Gingerbread House

 It wasn't the nicest Gingerbread House, but they were in heaven.  We had to build quickly since it is really hard to keep three boys from consuming all the candy before it actually gets on the house.  This is definitely a tradition that the boys want to keep!

Excited Boys

 Christmas morning was really exciting for the boys.  Everything that someone opened was awesome to Dallin.  He kept the rotation of opening gifts going pretty fast, but he was also great about waiting his turn.  Gavin didn't care about opening presents or even playing with the paper.  He would focus on one toy for a couple of minutes then look at something else.  He didn't care about unwrapping more toys, as the ones already unwrapped were too distracting! (I didn't get any pictures because we video recorded opening presents and then later, I had to recharge the battery in my camera.)  We had a late church so we had time to open presents, put things together (Zane and Dallin are putting together his wall track that is under his loft bed), play with toys, and have a Christmas breakfast.

I am in charge of the music at church, so this last month has been busy with rehearsals getting ready for the Sacrament meeting program.  I started writing and organizing the program back in October, so I was thrilled that everything turned out well.  The program was a mixture of narration from Luke 2, choir numbers with instrumental parts, musical numbers, and congregational singing with organ/piano duets.  I really enjoyed having Christmas on Sunday because it was nice to do the present thing and then have a nice spiritual service afterwards.

We are all a little sad that the Christmas break is ending.  It has been a great year!

The Best Night of the Year

The month of December is my favorite time of the year.   I especially love Christmas Eve.  My mom makes it so special and I have a blast spending time with my family.  This year was wonderful because all my siblings were in town.  They were all in town last year, but now Lindsey is married, Clayton has a new baby, and Jared was in town from the Netherlands.   It was a busy vacation with game nights every night, black light miniature golfing, dinners, and more game nights.  I didn't get a lot done on preschool or any other projects, but I loved spending time with family.

Back to Christmas Eve...after dinner the kids put on a play for the adults by acting out the nativity.

 The wise men (giving a gift of a cow I guess.)

 Mary and Joseph

Getting distracted with a toy

Every year my mom does a white elephant (with cool gifts.)  Even the little kids get involved (although theirs is rigged.)

 The adults is quite funny especially if you end up with a girlie gift like Derick did!  The wives don't mind too much if their husbands get stuck with a girlie gift!

Opening Grandma's gifts (look how happy Sammy is in the background!)

The boys loved playing with Sammy's present too!

 We enjoyed trying candy and food from the Netherlands.  This chocolate egg had a toy inside it.

One of the highlights though every year is playing chimes.  I didn't get any pictures because it was too intense this year.  We attempted "O Holy Night."  The melody is written with a harmony, so half of the family focused on that and the other half focused on something new we tried with chimes, an accompaniment part (the triplets).  Let's just say it was intense and we never quite made it through the whole song.  At one point Zane had three chimes and then played a fourth chime that Lindsey held out for him that she couldn't play as she was the counter and music leader that was absolutely necessary for this song.  It was a fun attempt that we would have gotten if we had a little more time, but the kids were sick of being ignored and shouted at whenever they got in the way of the music!

It was a wonderful night and great that we were all together!

Remembering that Special Day

Some of my favorite moments from December 23rd, 2010 were sitting in the backseat between my two boys and Dallin singing, "I love to see the temple.  I'll go inside someday.  I'll covenant with my Father; I promise to obey.  For the temple is a holy place where we are sealed together.  As a child of God I've learned this truth: A family is forever."  (He may not have gotten everyone of these words, but I was so touched that he broke out singing this song showing he understood where our family was going.)

I remember walking into the temple with Zane holding Gavin and then Zane and I holding Dallin's hands between us.  I cried on the way to the temple, and as we walked in, I cried some more.

I loved watching my mom walk in holding Dallin's hands all dressed in white and my dad holding Gavin in his arms dressed in his special white outfit looking like an angel.

I remember feeling peace and so much love for my little family during the ceremony.  I loved having all our friends and family members there to support us.

Gavin has brought so much joy to our family.  I'm so grateful for a loving Father in Heaven who brought our family together, for a wonderful, courageous birthmom who placed her son into our family, and that we were able to go to the temple to have Gavin become part of our forever family.

A Tradition We Hope to Keep Going

We were invited by a friend to go caroling on a hay ride and we loved it!  Dallin was always front and center knocking on the doors and singing loudly his version of the song.  Gavin loved the hay and riding in the trailer.  He was like a dog and kept trying to lean his head over with his tongue hanging out.  

 My attempt at getting a picture with my boys!

Growing up, my family always caroled to our neighbors.  By the time we were teenagers, we were good enough to break into parts.  I always loved caroling and I was thrilled that my boys loved it too.  This is definitely a tradition we want to keep!

Snow Day at the Zoo

 It was a little crazy.  Snow must be very popular where we live...probably because we will be having a green/brown Christmas.  We squeezed into a spot and the boys started playing.  They didn't seem to care that it was crowded.  They just wanted to dig, touch, throw a snowball here and then, and maybe try to eat it.

 This was Dallin digging utensil...

 The best part was when we were done, we could take off our gloves and go see the rest of the zoo in great fall time weather!

Our tiger had a snow man too!

Gavin is fearless on slides.  He just turns around and goes whether I'm there or not.

Sneaky Gophers

Sleeping bear

Because we have a zoo pass, we never do the whole zoo in one day.  We haven't visited the kid section for awhile, so we spent most of our time here.  Gavin loved the petting zoo.

