The rest of December!

Here are the last few things we did in December last year...

Bella got her first haircut on Dec. 23, 2011.  She wasn't so sure about letting someone she didn't know touch her, but I kept blowing bubbles and that helped to distract her some.  She did great and it looked so much better when the girl was done!  I love the bottom right picture.  She was a little surprised by the hairspray!  :)

I didn't have a lot of Christmas pics this year as my camera broke about 10 minutes in, but here are a few I did get.  Christmas was on a Sunday, so we were very grateful to have 11:00 church rather than 9:00 church.  Emma and Matthew were SO excited and Bella was happy to get her very own babies as she had been using Emma's up till then!  :)

I am sure we did our annual "Newfy New Year" celebration, but I can't find any pics.  So we just celebrated the Newfoundland time for New Year's Eve, which is 8:30 PM our time.  That way we still get to celebrate without keeping the kids up so late that it is not fun!

Well, that is the end of our year, only 6 months late.  Here's to the rest of 2012!

Last Christmas...

Yes, I am still 6 months behind.  Here are some things we did last Christmas!

Bella was not anywhere near as excited as the other two were about decorating the tree.  she preferred to play with the ornaments rather than put them on the tree.  Fortunately, after the first few days she left the tree alone most of the time.  :)

We (read: the kids and I, but not Daniel so much) love seeing the lights at temple square.  It was beautiful as usual.  We decided to go up the first Sunday to beat the crowds.  Too bad that's what everyone else does so there were huge crowds.  Oh well, it was still beautiful!

Matthew had his first preschool program for Christmas.  Being up in front of everyone made him a little distracted.  He did sing and do actions a little, but a lot of the time he was looking around wondering what to think.  He sure was darling though.  We love him!

Christmas Day 2008

We had a wonderful Christmas this year!  We decided to do only 3 presents per person, 1 fun, 1 practical and 1 spiritual.  That made shopping easier and it was fun to come up with ideas for each present.

We had decided to start opening presents at about 7:30 so we could be sure to be done in time to get to my parents house for the traditional breakfast which was at 9:00 this year.  Emma woke up earlier than I thought she would and was very excited to get going.  We had to wake Matthew up.  He was so tired and so cute!  Jan, Jenn, Tamara and Chris came over to do presents with us.   We had a really nice time and it was so fun to see Emma.  She really understood it this year and was so excited!

After opening presents, we went to my parents house.  While my dad and a couple of my brothers made a delicious breakfast, Daniel played with all the kids.  They all piled on him and tackled him.  Then he would do a push up and lift all the kids up and they would fall off.  It was really cute.  

After breakfast we opened presents from my parents and did the gift exchange among my brothers and sisters as well as one between all the grandchildren.  It was a lot of fun and at the end, Jon and Daniel had "special" presents for each other.  Jon gave Daniel a bunch of "Sunstate Rental" coupons as a joke because he had rented something from them instead of from us.  Then Daniel gave Jon a pair of sweat pants with Jon's company logo, "South Point Builders" in vinyl letters across the back end.  It was so funny, everyone was laughing so hard.  It was a really good joke!

Later that day, we just vegged and played with our new things.  We put the kids down early that night and watched the movie my parents gave us, "An Unlikely Mormon."  It is the conversion story of Glenn Beck and it was very funny!  We both liked it a lot!  It was a WONDERFUL day!

Matthew just after he woke up.  He was SO tired!!

Emma was so excited!  Matthew was still a little tired at this point!

Matthew didn't really get the whole opening presents thing.  He is still a little young.  He liked to pull of a piece of the wrapping paper and play with it.  He was so cute!

Daniel opening his "Graham Crackers."  It was actually his spiritual present, a scripture case.

Tamara gave Emma a play doctor set which she loved.  Here she is giving grandma a hug after opening it.

I guess he didn't like the present!   I just thought this face was so funny, I had to put it in.

Emma loved opening her presents this year and required very little help.

Daddy helping Bubbers open his "spiritual" present.  It was a "Little People" Noah's Ark play set.  Bubbers was more excited about the wrapping paper.

