Happy Christmas 2011

And before we begin....a little side note, happy 33rd birthday to me! Here I am opening my birthday gifts before we move onto bigger and better things. Thanks to everyone for the cards, texts, phone calls, gifts. It was a great day! Thanks to a wonderful hubby who took care of all the kids all day while I was at work and for making me one of my favorite home cooked meals! He always does a great job of making me feel loved and special. Thanks to Mom for always wrapping my presents in birthday paper even though I know it's a pain. Thanks to Jim and Norma for coming down to our house to celebrate with me! I have the best family!


Here are the girls opening their p.j.'s on Christmas eve! They always love getting new p.j.'s from the sandman!


Everything is ready to go! Me and James got to bed at a reasonable hour and we weren't too tired in the morning. They tried waking up at 3 am again, but we said no way and put them back to bed. They slept until 8.



Christmas morning was great! We let them open 1 present and see what Santa left in their stockings, then we got ready for church. Church was at 10, then we came home and changed our clothes and started the festivities. It was so nice. The girls were so cute about everything. They were full of hugs and kisses and thank you's all morning! What a great day! It was nice to have church on Christmas! We felt so happy to go and listen to the choir and and listen to our stake president talk about a boy who saved up all his money and bought a coat for a little boy in his class who needed one. It was such a great experience to take our girls and have them listen and behave at church! I was tearing up just thinking about the love of our Savior and how grateful I am for this season to celebrate his birth! It's sometimes hard to almost share a birthday with this special day, because I want to be selfish and have a day to myself, but in a way, it makes me feel closer to Him, as well. Anyway, it really was a beautiful day and we hope you all had a wonderful Christmas too!

Logan had a piano recital a few weeks ago. She played Frosty the Snowman, and Silent Night. She is doing excellent in piano and we hope she continues, although it's tough to compete with Autumn. We went to Autumns dance recital last night, and now she wants to do dance too. I told her we'd see. I love listening to her play the piano and her teacher says she is very talented and motivated. If she sticks with it for another year or so, we will get her a real piano!


Autumn at her dance recital! She danced wonderfully. It was pretty much her bed time though, when they started the recital, she seemed pretty tired to me and James. One day I hope I can figure out how to load a video on here. Every time I try it never works. We have great video of the piano and dance recitals this time. We made sure we had charged batteries in the camera. For now, enjoy these cute photos!


They joy a little pixie stick can bring!


After the recital



Santa was there to introduce each dance class as they came out, and Autumn was pretty nervous around him so we are glad he didn't try to talk to her or hug her or anything. The best part about Santa was, him greeting the audience as Brothers and Sisters at the beginning of the show. He quickly corrected himself, and said ladies and gentleman and boys and girls, but at that point he already had us all chuckling. Ha ha! Only in Utah!

Temple Square

Monday night we went to Temple Square for family night. It was very cold, but we all bundled up (except James in his shorts) and braved the cold. We had a wonderful time and the girls loved it. Sierra is especially fascinated by the lights. She points and makes a little tiny "O" shape with her little lips and just kind of grunts at the lights. I know she would be saying "pretty" if she could. It's been a fun tradition to take our girls up there and see the beautiful temple grounds for the past few years. I'm sure the tradition will live on for many years to come. We are grateful for our Savior, Jesus Christ, and to celebrate his birth at this time of year. May you all have a very Merry Christmas this year!

Talented Momma (part 2)

Mom painted us a shower curtain, cause I was to lazy to ever get around to it in the last eight years! I just love it! It makes the bathroom complete and the girls think it's awesome!


Here are some close ups of some of the butterflies









And this is how the rest of the girls' bathroom looks. I've posted it before, but now you can see the full effect! Isn't it cute with everything finished?! She is wonderful and I love all the things she makes us!





THANKS MOM!

Halloween 2011

Sierra's pumpkin (or mostly mine, whatever)

Autumn's pumpkin

Logan's pumpkin


Sierra was an Angel

Here is Autumn the Cheetah

And last,but not least, Logan the Chef

After Logan's school parade

Meeting our ward at the park for a Halloween kickoff party

These girls had a great night, and I had so much fun with them. The weather was really nice and they didn't complain about walking or anything. We had fun while James passed out the candy at home. Sierra even got to go out for a little while, and collected a whole FOUR pieces of candy! Then I was mean and made her come back home to go to bed before we got "too far away" (down the street) so I wouldn't have to bring her back screaming. Best not to push it with her. All in all, the had a blast and are still trying to finish off the candy. They are pretty nice and offer to share just about everything with me and James. Ha ha! Love those girls!

my babies play