December

December in a nutshell: fun and busy. We had most of our shopping done really early this year and we wanted to spend the month doing fun, memorable things as a family. We took the kids to the Festival of Trees (which they loved), went to the lights at Thanksgiving Point and fed the reindeer, and did lots of Christmas crafts at home. I got to help at Emily's Polar Express Day in kindergarten, which was so cute! Here she is with our next door neighbor Reese. They are in the same class at school (that may have something to do with me crying in the principals office when I was 9 months pregnant about how Emily needed a really sweet teacher and a friend she knew in the class). But it worked out wonderfully because they are inseparable at school and have both helped each other to come out of their shells and it has been so fun to see. John got to watch the girls Christmas singing program at school (I watched via video camera after preschool) and it was adorable. I was sad to miss it.

We did our traditional Gingerbread houses at Grandma's houses which the kids LOVE. It wasn't quite the same without Uncle Brenton and his crazy Gingerbread designs though--we sure miss him. The girls also went to a cousins sleepover at Grandma's house and had a blast. It was super for us parents too cause we got most of Christmas wrapped and organized while the little peekers were gone for the night. We love that tradition!

John took several days off this year and it was so nice to have him home and have a break from the regular schedule and stress. The kids loved going sledding and playing outside with dad. It was especially nice because I haven't felt like the funnest mom lately. It's really hard to take the kids to do much outside with a 4 month in tow so we were very behind on our sledding and snow man building this year.

John got to go to the Jazz game with his friend Dane. They were in a box suite and enjoyed their up close view of the game, tickets courtesy of a guy who was trying to sell them something. :) They looked over and could see President Monson sitting two boxes over. Pretty cool. John's got all sorts of claims to fame now.