This was Emma's very favorite present.  It was a baby doll with a stroller, car seat, bassinet/rocking cradle, diaper bag, etc.  She loved this and played with it for hours at a time for several days after Christmas!  She still loves it and plays with it often.  It is cute to see her taking care of her little baby.

Here we are at my parents house.  All the kids are piled on Daniel and he is getting ready to do a push up.

Here is Emma opening her present from Ethan.  It was a kitty and she loved it!

Here are the South Point Builders sweat pants.  I think they were the funniest present this year!

This is Emma playing with the doctor kit that Tamara gave her.  She has played with that almost as much as she has played with her baby.  This was on Christmas night when she and daddy played "checking" for about an hour.  Daniel was so cute about it and she loved it!

Matthew with his favorite aunt!

Emma with her favorite aunt!

Christmas Eve 2008

We had a very fun Christmas Eve this year.  First we went over to Steve and Jane's house to have dinner.  I don't have a camera so I don't have any pictures of that.  It was great though.  Emma had so much fun with her cousins, and Matthew ate about 10 slices of peaches.  We all had a really nice time.

Then, we went over to my parents house where all the kids did a little nativity play.  Emma got to be a shepherd this year.  Matthew was supposed to be a sheep, but he was so hungry by the time we got there that I didn't think he would make it.  Emma was darling though and loved being a shepherd.  She kept her costume on for most of the night.  

After the nativity play, we did white elephant gifts which are always a lot of fun.  While we were doing the white elephants, Dave and Melis made little toy bags with the kids which they all loved.  The toy bags had kazoos in them though and it got pretty loud with about 15 kids walking around blowing kazoos.  Matthew was getting a little overstimulated, so we decided to get him home.  

It was a great night!  The only bummer was that we never did read Luke 2.  I hope we will remember to do it next year.

Emma in her Shepherd costume.

Daniel as the Inn Keeper.  (Yeah, he was pretty excited to do that!)

Emma as a shepherd coming to see the baby Jesus.  She loves the baby Jesus, it is her favorite part of Christmas.

All of the kids who were in the nativity play.  L-R Annika, Emma, Dannan (hidden a little by Seth), Brianna, Lizzy, Brina, Kate, Josh, Ethan, Truman, Holly, Logan, Mieka and Melis (she put the whole thing together.  She is awesome!)

Matthew was pretty bugged by the end.  Daddy was trying to keep him from screaming while I helped clean up a bit.

Catching up!

AAAACK!  I am so behind.  I have so much to catch up on, so this is going to be a really long post.  Here goes:

On Friday, September 5th we had a Sinterklaus celebration with Dave & Melis and Jan & Jen.  Sinterklaus is part of the Christmas holiday in Holland.  Here are some pics.  (Thanks Jen for giving the pics to me.)

Annika was doing all kinds of dancing before we got started, it was so cute.  This is one of her ending poses.

Emma and Annika listening to a little story about Sinterklaus.  They were enthralled.  Then when Sinterklaus left presents at the front door and knocked, Emma was terrified.  She wouldn't go to the door because she was scared for some reason.  She did like getting presents though.

Dave and Melis gave Janice a "How to Catch a Man Like Dan" kit.  It had a box, a maple donut, and a stick with a string attached to it.  The idea was to prop the box up with the stick and put the donut under the box.  Then when the man came to eat the donut, Jan could pull the string and box would drop on him so she could catch him.  For those of you who don't know, we're always joking about how Dan is Jan and Jen's "substitute husband."  He does things like carry heavy boxes and stuff that husbands would do.  He really likes maple donuts, thus the maple donut in the box.

Daniel made a sphere out of butter for Dave.  Then he cut out the continents and put them on, thus answering the eternal question:  "What would it be like if the world were made out of butter?"  The perfect gift for all those deep thinkers out there.

Jen gave the infamous Christmas horn to Daniel.  He of course gave the honors of ringing in the season with the horn to Dave who gladly blew it.  It never quite feels like Christmas till Dave blows the Christmas horn.

