Temple lights

Its just not Christmas to me 'til we go see the temple lights. We love it every year! We also saw all the different countries' nativity displays and Luke II. We loved everything.

Polar Express Party

I gave the kids a Polar Express party this year. They were so excited for it. They were so sweet and cute and helpful getting ready for the party. (Great way to get the house cleaned up without complaints!!!) We had lots of junk food and served hot chocolate during the hot chocolate song. It was so much fun, and really easy for me (as I am a great party goer and not so great party planner).
All the kids came in their jammies, they looked so cute!

We covered the furniture and floor with blankets so we wouldn't have to stress about spills.

Good times!

Sleeping in

Since the weather has been cooler, and the sun doesn't rise so early, my kiddos are having a harder time waking up in the mornings (same for me too!) . I had told them all week that on Saturday we wouldn't wake them up and they could sleep in a little. They were really excited for this. I don't think they thought for even a second that this was a nice way for ME to get to sleep in. Anyway, my sweet little Grant comes into my room EARLY Saturday morning...

Grant: (loudly whispering) Mom....Mom?.....MOM!!!

Me: (jolting awake worried that I'm going to get puked on or something) what Grant?

Grant: Can you please tell dad not to wake me up because I want to sleep in?

Ryan and I giggled about that for about ten minutes and then gave up and got out of bed to start the day.

By the way, everyone that did get to sleep in was still up by 6:30. LOL

I guess I need to rethink my mom wants to sleep in strategy for next Saturday!

Gym show and choir concerts

Grant had his first grade concert this week, and Olivia had an honor choir concert and a gym show this week. Our much neglected video camera finally got some good use! The kiddos did great at their shows. I LOVE getting to watch and cheer them on.


Grant's show was 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, so the kids all got to wear their jammies.

Olivia after her show

Here is Olivia doing her bar routine at her gym show. This was my favorite routine at this show.

Christmas excitement

We put up our Christmas decorations the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It was fun, and then long and hard, and then fun again. It took most of the day, but the kiddos were really good to help out. Its hard for me to find the balance between me wanting everything to go up in a really organized way, and the kids who want to dig through the boxes to find the things THEY are excited to put up. I think I did better this year and let the kids run the show a little more. I mean does it really matter if we hang stockings before putting out the calendars? The only thing I insisted was that they had to wait 'til I put the lights on the trees before they could hang ornaments. They were OK with this once I explained how we don't want to see the cord, just the pretty stuff. Anyway, I am very thankful to be a mom and have a sweet hubby, and wonderful little cuties to share the holidays with. They keep Christmas magical and exciting. They wanted to sleep down stairs in the living room that night with the Christmas trees as the night light. I loved that they wanted to do that. I remember getting to do that as a kid and it was so fun to just look at the beautiful Christmas tree. Good times!

Thanksgiving

Yeah me for FINALLY getting around to our Thanksgiving. We had a great time in Central with Ryan's family. We are extra THANKFUL this year that we didn't get the stomach bug that plagued the Hooper Thanksgiving festivities this year. We still had fun and the kids played so hard they were begging to go to bet at 7:15. That is a good day! We forgot to take pictures at our dinner, but here are Seth and one of his cutie cousin Sadie. They look so sweet, we had to get a photo session in! Notice Seth's shirt. More to come on that later...