Christmas Eve 2013

 Christmas Eve was a little different this year, since my parents are currently serving a mission in Rwanda, Africa, and my little brother is serving a mission in Lyon, France for our church.  We still met at my parents house, where my sister currently lives and she was such a wonderful host.  We had the traditional talent show where my boys all played the piano and Palmer counted to 20 in French in honor of my cute brother.  I didn't get pictures, for some reason this has not been the year of pictures.  We talked about the "tender mercies" of Heavenly Father that have been in each of our lives and we realized that our family has truly been blessed so much.

After that we had the traditional family Christmas present exchange.  I love this part of the night (and so do the kids).

 Each person has another person's name.  The siblings and in-laws all trade names, and the grand kids all exchange names.  I love that it gives them a chance to think about someone in our family and usually it isn't a person that they play with often.

 After the cousin gift exchange all of the families gave their kids Christmas pajamas.  

We sure missed our missionaries, but it was so much fun being together as a family!

This is the picture of their Christmas church clothes.  They looked pretty handsome :)

Gingerbread Houses

 We started the tradition of gingerbread houses last year and McKay wasn't going to let me forget it.  This year we almost didn't get them done, but his heart was so set on them, that I couldn't disappoint them.  I made them and got the template from this recipe.  

 This year I made two of them instead of one big one so the boys could have more opportunity to decorate, but I think next year I will try to do one for each of them.

 The did a pretty good job working together though.

They were pretty happy with how they turned out (other than the sugar glue that I splashed all over the place...)

Grand America Weekend

We had such a fun December with all of the fun "business" parties Josh was invited to.  This one was at the Grand America for the weekend.  Josh thought he would surprise me with a fun "romantic" weekend...

...at the last minute our babysitter fell through aaaannnndddd the boys got to come with us for the weekend.  They were in heaven, while we were at the party downstairs, they at pizza and watched a movie in the hotel room.  Yep, they liked it.

 They were a little confused on why we had sparkling lemonade....

 ...and hearts made of rose petals on the bed.

But they just assumed it was to make sure they had a wonderful weekend.  :)  We'll just say it was.

The craziest thing happened when at 6:00 am in the morning we were woken up to the sound of hundreds of police sirens.  It scared us to death.  It happened to be that Shop With a Cop was starting or something like that.  Nuts.

Sleigh Ride

Last year we went on our first sleigh ride and we decided that we definitely needed to do it again.

 This time however, we used the smaller sled and took our Christmas card picture.

 Half way through our sleigh ride, the boys got to get out and run around exploring.  We went and saw the antelope and it was the most beautiful day.

 When we got back we got to check out these cute reindeer, it was perfect to get the boys excited for Christmas (as if they needed more reason).

 Our Christmas card front

back

December Instagrams

 My friend Kristen and I went to The Nutcracker up at WSU, as we do every year.  One of my favorite traditions.

 We got the boys skis already for the season (Hunter had been to a Pow wow that day and still had his face paint on).

 Lincoln earned his Bear Award in Cub Scouts.

 One Friday night we decided to do a late movie (it was already 8:30 when we decided this), we headed to the grocery store and let each boy pick out a treat to share.  

 We loved Utah State football this year, we were so excited they got to go to a bowl game!

 McKay has the best imagination, all we have to do is bring him a few "guys" and he is good to go.

 Decorating for Christmas!  This year we had a mantle, which was fun to hang our stockings from!

 Our Elf "Scout" made his return.  McKay was pretty obsessed with him this year.

 The boys were part of their school choir again this year.  I always love their Christmas concert.

 We got the boys trees up in their room.  They love to fall asleep to the lights of their Christmas trees each night.

 Lincoln sold "Logo Books" at his 3rd grade Economics Fair.

 Reading our Christmas books by the Christmas tree.

 Palmer made it to the finals of the Geography Bee.

 For the first time ever we got tickets to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert.  I was pretty amazing.  Palmer and Grandma Ann went with us.

 This is how our boys watch TV, although most of the time they all have their hands behind their heads.

 I took some Christmas pictures of our Miss Syracuse queen and Miss Syracuse Outstanding Teen queen.

 I made a HUGE batch of these gingerbread men and we all ate them for most of our meals.  

We had some gorgeous snowfalls and lots of hot chocolate and homemade marshmallows in December.

 This is what we gave our teachers this year.  

The boys and I studied Michelangelo this month.  I am always so happy that they love art.  They really do listen when I teach them about different artists.  I love it.