Santa came a day early...

Since we knew that we would have to travel to Utah on Christmas day, we asked Santa if he would mind visiting us a day early. 

Guess what?

He said yes.

But we didn't tell the kids; we wanted it to be a surprise. 

Here are the kids with their stockings:

 Some favorite gifts were: the girls dollhouse, that Scott made from some wood given to us from another dollhouse (Thank you!!),

 The puppets and the puppet stage from Grandma Linda,

 Russell's helicopter,

 An ornament made by Emalyn,

 Star Wars legos,

 Some of the interior design the girls and I are working on for the dollhouse,

 And this is Tyler about one hour after opening the presents,

So it was a great Christmas.  We didn't put as much under the tree this year, on purpose, and it was nice to be able to concentrate more on the individual gifts and givers.   Also, the kids were not as overwhelmed as they usually are on Christmas day.  So I think this is a tradition we'll be continuing.  I

New camera, homemade Christmas tree decorations, and two lost teeth.

First of all, we got a new camera.  And it has 35x zoom.  So these are blades of grass in our back yard taken from inside the house, about 10 feet behind the glass doors.  I find that particularly awesome.

We made homemade tree decorations from salt dough and then painted them.  Then the kids got the great idea to give them to their teachers at school as Christmas gifts.

Above, Emalyn's ornaments, and below are Krysta's.

Tyler's ornaments that he made.

And Emalyn lost her two front teeth, just in time for Christmas!!  She went around singing "All I Want For Christmas is My Two Front Teeth" until Christmas came. :)

Our trip to Utah for Thanksgiving

Our camera broke during our trip...so the only pictures I have are courtesy of my mom and my sister Cheryl.  Thanks guys!

Thursday and Friday we spent at Scott's parents home.  We had a lot of fun with them.  We went to Thanksgiving dinner at Nancy's sisters house (Janet), where the food was really yummy, and where there were so many of Scott's cousins that we filled the kitchen and living rooms both.  But we forgot to bring our camera, and it was broken anyway, so we have now pictures.  On Friday, we had a family dinner with Scott's brothers and sisters.  That was a lot of fun too.  That night, Scott and his brothers moved all of the furniture into one room so that Ron and Nancy could paint and recarpet and lay down tile in four rooms. We left the next morning, so they could get right on that, being the obliging people we are. :)

Then we went to Amy's parents home in Orem.   Amy's sister Cheryl and her family were in town from Nebraska too, so all the sisters were together.  We had lots of fun.  We went to the Bean Museum down at BYU in Provo.  The kids had lots of fun watching some movie about bees in the picture below.



Gotta love this girl's pretty face.

 That night, we had our annual lip sync.  We usually have this around Christmas, but certain people wouldn't be around at Christmas, so we had it at Thanksgiving.  Our family was the only one that actually practiced beforehand, AND we came prepared with props.  We lip synced a song called "Santa's Stuck Up in the Chimney".  Scott was Santa, the blue box was the chimney, and we were all the reindeer trying to pull him out.

Everyone else did a lip sync too...I just don't have any pictures.  It was a lot of fun.  Kayli and Bryce even gave us a violin concert, Cheryl and Blake showed us their gangsta moves, Megan and Weston did a lip sync/puppet show about losing shoes, and my parents did some song about being really old and "Thrill me." It was awesome.  And super funny. 

And then we had an encore.  I did "Santa Baby"-the infamous lip sync that started the tradition of lip syncs at Christmas. My Mom did "Tiptoe through the tulips"- a slightly disturbing song sung by a very disturbing Tiny Tim from the seventies.  If you've never seen it, click here.   And then Megan and Weston did an amazingly authentic version of this Russian Vita Opera singer.  Megan did the calmer singing, while Weston rushed in for every screaming chorus. 

The next morning was Sunday, and we got to go hear my sister Megan teach a lesson in Sunday School.  She is an AMAZING teacher.  Really.  I think it's a gift that she has developed.  And then we had Krysta's birthday party, which I covered in the last post.  And then, sadly, we went home.
Thanks for a great visit everyone!

Krysta's 4 Now!!

I can hardly believe she is 4 already!  She loves flowers and pretty things and dancing around the kitchen...

And playing with her preschool friends,

and spending her birthday with her Grandma and Grandpa, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  My camera had died during this trip, so all these pictures of that day are courtesy of my mom (Thanks!!).  Since her birthday falls around or on Thanksgiving every year, we often get to spend it with some extended family.  Thank goodness she loves it. 

