Christmas Fun!

The boys were all really excited about Christmas this year. Jon helped them each make a countdown chain to hang in their rooms and every night they would tear off a ring and see how close we were getting!

We put up our big, fake tree downstairs and then decided to go to the Christmas tree lot and let the boys pick out a real tree to put upstairs that they could put all of their decorations on. All throughout the month we made ornaments and garland to add to the tree. The boys thought that was really fun, although everytime they added their ornaments to the tree they would put them all around the bottom. By Christmas the tree was looking very bottom heavy!

One of our favorite Christmas traditions is walking around Candy Cane Lane and seeing all of the lights and playing in the fake snow that shoots out every half hour!

Our ward Christmas party wasn't our favorite this year because the boys were crazy and just wanted to run around which never ends well with them. They did manage to decorate gingerbread houses and then got to sit on Santa's lap which they're always excited about. We stayed for about an hour and then called it quits!

Jon had to go to the Veteran's Hospital with the Young Men one Saturday morning so the boys and I stayed home and decorated gingerbread men. They did a great job making each one unique! Later that day Jon took the boys to the BYU/UCLA basketball game which sadly is the only game they have lost all season, but they still had fun cheering for "Bi-you" as Max would say!

Max's favorite color is yellow right now!

It rained A LOT in December and the kids were getting really stir crazy. So we finally just gave in and let them go out and play in it. They had to get some energy out!

Sunday photo shoot...

Stay tuned to hear more about the fun we had on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!

Thanksgiving in Delta

We drove up to Delta to spend Thanksgiving weekend with Jon's family and we had such a fun time! We were a little worried driving up when the thermometer on the car read -18 degrees while we were driving through Beaver. That's right, negative eighteen degrees. What the heck? Luckily by the time we got to Delta it was up to zero degrees so that was at least a little better! The boys were thrilled to see snow on the ground and the first thing they wanted to do when they got up in the morning was go out and play in it. So we bundled them all up and let them run around and play for a while. The cold didn't seem to bother them, but I was freezing!

The snow wasn't good for making a snowman, but they still could make snow angels and have a snowball fight.

We just hung out for the rest of the day and then enjoyed a delicious Thanksgiving meal made by Jon's parents and sisters. It was kind of nice that I didn't have to cook anything this year!

I am definitely thankful for these 4 people and am so excited to be adding another one to our already crazy clan!

SO GRATEFUL FOR THIS MAN (and the fact that he tells me that I am beautiful even when I am big and pregnant)!!!

The day after Thanksgiving Delta always has a festival of trees where Santa comes and you get to walk around and see all of the trees that people have decorated. It's a good way to get us all in the Christmas spirit!

Grandpa Ron taught Nathan how to play the trombone. Nathan was actually pretty good and may have discovered a new talent!

We walked down to the 7-Eleven and got hot chocolate since it was so cold outside. Jake and Max just wanted chocolate milk, but Nathan was loving the hot chocolate!

Grandma Lorelei saved 25 bags of leaves for the boys to jump in! This has become somewhat of a tradition when we come to Delta this time of year and the boys always love it!

Burying Dad with leaves!

We forgot to play Pin the Hat on the Turkey on Thanksgiving so we busted it out the day after and everyone got a turn to play- even baby Eleanor! I think Nathan was the closest, though!

The day always ends with a Christmas light parade, but sadly the parade only lasted about 5 minutes this year since there weren't very many entries. The boys didn't seem to mind especially since Santa was on the last float! Afterwards we walked around City Park and looked at all of the lights until we couldn't handle the cold anymore!

Saturday morning Heidi, Kathryn, Eleanor, Jon and I all headed up to Provo and Salt Lake while the boys stayed in Delta with Genevieve and Grandma and Grandpa. We dropped Kathryn and Eleanor off in Provo and ran to the BYU bookstore and then drove up to Salt Lake to go to the BYU/Utah game. Even though it was FREEZING cold, it was still such a fun game until the very last play. We seriously couldn't believe that BYU lost when they dominated the whole game. So sad, especially when we had to watch all of the obnoxious Utah fans celebrate and get obnoxious texts from our one Utah fan friend (you'll see the light someday, Josie)!

Feeling pretty confident at this point...

Grandma let Nathan paint these Give Thanks letters which he thought was so cool that she would trust him with such a big project!

Sunday morning we went to church and then of course had to have an after church photo shoot with Grandma's big stuffed Santa!

Aunt Heidi and Aunt Genevieve were so good to play with the boys and spend a lot of time with them while we were there. The boys love them so much and Jon and I love getting a little break!

Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa, for such a fun weekend! We love you a lot and can't wait until we get to see you again!!!