Top ten reasons I love Christmas.

10. Mom asking Aubree to sing "Oh how lovely was the morning" when she gave the painting of the sacred grove to Mom for Christmas.
9. Ornaments were not broken by balls being thrown into the tree.
8. Kids go to bed at 3:00PM on Christmas Eve so that Santa can come.
7. No sales calls on Christmas.
6. Christmas music on cable 24/7.
5. Santa claus has 8 items to eat on Christmas eve because all of the kids want to leave something. Even the teenagers who thought it was funny that Santa would need to eat all of it.
4. Raindeer food that Brenen wanted to spread all over the patio. When Santa needed to get rid of the raindeer food it was cold and raining so sweeping away the evidence was a long painstaking task.
3. All the plates of goodies that are left by friends. It becomes dinner. (No cooking for mom) Kids have had cookies, candy, cake, and hot chocolate for dinner the last couple of weeks.
2. Making gifts for friends and having kids deliver them in their PJ shorts, t-shirts, and no shoes when it is 30 degrees outside. (bad mom)
1. Kids go to bed at 3:00 PM on Christmas Eve so that Santa can come. (Did I already say that? Well it is a good one)

But the real reason we love Christmas is being reminded of the Saviors birth. How grateful we are for his life and sacrifice he made for us. We love him and love to celebrate the great gifts he has given us.

What is your favorite part of Christmas...Presents

What is your favorite part of Christmas......

Haleigh... Waking up really early (She does not say that is her favorite part of Seminary)
Dalley...Christmas Eve (She loves the anticipation)

What is your favorite part of Christmas...Gifts

What is your favorite thing about Christmas....presents

His favorite thing about Christmas is....The Christmas tree reminds me about Jesus. (Great answer)

Mom: Kaison what do you like about Christmas?

Kaison: Christmas

Mom: Yes, but what do you like about Christmas?

Kaison: I just like Christmas?

Mom: Why?

Kaison: Oh Mom (Shakes head) Cars.

The aftermath

Snow

The kids all loved having it snow. Aubree just wanted to cuddle up with a good book. Haleigh and Dalley were praying that they would have no school until after Christmas break. The boys wanted to have a contest to see who could go out in the snow without a jacket the longest. Kaison won and he was not even playing. We caught him outside several times with very little on. (See pictures below) Luckily he is not sick. The girls went on a hay ride for mutual. It snowed so hard. It is not very often you can say you went on a hay ride in the snow in our neck of the woods.

Brenen was so excited for a snow day and wanted to build a snowman. He managed to get this mound up and put two twigs in the sides of it.

Since Kaison started potty training we often find him running around without underwear. He does not like to wear them. So we go get them out of the bathroom and quickly put them on him. On occasion he will hide them or put them in the dirty clothes hamper. We have become wise to these tricks. On this day he was running without underwear and we asked him where they were and he pointed to our next door neighbors and yes he threw them over the fence.

Kaisons underwear and PJ bottoms were found in our neighbors yard along with a few other items.

Kaison asks Mom to open a candy. When he looks at it he notices that it is the face of a skeleton. He says its scary and stares at it for about 10 minutes.

He got some of the candy on his fingers. He licks them but is not sure if he wants to eat the scary candy.

Kaison is showing how scary this candy is. He decides not to eat it. It is too scary.

Poor Kaison, he did not want to get his hands dirty by reaching into the pumpkin to pull the seeds out but when Lightning McQueen was put into the pumpkin he had to reach in and get him. He was a little dirty. Kaison is showing you the pumpkin goop.

Carving pumpkins for Halloween. Everyone wanted to save the pumpkin seeds and bake them. But after they had been on the newspaper, everyone handled them, and they were stuck to the bottom of everyones feet we decided to skip the baking idea.

The kids had so much fun with Halloween. We went to a Smith's shopping mall and went trick or treating. After that we went to our ward trunk or treat. I thought the kids would be tired but they wanted to go to the homes in our neighborhood so off they went again. We waited for kids to come to our house but had only a few knocks at the door. Needless to say we have more candy than we need. I thought about saving it for Christmas and Easter. The boys would probably not care but the girls thought it was sacrilegious having witches on candy at the celebration of the Saviors birth and resurrection. Trey recommended that we put the candy on our front porch for the Great Pumpkin. He informed us that if we did the Great pumpkin would take the candy and leave a nice big gift. Unfortunately the Great Pumpkin was not ready for this. So we decided to eat it.

Ryker

Ryker was born October 7th. He is a beautiful baby boy.