Merry Christmas!

I love everything about Christmas. I am sad that it is over. I look forward to it and plan Christmas gifts for months. Now what am I going to do?

Here are some of my favorite parts:
- my wall of Christmas cards we received
- treats (making and receiving)
- Christmas music (favorite of the year: Internet radio pandora.com Faith Hill holiday)
- Christmas lights
- treats
- my kids' excitement for Santa Claus
*they wrote notes, left cookies, milk and carrots for the reindeer
*the reindeer left chewed up carrot pieces on the lawn
*Hanna asked Santa what her elf's name is, the answer was Jasper the Man
*we tracked Santa's trip in Google for hours on Christmas Eve

A few days before Christmas, Lucy decided she wanted a protector dog (who knows exactly what that is?) for Christmas. She mailed him a letter, he wrote back and said she had been really good this year and that he would bring her a protector dog. Santa brought her a webkinz dog for Christmas so she could have a "protector dog."

Christmas morning was so fun. All of the girls slept downstairs in Jill's room, and we told them they couldn't come upstairs to get us because they would see the Christmas tree. So they called us from Austin's cell phone to tell us they were up and ready. We had to wake up Carly and she was actually happy. She loved her new doll and stroller. Kids make Christmas magical.

Sleeping under the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve Eve

Austin's guitar solo for our Christmas Eve program


Making homemade root beer in our garage on Christmas Eve


Carly, Lucy, Hanna, Jill ~ New pajamas on Christmas Eve

Carly & Hanna on Christmas morning

Lucy in her new hat in front of her new tent


Kaylynn in her new apron, new shirt, new necklace, new watch
Thanks to my family!

We have had a fun Christmas break so far...
-Sledding (behind the horse and down some cool hills at the park)
-Watched movies
- Played basketball at Austin's school
- Eat and eat some more
- Play with, read, and try on our new things from Christmas

Birthdays & Christmas

We can add this male pattern balding hairdo to Austin's list of crazy things he has done at his school. This was an incentive for the students to raise $2,000 for Christmas for those in need. They did it, so he had to wear this quality hairdo today. It is now currently all shaved off.


In other excitement, we love Christmas. We love giving and getting neighbor gifts. We love Christmas music. We love the lights and decorations. We love the treats.

I decided to add red balls to our cowboy Christmas tree the other night, so as each one was ready, Carly took it and put it on the tree. All 12 of them ended up in a very small space right in Carly's reach.



And I celebrated my birthday this week. I don't recommend having birthdays so close to Christmas, but it really has been a great birthday. We had this delicious cake, we have had 3 dinners that we have called my birthday dinners, I have had 2 friend lunch dates, I got new jeans from my husband (not from the D.I.), and I got like 15 birthday wishes on Facebook, plus some quality phone calls.

Christmas Party

We had a super fun, very snowy family Christmas party. We have grown to the point of not being together on Christmas morning anymore, so I suggested we have a party and exchange gifts from our name drawing (which happens every July - no procrastinators here).

Everyone came during the worst blizzard we have had all winter. It just added to the memory. There always seems to be extra memories when I am in charge of family activities (remember Green River, Utah at 100 degrees in a cabin with no air conditioning; poison ivy on the kid hike; and now bulldozing through almost a foot of snow to get into the church parking lot where the party was.)

We had delicious food, a birthday party for my Mom, a white elephant gift exchange game, Santa Claus came, took a family picture, enjoyed a chocolate fountain, and exchanged gifts from our name drawing.

What's up?

Austin has been working to put together a competitive girls basketball team, and they went to their first tournament yesterday. Jill's team played three games in a row, and they were by FAR the smallest girls at the tournament. Jill was our tallest player, so she had to guard girls like this all day. This giant girl is in 6th grade. She only played a few minutes because somehow her hair extensions got pulled out, and so she left for the rest of the game.

Our team got spanked in all three games, but the girls did so good for being the youngest/smallest. And it really turned out to be a fun and memorable day:
-hair extensions falling out
-one Mom running into the curb in her minivan and breaking her tire rim
-Carly pouring out a whole bottle of gatorade while she was sitting on my lap (we both looked like we had an accident)


Thanksgiving
We had Thanksgiving by ourselves at our house. We had planned to go to my parent's house, but we had germs that no one wanted us to share. So we watched movies, cooked turkey, fixed fence at the new place where are keeping our horses, fixed fence at our house to keep a couple horses here, went Black Friday shopping, and played basketball. We really had a fun break. We like ourselves, so we didn't feel bad we had to stay home.

We went to Austin's cousin's wedding reception in Salt Lake. It was a Vanderhoof and Gwilliam family reunion. It was so fun to see everyone.

Austin's great aunt came up to me and told me that I looked like I had lost a ton of weight. I don't know if I should take it as a compliment or to be offended, since I weigh the exact same amount as the last time she saw me. Did I look that bad the last time we were together?