New Year's Eve

This year we had the Reidheads and Haslams over to celebrate New Year's with us!  We had our delicious fondue cheese and veggies, and all the best fondue treats! Yum!

Then the teens all left to the New Year's Dance for a bit.  The girls were looking beautiful!

They got back just in time for some really fun games, and even a large performance of "Pen, Pineapple, Pen".  We had some great laughs.  I love this group of friends!

Then we were ready with our sparkling cider for the clock to hit midnight!!  

Here's to another great year of memories with our friends and family.  I feel so blessed to be surrounded by such fun people that makes our lives better.  Here comes 2024!  Happy New Year's everyone!

Christmas Break Fun

 The break between Christmas and New Year's is one of my favorite times!  There are always so many fun things going on, and also so much time to relax and hang out together at home. It's my favorite!  

We went ice skating one afternoon and it was a huge gathering of friends from the neighborhood, from church, and even friends from school.  We all enjoyed that afternoon.

The Taylor Swift Eras tour got released on video so we have been watching that and doing lots of singing with the karaoke machine.

I got to have a spa day at Erins, which was amazing for me.  Love this!

The kids also used cardboard and built a very cool maze for Popcorn the hamster (the class pet we are babysitting over break). Babysitting Popcorn has been quite the adventure!  She is tiny, and fast.  Don't let her get away kids!

Bentley got another subscription to the Crunch Labs building kits.  He was excited to build his first game.

Lots of movies and resting!

Happy winter break everyone!  I love being together like this.

Eden's Camera Roll

 Here are some miscellaneous pictures from Eden's camera roll that I thought would be fun to include.

Christmas Day!

Oh Christmas - it's so magical.  I love to soak up every moment of this holiday with kids in the home.  It's still so fun to tuck them into bed, and then get the house all ready for the magic of Christmas morning.  Santa came, and the house was ready!

Bentley was really hoping for some new Beats headphones, and football cards.

Karly was hoping for a new flute, and Santa thought he would start her out with her first recorder and music book.

Eden was hoping for some new Nike shoes and socks.

And Olive asked for a new bike.

And the many presents were all wrapped and ready to be opened!

It's always so fun to hear them start to wake up and get each other excited.  But they can't come down until we have taken the traditional stair picture!  Brad and I always like to drag it out a bit, just to drive them a little crazy.  They love spending the time looking at all the presents from the catwalk upstairs though.  So fun.

Then we let them loose off the stairs and into the front room to see what Santa brought.  They were all very excited.

Then grandma and grandpa joined us for our traditional french toast casserole breakfast, and then the present opening began!

Eden got lots of clothes and jewelry which she was very excited about.

Karly and Olive got a karaoke machine, so they performed many amazing songs for us throughout the day.

Bentley got an MP3 player to use with his new headphones.  He is excited to have his own way to run around with his music in his ear.

That afternoon we met up with the Burks and Reidheads for our traditional laser tag game.  It's such a fun way to spend the day catching up with everyone and hearing about their fun Christmas mornings.

Watch out Petroglyph Estates, the warriors have been sent out!

I love this tradition, and the friendships we have in the neighborhood!

Later that day, the Murdochs came over and the kids had a blast playing with all their new things together.

It was another perfect Christmas day with all my favorite people.  I love being so fully present and enjoying every moment.  It's one of my favorite days of the year, by far.    

Merry Christmas family!