It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas!

All of our decorations are up and we are ready to go! I was afraid we weren't going to have a tree this year. Mike finally convinced me to get a fake tree. I agreed if only we could have a big frosted tree. I found an awesome one at Home Depot but they were all sold out. Luckily, I found someone selling the exact one on ebay. I was so excited! Then UPS lost our tree and it took forever to get here. Finally it showed up at 9pm on a Friday night and we got right to work.

The finished product. I think it is so pretty!

I always get excited to put the presents under the tree so I always wrap them early. We had been storing them under our piano. The kids were very excited to finally put them under a tree. :)

This is the first year that I have had room to put out my Grandma's snow village. It was so fun to open the box and see all of them again. It brought back so many memories. I could even smell my Grandma when putting it up. I LOVED it! I was even happier to see that not one was burnt out or broken. Pretty neat!

Some of my other decorations

I made these

 And these

This is my Whoville display :)

 

 

 

 This year, we did something different for Christmas. Our kids have so many toys already that we wanted to give to kids that didn't have any. The kids gave up most of their presents to give gifts to children who wouldn't be having a Christmas. The kids and I picked 5 kids off of a tree and bough them what they asked for. It was a lot of fun and the kids really enjoyed it. Here they are with the items they selected. We are just about on our way to deliver them.

We have gotten into the Christmas spirit by going to a Christmas Concert. Michael orchestrated a song for the Salt Lake Pops and we went to hear them perform. He did a song from Home Alone.

Me and Joey having a date night. We watch Polar Express and had Christmas goodies.

While Daddy and Emma went on a daddy/daughter to Chili's.
 

She got to make a fun princess crown there.

Thanksgiving

This year we went to Boise for Thanksgiving. Melissa invited everyone to her new house to celebrate Thanksgiving. It was a lot of fun. My Mom and Lee came as well as Keri, Brian and their kids. We had a Hallmark party one night and a Madison party another night. It was so much fun seeing so much family there.

Me and Keri on Thanksgiving

 Everyone getting the dinner ready

Kenzie, Aaron and Bryce

All the grandkids loved jumping on the trampoline even when it was only 10 degrees outside! Joey, Logan, Austin and Emma

Melissa made some really yummy cupcakes for the family parties. Here is me and Aaron helping display them.

Melissa teaching Kenzie how to frost the cupcakes.

We had lasagna, fettuccine, homemade rolls, salad and lots of desserts. After dinner a lot of us played cards while others sat on the couch for hours watching you tube videos.

Kenzie was obsessed with the cupcakes...I think this was like her 10th cupcake! :)

Grandpa and Emma

And because we ate too many said cupcakes we had a planking party at 2 in the morning :)

After the Madison party (wish I took pictures of that :( ) We were sitting around talking about chewing loud. Brian says that Keri and Bryce chew extremely loud and Melissa was saying that Jason chews very loud. So we decided to have a competition :) Everybody had to chew some chex cereal and all of us on the couch determined who was louder. It was down to Jason, mom, Bryce and Keri. Then we narrowed it down to Bryce, Keri and Jason. They all did a song to Jingle Bells while chewing..it was so funny!

The kids had so much fun playing with their cousins. Here is Joey and Jordan playing monopoly.

On our way home, we visited Myra's grave. Joey picked out a pretty ornament for her and we hung it on a tree right above her gravestone.

Emma wrote her a nice letter

Joey wanted to get a few pictures with his little sister. Such a good big brother!

The rose was from my Mom and Lee from the day before

My grandparents grave and the pretty flowers my parents put on their grave

Halloween

First thing in the morning me and Dani took the kids to get free scary face pancakes at Ihop. The kids really enjoyed it because they got to decorate the pancake themselves.

I love this picture of Emma. Dani had just said something that Emma thought was so hilarious and couldn't stop laughing

Trying to get us all in :)

For dinner, I made a googly eye pasta

with a jack-o-lantern fanta drink

and a candy corn fruit salad. It is hard to tell but there is pineapple on the bottom for the yellow, clementines in the middle for the orange, and whipped topping on the top for the white.

The kids all ready for trick or treating. Joey the mad scientist and Emma a cowgirl

Our house and the little decorations :)

It was so fun trick or treating this year. It was fun to see all the houses decorated and I couldn't believe how many kids were out. It reminded me of when I was little. The kids buckets were full after and hour and they were ready to go back home. Mike stayed back to man the door and ran out of candy in 1/2 hour. We weren't used to this :) We will do better next year!

Joey having way too much fun :)

Since the kids didn't have school the next day, we all came home and after sorting through the candy went and visited my parents for some apple cider and donuts and then came home and watched a Halloween movie. It was a great day!