Colorado Temple.

To celebrate Sarah and Angelina's birthdays we took all the kids to Chuck E Cheese and let them run wild. Since we had a lot of kids with us I failed to get any pictures of the kids together. A parenting picture fail. :)

Sarah turning the big 1-0 made me happy and sad. She's getting older, but thankfully she's as wonderful as ever. She is excited to enter her tween/teen years and talks about all the things she's going to do very matter of fact. Marriage? "Yes, when I'm 25". Kissing? "Yes, when I'm 16 or 18." She is 55" tall and outgrowing all her things. I feel incredibly blessed to be her mom.

Random November