Happy New Year!!

We had a great night celebrating the New Year.  We have had our own party the last few years with just us and the girls love it.  We played a few games, bowling and tennis on the Wii, ate a lot of snacks, blew horns and poppers and drank in the new year!  Here is to another great year 2014.

Ice Skating

My niece Megan and her husband drove up from St. George yesterday to spend a few days with my Mom.  They drove up today and went sledding in park city and then met up with us for ice skating.  Scott and Kristoni are moving to San Diego this week so they also joined us so we could say goodbye.  Gabrielle had an ice skating party at the beginning of the month for a friend from school and she got really confident on the skates and even started doing it by herself.  She really wanted to come again and Tabitha loves to ice skate around the kitchen in her socks so she was excited.  Tabitha got really fast, almost to fast, with the help of an orange cone.  We had a fun night. (all pictures are from my phone, so not the best quality)

Last Sunday of 2013

Our last Sunday family picture of 2013.  I am going to continue doing this for 2014, we need to come up with some creative poses.

Christmas Day

 Waiting patiently to go out to the living room to see what they got, they were so excited!

 Tabitha was so excited about every little thing, I have several photos like this, but she was moving around so much I could never get them in focus.

 Tabitha asked for a hello kitty glow pet and a purple barbie and motorcycle, she was happy to get both.

 Gabrielle wanted Ruthie, Kit's best friend and a monster high doll.  Santa brought her Ruthie, which she was super excited about.  She had Kit, first picture, sleep with her in hopes that she would get Ruthie.  Tabitha gave her a monster high doll.

 Brandon's parents gave him a Russel Wilson jersey #3, he has loved how good the Seahawks have been doing.  We don't get many games on TV, he watched the game last week on his phone and one week he face timed with his brother in Seattle to watch the last little bit of the game on his TV. 

 New robes

 Scott and Kristoni are moving to San Diego.  They decided that "jimmy" was to big to take with them so they gave him to the girls, they were so excited.  We are going to miss Scott and Kristoni and hope to visit San Diego to see them.  We had fun having Scott with us for Christmas.  He played all morning with Tabitha's toy from Mimi and Papa Fife, these fun magnetic shapes.

 Gabrielle gave Tabitha the Amulet of Avalor, she wore it all day, she loved it!  Below she is playing with her calico critters set she got from Mimi and Papa Fife.  Tabitha has always been really good at playing pretend by herself, even in the middle of everyone.

Sure do love my Mom!  We had fun having her here with us.  We had a yummy breakfast after opening all our presents and then spent the day, napping, watching movies, playing games and crocheting.  My Mom is making these really cute headbands to keep your ears warm.  Gabrielle wore hers a lot of the day and even wears it to bed.   We had a great Christmas!!

Christmas Eve

 Gabrielle lost her 9th tooth this morning!  She was so good and brave as she let me pull it out.  She has been a little hesitant with us touching her loose teeth and then with the sight of blood gets light headed, but she was great!  She is excited to have a visit from the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus tonight.

 We had dinner at Texas Roadhouse.  My brother Scott has today and tomorrow off of work so he joined us along with my cousin Jessica and my parents.  I think this is our third year coming here around Christmas, a new tradition for us.

We had  fun relaxing night, since we had did most of our Christmas Eve traditions with my family on Sunday we just spent the night playing games, talking, eating and putting puzzle together.  The girls sleep on our floor on Christmas Eve and they were asking to go to bed tonight, I think they are excited.  We left some brownies and milk out for Santa and some celery for the reindeer.  After the girls went to sleep the adults finished the puzzle that we had started earlier.  Christmas time is the only time we do puzzles, this was our second one so far, I have two more to put together.

Family Christmas Sunday

We had our Family Christmas party tonight.  We had a yummy dinner and had fun being together.  We exchanged gifts and dressed up and read the Nativity.  The girls love this part and had fun acting out as we read.  I know that there was probably no Minnie Mouse Jammie at the birth of Jesus Christ, but you do what you can when you are working with a 1 year old!!

Breakfast with Santa

We love going to Kristen's work party every year, Breakfast with Santa.  It is always so much fun!  I lost the battery to my camera right before the girls sat on Santa's lap, so thank you to Kristen for the pictures of the girls with Santa and thanks to Sara for all the other photos.

Temple Square

We made our annual trip to Salt Lake to visit the Temple square Christmas lights with my family.  It was a pretty cold night but we had fun walking around.  We stay the night at Kristen's hotel every year, it has become a really fun tradition.  We ate dinner at the city creek food court, which was crazy, we thought we would try something different but we have to rethink that for next year.  We went swimming later that night at the hotel pool, which normally is pretty cold and we are the only onesthere but tonight it was warm and crowded.  

Friends dinner

We had our friends the White's over for dinner tonight.  We always love getting together with them and even better with yummy food!  Gabrielle loves ribs so whenever we have friends over for dinner that is what she requests.  Quincy and Caroline were both home sick, but the other kids had a great time playing.

Tabernacle choir concert

I was able to go to the Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert tonight with my Mom and a few of her friends.  Brandon and the girls went to Orem to do some Christmas shopping.  I met up with Emily and her cousins for dinner at the city creek food court, which was so busy.  It was a great night and as always such a wonderful performance.  I snapped this photo with my phone as I left the concert and headed to work.

Gingerbread Sunday

e were going to do Gingerbread houses yesterday but because of the weather we postponed to today.  Brandon flew out early this morning to Phoenix for a work conference.  He spent the day with his friend Brandon Carr watching football and then will return home Wednesday night.  We had fun as always decorating the houses, it gets quite competitive!!