Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year! Once again I say that we have the best neighbors and friends ever! We celebrated New Years Eve by going to an awesome dinner at Woodman's first and then had the neighbors over to our house for some fun.

I decorated the house with lots of candles, twinkling lights, and balloons. Wade installed dimmers on most of the downstairs lights before the party so it made for very nice mood lighting.

Kristen and Todd brought over their xbox kinect and we played the sports games and even broke out the dance game.

Jeff and Karen did a dance off... very entertaining!

We did a white elephant gift exchange. It is very funny to see what types of gifts grown adults think are funny....

The pink flamingos were an extra gift and were re-gifted that night to poor Stephanie and Justin (who were in Cabo)

Here are Stephanie and Justin's new pets... they only lasted 4 days until they came home. I have a feeling Justin will share and make these a neighborhood pet and they will rotate around to the house of whoever happens to be out of town that week. The gift that keeps on giving....

Christmas Morning

We spent Christmas celebrating at our house first with all of the kids and then going over to my mom's to celebrate with my family. We had a very nice, and actually relaxing day.

Christmas morning before all of the kids were up.

The kids on Christmas morning, with the girls in their new PJ's (and matching doll PJ's) that Grandma Gayla got them for Christmas.

Opening the gifts - all of the kids got a pillow pet from Santa. Brennyn got an American Girl Doll, Emory and Alliya got a 6 in 1 FisherPrice game and Bronson got StarWars wii games and dueling light sabers (for the wii). All in all it was an awesome Christmas and fairly low key. The kids were great and even took turns opening their gifts!

We drove to my mom's house for Christmas dinner and gifts.

The Seven Days of Christmas

Grandma Gayla does the days of Christmas every year and this year she went above and beyond and did seven days. Each night we open a present as a family and have a fun activity and meaningful message about the meaning of Christmas. We had a puzzle for the first night, suckers to share with your friends for acts of kindness for the second night, homemade ornaments for the kids to make for the third, treasure bags to keep special things in for the fourth, a story book for the fifth, a magnetic nativity set for the sixth, and Christmas bingo for the seventh. Thank you Grandma Gayla for all of the thoughtful gifts and fun activities. It is something we look forward to every year!

Reading the story of the birth of Christ on Christmas Eve.

Photo with Santa

Here is this years photo with Santa. I am so pleased with how it turned out and that all of the kids are smiling!

Snow Flake Lane

We took the kids to Snow Flake Lane in Bellevue this year and made a whole night of it. It was one of our favorite nights of the week. We started the night with Christmas shopping...I took Emory and Bronson to pick something out for Wade and Wade took Alliya and Brennyn to pick out a present for me. The kids thought it was so much fun to "sneak around" and pick out their own present. We then had dinner at Red Robin and the kids actually got to meet the bird himself. Then it was finally time to stand outside (in the freezing weather) and watch the festivities. It starts with Christmas music playing loudly down the main street and then the drum line starts and comes out dancing in the street. They have Rudolph, a Snow Princess, a Snow Fairy, Polar Bear, and lots more. It reminds me of Disney Land and the parade they do at night. The last 15 minutes was the highlight as it started snowing from the rooftop. They have snow and fans and create almost a blizzard in the middle of Bellevue Way. It was a blast and the kids were so excited and dancing on the side walk. It is definitely a must-do every year.

Rudolph

The girls and the Snow Fairy. Brennyn said to her "I have wings at home too"

The Polar Bear

The Snow Princess

The cute girls! They love each other so much and play so well together.

Bellevue Botanical Gardens

We had the kids in Washington for a week and had a packed schedule full of fun Christmas activities and family fun. We decided to try out the Bellevue Botanical Gardens (based on the review from Becky and Amy) and it was great. They make trees, flowers and even water falls out of lights. The lights were amazing and we were able to walk the whole thing in about 15-20 minutes (a plus for the kids).

Our Family Thanksgiving

Our family always celebrates Thanksgiving on Saturday so everyone can be together. We had a great meal at my Grandma's, but before we could enjoy the holiday we had to do some manual labor at my moms (part of remodeling her house).

Decorating Grandma's Christmas Tree.

Alliya and Erik worked hard on assembling the chairs for the new dining room table. Wade did the base boards for the house, and I put together the table and cooked.

Finished product...