Christmas 2013

Christmas this year was so great. I am starting to get those Christmas butterflies back that were gone for so long. I get so excited to see the kids faces on Christmas morning when they run down to see if Santa brought them what they asked for. They are at the funnest ages right now and I know that we will always cherish these times.  There are some Staheli's (no relation) in our ward and they have sort of adopted our family. They invited us over for a Christmas eve lunch/dinner. We went over thinking it might be a bit awkward since we would be the only ones there that weren't family. It ended up being so fun and the kids had friends to play with so it worked out great. That evening I went and picked Grandma Glo up for dinner at our house.  We love having her over and I am so glad that she chooses to spend her evening with us.  We don't have family around so having an adopted grandma works out so great.  We ate a fancy meal and watched the nativity before the kids put on their jambes Pip (our elf) brought them. Chad bore a beautiful testimony of the Savior and the kids were so sweet to listen to every word.  Christmas day we headed to St. George to spend a few days with Grandma and Grandpa Staheli. We were able to swim at their new house and it's safe to say the kids were pretty much in heaven. We loved it so much we are going to try and go down for a few weeks soon. 

Christmas morning

swimming at Grandmas

the only pic I got of Grandma Glo

hiking with Grandma and Grandpa

The kids wanted to pose on every single boulder

They are the cutest

This is Henry's quilt from Grandma Staheli. She never ceases to amaze me. She did an amazing job on this quilt. 

On our way home we got to have Christmas #2! We stopped at Casey's house to open all of our gifts from Grandma and Grandpa Cutler. The kids loved every single thing and had so much fun playing with their stuff in the car. 

Christmas morning pancakes!

December Randoms

So crazy to think that a new year has started. I feel like we are in a whirlwind and time is just flying by. I haven't been able to blog for a while but hopefully with my new christmas toy (a macbook air!) I will be able to catch up a little more. I will blog about Christmas when I get the chance but here is what our December looked like:

Our growing boy

The inversion has been SO bad lately. We are lucky to be up above it in clean air, but this was a random night after a storm had cleared it out a bit 

Our first snow storm of the winter. Of course it had to be when Chad was gone on a trip and I had to call on the ward to help dig me out. 

We got around 18 inches and the kids loved it. 

The kids made a scripture countdown chain

I couldn't make it up my driveway. I got half way and slid down the rest of the way and got stuck. Again, Chad was out of town so Grace and I had to dig out. 

We get so many deer in the yard every day but I never get sick of it. This Buck is new to the area. I think he will be huge one day if someone doesn't shoot him first. 

My sister came to visit for a couple of days. Having family is always fun. 

Grace is the sweetest. 

We have had a lot of sickness lately and the kids are so wiped out. Owen literally fell asleep while getting a ride around the house. 

Grace felt way to cool to sit on Santa's lap so she just stood by him instead. 

Four kids is challenging sometimes. On our way out of walmart we were in a huge hurry because I had to feed the baby and he was crying. Owen told me he had to go potty but I was in such a hurry I didn't have time to take him. Right when we got to the car this happened.....

Wrestling is over! Mike improved so much and we are so proud of him. He said " I am a good wrestler when I get mad"  He is learning to be a little more aggressive when he needs to be. 

I took some better pictures with my other camera but at Mikey's kindergarten program he got to be one of the 4 that played the bells. He did awesome!

This boy has started taking a bottle a day and the extra calories are really paying off. He has chunked out so much!

I sent the family to the movie so I could get some Christmas shopping done. 

Owen came shopping with me one day. We had a fun time just him and I. 

One of my favorite traditions is the Spanish Fork festival of lights. We go to the lights then get a drink. The kids are always so excited even though the lights are the same every year. 

My first trifle! I got a dish from Linda and it was really fun to try it out.