Dave and Melis gave me "The Official 'Dancing Queen Kit."  It had wings, a tutu a crown and a magic wand which was made out of a toilet bowel cleaner.  It was hilarious.  There was a picture of me in it, but I can't find it.  Anyway, we laughed a lot.  It was a very fun night.

The following Monday, the 7th, we went to see a live nativity.  It was so great!  Emma loved it and I really liked it as well.  Matthew was really bugged at first.  We had to stand in line for a while waiting for a trailer to come pic us up and take us to where the barns were.  Then we had to walk up a long hill to get inside.  That all took a while and Matthew was bugged the whole time.  I finally got him calmed down by wrapping him in a blanket and rocking him.  My arms hurt a lot the next day from holding him for such a long time.  It was worth it though because it was really cool.  The first barn had a camel, donkey, sheep and a bunch of people dressed up and making things that would have been made back when Christ was born.  That was kind of cool.  Then the next barn was awesome.  There were men standing up in the loft area above the door you walk in.  They were singing Christmas hymns.  Then we walked in  and there was the little manger scene.  A man and woman dressed up like Mary and Joseph and a little baby wrapped in swaddling clothes.  There was really an amazing spirit there.  Mary was holding the baby because he was a little fussy, and it was just so neat to see what it might have been like.  Mary put the baby in the manger for a minute and I could see that he had a binkie in.  I thought that was pretty funny.  The best part though, was to see Emma looking at the baby.  She absolutely loves the baby Jesus in all the manger scenes she sees.  She was so reverent looking at the little baby portraying Jesus.  I love that she loves Him so much.  It was wonderful.  (Thanks Melis for the pics especially since I lost my camera.)

Matthew all cuddled up in my arms.  I was so glad he finally calmed down.

Our little family with the camel.  I know you are all jealous because you want to have a picture of you family with a camel.  :)

Emma looking at Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus.

Mary putting the binkie back in the baby's mouth.

It was incredible and made me really appreciate all of the blessings of our day, and most especially the love that the Lord has for each one of us.  I cannot comprehend how much He must love us to do what He did for us.  What an incredible blessing.  I love this time of year to think and reflect about the Savior.  I hope I will do more to serve others to show my love to Him.

300,000+ Twinkling Lights

We went up to Salt Lake to see the Christmas lights on Dec. 3rd.  (Yeah I'm way behind on blogging.)  We had a lot of fun.  Jan and Jen came and we were able to park under the Church Office Building since Jen works there, so it was really close and we didn't have to walk far to get there.

First we went and got some dinner at the Lion House Pantry.  Jen was leading us there and telling us how she is so savvy about Salt Lake because she works there now.  We kept joking about that all night because anyone who knows Jen knows that she is not that great with directions at times, especially when she hasn't eaten in the last five minutes!  :)

Emma was so excited to see  the statue of Christ, which she of course loved when we finally did see it.  She liked seeing the manger scene as well, especially the baby Jesus.

Matthew was fine just being bundled up in the stroller most of the time, but towards the end he got bugged, so we got him out and held him.  He did quite well the whole night though.  What a good little boy!

Here are tons of pictures:

Matthew kept doing his cute little tongue thing.

I love the temple at night, especially with Christmas lights all around!

Our little family.  Emma was bugged because she wanted to be with Janice.  Feel the love!

"You are the love of my life.  Baby put your arms around me."

Daniel loves too see the Christmas lights.  Well, he loves being with his family anyway.

Emma with her favorite aunt.

I love Matthew's face in this pic.  It reminds me so much of some of Daniel's childhood pics!

Emma was bugged that we made her take a picture of her touching the temple before we went to see the statue of Christ.  I'd say that is a pretty standard face for her.

We finally made it to the statue of Christ!  Emma loved it and was so sad that she couldn't give him snugs and kisses so one of the missionaries gave her a picture of Jesus.  At least that helped her not to cry about it.

Emma loved the fountain.  She got to drop some money in and of course wanted to keep doing more.

Matthew all bundled up!

Emma all bundled up!