Christmas Eve 2012

 This picture has nothing to do with Christmas Eve, but I thought it was adorable.  Two sleepy kids crawled into bed after getting the older kids off to school.  Someday I'll be able to do that!

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 We were able to go to Chad and Tarilynn's house for Christmas Eve.  Their tradition is to make gingerbread houses and my kids were so very happy to join in .  Caleb had fun building and adding and giggling, he had several little vignettes going on, including the Santa that landed on the top of that sugar cone Christmas tree over on the right side of the picture.  Yes, my boy has hit boyish phase of humor, help us.

 Wow, Joseph has eaten a LOT of candy.

 Farris helped Seth and as soon as Farris said "Done!" Seth started eating it.  If he ever gets lost in the woods and finds a house made of candy, he is so toast.  And you can see in this picture that Joseph was still on a sugar high.

 Sweet Rylee's house!  She did a great job even though her candy was being stolen by Joseph and Seth and maybe me.

 And Reid's creation, he even added pretzel sticks to make it look like a log cabin. 

 And Jacob's Asian inspired, Frank Lloyd Wright-ish, Tahitian Palace of a gingerbread house.

Tha candy was gone at this point.  Sorry Jacob.  And Blake didn't get hardly anything.

 Felicity's creation, I loved the details she added and thought out in hers.

 Joseph loves to play with Abigail, she usually likes it too.

 Until she flattens him and sits on his face.  Happy Christmas Eve, everyone!

 We came home and let the kids open their Christmas PJ's, which is one of our Christmas Eve traditions.  And Abby was so very happy, as you can tell.  She loved her cute pajamas.  Well, the next morning she did anyway.

Merry Christmas from our family!  

(only a couple months too late)

December? Nope.

Yes, this post has pictures from the busy month of December.  But, no, none of them about the festivities going on.  They are all because of THIS little girl. The one with the stinky face.  Who's sitting on the table and eating all the popcorn. She's not so innocent.

Farris was called to the Bishopric awhile ago and when he was called my first thought was "HOW am I going to be able to get through Sacrament meeting with Seth without a back-up parent?"  And I was justified in that, he was awful at first, but he's gotten better.  Most of the time, anyway.  And then that cute little girl in the picture up there decided to step into Seth's very noisy shoes. 

 What?  I'm too noisy?  Whatever.

So anyway.  One day in Sacrament meeting, or the weekly wrestling match as I sometimes call it, I was trying to get Abigail to look through these cute quiet books that my sister-in-law Cindi made for us.  They are little plastic photo albums with pictures and text from the Book of Mormon and other Church topics.  (By the way Cindi, I love those!)  Abby wasn't too into it, they really are made for Seth and Joseph's age level.  And then the idea (probably inspiration!) of taking pictures of some of Abigail's favorite people, her siblings, doing quiet, reverent, nice, Church approved activities and putting them in a photo book.  So as soon as we got home I stopped everyone before they ripped off their church clothes (the cyclone that happens before lunch) they all had to pose for me.  And I got a lot of cute shots, enough to mostly fill up one of those dollar store albums.

 Doesn't he look reverent?  Of course, if this was a video, you'd see that he was actually jumping up and down in place.  With a reverent face.

 Reading nicely from scriptures and being nice to each other, perfect!

 Reading other Church material.And cute Caleb in the background with his arms folded! Just remember to use your Church Voice. OR...

 Shhhhhhh!

 SHHHHHHHHH!

 SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Hmmm.  Well, it's close.