Our Christmas

We stayed home for Christmas this year and it was nice. We missed family a lot, but had a great time spending time as a family. We woke up early, it was actually mom (Shar) and dad (Justin) who woke up first (6 am) and got the kids up to start the festivities. I was too excited for everyone so had to get things going. Remember, I am a morning person.
Anyway the kids saw that Santa left them Bakugans, Lego's, clothes, and treats. It was then on to creating Christmas carnage with the unwrapping of gifts that have sat under our tree for quite some time. We had through the month guessed what was in each package once or twice. We did this in order one at a time from youngest to oldest, next year I think we will do girls first. Anyway we thank family for the great gifts. There were transformers, a Play Dough Martian Maker, computer games, and the most exciting present of all was a box with a note in it. The kids went on a scavenger hunt to find the present from mom and dad which took them to the back yard to find a Trampoline. They were very excited! The rest of the day was nice and relaxing. We had friends come for breakfast and then just hung out the rest of the day watching shows, playing games, and building Lego's and other things that needed to be built. We also packed up the car to leave for Southern Utah and stay with the Turner Family at a cabin for a couple of days.

Me unwrapping gifts. Mackay gave me this lovely box to put treasures in. I also got an MP3 player and a gift card for KHOLS,
Justin got his favorite thing for Christmas - socks. He gets them every year and loves it. He also got a shirt and a new sleeping bag that will actually fit him.

I already mentioned what Tyler and Mackay got. This is them opening their Christmas PJ's on Christmas Eve. The picture above shows what their PJ's looked like so I won't add another.

Anyway it was a wonderful Christmas and the best part was talking to family later and also that everyone got along and there was great peace in the Turner Family for the day.

Wow time has flown...

Time has really gone by this last couple of weeks and there has hardly been anytime to do anything but just stay up with the goings on around here. A week ago we decided to take our annual trip to see the Christmas lights at the L.A. Temple. The pictures I took don't give it justice at all, but it was very beautiful and fun to walk around the temple and talk to the boys. We stayed overnight and Justin and I took turns going into the temple. It really is a great way to get some temple work done and the kids not getting too bored. We loved it and it was one great way to get the Christmas Spirit.
The next night we were suppose to go to our ward Christmas but Justin also had a work party so we made arrangements with a neighbor to have our kids to the ward party and we went to the work party. The work party was alright, but it is uncomfortable watching people get drunk and make fools of themselves. One of Justin's co-workers even fell while dancing I believe and hurt herself real bad, broke a couple of bones and will be out of work for a few weeks. It's not worth it people! We were able to talk to some friends their and that was nice.

This week was full of activities. Since Tyler is in a K-1 combo so he was able to do a lot of the things that the kindergartners get to do like: go on the Polar Express (his teacher got one in 3-D so the kids sported their glasses and had a good time watching the show), made gingerbread houses, and had a pizza party with the Student Body Officers at Burrows High School.

Both the kids also participated in their school Christmas program. They did a good job. Tyler's class sang "Do You Hear What I Hear" and Mackay class sang the song, "Let them Know It's Christmas Time".

Mackay's class had a Christmas Party on Friday and we made Rudolph Sandwiches. They were cute. The only problem we had is there wasn't enough bread, good thing I had cut out the shapes while they were in performing their song. Anyway I had walked to school so I ran home and grabbed the car and then drove to Walmart and bought bread and got back just in time to save the Christmas Party and have enough bread for everyone. Whew!

Now only 5 days for Christmas and it looks like we have a bit going on this week too. It will be a supper fun week, but I will write about that later...

Oh Christmas Tree

If there is one thing that I really love about Christmas it is a Christmas Tree. Ours has a lot of sentimental value. There are no fancy expensive ornaments, but all of them are priceless. My Grandma Mackay made us an ornament every year and handed them out to us at the Mackay family Christmas party. They now adorn our Christmas Tree. In addition to that there are many ornaments that the kids have made or that we have made over the years. So as I have mentioned before to me our Christmas Tree is truly priceless and this is what I will decorate our tree with for as long as I can.

Thanksgiving Break and Day and Weekend

After Thanksgiving we took off to Sea World and spent a day getting wet on rides and watching shows that have large sea creatures in them. It was so much fun. The kids loved being able to pet the dolphins, manta rays, and star fish. My parents joined us for Thanksgiving and went down with us to Sea World. We loved having them.
The day before Thanksgiving we took the kids over to the bowling alley and played one game. It was fun and the kids enjoyed it. I won with a whopping 99 points, but the kids did good too, thanks to those fabulous bumper lanes.

This is the cute decorations we made for our Thanksgiving feast. Tyler made the place cards by making turkey's with his finger prints and then we cut a toilet paper tube in half and used card sock to make the body, feet, and feathers for our turkey napkin holder. It was a fun craft to do on Thanksgiving Day.

Also on Thanksgiving the men got to work and started cutting down a huge tree we have on the side of our house. We are tired of all of the pine needles and a pine cone fell on the Trooper and broke the windshield so we decided to get ride of the tree. The only problem is we didn't have a ladder tall enough so we just cut most of the branches off and cut a little around the tree to kill it. We will take care of the rest at a latter day.

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving!