Finally, It Snowed!

It is almost January, and we finally had our first substantial snowfall of the season. Here is a view from our dining room looking behind our house.

Landon and Emma are finally tough enough to enjoy sledding in the cold weather. This is Landon with his sled that his grandparents gave him a few years ago. He sure is excited to try it out again!

Our neighbors down the trail have a nice-sized hill they let us use for sledding. It's not too big and not too small either. Here Emma, Landon, and I are racing down to the bottom.

Emma and Landon didn't complain a bit about having to bring their sleds back up the hill each time. Landon even brought up two sleds once when he accidentally knocked Emma's sled down without her. He was happy to help.

It sure was fun going down the hill in the snow, no matter what direction our bodies were travelling!

Emma tried to "snowboard" several times, and wasn't too bad at it. According to a friend of hers, you have to be nine years old before you can really snowboard. She said that maybe she will get a snowboard for her ninth birthday. We'll see. I don't know if they sell snowboards in Indiana!

Merry Christmas!

It really has been a Merry Christmas here. The whole month has been fun as we've celebrated almost each and every day. We've started some new traditions in our family this year and we also spent a lot of time reminding our kids why we really celebrate this blessed holiday.

Our favorite moments from the month would include, ice skating, Christmas crafting, decorating and baking, serving a less fortunate family, carolling and most recently hunting great Christmas light displays. Thanks to a friend, we found this amazing house only 15 minutes from here that choreographs their lights to music that you listen to on your car radio. The kids LOVED it and we actually made the trip twice (once at the beginning of the week and once last night) since it was such a hit.

When we returned from our outing last night, the kids were so excited for Santa's arrival. They set out cinnamon rolls, milk and a bowl of water for his reindeer. Emma also requested we move the screen that blocks where our future wood stove will be, so Santa could make his way more easily to the Christmas tree.
This morning the kids actually slept until 7:45, but as soon as they remember what was awaiting them downstairs, they were on their way!

Malia just had to try out her "new" toy. This is the saucer we've had for the other kids, but this was her first turn to sit in it. She's finally strong enough to hold her head up for short period of time. She enjoys sitting here for about 15 minutes. That must be the extent of her neck muscles so far.

The kids were pretty hilarious when the morning began. They (mostly Landon and Lily) didn't know what to expect. For example, Alan wrapped this kaleidoscope for Landon's stocking. When Landon pulled it out, he yelled (with a giant smile across his little face), "Look! I got a medium sized roll of Christmas wrapping paper!"

Then a little later when Lily was unwrapping a gift packed with a tiny bit of Styrofoam, she found this. She said, "Look! I got a little pillow!" Silly guys.

After her big adventure in the saucer first thing in the morning, this is how Malia spent the remainder of the Christmas gift giving event...out like a light.

Emma was SO happy to unwrap this Bop-It from Aunt Kelly. Apparently they have one at school and competitive as she is, she really wanted to perfect her skills. I'm not sure how I feel about this gift though. She seemed to play with it ALL day! I think I'm going to be hearing it play through my head over and over all night long.

Emma and Landon also received these mega art kits this year. They were what Emma wanted MOST of all. Since all the kids love to craft, these should be well loved.

Landon got his first Lego set this year and surprisingly had the attention span (2 hours) required to put it together with Alan. He really loved it and is extremely protective of the finished product.

Not bad, eh?

We finished off the day with a traditional Christmas dinner, complete with turkey, mashed potatoes, rolls and corn. I was a little nervous about cooking the turkey because somehow I've gotten away without cooking one for several years and I felt out of practice. Luckily, thanks to the Butterball website and a few calls to family members, it turned out great! Also, the rolls and mashed potatoes were tastier than ever thanks to my big Christmas gift...

Isn't it beautiful? I cannot believe how much easier it is to make bread dough in this thing, or how much smoother my mashed potatoes are after being whipped by this amazing piece of machinery. All I can say is goodbye hand kneading my bread dough. :)

We finished off the meal with our non-traditional dessert, but something that everyone in our family loves...Chocolate cake. Although, it's a little fancier than our average chocolate cake because I shaved a Hershey bar for the top and added the kisses for the extra wow effect. And, since Alan accidentally broke the wishbone that the kids were looking forward to making wishes on all day, we placed a few bonus candles in the cake and let each of them make a wish.

