Merry Christmas!!

And happy New Year! I know... How lame am I?? December 9th?? Okay... so I found my camera probably 2 days after I posted that it was misplaced. And I have a whole new set of pictures since then and still haven't posted any. Sorry. I never sent out Christmas cards either. Nor did I finish the gifts for my parents or Jeff's. I'm just all around lame this year. I'll work on that...

On another note, here are some of my favorite pictures from the holidays:

Here are all my sweet children watching Elmo's Adventures in Grouchland together. Audrey was sad, and Sarah decided she might feel better if she could sit with everyone on the chair. So she lifted her up there between the boys and covered everyone with the blankets. This is how I found them.

I waited until after church to get the pictures of all our cute Christmas outfits. Since church is from 1-4, and the kids haven't had naps or lunch... well... you get the picture. This was the best one of Alex and Sarah. I was laughing too hard at them to get a really nice one. And Sarah insisted on wearing her headband like a "Nephite."

Here is Jeff and Lucas. You might recognize Jeff's vest from a certain Halloween a few years back...

Mama, and poor little Audrey. She was so hungry and so tired. But ever so cute! And I think my face is starting to look a little better. What do you think??


Sarah helped me wrap a present she got for the boys one night, and as everyone was getting ready for bed, she kept asking me for things. "Can I have some ribbon, mom?" I gave it to her. "Can I have some tape, mom?" A little frustrated at this point because she was supposed to be getting ready for bed, I asked her why. In her semi-embarrassed and shy way she has when she's doing something cute, she told me she couldn't tell me. I gave her a piece. A few minutes later, she came smiling to me looking like this. She called it her "Santa mustache."


On Christmas Eve, the kids all get to open their Christmas Jammies. Here's alex trying to find the pockets in his. They all had ones similar to these and actually all kept them on the whole night! Our Christmas morning video had fully clothed and cute kids!

We had a true White Christmas this year. It snowed through the morning until about 11:30, then politely cleared up so we could all go sledding and play in the snow. Then it snowed when it got dark again that night. It was a lot of fun, and the kids all had a blast sledding down the hill at the high school with the tubes Santa brought, then making a snowman in our back yard. Here's some of them eating the freshly fallen snow on the little mini-hill Jeff made with the snow he shoveled off the driveway.

Here's Sarah trying to catch some snowflakes that began falling before we went inside.

That night, we jammed on the new Guitar Hero: World Tour game we got from Jeff's mom for Christmas. Everyone really likes the game, and these pictures are not posed! Sarah is actually playing the drums here, and Lucas is actually singing! He REALLY likes that part. He insists on having a turn with the mic every time we get it out. And we can't forget little Audrey. Every time she hears the game start up, she comes running and giggling. Then she'll stop in the middle of the family room and start dancing. Jeff let her have one of the guitars the other day, and she seriously thought she was playing. I love that my kids love music!



These ones are a little more random, but I really liked them. They're all from the last week or two.

I couldn't just give the boys a bath this day. First came Audrey, trying to climb in fully clothed. What else could I do but put her in? Then Sarah just wouldn't be left out. She insisted on bathing with everyone. They had a lot of fun splashing each other. They always love the bath.

This one is fondly reminiscent of my post called "Boys will be... boys?" from earlier this year. I just don't understand why they can't leave their clothes on! We always go in to check on all the kids right before we go to bed, and this is what we found one night. They fell asleep right by the door like this.

And this last one is from tonight. The boys both really love their two blankets they've had since they were born. They take them pretty much everywhere. Tonight, they had these two sippy cups full of water right before bed. They got two washcloths from the drawer in the kitchen, and were found walking to their room together with their "babies" wrapped up in their "blankets" all ready for bed. When Jeff was getting them ready for bed upstairs and one of them dripped toothpaste on the floor, Jeff took Alex's washcloth to wipe the spot up. Alex freaked out saying "No! Blanket!" Jeff then very apologetically helped him wrap his "baby" back up in his "blanket." That's not all. Alex named his baby cup "Bluie" (because his favorite color is blue) and Lucas named his "Greenie." Sometimes they just really surprise me. They're so cute!

Misplaced

So I've been meaning to post about our trip to AZ over Thanksgiving, among other things, but I seem to have misplaced my camera! Not to worry, though. I know it's somewhere in the house. I just don't know exactly where. When I find it, I'll post the pictures from the past month. We've been doing a lot of fun things lately. We put up our Christmas decorations, including the lights outside. We went on a long drive to Arizona to visit family for Thanksgiving. We made Christmas cookies, and ate them all before we could deliver them! And we've spent a good deal of time with friends. Sarah has been learning a lot in preschool and doing lots of fun activities. Sarah, Audrey and I went to the tree lighting ceremony for North Ogden and even got to see Santa! Sarah told him all the things she wants for Christmas. She and Audrey both got a candy cane from Jolly old Saint Nick. Unfortunately, that was one of the events where the camera was MIA. I'm hoping to find it before our ward Christmas party so we can get a picture of all the kids on Santa's lap. We also said goodbye to a very dear, very old friend over Thanksgiving. Big Red. The Durango. He was a loyal and reliable friend for a very long time, but it was time to replace him with a newer more "reliable" version. The newest addition to our happy family is a 2004 pearl white Lincoln Navigator. We have loved the comfort and ease of use the Navigator has provided so far and are hoping it won't cause us too much grief with all the bells and whistles it has. Two slightly less new additions to our family are a treadmill and stationery bicycle. We purchased those about six weeks ago and have thoroughly enjoyed having them in our bedroom for our nightly exercise dates. Can't hurt to try and stay in shape, right?? So far so good. It really helps to have a work out buddy and the extra motivation having two people on a work out schedule provides has proven very advantageous. Being able to run a few miles without having to brave the cold of winter doesn't hurt either. Happy late Thanksgiving everyone!