the festivities of Christmas time

Christmas is all about family and I am thrilled to have ALL my kids home for 2 whole weeks! Since we've had a butt load of snow, we've had some fun ski days.

Another activity that we indulged in for the holidays was making and decorating gingerbread houses. OK, so I made all the houses, but the kids had a great time decorating them. Some worked individually, and others worked in teams.

Like this team of Ty and his girlfriend Sloane. The kids were REALLY getting into the decorating this year and a lot of thought and detail were being demonstrated. So, we decided to have a contest and Kirk was the judge....I was disqualified as judging because I kept giving people ideas and items to put on the houses!

Three houses made the semi-finals. Interesting enough these were all the houses produced by a team of people. This was Maya and her friend Morgan's log cabin. This won the popular vote....meaning more people voted for this house.

This is Ty and Sloane's house on some major acreage. This house won the best landscaping of them all.

Kara and Sage were the winners picked by Kirk. It's a cute, little skiing chalet!

Christmas Card 2010

Producing a Christmas card every year is not as easy as it looks. Kirk and I have taken a family Christmas picture every year since we've been married...that's 25 years...except one. (and that's the year, we almost lost our Lea...1988) Anyone with a large family knows that first off, it's hard to gather everyone together ( Ty is graduated from college and lives in Provo full-time). Then comes the question..."what will we wear?"...this gets tougher every year too since most of the girls wear the same size...and there's usually only ONE of a certain top or outfit. Thankfully, Kara has taken on this job the past few years and I basically leave it up to her color wise and style....then when the arguments come, I just let Kara take the flack! And the last thing that factors into producing a viable Christmas card is everyone's ATTITUDE. It can be awful trying to get a good photo when someone has been crying or there are hard feelings floating around. It used to be such a production when the kids were little to get them dressed and keep them clean and keep them in the spot where I want them to be....and to look at the camera and SMILE! What used to take a seemingly LONG time to get a good shot now takes us literally minutes. It is true...my kids now know the rules and that if everyone cooperates it only takes a few minutes! Practice makes perfect...well, you know what I mean! Hope your Christmas has been merry and bright and full of the the Savior's light.

Traffic stoppers

This is what we ran into (not literally) the other day as I was taking Lea to work. There was a whole "line" of elk and the car in front of me stopped for them to cross the road. There were about 15 of them and there were several males with antlers a growing.

Around here, these guys have the right of way. There are several places that are considered "wildlife corridors" on my way to town. So, you gotta pay attention!

He's REAL !!!

Yep, I still have a believer!! I love it...keeps Christmas in our home so much fun. And her innocence is so sweet. We just had our ward Christmas party and when Santa walked into the room, I thought she was going to levitate, cuz her arms were flapping so fast and furious cuz she was EXCITED that Santa was there. Maya quickly got her 1st in line to see Santa and she was the happiest camper all night. Looks like this Santa could stand to eat a few more cookies....he's SO skinny!

She visited with this Santa after Kara had a Christmas dance recital.

This looks like a Santa from another ward Christmas party.

Santa even came to Nuskin this year!

But our favorite Santa of all time....had to be this guy...Dave Braithwaite. He was Lea's physical therapist when she was a tiny one and he would come every year to our house to see Lea and bring her what...naturally, a book.

It's beginning to look a lot like ...Christmas!

From all the snow we've gotten...

From the Christmas lights in the town square....(sorry so blurry...)

From this crazy person's Christmas lights...(wonder what their light bill is?)

To wrapping presents...yes, I've already wrapped a bunch and I haven't even done my own family yet!

To this Christmas tree in my family room....
I'd say it's definitely looking a lot like Christmas!!

Thanksgiving-Part 2

Here we are just sitting down to have our Thanksgiving dinner. Yum.

Then we had to play some Wii Fit to help with all the extra calories consumed.

The whole gang...aren't camera timers great?

I told you we had a bunch of moose in the yard, and eating was not all they were trying to do!

Enough is enough, the husband says...time to go and eat someone else's yard! (he looks pretty mean with that dust mop...don't you think?)