Christmas!

The Christmas season started with Gingerbread Houses in Lauren's classroom on the last day of school before vacation. I am so lucky that I have been able to help out with all three kids in doing this, every year they have been in 1st grade.

Lauren hard at work on her masterpiece:

Santa stopped by every classroom at their school:

 Me and my special girl:

Voila:

We continued the 2nd annual Christmas Eve movie day, this year. We went to see The Muppets, which was as good as I remember it being as a kid and I will admit to shedding a couple of tears over the fact that I was able to share it with my kids.especially when The Muppets show opening came on. After the movie, we came home and had finger foods for dinner, again, and topped the movie off with Fred Claus.

The food spread:

Carpet picnic!:

Christmas day finally arrived and it was a success. The kids all loved their gifts and if you ask them what their favorites are, they can't tell you because they, "love them all!"

The tree, before the chaos ensues:

  All woken up and raring to go:

An iPod touch for the Wy-guy:

Lauren and her American Girl, "Felicity":

Henry and his Nintendo 3DS:

Coloring at Lauren's art easel:

Heather, Justin, Olivia and Charley came for a visit a few days after Christmas, so we had a celebration part deux with more presents for the kids.

Charley, getting ready:

Vivi and one of her LalaLoopsy dolls:

Lauren, with some art supplies for her easel:

I love Henry's face in this one.  He loves his official Navy Seal water bottle:

Wyatt, opening up some iTunes gift cards for his iPod touch:

The Boyds:

The cousins!:

Lauren and Olivia have been inseparable since Viv got here. They have been playing non-stop and wearing each other out.

We are having so much fun visiting and watching the cousins have fun together. More to come...

Decorating the Christmas tree...

 

Christmas Cards went out...

I sent out the Christmas cards the other day and love how they turned out considering it was the only picture out of 50 where someone wasn't blinking or looking away or posing oddly.LOL

We took these pictures in the high Uinta Mountains on a Saturday in early October.  4 days later they got 2 ft of snow and all the roads were impassable.  It was so beautiful up there and reaffirmed that I am a total mountain girl.  I can't imagine ever having to leave this beautiful landscape.

Happy Halloween 2011

The Dementor, the Witch and the Muscleman Ninja are ready to hit the streets.

First Day of School....

The kids started back to school on August 23rd and so far, so good!

Wyatt, 6th grade:

 

Henry, 3rd grade:

Lauren, 1st grade:

Front Teeth....round 2

I am now 4 for 4 on pulling front teeth out.  This time was much less traumatic, thank God. 

Doesn't Henry have the best toothless smile?  I ask him to show me smile for me constantly because I love seeing it.

Now, we wait for Lauren. Ughh.

San Diego Vacation!

For the first time in 3 years, we were able to take a real, bona-fide vacation. Yeah, yeah we went to Zion and Moab, but when I have to camp and/or hike, it doesn't count as a vacation. This year we were able to go somewhere sunny and warm outside of UT and got to do touristy things like Sea World, The San Diego Zoo and Legoland (which I would not recommend for anyone with kids over the age of 5, but Henry loved it so there you go).

We had such a good time and were very lucky to be able to stay with Heather and Justin in their new place. I am sooooo grateful that they were transferred to the West Coast and are now within a day's drive of us

We immediately took a pic of all our kids, together.

Wyatt could not get enough of Charley. He literally picked her up any time he could and Charley lit up whenever he was near her. They definitely have a thing going on:

Lauren had to get her fill, too:

The first couple of days we were there, we hung out and swam in the backyard pool, which the kids absolutely loved. Just going out the back door and jumping in? Heaven.

On Monday, we went to Legoland. As I sad above, not for the above 5 crowd, but we made the most of it...:

Tuesday was a lay around the house day, but on Wednesday, we went to SEA WORLD!! I think I was more excited than the kids!:

This picture sums up the day (if not the whole week):

Thursday continued our whirlwind week with a trip to San Diego Zoo, and let me tell you that it blows all zoos out of the water.

No trip to San Diego would be complete without a trip to the Pacific Ocean!:

To end the trip, we celebrated Vivi's 4th birthday:

We had the most wonderful time. It was so nice to be able to spend time with the Boyd Family. We look forward to doing it again, very soon!