Today while I was putting things away, I ran in Miles room and glanced over at his nightstand. It is normally a mess of legos, random treasures, papers, books, candy wrappers and who knows what else. But he had apparently cleaned it last night. It made me stop for a minute. I love the things he chooses to display - some of the things he treasures.

• his soccer trophy from last Spring. . . oh how he loves himself a trophy
• his Home Depot workshop snowman napkin holder that him and his grandpa had so much fun making
• his 'Hollister' perfume box turned pencil holder given to him by aunt Elise when she lived with us
• his Logan Temple picture
• his back to school crown
• his surf-mobile that we brought him back from Hawaii

Love these little snippets from his life!

Santa Breakfast

Last Saturday we had breakfast with Santa.

See that look on Jackson's face? That says,"I don't feel like smiling because I don't eat buffet style pancakes. My dad took me to Elements breakfast once and now I am high maintenance. I will also accept Kneaders." Everyone else enjoyed the food. . . Miles came straight from a basketball game and ate 27 pieces of bacon. Or something like that.

When Santa asked Miles what he wanted, Miles just shrugged and continued petting Santa's plastic beard. Later I asked Miles why he didn't tell Santa what was on his Christmas list this year and he said, "That Santa was so fake mom." Apparently he didn't even want to waste his time!

I love that my 9 year old is still such a believer. I'm sad that someday soon that magic will be gone, but for now I will fully enjoy his innocence.

Pretty Lola

This picture kills me. . .check out her sideways glance at the man with a beard. She was not about to take her eyes off him. But there were no tears. Way to go Stella!

Warming up a little. . . still no smile.

Why is Santa hiding behind Miles? Definitely not the best Santa around, but we'll take what we can get. At least we didn't have to wait in line at the mall. . . that's worth a lot!

Oh cHriSTmaS tRee

I was kind of feeling like a scrooge this year.
Christmas is so overwhelming.
I would have been happy to just leave the tree out in the snow.
But. . . Lola wasn't having that. She begged and begged.
So, we hauled it in.
I put the dang lights on it.

And suddenly it felt like Christmas.
My house was sparkly and smelled Christmas-y.
We opened our new Christmas jammies and beautified our tree.
Oh, and Stell ate plenty of ornaments.

All I ever want is a cute picture of my perfect littlies under the tree.
This is what I got.
Check out Miles scowl.
And poor Stell was an hour past bedtime.
Memories, huh?

Toilet Papering

And then there was the day that she discovered toilet paper. . .

Gingerbread House Party

Have I mentioned how much I love having girls?
I love doing fun, crafty things with this Lola of mine. She loves planning a good party with me and gets so involved in all of the details. We decided to invite her friends over for a gingerbread house party and had such a fun time planning it together.





Cute Stella wasn't about to be left out of the preparations. Lola made sure they were both wearing their holiday outfits for the festive occasion.



Could she have cuter friends? I LOVE these girls!



They got so into the decorating. It was so fun to see them all be so creative and work so hard on their masterpieces. They decorated those houses for over an hour, loving every minute of it.










After we wrapped them up, we ate cupcakes and then cuddled up for a Barbie Christmas movie. What a fun time!

The Annual Hunt

We headed up to Preston on Thanksgiving weekend for to find our Christmas tree. We love this tradition and look forward to it all year. It was such a beautiful day - the sky was bright blue and the snow so deep and pretty.

















Jacks was so excited to cut our tree down. He did it totally by himself and was so cute focusing on sawing.

After some mountain-side hot chocolate, we trekked home for our "Christmas Kick Off." We had a yummy dinner, lots of delicious Christmas-y treats and my mom had made the most fun Christmas gift sacks for all of us. The kids all got new Christmas books, shirts, and advent calendars and the adults got cute decorations and festive Bath and Body Works loot. So much fun!

We finally got the tree lit and decorated last night and are loving it. So far Stella has refrained from knocking it over and undecorating it completely. We will see how long that lasts.

Thanksgiving

We had such a fun Thanksgiving with Nate's family this year.



We arrived to find the most perfect kids table set up by my amazing mother-in-law. She and Katie made the cutest little gift packs for each kids chair, 'turkey legs' filled with popcorn, and turkey crayon holders to go with a coloring page placemat. The kids had so much fun with it all!







Nate's dad has officially perfected the art of turkey cooking and we ate the most delicious turkey I have every had.



The kids played with their cousins, wrote in their Thankful journals, signed the annual tablecloth, and watched a couple movies. The men watched at least 7 football games. In their entirety.



Katie, Betty and I scoured the newspaper deals, planned our Black Friday and even had time for the crafting of our annual Christmas Organizer.

I am so grateful for these in-laws of mine. I feel so blessed to have married into such a wonderful family. We have such a great time together and there are few people my kids would rather be with then these cute cousins of theirs.