Time of Your life

We had a blast! (Thanks Treva for taking such great pictures.)

We had a nice Christmas. The kids were told they couldn't wake us up until 8:00 and they didn't. But you can bet they were in there at 8:00 sharp. We told them that since Morgan wasn't awake yet they had to wait. Next thing I hear is them in the next room saying so who is going to wake up Morgan. She didn't sleep much longer and by 8:30 we were all awake getting ready to go upstairs and see if Santa came. Jared and I were trying to climb out of bed when we hear little foot steps running across the floor upstairs. We look at each other and jump out of bed. Carson had already upstairs and was running back down to let us know that Santa had come. He kept yelling"Santa came, Santa came and he brought me a DS." It was so funny. He won't get away with that next year but this year it was funny. We have a tradition in our family. We have the kids line up youngest to oldest and then they go in to see what Santa brought. Here is a picture of them lined up. I thought...

We had a new experience this Christmas. Madison and London are both taking ballet from Clytie Adams School of ballet. They both love it very much. Every year Clytie puts on a production of the Nutcracker. Madison decided that she would like to try out to be in it.(London couldn't try out because you have to be eight years old to try out) I was nervous because this is her first year of ballet and I heard that it is hard to get into Clytie's nutcracker but I like my kids to try out just if only for the experience. Well Madison made it. She was given the part of a cookie. We were very excited for her. It was amazing for her to be able to be in this production. They perform at the Weber State University Browning Center on this huge stage with a live orchestra. Jared and I just kept saying to each other what nine year old get this kind of opportunity. We were so grateful she got to be a part of it. I took my camera with me when we went to see the performance but Madison ...

I'm trying to catch up what we did this Christmas season so it is not in any order but I want to have it on here so that he have a record of it. So I hope you don't mind me going back to the first part of December and catching up a little bit. One thing I love about Christmas is cookies. We always seem to run out of time for making cookies. So this year I made sure that we made them on the first Sunday of December. I love pulling out the cookie cutters and making a huge mess and letting the kids have a wonderful time creating cute little snowmen, and gingerbread men. They love to cut out the cookies and decorate them. They are always so proud of what they have done. It makes all the work worth it. Jared of course thinks that sugar cookies are not true cookies so he made some kiss cookies, some mint truffle cookies, and some pretzel cookies to go along with the sugar cookies. Our house sure smelled good. I wish I had gotten a picture of some of the other cookies but I didn...

I wanted to update Christmas Eve on Christmas Eve. We started off today with having breakfast with my mom and dad at Mimi's Cafe. It was a great way to start our day. It was cool because when our waiter brought our check he asked if there was anything else he could do and Jared said sure you could bring me some muffins to go. Then he said he was kidding. Well in a few minutes the waiter came back with four muffins and told us Merry Christmas. That was so nice and cool. We went from breakfast to run some gifts to some of our friends, did some last minute shopping, and then we came home and spent some time with Jared's sister and her family playing games and eating treats. We then did the same tradition as always and made home made pizza.Yum! Jared has been doing this since he was a little kid. We shed some tears because Jared's mom wasn't here. It has been hard having her gone. And then we always read the story of Jesus' birth out of the scriptures. Then we...

We have had Front Runner here for awhile now and we have never taken it. So we decide that we would give it a try. Brook was singing in a concert at Temple Square so we went with my mom and dad and Treva and Sam. I have to say that it was one of the most pleasant rides to Salt Lake I have had in a long time. The kids thought it was great. We will for sure do it again. Here are some pictures of us enjoying the train. (Brook isn't here because she went with her choir group down there and Preston isn't here because he went down with his primary class.) Waiting for the train to come My cute mom and dad(I love this picture!) Carson and my niece Sarah(They are so cute together) My sister Treva and I holding our adorable babies. So the night didn't go as planned. Once we got to Salt Lake we got a call from the hospital that Jared's mom had gone into code blue(Respiratory distress)and that we needed to get to the hospital as soon as possible. So Jared and I caught a ride wi...