Christmas and New Years

I love Christmas time!  I love doing things with my family and all the lights and music and just the general atmosphere.  And apparently I also love spending lots of time driving in the car.  David wanted to make a trip to Utah to see a friend and his brother. At first we were planning on spending a few days there, but scheduling didn't work out so one Saturday we made a down-and-back trip!  We stopped at David's friends house for awhile and chatted with them and then went to Brian's house.  After visiting for a little while we went to dinner and then to Temple Square!

They really like holding hands, and it's super adorable.

We had a super hard time finding parking, had to walk forever, and it was pretty cold.  But they loved seeing all the lights!

With cousin Henry!  My girls think he's pretty cool. ;)

Quick family picture.  Someday my kids will all stay still and look at the camera at the same time.

We stopped at the old Tabernacle and got to hear a quick demonstration about how amazing the acoustics are in there.  Even though there were tons of people in the building and it was fairly noisy, we were able to hear a pin drop from across the room.

It was a fun trip!

One reason we couldn't stay in Utah for too long was because I am (still...) the ward choir director and so I couldn't miss the Christmas Sacrament Meeting.  The choir sounded great and my kids were super cute and I love when the Primary sings and I get to see Asher up on the stand!  He used to refuse to go up on stage because he was so nervous, it would almost bring him to tears.  But when they called the Primary, he jumped right up and sang great!

They're pretty cute!

 A couple days later was Christmas Eve.  I have a few traditions I like to do with my kids on Christmas Eve.  We made sugar cookies for Santa and frosted them.  After we set out milk and cookies, my kids get to unwrap their tree ornaments.  This is a tradition that I had growing up so we could have ornaments of our own when we move out.  Now that we're adding 3 new ornaments a year, it's almost time that I don't put all of my ornaments out!  Our tree was looking a little full this year, although my tree got re-decorated every day courtesy of Ava and Mia so it's kind of hard to tell.  The kids all had fun and Asher was so excited he woke up at 2am ready for Christmas to start!

Decorating cookies for Santa.

Ava crawled over to Mia's bed and I found them like this when I went in to check on them.  They're buddies.

Christmas morning!

Opening presents!

Enjoying some presents.

 Life between Christmas and New Years was really pretty boring.  We played, we slept, we relaxed.  Since I'm a lame mom and don't let me kids stay up until midnight, I try to make sure we do something fun on New Years Eve!  The best place to go for New Years Eve party stuff is Dollar Tree.  We got party hats, noise makers, and glow sticks!  We also got some ice cream for our party treat.  The glow sticks were by far the favorite.  Our party lasted a whole half an hour and all the kids were in bed on time.  David and I are lame on New Years.  I watched a couple movies and David was on his computer.  It doesn't bother me, I kind of like our lame New Years!

Party time!

I like her cute face.

I made David put a hat on.  Millie also got a hat put on her and she did not appreciate it.

Ava and Mia thought it was hilarious when David put two hats on!

Happy New Years!  Mia was in a really good mood the whole night, she just didn't want her picture taken.

Glow sticks!  These kept them entertained for a long time.  None of them wanted to stop and have ice cream because they liked these so much!

Asher had fun making different shapes.

Ice cream treat!

 We got a huge snowstorm.  Well, we got our first huge snowstorm.  This week we got another huge snowstorm.  January has been a month of snow!  Asher had really been wanting to make a snowman, so while David shoveled off our driveway, the kids and I had fun playing in the snow! 

Snowman!  They all wanted to pose with it.

The branches we got for the arms were a little long and David said they looked like tentacles.  Asher thought that was hilarious. ;)

I was worried that someone would knock our snowman down and that it would upset Asher, so I told him we would take lots of pictures so we could always remember it.  So take lots of pictures we did!  No one knocked it down, but it slowly leaned farther and farther over until it looked like it was leaning on its hands!  Asher finally put it out of its misery a couple weeks later and demolished it.  I think he had more fun doing that than building it!

Lots of snow!

 We managed to get back into our regular routine after David and Asher went back to school.  Back to our crazy schedule!

I have a box in the girls' room for their stuffed animals.  One day they all individually climbed into the box and had me take their picture.  It was weird and funny!

Ava is developing her own sense of style.  This particular day she insisted on wearing the vest and got very upset when I made her take it off to take a bath.

Her hair is getting so long!  I really need to take her to get it cut. I cut David's and Asher's hair, but the girls are so wiggly and their hair so curly that I'm afraid to do it myself.

Asher LOVES Pokemon and I got him a stuffed Pikachu for Christmas.  He wanted me to take a picture of him holding it.

We were all exhausted by the end of all the festivities. We had lots of fun this past month and hope next year is even better!