Wednesday, December 29, 2010

It's Christmas!



Do those faces look excited or what?! We had such a fun and relaxing Christmas this year! We always think about maybe going somewhere for Christmas, but it would just be too insane to bring all of the presents anywhere. So, we stayed put and really enjoyed it. Our cousins in Heber did come for a night though to make it feel a little more like a vacation. They came on Christmas eve eve so the adults could do a last minute shopping trip and eat at Teppanyaki. The kids stayed at the house and had chicken and worked up an awesome Nativity scene for us to watch. Here are a few pictures and video clips for those that LOVE these kids and wish that you were here with us! :)











They actually showed us the Nativity Christmas Eve morning. They did such a great job! It was so organized and very well done!

Later in the day we took the kids (young and old) to Jump On It. It was an awesome hour of fun and the best part was it wore all of the kids out for a "long winter's nap". Sorry Matt, I'm in charge of the blog, so I'm putting the video on of you jumping and not of me! :)



After Jump On It our cousins went home to Heber and we went back to our house. The girls would've gone to bed at 6:00 if we had let them. We opened new pajamas of course! I wonder how many years we can give Thomas pjs with his name on them. Will he hate us, or the train first?!

Speaking of Thomas, he was so funny this year. He knew exactly what the camera was for and would smile big for me every time! He would even come and find me when he knew a picture op. was coming on! I LOVED it!




We read from Luke chapter 2 and The Living Christ. We also got a new book this year that has been the girls favorite for a long time: Christmas Oranges. So, we watched the little video of that and of course the video of Thomas as baby Jesus. (see Thomas in the picture above) The girls wrote one last minute letter to Santa and set out the Christmas cookies and egg nog. They were in bed and asleep before 8:00! And Matt and I didn't really have much to do...the wrapping was already done! It was awesome! We did get a surprise visit from our newly engaged friend across the street though! It was fun to talk to her and remember our time in the singles ward! ;)

And we're still making out! :) Sorry about the kissing picture. I'm actually laughing more than kissing! Taylor seems to think it's tradition for her to take this picture!



The girls actually woke up at 4:15 in the morning. We couldn't believe it! It's the first year that has happened and I'm sure it won't be the last. We sent them right back to bed with the ipod so they knew what time it was. We should've had them open their new alarm clocks on Christmas Eve! We told them to not come back up until 7. Well, they didn't come back until 7:30, so we were very glad that they had fallen back to sleep.

And the rest is pretty self-explanatory....

The early morning, "smoke" breath pictures.... :)



Santa's letter back answering the girls' questions, which hasn't happened before but something had to be written on the new whiteboard he brought!



Opening presents...




More Jump On It...




Presents disguised in diaper boxes...

Wrapping paper everywhere....



And the wii...



Including wii charaoke!



Another perfect Christmas come and gone! It just gets better every year! We hope everyone else had smiles as big as these! Merry Christmas and we wish you a very happy New Year!!



Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Tample Square



On Monday, December 20th the girls and I got to perform with the Lehi Children's Choir on the mezzanine of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building on Temple Square. We don't have any pictures of their actual performance, but HERE and HERE are some from year's past! It is always such a beautiful setting and the choir sounded amazing! This year our performance was late enough in the day that we got to go get dinner and then walk around and see the beautiful lights at Temple Square. This is always a fun tradition and this year was perfect! We were there early enough to beat the huge crowds. The rain and snow that had been off and on all day had stopped and it was relatively nice outside! Which is why I can't figure out the grouchy face on Kierra above. I think people were walking by saying how cute she was so she put on the pouty face. She actually really had a great time! We all did! It was a perfect night!





While we were there Kaylee kept saying she wanted to go to the Church History Museum. The kids love the I Am a Child of God children's exhibit there. She kept begging all night, but I told her we would probably go later in the week. So, on Thursday the 23rd (before all of our cousins came....next post) :) I packed up the kids and went to the museum. At first we were bummed (especially Kaylee) because the first thing they told us was that the children's exhibit was under construction and the new Book of Mormon one wouldn't be open for 2 weeks. However, they had Christmas projects for us and of course extra stuff about Joseph Smith since it was his birthday. Obviously the church history museum has a lot of history of Joseph Smith so I'd like to say that I am so amazing and planned this perfect trip to celebrate his 205th birthday, but no...it never crossed my mind...we just wanted out of the house. It was just a wonderful coincidence!

It is completely free to go....even parking is free in December....so it was the perfect activity! The ladies at the museum were so fun with the kids! They did so many fun activities with them and kept their attention so well. We can't wait to go again!



We decided to just quickly walk through temple square again because we have only ever seen the nativity at night with crowds of people so we walked by that and decided to go up to the Christus in the visitor's center. Again, no people so we even took a picture. It was a nice relaxing morning! Would've been fun with Daddy there, but we still had a great time together!