Santa Claus is coming to town

When we heard that Santa Claus was coming to Payson, the kids were so excited!  It was a pretty chilly evening but the kids had fun waiting.  We were able to watch Santa arrive via fire truck, it was exciting as he got closer and closer.  Finally we had to wait in a short line and then the kids got to see Santa to tell him all the things they wanted.

Boys and hats

Oakley is getting old enough that he thinks that Owen is just about the coolest person in the world.  (Dad is number one and I rank about 4th for him Ü)

Oakley has been loving to wear some of Owen's many hats.  His favorite by far is the camo fishing hat.  I think that he looks darling in it too.

Owen and Morgan decided to pose for a few.  Such gangsta kids, love them!

Throwing kids

I don't even remember how this started.  Dad and Austin decided to start throwing Oakley across the room to each other.  Oakley would totally freak out during the throwing but then as soon as it was over he wanted to do it again, maybe he's an adrenaline junkie...

I decided to start taking pictures and then all the other kids wanted in on the action!  They got progressively harder because they got progressively heavier!  When they got to Morgan it was a bit of a challenge but they still were able to throw her.

We love it when Austin comes over!

Bailey's orchestra concert

Bailey had her orchestra concert right before the winter break.  She has a really good teacher this year, he knows how to teach kids.  Last year, the teacher could play instruments really well but she had a hard time teaching the kids how to play them!  

The whole orchestra sounded really good.  I am very proud of Bailey and how hard she works at everything she does.

Morgan's winter choir concert

Morgan joined choir again this year.  She really has enjoyed it.  They always learn a bunch of fun songs and you can tell the all the kids have a good time.  Plus we LOVE the choir director!

I was at a bad angle to take pictures of Morgan while they were singing but I did take pictures before.  Morgan did make some funny faces at me, I just love that girl, so full of spunk and life!  

Oh and she got glasses!  Bailey, her and Owen all needed glasses!  They fit her perfectly!

It's snowing in the house!

Many years ago, before Dad and I had any kids, I bought plastic snowflakes at Reams to decorate our Christmas tree.  For many years after they sat in a bag in the Christmas decoration box.  Then one year when we lived in the duplex we decided to hang them up on our ceiling.  It was so much fun but for what ever reason we never did it again.  This year the kids decided that we were going to do it.  One Saturday, they quickly did their chores and we brought in the ladder and the kids hung up all of the snowflakes.  It took a lot of trial and error.  In the duplex we hung them up with push pins but we didn't necessarily want a ton of little holes in our ceiling.  First we tried scotch tape but the snowflakes kept on falling down.  Then we tried blue painters tape but the same thing happened.  We finally conceded to use the push pins.  They looked really great and everyone had lots of fun putting them up.

Putting up Christmas lights

I love our house at Christmas time.  I love the way the lights look on the outside.  It just seems to complete the feeling of Christmas on the inside of the house.  This year the kids were super excited to help out putting them up.  Jessie and Tom also came over to help, it makes it nice since Dad can't get up on the roof.

Bailey and Morgan were helping put on the clips on every light and then hand them up to Dad, who was on the ladder putting the lights on the rain gutters.

 Then Tom and Jessie were on the roof trying to figure out which strings of lights went on which peaks, I guess the way I labeled them last year wasn't very clear.  They were able to figure it out though.

SNOW!

We have had such a crazy warm winter so far.  This is the first snow fall we have gotten so far and it's already December.  Owen and Reagan were more than happy to volunteer to shovel the driveway and walks.  They really are such good helpers.  After the finished they made snow angels in the pathetically shallow snow.  I think that the kids are more than ready for winter to come!

Owen thought that it was pretty cool that snow wouldn't stick to the new little corner of cement we poured a few months ago.

Addicted to Pepsi

At the ripe old age of eighteen months, Oakley is addicted to Pepsi.  I don't mean that he likes to steal a sip every once in a while, although it started out like that, I mean if he hasn't had caffeine before noon, he is a monster!  At first we didn't make the connection we just thought that he was hungry or tired, but then if we had a drink sitting around he was gravitate toward it and once he had a swig or two he was happy as a lark!

Since we made the connection we have tried to not let him drink pop as much as he did and it seems to help but he still does look cute trying to carry a 44 oz pop cup that it just about as big as he is!  

Bailey's lemon meringue pie

One night for the Young Womens activity, Bailey made a lemon meringue pie.  She was very proud of how nicely it turned out, so we took pictures.

She said that it tasted as good as it looked.  I am proud of the chef that Bailey is turning into!

Beautiful Sunset

While I was emptying my pictures onto the computer I came across a bunch of beautiful sunset pictures.  I didn't remember taking them so I asked the kids and it was Bailey.  She said that it was so beautiful but when she took the picture it didn't look like it did in real life!  I told her that is the way it is a lot of the time, it is hard to capture all the beauty that nature has to offer.  I still think she got a few good ones.

Fun cars in Holbrook, AZ

When we first pulled into Holbrook we spotted a fun little abandoned shop that had slug bugs that were pieced together to make new, interesting slug bugs.  They were really fun and we vowed to take pictures of them before we headed out.  

Well on our way out my camera was in the back, buried under all of the treasures that we were bringing home.  But lucky my mom had her iphone handy and my dad and I hopped out of the suburban and took some pictures.  

 The slug bug limo

 The motorcycle bug

The ice cream truck bug

It was really fun and they kids loved them.  Holbrook had a lot of fun sights that they incorporated into the "Cars" movie, such as the wigwam hotel they made into the Cone Motel that they populate with vintage cars in front of the rooms.

It was such a fun little town, very worn down but fun.  I am so thankful that we were able to go to my Grandma's funeral and that my kids were able to see where I had come from.