The week before Christmas the girls and I made a trip to Page Arizona with Taylor's family.  We did some sight seeing along the way.  It was fun for the girls to see the dam and to earn their junior ranger badge.  It was such a fun day to spend time with everyone. I am never in any pictures so I made everyone take a reflection picture in front of the Glen Canyon Recreation Building we are a pretty crazy group.

The main reason for our long six hour drive was to take the kids to visit the hogans for Christmas.  Taylor's cousin lives in Page and arranged for us to take Christmas out to some kids who lived in these hogans. It made all of us feel so grateful for all that we have.

Taylor went out of town the week before Christmas leaving us to the gingerbread house making. Normally Taylor helps the girls build a beautiful gingerbread house but since he was gone I helped.  I put on all the frosting and the girls decorated the house.  It was going pretty good for awhile until the house fell over the first time. I tried multiple times to recover it but I guess we just needed the engineer for this project.  Both girls ate way to much candy and then we ended up throwing it away after stuffing it with paper towel didn't help it stand. Lydia was belly laughing by the end. She thought it was pretty funny watching me try again and again to make it stand up.

For the past three years I have been begging Taylor to build me a wooden Christmas tree.  I was first introduced to one four years ago by my friend Jessica( and I fell in love with the idea).  I loved the simple modern look and the easy storage.  Well here it is Taylor made the pattern and plans all on his own!  It was fun listening to different peoples reaction to the new tree this year.  They either didn't like it at all or liked it a lot.  The kids were the funniest.  One of Lydia's friends Mason went into our house when we got back from school and had to run back out to tell me there was something weird in my house lol.  It was the Christmas tree of course and he couldn't figure out why it wasn't green.  

The picture of Lydia decorating the tree was taken on the night of the first presidencies Christmas devotional it was so much fun eating popcorn and watching it with the girls.  We were going to put Penny to bed but she climb up on the couch and sat so quiet the entire time so she got to stay up too.

Maddix, Mylee, Brett, and Scarlet.

Lydia has a play date each week with these little cuties.  We had it at our house last week.  It has been fun getting to know each of them they all have such fun personalities.  Lydia's favorite part is getting to make the crafts with her friends. She loves helping plan what we will do when its our turn to have play date at our house.



I am grateful that we live so close to the temple. It is such a fun tradition to take the kids to see the nativity during the Christmas season.  I love watching them look up at the temple and admire its beauty.  Lydia wanted to go inside and it was a great chance to talk to her about someday going there to be married.  Afterwards we went for McDonald's ice creams ( I think we will have to make this a tradition too).  We all had a great time and it was great pondering the Saviors birth in such a beautiful place.

I put the girls to work last week cleaning up the leaves.  They didn't get much done but they had a bunch of fun. It is crazy how fast fall comes and goes here.   Lydia loved this big leaf.   I had to laugh when I saw this picture, it was as big as her head.

 I bought each of the girls their own headphones the other day for car rides.  When we got home Lydia had to go to school but Penny spent at least 45 minutes in this chair listening to music with hers.  I spent 15 minutes just trying to get her to look at me but she was way too busy.  Penny has really taken to music lately.  If she is crying in the car one of the only ways I can get her to be happy is to sing.  She has also started trying to sing her own songs.  It is one of my favorite things she does.

Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving we stayed in town with the Ricks family.  It was so fun to see everyone ... all 70 of them.  I didn't get any pictures of the feast, I decided to just relax and enjoy the day instead of trying so hard to capture it.  But I did get these pictures of my girls in the fall leaves and they made me think about Thanksgiving.  I have been so slow getting around to posting but I didn't want to skip Thanksgiving before getting to our Christmas pictures and activities.  I have so much to be thankful for.

I promise this is my last Halloween post.  Lydia wanting to be Abby Caddaby this year so we created this little outfit.  Most people didn't get it but she was thrilled so it didn't matter.  Of course Penny was little red riding hood.  They were both so excited to trick or treat.  But after three houses Lydia said she didn't feel good and ended up having the flu.   So they kind of missed out this year.  Good thing we had so many fun parties leading up to it.  

 

My mom did a dinner with a witch this Halloween. It was so much fun and the kids had a blast. Lydia, said she knew it was grandma because of her eyebrows lol. But honestly it took Lydia about 20 minutes to realize that it was her. Penny was terrified of course. The food was delicious and watching the kids made it worth the drive. Thanks grandma and grandpa!