We hope all of you had a joyous Christmas and that you will carry this wonderful spirit with you throughout the new year.

Happy Christmas Eve Eve

"We Three Kings"

"O Holy Night"

"Joy to the World"

"Silent Night"

Our Fourth is Four Months Old

I just can't believe it's already been four months! Malia is growing so fast...I mean, she's REALLY growing! She is our chubbiest baby s far, but we LOVE, LOVE, LOVE all of her chub and rolls. I just want to squeeze her all the time. :)

She's still as happy as ever, despite the fact that she has lost the majority of her hair. Later I'll attach a photo, but I like to call her current hairstyle the mohawk/mullet. She's not rolling over yet, but I'm sure that that's soon to come. She is also "talking" a lot these days and laughing too, mostly at her silly dad.

A lot of people have mentioned that she doesn't look like her siblings. (Apparently, people think Emma, Landon and Lily look surprisingly identical.) Anyway, that got me to thinking, so I pulled out the baby pictures of each of the kids at four months and did a little comparing.

Above, Malia at four months and below Emma, Landon and Lily at four months.

What do you think? I can definitely see a difference in Malia's eyes. I'm afraid she got my squinty eyes. She's also got much chubbier cheeks, also from me. :) It's definitely been difficult to adjusting to having four kids in our family, but we couldn't have asked for a better baby to be our fourth. She just fits into our family so perfectly and has made it a much more enjoyable and fun adjustment period.

Enjoying the Christmas Season

We really have been enjoying the Christmas season so far. We're trying to make it through our list which the kids LOVE. They can't wait to see what's on the agenda for the day.

The day after Thanksgiving, we cut down our Christmas tree at our local tree farm. The guy who owns it is a friend and he said, "I give discounts to future Christmas tree farmers." Lucky us! When we got around to decorating it, the kids had a blast pulling out the ornaments and hanging them on the tree. I think this is the first time in 8 years that I've had this much help hanging the ornaments. It was great! And that was the start of our Christmas decorating.

This is what you see first when you enter our home. I just love having the piano here and it looks so festive this time of year.

We don't have our mantle yet (because we don't have our wood stove yet), so we decided to hang our stocking on this beautiful beam instead. It works. :)

As per our list, we also had to decorate the kid's room. They love the colored lights strung all around the room and they enjoyed cutting and hanging up the snowflakes.

At our ward's breakfast with Santa, the kids had their chance to chat with the big guy. Lily wasn't very excited about seeing Santa at first. That is until she realized he was handing out candy canes to all of the children who came to see him. She couldn't say no to a candy cane.

This is Santa trying to stump Emma with math problems. Luckily, she passed the test!

Landon is way into Santa this year. However, he is also a little curious. He walked right up to Santa and asked, "Are you the REAL Santa?" He came to me later and informed me that he was just one of the real Santa's helpers.

Malia didn't ask for anything this year from Santa, but she sure did look cute in her little candy cane outfit.

We tried the truffle recipe and they were YUMMY! After the first batch, we decided to substitute the plain oreos for the mint oreos and they were even better. After I discovered how fun (and easy) truffles were to make, I opted for making lots of them instead of cookies this year for our friends.

I found these cute little boxes to package them in and was very pleased with the way they turned out.

We also took the kid's ice skating. We weren't sure how it would go because our kids can be a little timid about things that involve falling, but they really, really loved it! Well, Emma and Landon did. Lily had me hold her as I skated around the rink once and that was good enough for her this year.

Emma wanted to stay out there forever, but since someone needed to stay with Lily and Malia, I had to take turns skating Emma and Landon around in circle after circle after circle. Emma and Lan were actually pretty good skaters for first timers. Sure, they held onto the wall and to my hand for the majority of the time, but both of them did make it out to the center of the rink with help once each.

Alan's been having some issues with his back lately so he wasn't out on the ice much this time, but he did make it out for one or two laps. When he's better I'm sure he'll be doing layback spins and split jumps with ease. :) Emma and Landon informed us that they definitely want to go ice skating again as soon as possible.

