Christmas

Christmas morning came early to us. Our kids thought that 4:30 am would be a good time to wake up but we told them to go back to bed until at least 6 am. So they did. I don't think they slept though but at least they stayed in their room after I had already caught Mackay up with the Christmas stuff.

At 6 am the kids came to our room and we talked about why we really celebrate Christmas. We all put our Christmas present to Jesus in a white stocking and then opened one gift in our room. Inside was 2 of our baby Jesus' that we had the kids each place in the manger.

The kids then saw what Santa had brought them and were excited to get Nerf guns and Bakugon Dragons. They also emptied their stalkings that were fun of treats, essential stuff like deodorant and toothbrushes, and an orange.

We then passed out gifts and went from youngest to oldest opening 1 gift at a time until all was open. We thank family for the gifts also. We had a great Christmas and we all fill spoiled with what we have received.

The rest of the day we stayed in our PJ's and played games, played with toys, listened to Christmas Music and just enjoyed a day of relaxation

We can't forget our traditional breakfast of waffles with ice cream (thanks to the Carrick's). It was so good. One of my kids favorite, but we only have it once a year.

We hope all had a Merry Christmas like we did!

Christmas PJ's

Tradition in our family is the opening of one gift which consists of Pajamas bought and given as a gift from Grandma Hill. My mom did the same for us growing up but often made our PJ's then. The kids loved their dinosaur (Tyler) and Scooby Doo (Mackay) PJ's. If we would have been in Utah we would have gone to the Hill Family Christmas Party with a pinata and the kids would have opened their pajamas with all the cousins and we would take a group picture with them. I miss that party.

Before opening our gifts we did go and look at Christmas lights (our annual Christmas Eve tradition) and we read the Luke 1-2 and the chapter in Matthew about the Wise Men. We also talked of Christmas' past.

Before that we made our traditional egg rolls for Christmas Eve dinner.

It was a busy day, but we had so much fun spending time together as a family.

Oh I think we even snuck in a game of Phase 10, or maybe that we the night before?

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve we started our day with a brunch and some friends house. It was fun to socialize with all who were there. After we headed for the hill's (gift to Justin) to go for a short hike and play in the snow. We hiked part way up Owen's to some Petroglyphs. They were really neat to see. We took our sled with us so we did a little sledding, but our kids our pretty wimpy when it comes to cold so they didn't want to do that for very long. All in all it was an enjoyable time.

December Activities

December has kept us busy with several activities. School brought me helping with fund raisers, gift avenue, riding in a limo and pizza with top sellers of our Signature Fund Raiser, concerts, and school parties. Lets just say it was a busy month.

The kids did a great job with their class performances. Mackay's class sang Jingle Bell Rock, and Tyler's class rang bells to a few Christmas songs.

The week of the 20-24 the kids were out of school. They had made a few not so good choices so they didn't get to play with friends that week. Anyway, we worked on Mackay's Mission Model (pictures will come later), read books, made snow flakes, and made a Ginger Bread House (which I forgot to take pictures of. It was also rainy most of the week so the kids made a lake in the back yard.

It was still a fun week but I had to be a disciplinarian and wished we could have watched Christmas shows, had play dates with friends to make and do things. Oh well, all turned out fine and dandy.

2010 Christmas Letter

I think I am going to go green again this year an email our Christmas letter. It will save me time and money. I am just worried that it won't get out if I don't send it out now. I know it is kind of lame, but it has been a busy season and I have not felt well since Thanksgiving. So here it is:

Winter Leaves

In the desert the leaves don't fall off the trees until the last part of November or the first part of December. It has been our tradition to rake the leaves in a big pile and then let the kids jump in them. So that is what we did in between all of the activities that we had scheduled on Saturday. They love this tradition, even though our pile of leaves isn't that big.

Scouts

The last couple of months the cub scouts have had a lot of activities. Last month they had the opportunity to do service at someones home cleaning out the area where the horses lived. They were troopers shoveling horse manure and dumping it where it needed to be dumped.

In the first part of December they took a trip out to Wagon Wheel and climbed rocks, did some compassing, and roasted marshmallows. I missed that activity because Tyler wasn't feeling very good. It sounded like they had a great time!

Yesterday the cub scouts were in the Christmas parade and then later had Push Car races. In the parade some of the walked, others road bikes, and others got to ride on a float. The Push Car races were a lot of fun. The kids had a great time pushing and driving the cars around tracks made in the church parking lot. They also had a hammer toss and a wheel roll. Tyler was excited to be able to participate in that. He had been so excited to be in scouts. Only 9 more months to go. I am grateful for this program. The kids really learn a lot and have a lot of fun at the various activities.

Thanksgiving and after...

Me sorting chocolates

I have been an incredible slacker in the blogging area. Mainly because it takes time to do and I have been spending too much time doing other things that I have not got around to it. Anyway I will take a few minutes now to blog.

Starting backwards, after coming home from our Thanksgiving trip to Utah the very next day I hosted a craft group. We decided to make chocolates. It was a lot of fun, but a messy job. Luckily I had made everything ahead of time (before we left) so all we did was dip the chocolates. We made Carmel, fudge, butter pecan, maple walnut, orange, lemon, and mint chocolates. It was a fun morning, but a tiring afternoon cleaning up from the chocolates and our trip to Utah.

The day after Thanksgiving was special to me because it is something haven't been able to do with my family for quite some time. My family gets together the day after Thanksgiving every year and makes Chocolates. It has been a tradition in our family for a long time. My mom, aunt and Grandma Hill started it over 30 years ago. Since we live in California and we have spent a lot of Thanksgivings with Justin's family I felt like it was my turn. It was wonderful to be there with my parents and sister making delicious treats. I will cherish the memory! (I could kick myself for not taking pictures though)

Justin took the boys to see a movie and out to pizza while we worked. They went to see Megamind and out to some Chicago style Pizza place. They had a good time!

For Thanksgiving we joined my family - something we haven't done since we had Mackay sealed to us 9 years ago. It was great for me! I loved it! I loved playing with my sisters little ones, helping mom with the dinner, and just relaxing. Justin had a blast playing with the kids outside sledding down the small hill in my parents yard. They were out there for an hour after we had our Thanksgiving feast.

Good times!

The day before Thanksgiving was Justin's dad's birthday so we stayed the day in Parowan with this mom to keep her company and drove to my families house on Thanksgiving morning. We decided to go and get some helium balloons and put notes in them to send up to Grandpa for his birthday. The kids had fun picking out the balloons. We also picked out a nice floral arrangement for the grave site. Our family and Justin's mom went to lunch at Hamburger Haven and then went to the cemetery where we watched the balloon float to the sky. We had one balloon pop on the way home from buying them so we sent three of them skyward. I think this would be a fun tradition to have, we will see if we can continue it in years to come.

I have a video of this, but can never get my videos to upload so you will just have to imagine this.