New Years Eve

This was the second year we've had a New Years Eve party and we had so much fun!

The Parkinson, Stringhams, Cowleys, Bankheads, Davis, and us. We played some fun games, ate some awesome food and kissed at midnight!
Oh, and the Rock Band was Legendary!!!!!
Thanks for coming everyone!

Christmas Projects

December was a crazy crazy month! Besides oodles and oodles of Primary stuff to do, teaching Preschool, Sharing Time and being in charge of the Preschool Nativity Play I also decided to make a lot of my gifts for Christmas.

I started with this Advent Calendar. My mom made one when I was little and I LOVED putting the ornament on the tree every day (or when it was my turn). So I decided to finally make an updated version. I made one for myself and for my brother's family. I also made two fabric Nativity sets. I didn't get a picture but they turned out great.

I also made 3 aprons. These were really fun to make!

My final project was our Pajama pants. 4 pair. They turned out great!

I enjoyed sewing so much amid the craziness of the month and really felt like I was giving of myself this season.

Third Christmas

We get to have a lot of Christmas celebrations around here. It is so much fun to spread it out and celebrate over several days. The 26th is usually my Dad's Christmas party where we do a white elephant game provided by Debbie and our gift exchange.

Here are me, Garett, Grace, Michelle and Jack watching Grace excitedly open a present.

Garett's big gift of the night was a wagon!!!!
He had a fun time helping Ben put it together.
It has been well loved and used ever since.

This was such a fun night!

Merry Christmas!

I just wanted to announce the newest member of our Family. Meet Nala! She's 5 years old and I got her for Christmas! She is a sweet dog and we are excited to get to know her.

Christmas 2009

We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with the Harper family. It has been a few years since we've slept over with everyone so we decided to go for it this year. We started Christmas Eve by going out for the traditional Chinese Dinner. It was delicious! Then we headed home and opened up our new pajamas. I made matching pajama pants for my family this year and I think they turned out pretty cute! (a little big around the waist though. I need to take them in.) Garett discovered the joy of boxes and played with this one for 1/2 hour.

Here we are all matchy matchy.
Then Ben read us the Night Before Christmas.

Grace set out the cookies for Santa, and then was off to bed! She was so excited! As she was falling asleep she whispered, "Mommy! We forgot the milk!!!" I promised I would set out some milk for Santa.

Santa sure came, and even drank the milk! He brought Grace her baby stuff, but had technical difficulties with the "Pink Car". Garett got a basketball hoop. Daddy got a Banana Chair, and I got some Sewing Stuff.

Opening stockings was so exciting!

Garett dove right into the candy and probably ate 3 candy canes during present opening.

The pile of presents came out from behind the tree and the fun began. We started youngest to oldest. Most of Ben's family was there, we were just missing Ben's two older sister's and one younger brother.

Grace showing off her new baby to go with all her baby stuff. Ben showing off his awesome new hat.

She set herself up in the middle of the room amidst all the piles of wrapping paper and began playing mommy.

Then she got this fun Snow White cleaning set from G&G Harper and she was in heaven playing "house".

Garett got this awesome dinosaur. (side story- While we were in WA at church a lady in front of us had a similar dinosaur. We asked her where she got it and she said Disneyland. I was disappointed because Garett loved the thing and we weren't going to Disneyland anytime soon. That night at dinner one of his cousins was missing. When asked where they were, lo and behold they were in Disneyland. So a short phone call and a long drive later, they brought us this awesome dinosaur! Thanks Brian and Kris!)

Garett was mostly content during the chaos of the present opening to lounge in Daddy's new chair, eat his candy canes and watch the mayhem.

Near the end of the presents Ben announces that he had to go get my present. He had secretly been working for a week and a half to find me a dog! He found a beautiful yellow lab named Nala. He brought her in and she was so excited! It took her a while to calm down and we saw how sweet she was. She is a great dog, but LOVES to eat people food and jumps up on the counters to get whatever she can.

Nala really loves Ben. She follows him around wherever he goes.

It only took Grace a few minutes to warm up to Nala. I'm grateful for that since she hasn't been very dog friendly thanks to the mean dog chained up across the street.

Garett LOVES Nala. He says her name all the time now (at 17 mo). He also is good at tackling her and trying to climb on top of her. Nala is mostly tolerant.

Playing fetch is one of Nala's all time favorite things to do. It seems she could go all day.

Here are Cynthi, David, and Clarissa enjoying some leftover Chinese for lunch.

Christmas afternoon we headed home to enjoy a few more presents. These were the ones that we gave to each other.

Nala got a quick tour of the house and has made herself at home. Two things I like about Nala- She rarely barks, and she never goes upstairs.

We had a wonderful, amazing Christmas. The presents were thoughtful, the spirit of giving was strong, and the joy of being with family was the best! I am so grateful for our Saviour and the chance to celebrate Christmas!

Christmas with Mom Hardy

We had Christmas with my Mom in 2 parts this year. The first part was a nice dinner and the Nativity with the kids. Grace just had to be Mary, and luckily Elise was kind enough to be Joseph.

I think she is a pretty adorable Mary.
Alaina was the Angel and Logan was a Shepherd.

Garett was a wandering Sheep.

Micah was a very reluctant Wise Men (only because he was in purple).

Then on Christmas Eve we got together in the morning with everyone for breakfast and presents.

Garett enjoyed opening his first gift. He totally gets presents now.

Mom was excited about her gifts. Tickets to Hale Center Theater in Orem, and money for her Ham Radio Fund. (she took classes through her stake)

It was wonderful to get together with Rob's and Michelle's family to celebrate Christmas!

Christmas Pictures of the Kids

I decided to get some Christmas pictures of the kids taken since they both had cute Christmas outifts. I think the turned out pretty good.

This is my absolute favorite!

She really is a Princess!

Preschool Christmas Party

For Grace's Preschool party we combined with another preschool and did the Nativity and some other fun activities. The kids loved acting it out. We recorded it and had them watch it. They thought it was so cool they wanted to watch it twice.

We also played some games, had music time with chimes, and made these awesome Christmas Trees out of ice cream cones.