What a month!

Well, December flew by!  We had such fun this month.  Here are some pictures...

 The kids wrote their letters for Santa!  Then put them in the tree, so Santa or his elves could come get them while the kids slept.

 This is us at our Ward Christmas party.  They had a cupcake buffet.  Of course the kids LOVED that!

 ...and the ham and rolls.

 I think Dallin had one to many cupcakes. Ha!

 I loved this one of the snowman melting.

 No party is complete without Santa, right?  Elsa loved to sit on his lap.

 Abby did too, but she looked like this the whole time sitting there.  It reminded me of "A Christmas Story" where Ralphie gets all nervous and forgets why he's there. 

 Not even a treat bags got her to smile. 

 This is what we all looked like just about every night while watching Christmas movies.

So comfy, huh?!

 Here is our living room at night.

 One night we had hot cocoa and colored wooden ornaments. 

 You never get too old for that huh?!

 They all had fun!

 This year Santa sent an elf to our home.  She would go to the North Pole to report to Santa of the kids behavior, then come back and sometimes she would get into quite a bit of mischief.  The kids cousins, (Hannah's kids)  got a boy elf and Laurel would call us just about every day and tell us what they caught their elf doing, then we'd tell her what we caught our elf doing. It was fun and she got a kick out of everything that our elves did.

 This night she was looking at the baby Jesus with the rest of the toys.

 The weekend before Christmas we went to Salt Lake for Clint's company party.  While we were there we stopped and visited Grandma and Grandpa Anderson.  It was nice to talk to them.  They are so cute!

 We also went to Temple Square and played in the hands-on museum.  They had a Book of Mormon theme.  It finally dawned on me that they probably change it every year to go with the primary's theme for the year. (Last year it was "I am a Child of God."

 The girls were preparing some food for the missionaries somewhere in South America.

 The girls were trying to throw the tortillas in the bucket.

 Abby was dancing like the spanish women dance.

I'll post more pictures tomorrow!

Elsa's first recital

On Friday, Dec. 9, Elsa had her first piano recital.  She did very well!  She played "Jolly Old St. Nicolas" and a "Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer" duet with her teacher, which, by the way, was very pregnant and ready to have that baby.  Anyway, it was a great recital and Elsa really liked performing. 

Our D.A.R.E. graduate

Last Tuesday, Calvin graduated from the D.A.R.E.  program.  I was so proud of him, even though I know that he will never drink, smoke or do drugs, but it's nice that he KNOWS why we don't do those things.  I'm glad they do this in the schools too.  Everyone needs to hear why these things are bad for you.  Calvin really enjoyed the program and loved to wear his shirt on the days he had D.A.R.E.  They all had to write an essay on why they would stay drug, alcohol, smoke-free and what effects it had on your body and your future. They picked one winner out of each class and they read their essay's at the graduation.  Calvin was not one of them, but he did get a B on it.   

 This was the D.A.R.E. officer, Officer Summors.

 This was Miss Nevada.  She went to Brookman 10 years ago, and went through the D.A.R.E. program herself.  She talked about how she stayed away from drugs and things and how her life is turning out the way she's planning it.  She was an excellent example to those kids.  (Girls especially) 

 This was Calvin getting his certificate and shaking hands with all the 5th grade teachers and Officer Summors.

 This was him with his certificate and his friend/ex-neighbor hiding behind him.....

....so I made her take a picture with him.  Hahaha!  

As you can tell from her certificate, she was not expecting that.

Oh, these kids grow up so fast!  I can't believe they're going to be in middle school next year!

Thankgiving!

This year we, like last year, did Thanksgiving ourselves.  It was nice and quiet....well as quiet as a house of four of the loudest kids ever are.  Even though they may be loud and obnoxious at times, we still love them.  On a side note, our Stake President and his counselor came over on Tuesday and visited (just to visit and get to know us...that's all).  While they were here, they talked about their own families and how the Stake President only has one child left at home and how quiet the house is now and went on to say that he miss all the chaos and noise.  It made us think that all too soon we'll be in that same boat, so we need to remember that when it gets really chaotic and we feel like ringing some necks. (As my Mom put it).
Anyway, back to Thanksgiving, we had a nice dinner....and I didn't even burn the bird.  The Monday before Thanksgiving, in family home evening, we talked about gratitude and did our annual "Thankful Tree" where each of us puts something we're thankful for on a leaf and then sticks it to the tree.  The kids filled it up!

 Check out Abby's plate vs. Elsa's..............Can you say picky eater?!

 We also decorated our house for Christmas.

 Abby is so excited for Christmas!  Can you tell?

 We took Abby, Elsa and Calvin on a night out with Mom and Dad.  All three of them earned it!

 Elsa made this out of legos and I thought it was worthy for the blog!

 Our Thankful tree

 1 candy corn for each thing we're thankful for.

On Black Friday, we took advantage of some sales, then pretty much relaxed the rest of the weekend.  It was so nice!