Anniversary and Birthday!

James and I celebrated 13 years as a family with the kids!  We went to dinner as a family and then we headed to Provo Beach resort and went bowling, played arcade games and enjoyed ice cream!  I love the idea of celebrating our anniversary as a family since it's our families birthday!!!  The next day James turned 38!  We had an adults only night and ate dinner at Teppanyaki and then went and played 4 games of laser tag!  We really love laser tag in our family!

Christmas 2014!

We had a wonderful Christmas and Santa spoiled the kids!  We had cousins come over and enjoyed playing together and playing some new games.  We also got to skype Grandma and Grandpa in Germany!!

Enjoying Christmas!!!

Twas the night before Christmas!

We celebrated Christmas eve by going to Evan and Kelly's house.  We played games and enjoyed prime rib for dinner!  Then came home the kids put on their new Christmas jammies from grandma and Papa and then we put the kids down. Santa's elves began setting out and setting up Christmas and crashed hard!

All ready for Christmas!!!

Krinkle the KRAZY elf!!!

Elf on the shelf (although controversial) is my kids FAVORITE family tradition during Christmas!  I kid you not as soon as their eyes open each morning in December the first thing out of their mouth is "Where's Krinkle" and then they all start running through the house searching for him.  They enjoy finding him and this year Preston told me he really likes when Krinkle does awesome stuff!!!  Here are a few of his shenanigans from 2014!

Violet's Christmas program!

Cute little Violet had her kindergarten Christmas program and we all went to see her in it!  She had learned like 10 songs and sang all of them so well!  The kids were laughing at how cute she was and Preston really loved the part where she sang about giving a Christmas kiss and threw out Hershey's kisses!!!  He spent the next 3 songs scouring the floor looking for any kisses that were not picked up yet!!

Christmas Violin recital!!!

My three little violinists all practiced really hard and performed in the Christmas recital!  It was held at the Salem city building and all of Mrs Bailey's students performed.

Christmas piano recital!

Dorothy performed in her Christmas piano recital, she practiced really hard and learned "Good King Wenceslas" she has such an ear and knows how to make a piece flow!!  I am so proud of the musician she is becoming!

Dorothy's wax museum!!

In 5th grade each student must select someone famous, read a biography and write a paper on the person.  Then they all get to dress up as the person they selected and we walk through and see all the 'wax' figures.  Dorothy was the WORST wax figure ever!!!  She was smiling and talking to everyone that walked by instead of staying perfectly still!!  Her teacher came up to me and told me that she was the happiest student to ever participate in the wax museum.  She has been planning on being Judy Garland since she heard about the wax museum in 2nd grade!

Christmas jammies!!!

This year for jammies since we were not going to Disneyland (sniff, sniff) I got the kids Mickey jammies!  I love the magic of Christmas at Disneyland but we won't be going back for a few years!

Trimming the tree!

The kids were literally counting down the days till we could put the tree up!  They were so excited about Christmas this year!  So the Saturday after Thanksgiving out came Christmas, it so fun to decorate for Christmas listen to music, and then sit around the tree after and stare at the magical lights!

Fall family pictures!

We headed out to Salem pond for our family pictures after waiting till the end of November so we could take a 'snow picture' all the snow had melted!  It was freezing cold during the pictures and Ruby was not going to smile for anything!  The funny thing is later that day we got dumped on.  Oh well next year we will get that snow picture!

Do you want to build a snowman?

We had our first huge snowstorm and right as it began the kids bundled up and headed out to play in the snow!  They built a snowman and then went with daddy to shovel the neighbors driveways on the 4 wheeler.  I ran out to get a picture and then back inside to make hot cocoa for the kids as they came in freezing!

Big Hero 6!

We planned a day to head up to Thanksgiving point eat lunch and hit the movies with the Mitchell's.  Most the showings were sold out so we decided to do a little shopping and then finally saw our movie!  It was so cute and we literally were LOL during so many parts!

50's day!!

