Christmas Decorations

It is always so much fun to decorate the house for Christmas.  Megan loves to un-decorate the tree all the time.  The lower half of the tree gets re-decorated daily and it kind of drives me nuts, but what can you do?
The kids have acquired my love for sitting in the room with just the Christmas lights on.  It is pretty awesome.  I love this time of year and I love that we have finally been getting snow...let it snow...let snow!

First Big Snow Fall

We woke up this morning to a couple inches of snow.  We were all pretty happy about it. It continued to snow throughout the whole day and it was super pretty.  I love the snow so much and so do our kids.
Right before Tyler got home from school Josh said he wanted to go out and make a snowman.  So I started getting Josh and Megan all dressed in their snow clothes and then when Tyler got home we got him dressed as well.  After we were all dressed warm we headed out to play in the snow.

I was worried that as soon as I got everyone dressed and outside then Megan would be done and want to come inside.  Lucky for me she loved the snow and played for a long time.  She had a hard time staying up when she would walk through the deep snow, but besides that she did pretty well.  She stayed out long enough that I was able to shovel all the driveway and all our sidewalks, so I was happy about that.  She got into her little car and Tyler and I took turns pushing her around.

All three kids liked helping me shovel our walks.  It was snowing pretty steady so it didn't take long for all our hard work to get covered back up with snow.  We have two little shovels and it looks like we need to buy another one for Megan.  She wants to do just what her brothers are doing.  I just love that my kids like playing outside, no matter the weather.  We love the sun but we love the snow as well.

Thanksgiving

We had a really nice Thanksgiving.  After Megan's nap we all headed over to my parents house.  The kids played while I helped get things ready to eat.  Tony took the kids for rides on the four-wheelers and they all loved it so much.  Megan would cry every time she had to get off to let someone else take a turn.  So cute.
The food was super yummy.  The kids ate quickly so they could get back to playing.  They literally played the whole time.  They would go from the back yard to the basement and back again.  Even when it was dark and cold they still were playing strong.
Tyler and Josh had their first sleepover at Grandma Kim's house.  Kevin and Betsy and their kids were sleeping their so my mom said my boys could stay too.  They did really good.  They shared the queen bed in one of the guest bedrooms.  They played so hard all day that all the kids zonked out by 8:00 pm.  I was glad to hear that they did so well, it makes having another sleepover a lot easier.
The next morning I went back over to my parents to make caramels with Betsy and Julie.  I picked up the ingredients on my way there and then we made the caramels at Julie's house.  It worked out really good because the kids all wanted to stay at Grandma's house to play and help her put up her Christmas decor, so we got to enjoy our adult only time for a couple of hours.
After the caramel was all done and cooling, we went back to my mom's house and Boyd brought over some pizza's.  The kids ate so much food.  I was amazing how much they all ate.  They had been playing so hard that they worked up a big appetite.
Even after playing half the day on Thanksgiving and then most the day Friday, my boys still didn't want to leave.  When I told them that we were going to go home to decorate our house for Christmas, they were more excited.  We all had a great Thanksgiving and I am glad that the boys got to spend so much time playing with their cousins.  

Family Pictures

This morning we got all dressed and ready to take family pictures.  Our awesome neighbor, Uncle Max, came over and took them for us.  There are some that I like, but I am tempted to try it again.  It is so hard to get all the kids to look at the camera and smile at the same time.  I guess that's just life.  Here are some the pictures.

Too Cute

My Little Missionaries

Tyler and Josh have been liking to play "Missionaries." The other night Tyler asked if they could play before they went to bed. So with their pajamas on, they put on their ties and my name tags and played like missionaries. They are pretty awesome missionaries. Josh was a sword fighting missionary and Tyler was a climbing missionary who climbed the walls...preaching the word. It is really fun to see them get excited about missionary work and I think they will be great real missionaries some day.

10 Years Of Wedded Bliss

Ten years ago today Tony and I were married in the Bountiful Temple.  I can't believe it has already been 10 years.  To celebrate Tony and I stayed a couple of nights in Layton last weekend.  We stayed there because that is where there was a hotel that offered savers points, so it only was 10,000 points a night.
We weren't wild about the hotel, but it was still nice to get away.  We dropped the kids off with Margie, she's a saint, and then headed to Layton.  After we checked in and got settled we went out to dinner.  After dinner we walked around a couple stores and then went back to the hotel for the night.
On Saturday we spent the day shopping, watching the BYU game at our hotel, and going to a movie.  It was nice just doing whatever we wanted whenever we wanted.
Sunday morning we took our time getting ready and eating breakfast before we checked out.  We then decided to spend some time at home before we had to go get the kids.  It was a lot of fun to be kid free for a couple of days.
We did miss those little buggers and are very grateful that we have them in our lives.  They really are great kids and we are so lucky to have them.  It has been an excellent 10 years of wedded bliss with Tony.  He really is a great husband and father.  I am so glad that I married such an amazing man.  

