Christmas Morning

Christmas Morning:

 This was the first year that the boys woke up on their own before 6 o'clock. We could hear them talking and laughing but we had given them strict instructions not to come out until it said 6:00 on the clock. This year we all took turns reading Luke 2 and then had our family morning prayer. 

It looks like Santa came :

 

Here are few of Nathan's Presents:

Mud slinging Monster Truck

  Rescue Bot

A couple of Kyler's

 DS with a case and a couple of games

 Hex bug, pokemon, and of course legos

  A couple of Landon's gifts:

 A pocket knife

 His very own camera (mainly because of his DC trip this summer)

 The entire Harry Potter DVD collection

 Santa brought the boys Skylanders Swap Force to share

 And of course Dex needed some new toys as well

 Jon got a Utes polo

And Ky made me this awesome calendar.

And THEN there was the LAST PRESENT!!!

Clue #1

Sent them to the garage, where they found a small cooler filled with snacks and another clue.

 

Clue #2

Sent them to the living room and was found in the piano bench... it was a calendar with a car driving. At this clue Landon figured out that we were going to a road trip

 Clue #3

Led them out to the trunk of my van where they found a suitcase. Inside it was an awesome map that Jon drew on the computer and the FINAL clue. Thanks to the map they learned that their destination  was California.

 Clue #4

Sent them back to the toy room (Where we did our Christmas) 

There they discovered that we leaving the next morning for Legoland. We have a video of there reaction but it wasn't loading correctly. They were so excited!!! We took a ton of pictures but that will be yet another post.

Christmas Preperations

All tuckered out. Nathan was really tired one day and ended up crawling under the Christmas tree for a little nap. He NEVER naps anymore so this is a rare treasure. I love it!

Nathan's preschool does an annual trailer ride a caroling through the outlet mall. They practice the songs all month long to learn the songs. All of the parents and siblings walk behind the trailer. It was very cute

 Afterwards, the teachers had a mug of cocoa for each child (that they got to keep) and a giant Christmas coloring book. He had a blast. Here he is sipping his cocoa ready to head home.

On Christmas Eve, we had a few errands to run but we had to stop by our library. Miss Gloria (in our ward) is the story time lady and she was doing a special story time. She arranged for Santa and Mrs. Claus to come to see everyone too. The boys, however, didn't want to go sit with them for a picture. In fact, Nathan told Jon that it wasn't really Santa because the real Santa was way too busy to come that day. 

Aunt Jeni has the cutest things... she pulled out these cute aprons for the boys that her girls had out grown. This year we decided to just make easy cookies. We made my regular chocolate chip cookie recipe and simply but in red and green M&Ms instead chocolate chips.

Of course what is Christmas Eve without new pajamas. 

Stay tune to see pictures of Christmas Day and THE BIG SURPRISE!

Thanksgiving Weekend

For Thanksgiving this year we stayed close to home. We spent it with Jon's sister and his parents. It was a very low key day. Of course I forgot to get a picture of my handsome boys in their nice close. So here are the only pictures I did get on that day. 

Jon carving his smoked turkey. It was AMAZING!

 Here is my pumpkin swirl cheesecake. It turned out great if I do say so myself. I'd never made a cheesecake before so I was a little nervous.

On Friday, we went out with the boys to find a small tree for Jeni (Jon's sis). While we were there Jon ran into one of his good friends from high school. She told us that her parents were doing a huge house lighting that night and for us to come. Well, she wasn't kidding.... it was huge. He had an entire program: singers, some one dressed up like the Grinch, hot cocoa, etc. Here are a few pics of the house.

My 3 stooges...

On Saturday we got together with my sister Melissa and her family. In the morning Scott and Jon took the 4 oldest boys to go shooting. They had a blast. After nap time, we met back up to do some climbing at Dixie Rock.

 Here's all 9 of the kiddos

 We went through some narrow alcoves. That would be baby Violet (almost 4 months old) riding on her daddy's shoulders.

Jon decided that instead of going with the rest of us, he would climb up between the two cliffs. There he is at the top.