Holidays in Review

Saturday December 26th: Cameron, Chalon, Todd, Wade and I went skiing at Snow Valley. It was fun to ski with them and it was probably my best day skiing ever. I felt like they all pushed me to ski faster and I had a lot of fun. The girls enjoyed the time with their cousins at Grandma Sue and Pa Pa's house. Melissa was a great aunt and helped out even though we never asked her if she wanted to. Thanks Melissa!

Sunday: I got some flu bug and spent the day in bed. I haven't had to do that in a long time. I slept most of the day. Ali and Ashling went to church with Grandma and Cameron stayed home to take care of me.

Monday: We worked on projects around the house. We installed baby locks and started remodeling our master bathroom. On the list is new tile (we have had it for a long time but haven't had the energy to replace it.) and refurbishing and staining the bathroom cabinent.

Tuesday: We went skiing in the morning. The whole family went up and we took turns watching Annika and skiing with the kids. The snow was great and the kids are great at skiing. Ali and I enjoyed racing together. Tuesday afternoon we got a babysitter and went to the temple with Cameron's extended family. It was great to all be together and we are going to make this a family tradition to go each time we get together. After the temple we went to dinner and enjoyed some more time together.

Wednesday: Cameron went skiing with Wade in the morning. Then we worked on the bathroom remodel a little more. Later the boys went to see Avatar and the girls got together to let the kids play. We made Melissa a little book with pictures of the cousins for the baby. There were some unfortunate events at dinner time that caused us to wonder if all the food for the rest of the time together would be undercooked.

Thursday: The girls met for breakfast in the morning. We then went and got pedicures and manicures. We shopped for a while and then retured home. We met for dinner at Grandma Sue's and enjoyed a relaxing New Year's Eve. We played some Wii, played some card games and watched a movie with the kids. I like playing the Guitar Hero and think I need to get my own Wii in the future. The boys and the missionaries played a lot of ping pong. Most of the kids stayed up until midnight except for the little ones. I don't know if I will let that happen again next year but we will see. Everyone slept at Grandma's house except for Cameron, Annika and I. We went home to our own beds since we live so close.

Friday: Annika did not sleep in but the girls slept until after 9:00. It was their first time staying up that late and I am proud that they could sleep in so much. We had cinnamon rolls for breakfast, played cards and then played Settlers of Cataan. It was a relaxing day. I took Annika home for a nap in the afternoon while the kids had marshmellow gun wars in the street in front of Grandma Sue's. Then we had Wade, Melissa, Ellie, Mike and Sue over for a last dinner before they went home.

If you wonder why I am tired it is because we did all this stuff in a week. It was a fun vacation with lots of wonderful things for everyone. I am glad because the cousins played well together and Ali and Ashling loved it. I am a little relieved today to be sitting in the house by myself but the laundry is going to keep me busy for a month!

Friday:

Thu

Christmas Day! (edited edition)

Somewhere around the 16th of December I realized that none of my family would be with me for Christmas. And this hasn't happened since we had kids. I started to be a little worried because there are usually more presents and more people and I wondered if we would be enough. We decided that we would open the presents slowly and let the kids play with each one and not rush our morning. It worked perfectly.


Christmas eve some visitors (without kids,) brought us cookies and we invited them in for our Christmas Eve dinner of waffles and bacon. They stayed and helped us wrap presents, bring up the desk, and deliver another flying tree squirrel to his new home. I enjoyed having them and it made me miss my sister and her wrapping help less. Later we finished setting up the doll house and all was ready for Christmas morning.

Annika's Christmas presents from Santa

The Christmas Tree!

Our girls always surprise us on Christmas. They wake up at the normal time. Annika woke up first around 7:00 am and then in our bed she yelled to her sisters until they woke up and came in. Then we all went upstairs to see what Santa brought us.

Cameron made Ashling a doll house for her barbies and we bought a set of furniture to go in it. She was very happy to have it.
I bought a used ugly desk and chair from the thrift store. It didn't seem to hold much promise. But a new coat of paint plus painting the hardware and recovering the chair made a brand new desk. Ali has been wanting a new desk for a long time and she was very happy to get it.
Ali gave me the biggest, longest hug in the world for giving her the desk.

Santa gave Annika a shape sorter that she seemed very happy to have.

Annika loves our dog and is always climbing all over her but our dog doesn't seem to mind it.
Annika has started to ask to go outside. Too bad it is the coldest, wettest part of the year. I guess we will have to go down the hill where she can crawl around in the warm sun at the park.

For Christmas I was spoiled. I got a treadmill that was hiding in the garage. I like my treadmill because Cameron had to do research and buy it off of Craigslist where we could afford it. Nothing like a little thought. After it was set up I got right on it and started running. What surprised me the most is that Cameron went running on it too. I also got some ski socks, a sweater, a pair of pants and some perfume. (Hopefully I will smell better now!)

Annika is an expert stair climber now. She can go up and down!

The girls gave Annika a puppy that sings, dances and moves around. It also will chase its bone. Annika loves the little toy!

We are ready to go to Grandma Sue's house for Christmas dinner!

We opened presents at Grandma Sue's house. We sorted them all out and each family took a turn. Our families are getting too big to open presents all together. I am not sure what the best way to open presents is. How do you open presents in your big family celebrations. It was fun but it was a very tight fit in their living room all together.



Ashling got a Karaoke machine for Christmas from Grandma Sue and she hasn't stopped singing since we opened it. It was what she kept asking for and she was so excited to get it!
Annika was a little hard to contain during the present opening at Grandma's house.
Cameron had two themes for Christmas. He got a hat, gloves and thermos for skiing. He also got an external hard drive, ear buds, and a cooling fan in the hopes that we can once again have music on the computer. He also got an emergency radio from his parents with weather band on it. (If you know Cameron then you know how important that is to him.

Merry Christmas to all and I hope your Christmas was great too!

Ashling's Christmas performance

Ashling's preschool class did a Christmas program at night. Ashling could sing every word to every song on the whole program. It was cute, short and simple and I really liked it. She loved having Grandma Sue and Pa Pa come too.

Christmas Program

Ali had her Christmas program for school last night. It was a big deal for her. She dressed up all nice for school and the performance at night. She spent the night before reviewing her words. She even got to wear a little make up which made her feel very grown up. The program was funny with a song all about shoveling snow which fits in perfectly with living in the mountains. The kids did a great job and it wasn't too long making it fun for all.

This back ground was painted when Cameron was in the first grade by a Disney Annimator

This is Ali before the performance and she is very happy to see us sitting there.

This man played the piano and wrote a song about Christmas at Hoffman Elementary. It was a cute song and made so much sense.

Christmas Best

Sunday I dressed the kids and ourselves in our Christmas Best!
Cameron's work has a children's Christmas party every year. We attended after church.

Santa gave each child a present. Ali received a digital camera.
Ashling received a polly pocket roller coaster thingy.
Annika received a lion stride to ride thing for her to walk along with.

Annika liked Santa Clause a lot.

Snow sledding

We had some good snow a couple weeks ago. Here are some pictures of the snow events. Sledding in our yard is very fun and a little scary. We have only had a few mishaps including Ali and Ashling sledding in to trees. Ali came up and said Ashling needed a little ice since her face hurt. After I gave it to her in a bag and she put it on Ashling's face everything was fixed. Also Ashling comes in all the time with no gloves on. But in general the kids love the snow and we are praying for lots more.