Trip To Logan

My sister-in-law, Betsy's son was baptized on Saturday so we decided to make it a little family trip.  The kids and I headed up to Ogden to pick up Tony from work and then we headed up to Logan.
We brought Koda with us and dropped him off at Yvette's before we checked into our hotel.  We just love Yvette and going to her house.  She is super nice and her house with all the dogs is super fun.
We checked into the hotel and hung out for a while before going to dinner with Kevin, Betsy, Gavin, and Betsy's friend Lynn.  We had a great dinner chatting and eating good food.  Lynn was super nice and even bought our dinner.
Then it was back to hotel for some swimming.  Our kids love the pool and had a great time.  Kevin, Betsy, and Gavin came and joined us at the pool for some good chats.  It was nice spending the evening with them.
After we checked out on Saturday we stopped at Sam's Club because we had some time before the baptism.  Then we got to the church and enjoyed seeing Logan get baptized.  I was asked to talk about the Hold Ghost.  I pretty much asked Tony what he would say and then I said all that.  We then enjoyed a nice lunch with the family.
We then changed and headed back to Yvette's house.  She had a big scooter that Tyler loved riding.  We got all the kids on their riding around a little.  Too fun.  We played with all the dogs and then Tony helped them lay some of their pavers while the kids played and played and played.  They love her house and could stay there forever.  
We left to get some dinner with Tony's family who came up to see Derek.  It was fun seeing them too and the food was really good as well.  After we ate we headed back to Yvette's one last time to pick up Koda.  He was ready to come home.  It was a nice break from the norm and we all had a great time. 

Happy Halloween

We had a super fun Halloween.  It all started after I took Tyler and Josh to school.  Megan and I went and got seats for Tyler's costume parade.  Margie met us there and we waited a long time for the kids to come.  While we waited they had the younger kids come up on the stage and show everyone their costumes.  I didn't have Megan dressed in her costume but she wore a really cute Halloween outfit and looked adorable.  She just stood on the stage and looked around not really sure what to do and then she came back and sat down.  It was so cute.
Then the kids finally came from their classrooms.  Kindergarten is always first and so then we thought Tyler's class would be next, but he was actually after the second grade.  He was right behind his teacher and was happy walking around parading his Knight costume.  He is such a cute kid.  I thought taking the picture with my phone might give me a better picture then my camera, but it didn't.  It was still blurry, but his cuteness still comes through strong.

After school and dinner we got the kids ready in their costumes to go out trick-or-treating.  It wasn't too cold, but it was going to get more cold so it was hard to know how warmly to dress the kids.  I did good because they didn't even get cold.  I got Tony to wear Mickey ears for a picture so him and Megan could be Mickey and Minnie, but he took them off right after.  At least I got the picture.
They started at our neighbors houses and then trick-or-treated down to the church where they were having truck-or-treating.  Tony said they got their earlier then he thought they would so he took the kids to the houses around the church and then went back when more cars were there.
After that they went a different way trick-or-treating to make it back to our house.  When they got here they emptied their loot and went to the bathroom before heading out again.  At first Tyler said his feet hurt and didn't want to go out any more but after I reminded him that he only gets to do this one time a year he changed his mind and wanted to go.
After about an hour they came back and then the kids enjoyed handing out the treats to the trick-or-treaters.  The boys kept fighting over whose turn it was to hand out the candy.  They all had a great time and loved everything Halloween.

Primary Program

Today our ward had our Primary Program.  Both boys had parts that they memorized and did a really good job.  Josh was the very first kid to talk and he talked right into the microphone and said, "My name is Josh and I am a child of God."  He did not enunciate at all and I am sure that most of the people in the congregation had no idea what he said.  But I knew what he said and I was proud of him.  He was pretty silly about the whole program.  He sang out really loud at different times and then spent the other part of his time picking his nose before he then just laid on the floor in front of his seat for half of the program.  At least I wasn't embarrassed about him picking his nose when he was on the floor.  He is such a silly kid.

Tyler did really good.  He said his line very clearly, "I love Jesus Christ because he created the earth."  He sang most of the songs as far as I could see.  Their was a really tall girl (whose mom made her hair really curly and poofy) who stood right in front of Tyler so I couldn't see him for part of the program.  He sang right out on the last song, Gethsemane.  It is a really sweet song and Tyler did great.  He is such a sweet heart.
The boys loved that both sets of grandparents came to support them.  It was nice having them there and seeing our silly kids.  We are very blessed to have such supportive families.