Mt Pleasant

We had a super fun time up in Mt. Pleasant this year. The activities that stood out this year were horseback riding and sledding.

Love this picture. It was cold in there and you can see the horse's breath.
It was so fun for my horse-crazy kids!
 




A couple pretty cool guys...


I think they all said they liked sledding the very best of all.
 



Movin' faaast!
 

Woo-hoo!!
 



New Years Eve (Dana's birthday:) (46 years young) was my favorite part of the trip. We went to Dean and Kris' house and played "Just Dance" and seriously had so much fun.
 



I'm the luckiest.

We had a wonderful trip- mainly due to these two :)


Happy 2015!!!

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

As always, the best part of the holidays was spending it with loved ones. Sal and Eter came out and stayed with us :) We did the usual- opened Christmas Eve presents and performed the nativity.
We didn't make it to the rest home this year.






For some reason the only nativity picture I have is of Sadie being an angel.
 

For Christmas, the kids' Santa present was a trip to Disneyland! But first, they had to go on a scavenger hunt to find the letters, and then they had to unscramble them.
 

They needed a little help (it is alot of letters) but eventually they got it. They were sooo excited!
We went in January :)

Emma was excited to get a guitar and has learned a couple songs on it.

James LOVED his tractor. Actually, I'm pretty sure it was an excavator.
 

And I'm not sure what Lucia got but she was a happy little girl anyway.
 

Sally had me and gave me some "elephant bucks"- which you might understand if you happen to have listened to Dave Ramsey.


 Jeff and Carrie were out too but I guess I didn't get any pictures of them :(

This year we went to Utah after Christmas, so next stop...Mt Pleasant.

Temple Lights and Family Christmas Party

We look forward to Dana's family party every year. His family keeps getting bigger and bigger and the party's always in a cultural hall.

The kids loved being able to draw on the table cloths this year.

Sadie and her great aunt Shirley (grandpa's sister) playing tic-tac-toe.


Sadie got to take part in the "'C' is For the Christ Child" traditional song.
 
And she was the only one of our kids to sit on Santa's lap this year.
 

It's a new feeling not to have the "little ones" anymore.


This year when we went to the temple lights, we took the time to wait in line and walk through the Nativity displays. That was awesome! I found out they all belong to one collector and every year they switch out which ones are displayed. I hope to see lots more this year.
 

I took pictures of a few of my favorites, but really they were all so unique and fun to look at.

And of course being with cousins makes it an extra fun time.
 
(I think Emma was babysitting).



And the beloved aunt Randa. :)


I'd say another successful trip!

Early December 2014

In the beginning of December we finally gave away our old sage green couch and chair (to someone very grateful) we got on Craigslist when Eli was a baby and bought a grey sectional...on Craigslist. :)

We barely fit it into our van :)
It was a little Christmas present to ourselves. We've made a lot of changes to our home recently. Mainly the kitchen- but that deserves it's own post.

We went to the "Balloon Glow" event at the mall with about 10,000 of favorite neighbors.
 

Holly drew a cute family picture that I considered using for our Christmas card...
 

Emma blows everyone away with her developing art talent.
 

After mentally pulling the plug on doing a Christmas card at all, I had the idea of having a friend snap a picture as he was picking someone up before church one Sunday. Easiest card we've ever done!
 

Primary completely ruled my whole month and I now know to be better prepared next year for how much work the end of the year takes. These "Christmas oranges" were part of our special Christmas lesson. Between the 5 of us in the presidency, we did 150+.
 

Emma enjoyed time with good friends :)
 
(This was dress in holiday colors day.)
 

LOVE Christmas time!