Christmas Eve Recap

On Christmas Eve, we:

Continued cooking lovely (and totally calorie free, of course) treats.
A new personal favorite? Pretzel + rollo + melt in oven for 4 minutes + squish with pecan + cool = heaven.

Played in the snow (some more):


Had our first real (sort of) nativity with all of the Walton grandchildren:

Luke AKA Joseph (notice his staff - perfect for whacking the shepherds)
Our wisemen (and wise - grandma)
The lovely Mary (being the only girl grandchild has some major benefits - no one to fight you for the role)
The shepherds. Best costume award goes to Uncle Michael for his role as "Sheep."
Aunt Danica as the fabulous narrator. Notice Ryan, also a shepherd, who kept attempting to abduct the baby Jesus (played by his prized, beloved Cowie)
We read some Christmas stories, dressed the kids in their cute (and homemade) pajamas.

Luke was the official writer of the Santa note:

Then we bustled everyone in bed, waiting to see if Santa would come. And boy, did he ever.

Merry Christmas

I'll post more pics and recap later. Suffice it to say we were very spoiled.

We have been enjoying family, good food, an entertaining rendition of the nativity (note Ryan's cowie as baby Jesus), beautiful snow, and being together.

We are thankful for the Christmas season, for the opportunity to give, and especially for the birth of our Savior.

Merry Christmas to all.

All Dressed Up

A few photos of us in our Christmas duds.

I love my children all dressed up. Don't they look proper?

(It's all a farce)

Flying - and wardrobe malfunction

We made it to Utah, despite our flight landing at 1230 am Minnesota time.

Luke was a little sad due to a wardrobe malfunction - his zipper broke as we were boarding for the flight, so he stayed bundled up in a sweatshirt and blanket.



Evie did pretty darn well. (It's way, way easier traveling with 2 parents).


Ken won most of our bet (I was betting against the fact that the kids would sleep the whole way - he is the eternal optimist). She only screamed the last 10 minutes of the flight.

Both kids were overjoyed to be greated by grandparents and puppies.

We were excited, mostly, to get into bed.

I love to be with you

A little video for you to enjoy.

And Merry Christmas, everyone.

(We're getting a plane to go back to Utah tonight - if we don't get snowed in, anyway!)

If it wasn't 5 below

We would be doing this every day:



Our driveway and the snow mountain in the cul-de-sac make the perfect little sled runs.

We tried to turn Baloo into a sled dog.

But he got all wussy (woosey? woss-ey?) and just sat down in the snow, tail between his legs.

So Daddy played sled dog.


By the way, don't you just love little red cheeks in the cold?

Logic

At the store:

Luke: I want to get the green grapes
Mommy: Well, I like the purple grapes better. Why don't we get those?
Luke (with hands out to side in a "what-are-we-going-to-do?" pose): Well. It's Christmas time. Green is a Christmas color. And we don't want to ruin Christmas!


At breakfast:

Luke: Ooooh. I've got an idea. It's Christmastime and we should watch a Christmas movie. You got me a Christmas movie! (Discover Channel all about animals) It has snow and polar bears. That is Christmas!

Family Photos - August, 2008

A little late to get these posted, yes, but I just got the digital files. Note my fabulous parents and photogenic sisters + Caroline's family.

I love them.

And the photographer is exceptionally talented to get those pictures, especially considering that Evelyn refused to smile or sit next to her brother, we jumped over rocks in a stream, and it was windy-windy-windy.

(I hope the slide show thingy works okay. Not quite sure how to make that work)

(A hint - just press the play button and move the mouse and it'll just start going)

Utah Trip Round-up

The surprise was a success. Luke still didn't figure it out, even when we pulled up to the airport, suitcases in tow. But he was all smiles as we were getting on the plane.

We:
- ate a lot of Cafe Rio (twice, at least)
- had fun playing with cousins Ryan and Calvin
- did some sewing projects (yes, I really did. you can get up off of the ground now - I know you've fallen over in shock as I don't sew. But my sister does - and she can teach anyone). I'll post pics of my apron because I'm pretty darn proud of it.
- had Caroline take some gorgeous pictures of my kids in their Christmas get-up
- took in the Christmas lights in downtown Provo and at Thanksgiving point
- caught up with old friends
- had a great time in the sunny, 50 degree weather!

Shhhhhh . . .

In a few hours, we're on our way here:

Luke doesn't know we're going.

When we were kids, my parents used to do this all the time - they'd pick us up from school and just take us somewhere. Or they'd plan a trip but we woudn't know until we got on the flight where we were going. We loved it.

I hope he does too.

PS - anyone out there that wants to get together this week? The trip was sort of last minute so I haven't planned a lot yet. Let me know!

It's beginning to look like Christmas

The day after Thanksgiving may be my favorite part of the holiday weekend. Pumpkin pie for breakfast. Lots of great shopping (though Ken way out-shopped me this year, I'll have you know).

And we put up the tree and decorations, with Christmas music in the background.

A few pics of the kids "helping" (I love the way the tree looks with about a billion ornaments approximately 2 1/2 feet off the ground).

Flashback

I needed a workout this morning.

Ken is gone and the kids were asleep.

The ONLY workout video in my house is a 10+ year old copy of my buddy Billy and a solid 35 minutes of tae bo.

We used to do this in our apartments in college and medical school.

Honestly? It was pretty good for me. And I'm already a little sore (should I be admitting that?)

Dig him out. I'm sure you've got him buried in your collection too.