A Few Days after...

MERRY CHRISTMAS AFUALO'S!

We had a lovely Christmas. The kids were pleasantly surprised by what Santa and their family had given them. The morning was relaxing and then we went to see family. We came home late that night. Saturday we did nothing. It was the best day after Christmas. We played with all of our new stuff and had together time.

Every year we have our picture taken by the tree. Usually we do it at night. We look much better then. I think we were just happy to have happy children.

Favorite Christmas memory this year... I have two. The first came a few days before Christmas and we were watching BYU in the Las Vegas bowl. All 7 of us were sitting on the couch enjoying the game in HD and cheering on the cougars. It was nice. The other one was hearing my ever not satisfied child yelling, "this is the best Christmas ever." Can't have a better response than that.

Sunday after church was more of the same. I am surprised that the kids even ate that day. They were so enthralled with the Wii. Lily put on a ballet show for us with all her new ballet stuff.

Monday we woke up early and headed up to Los Angeles to see two more missions. Mission number 10 and 11. We have now seen over half and have two more trips planned to see the rest. (Yea!) We drove up to Missions Hills (on the north side of LA) to see San Fernando de Espana. It was a beautiful mission and to our surprise it is where Bob Hope is buried. The next mission we went to was San Gabriel. This was a simple mission, but set up nicely for touring. They gave us a map that had numbers on it and then there were numbers found around the place that we read about on our map. It made touring much faster.

It was a long drive home. I had 3 girls in the car. My sister took the boys and I got her girls. We have been having fun playing Wii, feeding ducks, having movie time and running errands. We are headed up to Mortensen Manor for the New Year. After that I get to put my cruise director hat back on and entertain the troups for two more weeks. Stay tuned...

The Night Before Christmas

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the rooms, not a creature was stirring, only a broom. A broom that swept up wrappings and crumbs from all the clutter called Christmas fun. The children were nestled all snug in their beds and I, (of course it is always I) was running a muck trying to find my head. The Christmas Program was delightful the food was so yummy. Now everything is full, stockings and tummy. Were excited for Christmas and full of good cheer as we celebrate Christ's birth again this year.

We have had a lot of fun this week. We went to Sea World on Monday and had a relaxing time there. We had to come home and get the house ready for Nana and Papa's arrival. Tuesday we started having some fun. We made cookies, had a girls day at the spa, went last minute shopping, went carolling and went to the movies, where they started showing Sherlock Holmes instead of Princess and the Frog. Hopefully Lily won't have nightmares. The movie people fixed it after 5 mintues.

Tonight we decorated cookies for Santa and had our Christmas Program. The kids did a great job performing what they had practiced. Lily decided at the last minute to throw in a manger scene. Our dinner was provided by Chin's Chinese Restaurant. I believe that will become a new tradition. Everyone had to try chop sticks. That was funny.

All is ready for tomorrow. And now I say, "And to all a good night!"

Christmas Happenings

Yea!! School is finally out. We are all very excited to be on Christmas break. I can't think of a better gift from my kids then to not need to be anywhere early in the morning. Sleeping in will become the new norm.

We have been having some Christmas fun this past week. We delivered Christmas cheer to friends, had parties at school and I had my first piano Christmas Party. That was a lot of fun and a stress free activity. My students are so funny. No pictures from the party.

Friday Damon and I went to Lily's Christmas party at school. It was very funny. The kids had fun. The gift exchange was a little rough. All the kids got books, games, toys, coloring books and the like. Lily got homemade cookies. I tried to contain her sadness, but it was rough. I was a bit disappointed for her. I told her how exciting it was because she got to bring them home and share them with the rest of the family. That seemed to help, but she was still bummed.

That night we went to the place called "Christmas Card Lane". All the houses have gigantic Christmas cards in their front yards. We looked at lights and decoration in this 5 block area. The whole neighborhood comes out and people sell goodies and there were horse drawn wagons to ride. We even got to meet Santa and Mrs. Claus. The kids had fun but were tired of walking around after an hour.

Today we are getting the house ready for our company. The kids will have plenty to say about that I am sure. I think tonight we may stay in and watch Christmas movies.

It's Finally Looking Like...

CHRISTMAS!

Due to all the rain we kept getting, going out to get our Christmas tree took some time. Then bringing it in the house took some time. Then decorating it took some time. So after almost a week of having our tree it is finally up and decorated. No ornament casualties this year. We were pleased about that and after the kids went to bed I spent some time rearranging the tree to give it more balance. Most of the decorations were on the bottom half. We are thankful that the tree is up and looks nice.

Last Friday I took the kids to Disneyland one last time for the Holiday Season. I love Christmas there. We noticed that depending on what part of the park you are in is what type of Christmas music you get to listen too. In Frontierland you get lovely bluegrass versions of it. Main Street has big band sounds and California Adventure has more of a rock tone. So fun. We took our babysitter with us and had lots of fun. It rained a little, but we were prepared so it didn't bug us. There were hardly any lines which is always nice. I went on Tower of Terror with Adam and honestly that ride terrifies me. I leave that ride with a cold sweat. So pathetic I know. We went to Rainforest Cafe for dinner. We watched the Christmas Parade and Fantasmic. We were pretty tired Saturday.

All Saturday morning I was at the church with the choir that I was in and then the choir that I was directing. Both choirs performed on Sunday at separate events. So stressful and now that it is over I feel so relieved. My parents came down for both performances. The kids loved having them around. They think Grandma is the best because she told them that they could eat cake for a snack before dinner (I swear the woman who raised me would have never said that). The choirs, apparently, sounded great. We weren't any silent monks, but I was told everything sounded good.

I am so happy that there are only 4 more days of school.

Some of this

Christmas cheer has been getting in the way of life lately. We have been busy busy bees this week thus far. Here is some of the stuff we have been doing.

Noah had his first band concert. He is playing trumpet. It was a fun concert and the kids did as well as was expected.

Tonight we went out to get our Christmas tree for the house. It was super cold today and we didn't want to search to long. We found a great tree and brought it home. stay tuned for decoration pictures.

Have a great day!