Christmas Fun

We LOVE Christmas! We start getting ready for it right when Thanksgiving is over. I thought I'd share some of our Christmas fun from this year.

THE TREE
A lot of my friends and neighbors have these trees that are decorated beautifully. Each year I think maybe I will do that too. But then I pull out my hodge podge of ornaments that have been collected over the years, and I forget all about a nice, fancy tree. I LOVE our cartoon tree that represents all the different stages of our lives. I have one ornament on the tree from back when I was in elementary school. Each year I get my kids a new ornament that represents something in there lives at that time. It has become a tradition that they love. This year Bailey got a music note because she plays the guitar, and Sawyer got a dog bowl, because he got Reeses.

NATIVITY
I have a nativity that I LOVE. I got it right after we moved into our first house. Again, it's nothing fancy, but it has been my favorite Christmas decoration for years. I proudly displayed it again this year. Luckily I took a picture of it right when I put it out, because the dog ate it. Yes, you read that right...THE DOG ATE IT! I could have killed her. She ate Marry and Joseph, so now all that's left is one sheep and the baby Jesus.

SANTA
We go to the mall each year and visit Santa. I tell my kids that they can ask for one or two things from Santa, but that's it. I tell them that he has a lot of kids to get stuff for, and they don't need to be greedy. This year Bailey asked Santa for a purple Tiara Pro mountain bike. Santa asked if she wanted anything else, and Bailey said that if the bike was too big, then she wanted double dutch jump ropes. Again, Santa wanted to know if she wanted anything else. Bailey's response cracked me up. She said, "I think that's plenty." She's so cute. I hope he brings her what she wants.

PUZZLE
Each year we start a big puzzle after Thanksgiving. Our Goal is to have it done by Christmas. We usually become obsessed and end up finishing it a few days later. This year was no exception. Here's a picture of our puzzle. You can't tell by the picture, but there is one piece missing. Can you guess why? That's right, the dog ate that too. We actually caught her in the act.

Bailey was SO excited one afternoon. She called us all into the living room because she had a surprise for us. She had created her own "live" nativity. It's pretty impressive if you ask me.
We've had so many more fun times this Christmas season. Sawyer had a Holiday Dance at school. He danced his first slow dance. It was with Christie, the girl he has liked all the way through middle school. Bailey had a great Christmas concert for school. She sang some cute songs and played the recorder. She also had a fun Christmas party with her class . I was in charge, and it turned out really good, but of course I forgot my camera for both of those. We also got to be the live nativity for our church Christmas dinner and program.

Even though she's naughty, she sure is excited about Christmas!

We hope you're busy making great family memories too. Happy Holidays!

Bailey's Guitar Recital

Bailey had her first guitar recital. She did great! She played Silent Night by herself, and then she played Jingle Bells with Mark. I was very proud of both of them. I didn't take pictures of the actual performance, because I didn't want the flash to mess her up. When we got home, I filmed them playing. Enjoy!

Bailey and her guitar teacher, Mr. Callister.

Bailey and Mark.

Pictures of Sawyer and Bailey

I haven't blogged in awhile, because our computer crashed. Luckily Mark backed up most of our stuff before it died. We didn't get our e-mail addresses backed up though, so all of you will have to e-mail me, so I have your addresses again. I have a lot to share, so I'm gonna do some power blogging in between my cleaning :)!

Earlier in the year we had a Scout auction for the Boy Scouts in our neighborhood. At the auction we bought a photo session and a 16 X 20 picture of our choice from the sitting. We finally got around to getting it done. Tamara did a great job of photographing the kids. She gave me the big picture I picked, and then she was nice enough to print a bunch of 5x7s of the others that I liked. I had to scan them in, so the quality isn't great, but I thought they were cute.

This is the picture I picked to have printed for my bedroom, but I had it done in color.

What is she gettin' for Christmas?

Thankful for...

We had a great Thanksgiving! This year we are thankful for good friends. Jeremiah, Kassie, Carson and Landon Temple came up from Utah, and spent the weekend with us. Me and Kassie went to Twilight and did a little shopping. Mark and Jeremiah worked on the garage, and got all the trim done. Bailey was in heaven, because we put her in charge of Carson and Landon. She's gonna make a great mommy someday. We stayed up til wee hours of the morning playing games. It was a good time!

I walked in the kitchen in the middle of Jeremiah and Bailey fighting about something. The part I saw was Jeremiah hold Bailey's arms down, grab her black magic marker, and draw a mustache on her face. I was laughing so hard! Bailey was ticked off, and stormed out of the room. She wouldn't even let me get a picture. Every time I went to the bathroom to help her get it off her face, I would burst out in another laugh attack. It was hilarious! She came down a while later, and put lipstick on Jeremiah, and sprayed him with perfume. He was a good sport about it. He should have been too, since he started the whole thing.