Merry Christmas

Our family has been very blessed this year. We feel very lucky to have five beautiful, healthy and happy children. We love our new home and community. We are so thankful to have the gospel in our lives. We are thankful for all of you, dear family and friends that mean so much to us! May you have the Spirit of our Savior with you during the Christmas season and throughout the coming year!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Gingerbread Houses

It's not Christmas at our house until we make our lovely gingerbread houses! The kids woke up yesterday to the smell of baking gingerbread and they knew that it was the day. They were so excited! I think they ate more candy than they put on their houses, though!

Hmmm. Cam doesn't know how to spell my name!


Adam's best buddy Brit joined us for the festivities!

Spencer kept insisting on eating the Cinnamon Santas, even though his face would turn bright red and his eyes would water. We would try to get him to eat something else, but no, he preferred to turn his head into a volcano!

Beware of the Grinch!

This year, Spencer is afraid of the Grinch. So when he starts acting up, we don't tell him that Santa's watching or he's going to get a lump of coal. No, all we have to do is mention that the Grinch is coming, and he'll promptly behave! Spencer has had a great week because he finally decided to be potty trained. That's got to be Mom's best Christmas present ever! No more diapers!!!

School Choir

Aubree has been in the school choir this year. She has really loved it. I was surprised, because she had to be really dedicated and get to school by 7:30 am to practice! Those of you who know Aubree, know that is not her best time of day, so that's really saying something. The choir had a Christmas concert last week and they sang the cutest songs. It was really fun.

Halloween, Halloween and more Halloween

After three different Halloween parties, a Halloween band concert, a school parade/party, a preschool parade/party, pumpkin carving and trick-or-treating, we are just about Halloween-ed out! Just looking at the piles of candy makes me cringe--the kids will be wired for the next six months at least! As if the Christmas trees in the stores and Christmas music on the radio won't do it. Good grief!

The Pumpkin Patch

We have had the most beautiful, and warm, October I can remember. One day we went to the pumpkin patch with Grammie, Aunt Tara and cousins Brie and Amy. We found some great pumpkins, rode in the pumpkin cart, and played hide-and-seek in the hay maze. All of those things were fun, but if you ask the kids what their favorite part of the day was, they will definitely say that going to Arctic Circle afterwards and getting Halloween flashlights in the kids meals was the best!

Ben, Spence & Daddy's Birthdays

Ben's 5th Birthday was a blast! Grandpa cooked a delicious dutch-oven dinner, the cousins came and the absolute best part was his "righteous" Transformers cake. The Transformers were so tough that they broke the cake into pieces by the time we got around to eating it!

Original cake...it's a masterpiece, isn't it?

Tough Transformer breaks off edge of cake...

Transformer war utterly destroys cake...


For their joint birthday present, Ben & Spence got the most awesome power wheels Jeep! They spend each day going on new adventures and they make me think of a new place for them to go each time. They are now veteran world travelers (or at least veteran back yard travelers).




Spence had been planning his Diego birthday cake for weeks before the big day. He absolutely bounced off the walls in excitement when it was finally finished!


Our Diego adventure included tying up a crocodile and hitting it until candy fell out. Would Diego approve of this treatment of endangered animals? We don't know, but we sure had fun!

Daddy turned the big 4-0 on the same day that Spencer turned 3. He wanted a Dora cake to match the Diego cake but we decided he was too old for Nickelodeon-inspired character cakes. He got a boring Happy 40th Birthday cake instead. It's a bummer to grow up, isn't it?