Christmas with Aimee

Aimee and Tess working on treasure hunts.

Christmas Eve we started our night off with Chic-fi-la and salad. Then this year we let each person choose and conduct/play a Christmas song before we acted out the nativity.

The evening ended with It's a Wonderful Life and the kids finally fell to sleep after 10!

Up by 630a.m. we headed down to see what Santa brought...

The kids, and Dan, can't wait to go camping/hiking. The kids trekked around the backyard all afternoon playing happily with their backpacks.

Aimee gave Dan a head scratcher...funnies gift!

Elsa

Emily gave Aimee a new purse, complete with pictures of her kids.

Tess's string led to her new jewelry box. 

We spent the day after Christmas with Cara. We went duck bowling...never done that before. 

Saturday we headed to Baltimore with Aimee, toured a submarine and ate Chipotle and Cheese Cake! Yum.

Check out this Christmas give Dan MADE me! He has become a carpenter and was so happy to get the nail gun for Christmas to complete this entry way table. It's beautiful!

We LOVE you AIMEE!

December

I convinced Dan into letting me pull out the Christmas decor on Thanksgiving. Yay! This was the first year we got to hang our stockings by the fire! So cozy!

Lots of errands and shopping led to this lovely face:

Dan made me a Texas sheet cake for my birthday. The next morning I found this: Abby couldn't help sticking her fingers all over it!

Each of the kids got to invite a friend to do gingerbread houses. 2 families and 10 houses later..

Adriane and Tess

Harry and Jake

Eunice and I

The kids letters to Santa: they each wanted a REI backpack pack, with a spoon/fork/knife, bowl and cup. Tess also wanted a jewelry box with some jewlry. Abby wanted a new star dog. Jake wanted electronics but I put the kabosh on that.  Clara wanted "candy". 

December was a really busy month. With my new calling Christmas time is an even more busy time. Christmas concert, giving tree gifts to organize and deliver to several ward families, shopping, and dinners to lots of families. Busy. Our ward has several families really struggling with medical problems right now (newborn that needed heart surgery, 2 with cancer, and a pregnant sister who got in a car accident and ended up with serious back problems). I prayed fervently that Heavenly Father would keep my family healthy so that I could do all that was expected of me. Sure enough...Christmas Eve the sickness hit, but all the errands and helping was done by that point.

The best part of December was the news of Aimee coming out for Christmas. Even with her very busy and stressful new job as principle she made it out. 

Tess's New Smile

Double Digits

Jake turned 10! Double digits. He was very excited for this. He had ice cream for breakfast, a half day at school, then mac'n cheese with meatballs and more ice cream and cake. Jacob loves to read. He is an excellent reader. I had a recent parent teacher conference and was so impressed with my Jake. His love of books has helped him excel in every subject. He is one smart kid. So, we gave him a book for his birthday. And a nerf gun. Unfortunately the nerf gun kept breaking. Dan cracked me up when he suggested that Jake do a statistical analysis, shooting 150 times and charting the problems. He did it. The next day Dan and Jake went shopping for a new gun...picture to come, it's awesome!

Jake is the next lucky winner of orthodontic work. He will be getting an expander and then braces this next year. He loves music and recently learned heart and soul ( I got that "mom you're so cool" look when I taught him, best moment ever!). He spends his free time reading or playing the piano, jam'n out. I love it.

My little guy is growing up! 

NASTY

Clara can open the the fridge now.

Nasty.