He refuses to try my food, but he wanted to give goat food a try.  Go figure.

Caleb met up with us at the end.

Despite the crowds on the snow mound, we had a great time.

Lights on the Water Way

We try to do a family outing every Saturday.  A couple of weeks ago we headed to the river walk that goes around the mall.  The trees are lined with lights and then in the middle is a fountain light show.  By the fountains were groups singing Christmas carols.  We had a great time getting bundled up, running around looking at lights, and listening/dancing to the music.  It was a perfect family outing.

 Did I mention the free hot chocolate with marshmallows! 

                

                This was Gavin singing along to the music.  He got a lot of walking practice.                        

After enjoying the music and lights, we found a hill to roll around on.

 Gavin needed some help rolling.

 Dallin volunteered for the job

 I keep telling Zane that I never catch the fun moments with my boys and me because I'm either behind the camera or in the middle of the fun with no one home to take the picture.  Here is the picture he caught of me playing.  I was really excited to see that!

The perfect family outing: lots of running around and laughing, free entertainment, and free refreshments!

Hip Hop Randy

 He's cool.  He wears baggie pants with his hat on backwards.  He sings and he dances.  He is Hip Hop Randy, and he can make this little boy smile every time. 

 He has been used to make Gavin smile many times this month as Gavin has all four molars coming in right now.  Sometimes Randy is the only one who can make him happy.  Grandma gave Randy to Dallin and Gavin, but Gavin didn't understand that.  He will put up a fight if anyone else tries to touch him.

If Gavin has a desire to start wearing baggie pants down to his knees and his hat on backwards, we are blaming Randy...and Grandma of course.

Grandma also gave us Elf on the Shelf this year.  We officially adopted Frosty on December 2nd with a letter from Santa and his adoption decree.  Dallin is more into Frosty than Gavin.  He finds his night time antics especially funny!  

Thanks Grandma!

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

I love this time of year!  I love decorating, listening to my Christmas music and watching my favorite Christmas movies (White Christmas is still my favorite), the anticipation and excitement, thinking about others and trying to find the perfect gift, and doing things together as a family.  Zane sang in a Christmas concert put on by our church this year (they needed men more than women, so he got to go while I stayed with the boys.)  I have been busy organizing musical numbers and practicing for the program for our church service on Christmas Sunday.  It has been a busy month getting ready for Christmas, and to fit it all in other things had to be let go (folding laundry, cleaning etc).  It is all worth it as we are making memories!

 We started the month out taking our Christmas pictures.  My sister-in-law caught some get pictures portraying a happy family.  In reality, we woke Dallin up from a nap. He did not want to be twinsies with Gavin that day, and he was in a very bad mood.  Gavin didn't want to take pictures either, so smarties saved the day.  The header picture is the boys looking up at the smarties in my hand!  The picture below though was a natural moment that my sister-in-law caught. It is one of my favorites.

We do a lot of decorating.  Zane has a Nutcracker collection and I have my village and nativities.  Dallin loved helping with lights this year and he really was a help!  He keeps looking at other homes and tells us more things we should put up in our yard.  We failed to get pictures though probably because Gavin was "helping" too with the decorating and we had to watch him like a hawk!

I have also been really busy with preschool.  The boys learned a couple of songs to sing to their moms at the Christmas party.  Here they are practicing a reindeer song with antlers and a red nose!

Gavin got in on the action too.

  We are doing a lot of baking.  I enjoy baking and trying new recipes, so making a Christmas treat for each day of preschool this month was a nice excuse to do it!  I nicknamed Dallin Little Chef awhile ago because he loves helping me in the kitchen.  Most of the time his help means a bigger mess, but I love it.  Now Gavin wants to be part of the action too.  (We are making dinner here, but they have helped make a lot of cookies!)

I love these tortilla snowflakes found here.  Perfect for any kid.

They made sure there were plenty of sprinkles.

Here are the boys at the performance for their moms.  They cracked me up because during practices they couldn't hold still for the life of them.  They sang and twirled and somersaulted around the room.  During the performance they shocked me by standing still except for their rear ends.  All three of them moved back and forth hitting my entertainment center with their rear ends in time with the music.  I think it may be physically impossible for 3-4 year old boys to hold still for more than a couple seconds!

 Singing Jingle Bells

Finally, Dallin got really excited about Christmas when he got to meet Santa!  When you ask Dallin what he wants for Christmas, it changes each time which is great because the things he says probably won't be under the tree Christmas morning due to the fact that they are made up toys.

Gavin was enthralled with him too.  I don't think he smiled once.  He just kept staring...but no tears!

We have really tried hard this month to keep a balance with the fun Christmas activities and learning and understanding what Christmas is really about.  I love the age that Dallin is now because he is starting to understand so much more.  Last week when he saw a manger scene outside, he pointed it out saying, "Look mom, there is Mary, the baby Jesus, and Joseph Smith!"  Some things are catching on and some need some more clarification!  He has also got into some service projects that we do.  He keeps gathering up his cars and giving them to me to give to another child who needs them.  As a mom, I love those moments when you start seeing some things that you are teaching actually stick!

Finally, family will start arriving in town this week.  My brother and sister-in-law are already in from the Netherlands and we couldn't be more excited to see them.  It is definitely beginning to look a lot like Christmas (even without snow!)