This little miss informed me on Sunday night that the next day was 50's day and she needed a skirt with a poodle!  A few hours later BAM we had a poodle skirt!  I told her next time if she could let me know earlier I will order one on Amazon!

Book of Life!

It was a cold and lonely Saturday and we decided we needed to get out of the house.  So we looked up the movies and headed to "Book of Life" it was such a darling movie with so many good messages!  

Happy Halloween!!!

Halloween is one of my very FAVORITE holidays and this year I about pulled my hair out!  We started the morning off with the Halloween parade at school, then onto Violet's Halloween performance, immediately after her class performance we had her Halloween party (I am the room mom so I got to plan the whole thing!).  Then we grabbed lunch and headed back to school for 2 more Halloween parties.  After school we ran home James and I changed into costumes and we went to the city of Salem trick or treat.  We raced home ate dinner and off the kids went to trick or treat!  It was full of action but a wonderful day!!!

Quick lunch and off again!

Saving the world together!!!

Off they go to trick or treat!

Pumpking Carving!!

This year pumpkin carving took a back seat to all of the other Halloween festivities, we managed to get it done the night before Halloween!  The kids all chose to carve pumpkins based on their Halloween costumes!

Mt Loafer Carnival!!

Once again I volunteered to do the spook alley for the school Halloween carnival, about 100 hours later and totally using my relationship with Tori (my good friend whose children do not even go to Mt Loafer, she is just an amazing friend!) it was done!  The kids love me being there at the school and helping out and I love the challenge of making it better and better!  I have already signed up for next year so I must be crazy!!

All dressed up in costume at the carnival!!!  James came straight from work so no costume!

Cornbelly's!

We took the annual pilgrimage to Cornbellys so the kids could get lost in the maze, play in corn jail, ride the tractor, go through the haunted houses, jump on the huge bouncy pillow and eat kettle corn for days!  They honestly talk about going there for months after and it takes me that long to recover!

The Spanish Fork haunted house!

We decided to check out a local haunted house that was said to be 'one of the best ones in the country' by GMA.  It was AMAZING and FREE!!!  It was absolutely kid friendly and the kids were begging to go through again!  We would have except the line was 30 minutes!  Next year we will go a few times for sure!!!  Before he hit the haunted house we went to dinner with our good friends the Mitchell's!

Goblin Valley!

During Fall break this year we decided to head down to Goblin valley for some camping, hiking and fun!!  We spent the first day in the Goblins hiking around and climbing all over them.  The kids were in heaven and well I was a bit stressed!  Some of the goblins are really tall and little Pressy would scurry right up to the top in 3 seconds flat!  We went through a cave that had a tiny hole as the way out, we had to lift each kids up and Jon and James were on the other side grabbing them and pulling them up.  The kids thought it was awesome and Allison and I did not want to experience 'the birth canal' so we climbed out and around!  We camped right next to the mountain and the kids had "cousin camp" where they learned songs, hiked around our little campsite and collected stuff!  After pancakes, bacon and hot cocoa we headed off to little wild horse canyon.  It's a canyon that is very very narrow in some spot and you hike through the slotted canyon.  It was stunning and the kids climbed all over the place.  Some spots only one person can fit through at a time so the kids decided they would climb up and over everyone!  They had so much fun!  After lunch we headed home and all of them were out like a light!!!  I guess 2 days of hard hiking and staying up late finally caught up with them!

Preston at 'rock bottom'!

It's the great pumpkin Charlie Brown!

I spend hours making a display for our yard based on the "It's the great pumpkin Charlie Brown", I did it on foam board this year because honestly I was not sure it would turn out.  Now that I know it turned out ok I am going to paint it on plywood and have James cut them out!!!  The kids LOVED helping me paint all the characters and decide where each one should go in the yard!!

Halloween Jammies!!!

Four little skeletons creeping through the house,

with glowing bones they are as quiet as a mouse.

They tiptoe around and are looking for who?

Where did they go "boo" it was you!

Fall pictures!

We took our annual drive up Nebo canyon to see the beautiful fall leaves.  It's stunning up there during the fall!  Here are some pictures of cute little fall kids in the canyon!