A Holiday Recap

Well, the holiday's have come and gone, and much like an over-taxed Mormon mother of the mid-90s who is WAY behind on her scrap booking, I haven't blogged about ANY of them. So this post is a bit of a catch up and has ton's of photos. Enjoy.

 I wish there was more to blog about Halloween. It's pretty much always the same. We carve (meaning I gut and do all the carving on) some pumpkins. The kids pick random costumes from the costume bin (Lila, decided literally at the last minute to wear that Snow White costume and I had to find a coordinating long-sleeved shirt and a hair bow. While Amy was not home.) and we trick or treat. Hopefully next Halloween we will be stalked by a serial killer, or but a cursed doll at a garage sale that will haunt our house so I have something better to blog about.

For Thanksgiving I made a lot of pies, as I am want to do. I think I was assigned to bring one pie, which quickly became three and then a lemon meringue at the last minute because I had extra dough and some lemons. Lila can't see me cooking in the kitchen without wanting to help, so she rolled out the scraps of dough to cover in cinnamon and sugar and bake. So delicious.

Apple, lemon meringue, pecan and Nantucket cranberry. 

Thanksgiving was at the Peterson's this year, and in addition to a lot of great food there was a lot of the kids playing Sing It and Just Dance in the basement, which is pretty funny/cute. Nothing is better than Noel belting out "Magic" with Selena Gomez.

Christmas is one of the things that makes me most grateful that we live back in Utah. Because despite the fact that my work schedules is hellish and too many late nights and too many early mornings, we can at least squeeze in some family time and activities. And we don't have to travel over Christmas, which is a huge blessing.

The house has never looked better. We've dressed up our $39 Wal-Mart tree with some pretty actual glass ornaments. It feels like a milestone that we can actually have breakable things in our home without being in constant fear that they will be destroyed withing 5 minutes. Granted, we still worry about 65% of the time that they will be destroyed, and try not to even let the kids in the front room, but it feels good nonetheless. 

As per Parental Tradition Law 140.51523, the kids got new Christmas PJs. Our kids get theirs at the beginning of the season so they can wear them all December long. 

We even ventured out and saw the lights at Temple Square, which mostly involved me yelling at the kids and telling them to be reverent. (Yes, I can see the irony.)

The kids, who are spoiled, got to see three different Santa's at three different parties. I don't think they noticed that he looked slightly different at each one.

I miss Santa. I miss the power that he give parents. We took this picture the Sunday before Christmas when Lila was throwing one of her irrational fits about not wanting to wear a black bow in her hair. I made a quick phone call to Santa and he said he thought the black bow would look great. So I took this picture to text to him. He approved and Lila wore the bow without another complaint.

Christmas morning was awesome, as it always is. I am usually about as excited as the kids and stay in bed until 7am to keep Amy happy. It mostly looked like this:

I did manage to get a few pictures of gifts. 

The kids were thrilled with their gifts. Lila really wanted a "Dora doll" from Santa, but also got a cute Kitchen and an art easel. Noel wanted Skylanders Giants for the Wii, which he is obsessed with. And Jonah wanted a Tetherball pole, which he got thanks to Santa and some amazing help from his Grandpa Bingham. 

If he is willing to go out when it is 4 degrees outside and play, I think he will spend the whole summer out there. 

And then New Years! I worked late and then was washing the dishes when the ball dropped. It's a big holiday here.

So Happy Halloween, Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!