MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL
From our family to yours!
We love you all!

School Programs

I had such a cute little video of Andrew's Preschool class singing us all Merry Christmas songs and I recorded over it when I recorded Sammy's class program that they did at the care centers! Sometimes I am very technologically challenged!! But these are the cute little gifts they made for us. :)
This is Sammy's 2nd grade class on their way into the care center to present their "Gift of Giving" program!
They all looked so cute and did such a great job.
At the end they all found a partner and did the "Reindeer Dance". It was so great to see the joy and excitement from these wonderful people.

Sammy's bow just kept falling off. We had it attached to a head band for her to wear on her head. We should have just put it on the box. Oh well!

I don't have any idea how to put a video clip on here but if I ever get time I might try to figure it out and put a short clip on from her program.

Thanks So Much!

Just wanted to tell you all thank you for the wonderful birthday comments! I love you and appreciate your nice thoughts and wishes! :)

It's My BIRTHDAY!

This is my last year in my 20s so you better wish me a good one, after this year I'm going to be OLD! Actually, Ryan already tells me I'm old. But I am getting a lot of grey hair, so it must be true! Leave me a nice Bithday comment if you want! :)

My Greatest Gifts

Sammy's 2nd grade class is doing a play for a couple of the rehab centers in town this week. Sammy gets to play the part of a present so we've been working on her costume this week. This is kind of a preliminary. We've added a little more ribbon and I'll try to get a pic of the finished project before she takes it to school.

But seeing them all wrapped up like a gift made me realize that I really don't need anything else. These two truly are the greatest gifts I could receive!

Gingerbread Man

This was a fun thing that Andrew did at preschool last week. They just took a regular ice cream cone and frosted it with some green icing and then had some little candies to decorate it with and a gingerbread man and some little gummy bears to stand up in the snow (white icing) next to it. It was SO cute!

Playing in the Snow

Last weekend we went to Grandpa and Grandma's house and the kids got to play in the snow. This was about all there was, but it was enough for the kids to have a blast!

No Santa This Year!!

So we went to the ward party this year with the usual expectation of seeing Santa and having the chance to tell him the greatest desires of our hearts for Christmas this year. But instead we got to learn about the true meaning of Christmas and had a visit from the 3 wise men, who presented a gift to each child, just as they did to the baby Jesus at his birth. Overall, the kids were actually excited. Andrew was a bit disappointed and insists that we need to go to the mall so we can visit Santa. :) Samantha just said those weren't the real wise men you know, I think one of them was our bishop! haha! Can't get anything past kids these days!

Christmas

We had some extra lights that we weren't using so we decided to put them up in the kids' rooms.

Christmas Tree

Well we finally got around to putting our tree up today. Now it really seems like Christmas. We've had our outside lights up for a couple of weeks and are SO glad we did it before Thanksgiving, before it got cold! We've had a TON of rain today. It has been raining since noon and it is 9:00 PM and still raining! What a wonderful blessing! Andrew and I are both feeling pretty miserable with colds so it was a good day to stay inside, listen to Christmas music, decorate the tree, and drink hot chocolate.

Master Bathroom

The before.....

The After.....

Kids Bathroom

The old.......
The New......

and in with the NEW!!!

TaDa!!! This is our NEW kitchen!
This is a closer up picture, so you can see the color a little better.
And the new sink!

Out with the OLD!!

Ok, so here is the "before" kitchen and kitchen sink....

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving at my mom's house this year. We were supposed to have it at our house but were in the middle of replacing all of our kitchen and bathroom countertops and sinks and since I didn't have any sinks that were working on Thanksgiving we decided to do it at my mom's. It was a small group with just Ryan and I and our 2 kids, Mom, Alex, Nicole, and Zaylee and Dad. But we had TONS of yummy, yummy food! We are finally almost done with all the countertops and getting the sinks hooked up so I will be posting some before and after pictures soon! I am SO excited!!

I think they are about the same weight but Hannah is quite a bit taller. I'm sure glad I didn't have twins! I can't even imagine!

Happy Babies!

These are our nieces Zaylee (Nicole's baby), on the left and Hannah (Cindy's baby) on the right. They are only one week apart in age, Hannah is older. They had fun playing together at my mom's house on Saturday after Thanksgiving!Look at them holding hands! How cute!

NEW CHAIRS!!

We are SO excited! We got new rocking chairs today and are SO excited!! We've never really bought ANY new furniture during our whole married life so this is a BIG thing for us!

Veterans Day at Zion National Park

Sunday we got free entrance into the park for Veterans Day. Since Ryan has never been there (well his mom said they drove through once when he was little but he didn't remember it) we decided to take the afternoon and go. We had a great time driving through the tunnels and hiking the Emerald Pools. (Sammy did not think this was fun, but Andrew had a blast!) Ryan and I plan to continue the celebration with a free dinner from Golden Corral tonight!

Veterans Day

We started out celebrating Veterans Day when Ryan walked in the St. George City Veterans Day parade on Saturday.

Our Halloween Pumpkin Carvings

A Haunted house or Mansion, I think!
Dracula
The Skull
The Prowler

Andrew is back in his costume again this morning. He says he is just getting ready for Halloween next year!

Halloween

Well here they are, Batman and Bat Princess. I've never been a big Halloween person and Ryan isn't much of a holiday person at all, but Halloween happens to be one holiday he truly LOVES! So as you can see from the pictures he even dressed up and even though the kids weren't feeling the greatest he made sure they got in the mandatory 3 hours of trick-or-treating which resulted in WAY too much candy! I think they each had over 200 pieces of candy and that is just what they didn't eat last night and doesn't include anything they got from their school parties. Guess it is going to be time for another trip to the dentist! Hope you all had a great Halloween!

Super Second Grader!

I'm so pretty

Sammy's Raptor Romp at Elementary school.

She is in the middle row on the end.

Diamond Valley

View to the North

Standing on the top rim looking down into the bowl of the volcano.

The little pink spot you can see is the three of us. Ryan was standing up at the top just above us looking down.

Our view from the bush. I was counting on the bush to hold the three of us up until Ryan got back.

Sammy at about the 2/3 point. It's hard to tell how high up we really are but if you look in the background you can see how far off and small the road looks.