Lily's favorite Christmas song this year is "Joy to the World". Although, she says it's "Joy to the Wield". Here's her rendition.

The other day I overheard Landon and Lily singing "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" like this. One of them starts to sing and then they switch back and forth by pointing to the other. I thought it was pretty funny, but when I asked them to do it again, this is what I got. Sorry it's so silly.

And here they are signing it the traditional way. I just love that they enjoy singing so much.

Family Photos with Four Kids = FUN!

We decided that it was time to have our annual family photo recently and boy was it an adventure! It's pretty tricky getting four kids and two parents to cooperate for one little photograph. Luckily we had a great photographer friend with a camera that could take lots of shots.
For example, above you'll see Lily, sad as can be, so Alan tried to cheer her up...

Now she's happy, but Alan hasn't had the chance to face the camera before...

Malia gets a bit frustrated.

Now Alan is trying to comfort Malia just as Lan decides he's a little sleepy...

No, I take that back. He's REALLY sleepy and Malia is still a little unhappy.

In this one, Malia is calm, Lan is recovering from his big yawn and Lily just looks a little perplexed.

Well, for this pose, this one is the best we could do. With a little head swapping in Photoshop it would be perfect!

Here are a few more shots from our family photo adventure:

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

(This has nothing to do with the post. It's just a great new pic of Lily that Dorothy took.)

This really is the most wonderful time of the year! We already have our freshly cut Christmas tree up and decorated and now we are ready for the Christmas festivities to begin!

And speaking of festivities, we had some good friends over a few weeks ago for dinner and they told us that they do something special with their kids every single day during the month of December leading up to Christmas. Alan and I thought this was a great idea, so after researching, brainstorming and adding a few ideas from our friend's list, we've compiled our very own list of Christmas activities for this year. Family traditions are so important and I thought, what better time than now to get started? Plus, I really want to teach our kids to focus on the true meaning of Christmas and to recognize the reminders of Jesus Christ everywhere this Christmas season. Hopefully by doing these things as a family we will feel the Christmas spirit the whole month through.

So, here's what we've come up with so far:
1. Decorate our Christmas tree - check!
2. Write and mail Christmas cards - almost check
3. Make a Christmas craft, maybe this one:
4. Decorate the kid's room with paper snowflakes, etc.
5. Feliz navidad (eat an entirely Mexican meal)
6. Make a new Christmas ornament, maybe this one:
7. Send a missionary a package/letter
8. Go ice skating (Emma is SO excited about this one)
9. Play reindeer games (learn all of the reindeer names, or learning Christmas, song, poem, etc.)
10. Try a new Christmas recipe, maybe this one:
11. Take the kids shopping for Dad's Christmas gift
12. Watch Christmas movies with popcorn and hot chocolate
13. Attend the ward Christmas party and watch the First Presidency Christmas devotional
14. Bake Christmas cookies and other treats
15. Deliver Christmas treats to friends
16. Read a new Christmas book
17. Deliver Christmas lists to Santa's mailbox
18. Wrap Christmas gifts
19. Shop for and donate a gift for Toys for Tots or similar program
20. Make a gingerbread house
21. Go Christmas carolling
22. Have a pj party (on this the longest night of the year) and sleep by the Christmas tree
- We'll give the kids their new Christmas pajamas this night
23. Drive around to see Christmas lights
24. Deliver a Secret Santa gift
25. Watch the Nativity video and act it out

We're also going to follow this scripture reading plan starting December 12th:
Day 1--Luke 1 26-38
Day 2--3 Nephi 1:4-9
Day3--Luke 1:39-45
Day 4--2 Nephi 9:19-22
Day 5--Matthew 1:18-25
Day 6--3 Nephi 1:12-21
Day 7--Matthew 2:1-12
Day 8--Helaman 14:2-6
Day 9--Luke 2: 1-7
Day10--Isaiah 9:6-7
Day 11--Luke 2:8-20
Day 12--Isaiah 7:14 (Finish reading on Christmas Eve)


What are your traditions? Please, please share! I'm excited to try these and would love to have even more options. Happy December 1st!