So that day, we went to my sister (Megan)'s ward in Lehi and then went to her apartment to have lunch before heading home to Idaho.  We all had what Krysta had requested from her grandmother to eat for lunch: meat and cheese sandwiches, carrot sticks, chips, and cake with pink frosting.

 Her grandma Linda made this cake just for her, and she was so excited by it, the pink frosting, her name on it, and the pretty blue flowers.

 Grandma and Grandpa also gave her a book and a pretty new dress-up dress.

 She loves getting cards...

 Here she is, wearing her new dress-up dress and giving her Grandma a big thank you hug.  I love these pictures.  And I like the look on her daddy's face in the bottom one.

We came home and celebrated her birthday with just our family the next day, but due to the broken camera, we have no pictures of it.  It was so much fun.  I love four year-olds, they are so cute.

Krysta, we love having you in our family.  Your sweet and innocent manner endears you to everyone around you.  I love your  questions, and the amazing things you can think up and tell me about.  I love spending everyday with you and being able to teach your preschool sometimes.  I am amazed at how brave you are, especially this past year with all the medical tests and surgery.  You are so patient and accepting of it all.  I love that just holding my hand through it is enough for you to be able to handle anything.  I am so grateful for all that you teach me about faith, love, and acceptance.  Happy fourth birthday Krysta!

Russell's First Birthday

Make sure you enjoy this video, courtesy of Emalyn's budding filmography skills.  At the end, the shaking is due to her vigorous clapping, while holding the camera.  We have very multi-talented children.

This is Russell enjoying his pseudo-birthday cake, soy pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.  We recently discovered he cannot eat dairy, thus the SOY cookies.  I just LOVE his contagious laugh here.

Giving Russell presents is as much fun for you as it is for him. ha ha. Enjoy.

Aaahhh Russell, can it really already be a year since you were born?  Time has flown so fast.  You bring so much joy to everyone around you.  With your easy smile and adorable laugh, and your intense joy that you find in everything around you, you are loved by everyone.  You also keep me running to you...running to close the dishwasher so you don't break it by sitting on the open door, running to close the bathroom door so you don't play in the toilet, fall in the bathtub, and eat the toilet paper, running to close the gate to the stairs so you don't fall down them, running to keep you away from the organ foot pedals so you don't get stuck again, running to find a new seat belt for your highchair so you don't climb out and sit on the tray, running to close the cupboard doors so you stop making copies with the printer (seriously, how did you figure that out so fast!?), running to take the aluminum foil away (again), and just running when I hear you exclaiming "whoa, whoa" in that deep voice when you find something absolutely amazing that will probably cause you more trouble.  I hope this stage lasts forever though, because you are absolutely adorable.  We love you, our now 1 year old Russell!

Tyler's 9th birthday

Just in case you can't tell, ...it's a volcano cake.  It's what Tyler requested.  The chocolate chips are lava rocks, the green is green patches of grass on the mtn, and of course you can tell what the lava is.

Emalyn gave Tyler some candy,

Krysta gave Tyler a hot wheels racing car,

and he also received the Lego Indiana Jones Wii game and a Dagedar launcher.

I love his face here! Reminds me of a certain older brother of mine...

The candles were SUCH a disappointment.  They were supposed to be relighting candles (which I thought would be fun with the volcano cake), but as you can see, only ONE relit.  So he just thought it was a wierd fluke.  Oh well, it was fun anyway with the one candle.

Tyler is such a good boy and son to have in our family.  He is a very positive and fun guy to be around.  His enthusiasm is contagious to everyone around him, and a special blessing in our family.  He always tries to choose the right and be a good example to his younger sisters and brother.  He has done well in cub scouts-he's already earned his Wolf badge.  He has really loved reading about science this summer-you can ask him any question about the body and he knows the answer.  He retains the knowledge he's picked up from the books really well.
We're so glad he's part of our family! Tyler, we love you! Happy 9th birthday!

Russell's haircut

Okay, so I was tired of all the comments and doubts about Russell's gender...so we cut his hair today! All his beautiful curls are gone!

Here are the "before" pictures:

 Looking at them now, I have to agree somewhat, it was really long.  No wonder people couldn't get his gender right.

And the "after" pictures:

 He closed his eyes for every picture I took, because of the flash.  Or he's just really really tired...