Christmas 2014

The boys and I flew out to Orange County Saturday afternoon to spend Christmas with the Tates.  Everyone came except Natalie and Miranda, who were obviously preoccupied.  The stomach flu ripped through our family effecting everyone on different days.  Some how Chandler and Sterling were the only ones to be untouched.  Unfortunately, I was the one to be laid out on Christmas day.  Our Christmas was a little different, but still full of wonder, and I'm grateful the boys were well.

We made cookies, which went undelivered for fear of delivering the flu with them.  :)

Christmas eve we didn't hang out stockings or wear our fancy new PJs.  Grandpa was just too sick..

But, Christmas morning Santa still brought presents...

And we still had hunts...

And Christmas night, instead, we hung our stockings, read a Christmas story, doned our PJs and enjoyed opening presents to and from each other...

Saturday we enjoyed the tide pools in Laguna, and lunch at El Torrito.

We also played a lot of games, which I am sure is a great way to spread germs, ate yummy food and enjoyed good company.  Merry Christmas, friends!  

Friendly Christmas 2014

I started writing this post like December 18th or something, and then forgot about it.  Oops.  Here you go, though, Friendly Christmas 2014!

We did these sticker nativities..

Colored on the butcher covered kitchen table...

Ate AWESOME dinner...

The little ones exchanged presents...

Instead of trying to act out the nativity like we did last year, we read a picture book of the Christmas story.  It was lovely, and involved less yelling and running...

I thought I took more pictures than I did...and I thought, "Could life be any better? Probably not."

Our Christmas Tree

On Monday night we went to Costco and bought our Christmas tree.  They come all wrapped up  in twine, so it's a little bit of mystery what it'll look like when you get home.  But ours turned out to be a really beautiful tree.  

Unfortunately, life got busy and we didn't decorate our tree until Friday night.  Poor naked tree...

I just really love all our hilarious homemade ornaments!

Thanksgiving 2014

For thanksgiving this year we drove out to my parents.  My brother, Jared and his wife, Jen, were going to be there, so it was worth the trip.  Also, not having to make a turkey/clean my kitchen made it worth the trip. 

Mom set a beautiful table.  When the question, "Should we use the turkey plates?" was posed, there was no debate.  Everyone loves the turkey plates.

It was HOT.  So we rode skateboards in the canyon..

And bikes at the beach...

Cutest picture ever?  Probably.

Happy Holidays!!!!!!!

Happy Halloween 2014!!

So, we moved... the house we were renting sold and we just had to move a mile or so, but we moved.  And we moved October 25th.  While I made special effort to make sure we didn't miss any Halloween parties or activities, my camera didn't make it to anything.  So I only have pictures that Julie took on Halloween night (Thanks Julie!).  We also enjoyed, a 2nd grade Halloween party and parade, the Nelson's annual party, the ward trunk or treat, and a preschool party.  It was great.

Here's pictures from Halloween night....

We had "potion"...

 Julie made this awesome veggie cat..

 We decorated cutie jack o' lanterns....

We had "bones."  These are my favorite every year...

And we enjoyed "Lisa's dinner in a pumpkin"

Then we dressed up and the kids went trick or treating.  Since it was such a crazy month for us, we went with store bough Costco costumes.  The boys loved them, and I didn't have to do anything except keep track of the parts to the costume; which was more difficult than it should have been...

 Scarlett and August/Little Mermaid and Jake the Pirate...

The Wach Family/Emmet, Bell, Rainbow Bright (I think), and Dave the Brawny Man...

Happy Halloween, and Happy Holidays!!!!!!!