Christmas Eve at Home

Usually on Christmas Eve we go out to parties, but this Christmas Eve we decided just to have a relaxing evening at home. Dave took the day off of work (which was nice) and he and the kids played in the snow, went sledding, and we all watched "A Christmas Story" (one of my fav's).

There's just something about a man that will get out and play with his kids :)

Before the kids went to bed, I let them open up one present. Hunter couldn't wait. All night he kept asking, "Can I open my present now?" He was very disappointed when he finally opened the present I had pre-selected for each one of them to open. It was pajama's! Mckell thought it was great, but Hunter didn't :)

Catching the Gingerbread Man

All year at school, Hunter's class have been trying to catch the Gingerbread Man. They have gotten letters from him from California, Seattle, and other places around the world. They had just read the book "The Gingerbread Baby" by Jan Brett, and found that to catch the Gingerbread Man you needed to make a Gingerbread House. So I went to Hunter's class and helped him make one. It was so much fun to see how creative all the kids were. The Gingerbread houses looked great! And guess what! They finally caught the Gingerbread Man :) I love that I'm am able to go and share in these kinds of experiences with my kids.
Hunter's Gingerbread looks so good! He was very proud of it, but he just couldn't wait for Dad to get home before he ate it. It was pretty much eaten by the time Dave saw it.:)

The kids started with an empty milk carton, they frosted one side of the graham cracker and stuck it to the milk carton. I thought that this was a very clever idea because I have made gingerbread houses with kids before when I taught school, and we had a heck of a time keeping them standing. With the milk carton, you didn't have crying kids because their house had collapsed.

My Attempt at a Christmas Card

So I have been pushing Dave for the last 2 weeks to take a family Christmas card picture. He totally hates doing this, but I insisted. So the other night we got all ready and took several pictures, of which were not turning out so cute. By the end of the night, I was yelling at everyone. Hunter for not keeping his hands down (he wanted to do a thumbs up, rabbit ears to Dave, or something silly), Mckell either wasn't looking at the camera or she was smiling goofy, and Dave wasn't making sure Lexi's head was turned in the direction of the camera (I'm not sure he could have done much about that, after all how cooperative is a 3 month old, but I was getting frustrated so I yelled at him too :) I also was complaining that in a lot of the pictures I felt I looked fat (still haven't lost the baby weight). I was so frusterated! Finally, Dave said we were done. I'm still trying to convince myself that not sending out a Christmas card this year isn't the end of the world. Dave thinks I'm silly, but with each cute Christmas card I get, I think "Oh maybe we should try taking a picture again" Dave isn't going for it.

Christmas Parade and Lighting Ceremony

Last Saturday we took the kids to the annual Ogden Christmas parade. We'd never been before and thought we'd try it out. The kids' favorite thing about the parade was the "real life Star Wars guys" This is Hunter's favorite picture. He thought he was so cool.

We had mentioned to my family that we were going to the parade, so they decided to join in on the fun.

Before they lit up Christmas Village, they had a little ceremony. We couldn't see it but we could here everything on the PA system. A little girl named Mckell was going to turn on the Christmas village lights, so of course our Mckell thought that they were talking to her. She was so excited. Luckily we were standing by a building that had a button on it. When everyone started the count down, Mckell was ready :) When we got to 1 she pushed the button, and all of the lights turned on. She thought that was the greatest. The whole night she kept telling Hunter that Santa was going to bring her lots of presents because she turned on all the lights for people to see. Isn't she the sweetest!

Dave's Moab Trip

Dave made it back in one piece. Yea! He had a blast. With moving to a new building at work, he had been working several days straight, so he deserved a get-a-way :)

Dave and the guys!

Notice the cliff they are standing on.

The scenery really is beautiful in Moab!

Dave's New Bike

A friend commented why I didn't have a picture of Dave's bike on the blog, so here it is. He is just getting ready to leave with a bunch of friends down to Moab on a bike trip. So here he is with his bike, all in one piece. I just hope he and the bike return that way. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Happy Halloween

Last week was CRAZY with Halloween activities. From fmily parties, to classroom parties, to Trunk or Treats. By the time Halloween actually came my kids already had sackfuls of candy. They had a great time though. I think that they love all the hype of the holidays as much as I do. Hunter was funny. For each party he was something different. He was a Power Ranger, Spiderman, a Storm Trooper, and Obi-one Kinobe. He just couldn't make up his mind of what he wanted to be. It's a good thing his Grandma has about a zillion costumes :) Mckell was Belle.

Like Father Like Son!

We were making camamel apples, but instead of putting the caramel on the apple Mckell put the caramel in her mouth, well at least attempted to :)

No we didn't take Lexi out Trick or Treating, but the kids wanted to show her all of their candy.