Merry Christmas....just a little early.

My packages are mailed. The cards have been sent. Christmas parties are over. We had our Christmas service at church today. I only have a few things to wrap. The last things on my list are to clean the house and go grocery shopping this week. Even all the laundry got done yesterday, so I don't have to worry about laundry this week. I'm almost ready for visitors and I'm ready to enjoy a relaxing Christmas with family. Here are some pictures of the kids dressed up for church this morning.

According to Kaya...

Kaya: Look! There's a cemetery and it's decorated with Christmas.
Dad: Kaya, do you know what a cemetery is?
Kaya: Yeah, It's where we go to find prizes! (Geocaches)
Dad: What else do they have at cemeteries?
Kaya: Pretty Flowers

It was pretty funny that Kaya associates cemeteries with finding geocaches. Silly Girl! We have obviously found several "prizes" in various cemeteries.

Child Labor

We had our first significant snowfall of the season today. We only got about 2 inches but it's enough to shovel off the driveway and walks. Logan LOVES to be outside playing in the snow. Our local superstore offered these little gems for our kids and we figured....why not??Since they like to be outside, we might as well put them to work...We must have really worn the kids out today, since this is how we found them (with the babysitter) after we got home from our neighborhood Christmas party.It was pretty funny to find them asleep in the same bed.

Catching Up

I can't believe it has been almost a MONTH since I've updated our blog. We have just been busy. For about the last 3 weeks before Thanksgiving, I spent every free moment finishing up my mom's scrapbooks. It took me about 3 years - but I organized and scrapped all my mom's photos from the last 30+ years. Now I just need to teach her how to digital scrap so that she can get all her pictures off the computer. After the holidays, I can start working on my own scrapbooks again. I'm a bit behind now.

Our family traveled to Las Vegas for Thanksgiving. My whole family met up at my parent's time share. We had a GREAT time and enjoyed spending time with family. It was fun & crazy to have the 7 cousins together for 5 days. Thanks to our good friend Tricia, we were able to do some fun family photos. I can't wait to see how they turned out.

Since coming home from Las Vegas, it seems like we've just been trying to keep up and get back on schedule while preparing for Christmas. We've been able to get some fun family activities in there too. Here's a few pictures from the past few weeks:

We took the kids to the Museum of Natural History at the University of Utah.
They wanted to go visit some dinosaurs.

Emily is getting so big. She now enjoys sitting in the exersaucer and enjoys tummy play time of the floor. She likes to sleep on her stomach and can now roll from her tummy to her back.
This is Damien (8-13-08), Emily (8-8-08), & Wyatt (9-26-08) - The 3 youngest cousins. Look how much bigger Damien is compared to his cousins! (It doesn't hurt that his dad is 6 ft 5 in.) Even Wyatt was about a 1/2 inch longer than Emily.
We took the kids out geocaching to Eureka, UT - a semi ghost town. We had a fun day!
Kaya attended a baptism this morning with Aaron. She looked so cute before she left that I had to snap a quick picture!
Kaya asked Santa for a Barbie Rapunzel.
Logan asked Santa for a Brown Train.
Emily just wanted to go home and go to bed. We waited for over an hour at our church Christmas party to visit with the big guy.

Look Who's 3 Months Old Already!

It's hard to believe that our little Emily is already 3 months old. It seems like just yesterday we brought her home from the hospital. She is such a happy baby and full of smiles. I moved her to the big crib this weekend since she had outgrown her bassinet. She's starting to giggle and has recently found her feet. She is also quite fond of her thumb! Here are few pictures from this morning.

It's SNOWING!!

This is the view from our front porch. (I wasn't going outside in my PJ's) This is the first official measurable snow for our neighborhood this season. YEAH!! The kids have been asking all morning to go out and play. I guess I need to go get Kaya some bigger snow boots. I love the silence you hear when the snow is falling. It's a beautiful sight!

Halloween Fun

I should be cleaning the house for our dinner guests this evening, but Aaron took the big kids out and Emily is asleep. The house is quiet and I'll just take a QUICK second to get some pictures on the blog. (Shhh...don't tell Aaron!!) We had a fun Halloween. Enjoy!

Kaya wore one of her princess dresses for her Preschool Halloween Party.

Logan wanted to take his pumpkin with him to bed that night. I did have to say NO to that request!

Aaron making the kids laugh.

We let Kaya "think" she was carving out the pumpkin by herself. She wanted one with 3 eyes.

Kaya drew faces on the pumpkins for carving purposes.

Recognize this outfit? Emily wore the same pumpkin outfit worn by Kaya AND Logan on their first Halloweens. I think we've established a family tradition here.

I threw on a little something for the sake of taking a fun picture. We took the kids trick or treating while Uncle Nick stayed and passed out candy.

Kaya and Logan wore some hand me down HORSE costumes from our neighbor. They worked out great!

Emily crashed hard. All that trick or treating wore her out!