Sledding

We decided for our family activity on Friday to go sledding. We all bundled up and headed out. Here is baby Cate all snuggled up. I love this picture.

We went to a park by AF Highs School. It had a perfect hill, long enough to have fun, but not too hard to climb back up. Grace was totally excited to go down. She and Ben were one of the first from our group.

Elise, Rob, Abbie, Heather, and Spencer all waiting at the top.

Grace, Sydney and Spencer

Grace again. She would go with anyone that would take her, and then got the courage to do it on her own. She even tried going down without the sled, but then got stuck in the middle of the Hill until Ben went down and rescued her.

We only had 2 casualties of the day. Abbie went over the jump pictured above accidentally, but landed on her tummy laughing. She thought it was great. Kurt got hit in the back by some crazy sledders and was pretty sore for several days.

We headed home after that for some Hot Chocolate and Rock Band!

My Favorite Christmas Present

Ben's brother Bryan had my name in the family drawing for Christmas this year. So as they were asking what I wanted I requested some drawings by his amazingly talented wife Alyssa (who is majoring in Art at USU) of my babies. Here are the results. I absolutely LOVE them and can't wait to frame them and hang them on my wall!

Christmas Day

Garett decided to wake up early on Christmas (like at 5:00!). So after I fed him he went back to sleep, but Ben and I were wide awake and excited. We decided it was still to early to wake up Grace so Ben bundled up and went out to shovel the snow(again). It was biting cold outside so we made some Hot Chocolate and watched the MoTab Christmas Concert while Ben warmed up.

Around 6:30 we decided we had waited long enough and drug Grace out of bed. Once she realized it was Christmas morning she was so excited to see if Santa had come! Here we are waiting anxiously at the top of the stairs.
When we came down the stairs the first thing Grace saw was her Princess Barbie! (which was supposed to be in this picture, but I must have picked the wrong one) She gasped and ran to it and said "Daddy this is AMAZING!" She was so excited to get her Cinderella dolly and horse. Then she ran over to the plate and saw that Santa had eaten her cookie and milk and was even more excited. It was so fun to watch her. As we opened her doll we had her look through her stocking. She was so meticulous at pulling out everything individually. She even pulled out each candy one at a time, "and another, and another" Then she would count them, "1,3,6,7,8..." She used to count to 10, but somewhere along the way she lost 2,4&5. Needless to say she was so excited that Santa had come and couldn't wait to open more presents.
Here is Ben opening his new Wallet. This was my great surprise of the year for him. I found this taxi wallet online that was the same as the one he got on his mission and has loved for years. He was excited.

Here I am opening my sack of flour. Literally. Ben was super sneaky this year. Usually he can't keep a secret to save his life, but he really got me this year. I didn't even notice the two huge boxes hiding behind the Christmas Tree. This pink one was the first I opened. It had a sack of flour, a box of cereal, toilet paper rolls and a Wii in it! I was really getting mad when I was unwrapping all that food, and then I finally opened the Wii and was excited. Well, I had to warm up to the excitement. You see, he went WAY over budget and that's what kept going through my mind as I stared at the Wii box. I've always wanted one, but didn't think we'd get it because we were cutting back so much on Christmas this year. So he got me good this year. I was totally shocked and surprise. Oh yeah, the other box was Rock Band 2!!!!! We have had a lot of fun creating a band and touring the world.

We opened all of Garett's presents while he was sleeping. He wouldn't have cared anyway. So here he is with all of his gifts. I'm pumped about the Bumbo!

After we opened our gifts we went over to my mom's for more gift opening and a yummy breakfast! We then headed up to Ben's parents and on the way called into a conference call with all of my siblings and my brother Todd who is on his mission! It was so fun to hear him and talk with everyone all together! (A funny note about the car ride up. Grace was playing with her Cinderella and I hear her saying. "bump and bump" I looked back and she had taken the dress off and was examining her doll. "Look, bump and bump Mom!" It was hilarious, but then I had to explain what they were.) We exchanged gifts at Ben's parent's house and then shortly after headed home afraid that we were going to get stuck in the storm. We didn't it hardly snowed on us the rest of the day. So we headed back to my mom's for some food and fun.

Here are Ben and Kurt playing Guitar Hero.

Before we headed home for the night we had to get a cute picture of Garett in his Christmas outfit. What a sweet baby!

Here is Grace showing off her Tutu I made for her and her new ballerina slippers.

The spoiling continued at my Dad's house on Sunday where Grace got a rocking horse and we got money to buy a freezer! I'm so excited about that. (I totally forgot to pull out my camera there) We had such an amazing Christmas where we got to spend so much time with family and sit back and chat and enjoy the season. I'm grateful for our time together and sad that's it's over.

Christmas Eve

We started out Christmas Eve by sleeping in! Okay, sleeping in to me is anytime past 8:00 AM. It was great! We all got ready and headed over my Mom's House.

At my mom's we made Cookies, had a really yummy dinner, and played lots of games on my sister's Wii. Here is Ben dunking Garett. He wasn't so excited about being way up there
After dinner we decorated cookies and then went downstairs to do the traditional acting out of the Nativity. My mom went all out this year and made costumes for all the Grandkids to participate. They were all sooo excited to dress up, but the only ones that really wanted to cooperate were Spencer, Sydney, and of course my ever happy Garett.
Abbie was Mary and wouldn't even come out, but
here are Spencer (Joseph), Garett (baby Jesus), and Elise (a Shepherd).
Spencer, and Sydney (the Wiseman).
Garett was such a great Baby Jesus. Happy and cooing the whole time!

Grace was supposed to be the Angel, but she sure wasn't acting like one!

After the Nativity flopped we sang a bunch of Christmas Carols with my mom's completely out of tune piano. Luckily the singing sounded good still! Then it was time for our pajamas! Here is Grace and Garett in their new warm jammies!

Heather's kids all ready for bed.

We then headed home to put our kids to bed. Grace of course had to lay out the stockings first and leave a cookie and glass of milk out for Santa. She went right to sleep after Ben read her How the Grinch Stole Christmas. We were all so excited for Santa to come!

Cousins

We were lucky enough to spend a lot of time with our families over the past week. It has been so fun to play with them and meet all the new babies! (we've had 6 including Garett born and still have 1 more on the way!)

Here is Garett with Brieya and Caleb. This is the difference 6 weeks make. Garett is 6 weeks older than Brieya (check out her head full of hair!) and Brieya is 6 weeks older than Caleb.

This is Garett and my sister's twins Conner and Catelyn. They are one month older than Garett. Yes, I know, Garett's a big kid.

More Snow!

Ben shoveled a lot of snow last week. We were hit with a big storm on Monday, but luckily the storm on Christmas didn't bring us much in Utah County.

I had to take a picture of the snow on the side of the driveway. It's almost as tall as Grace.

Grace thought she should help too so she pulled out her shovel and pail.
Here's Ben working those back muscles. He was pretty sore from shoveling so much, but I'm grateful that he did! Getting stuck in our own driveway doesn't sound very fun.

Merry Christmas!

I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! It has been a wonderful season and we are so grateful for this day to remember our Saviors birth! What a joyous day and life he gave for us and I love him!

Here are some pictures I took of the kids on Sunday in their Christmas Outfits. I wish I had Michelle here with her camera, mine just isn't as good.