Main Floor Christmas

This is our tree on the main floor.  We need more decorations for it.  But this is all we have for this year.  We bought new glass bulbs this year.

Stockings hung on the table with our advent train in the background.

 These are some closeups of our new bulbs.  We also have plain red, plain gold, and satin red bulbs.

Fun with Balloons

Kylee wanted ballons for decorations for her birthday.  So of course she got some.  Well on Sunday the girls decided that they wanted to put their balloons on the ceiling.  So they rubbed their hair with the balloons and threw them up to stick to the ceiling.  They got pretty good and getting them up their.

Christmas Trees are up

Saturday we were able to bring in the tree from the garage and get it set up so on Sunday we could decorate it.  I also decided this year that I thought it would be fun for the girls to have a tree they could decorate however they wanted to.  I brought up our pre-lit artificial tree from the basement and set it up in the loft.  We were going to use it downstairs some day but it is only a 7 foot tree so it would look tiny on the main floor.  We will have to purchase another one some day.  One nice thing about this pre-lit tree was it was only in tree sections so it was a quick set up.  We have another artificial tree downstairs that we would use in Tooele sometimes that was a pain to set up.  We had to insert each individual branch and then put the lights on after all the branches had been inserted.  We lost the directions too between our moves (I saw them at one point but can't find them again).

Sunday after church and lunch we got the decorations out and had the girls go at it on their tree.  They had fun. They were able to reach pretty high on the tree to get the decorations up. I think they had fun working on their own tree.  Brittany has always wanted a train around a tree so she set up her Thomas Tree as well.

Excited for the decorating 

Passing out the ornaments

Having fun decorating

Reaching as high as she can

Posing for a picture

Being goofy

Standing next to "their" tree

All done except for the star

Brittany's pink bird decorations he bought

Putting the Thomas Train around the tree

 After we were done upstairs, Jon started on the lights on our tree downstairs.  He hates doing the lights because they take so long. But he is a good sport and puts them on.  I think he is looking forward to having a pre-lit tree sometime.  But we like the fresh trees we are getting right now.  Jon said he is going to tell dad that next year he wants to cut down a pre-lit tree.  I haven't seen any yet up there so I guess we will see.

We were kind of in a rush to get the lights up because Jon had to head over to his parents for the night after dinner to help his mom out with his dad.  So the idea was, I would put the decorations on later that night since he was getting the lights put on (well that didn't happen until a couple days later).

Working on the downstairs tree

 We bought a new star this year because or old one wasn't working as well as it had in years past.  We noticed that since our tree wasn't very full, this new HUGE star kind of looks too big for the tree.  It may fit better on the tree upstairs.  Oh well.  It is a very bright star once it is on.

New Big Star

Brittany wanted her own tree from the mountains for her room.  I didn't want water up in her room so she and I agreed that we would put it in the front room.  She made her own decorations for this tree.

Brittany's tree from the mountains

Lights on and star on top

Kylee turns 7

 Kylee turned 7 the day after Thanksgiving so we needed to make sure we had everything ready for her birthday this day.  She was so excited for her birthday this year and keeps reminding us she will be 8 next year.  She also kept asking us if we got her a present.  So I asked her if we had ever not given her a present...of course she said no.  Brittany also wanted to get her one so we headed out to the stores so  she could pick something up for her.

Brittany made Kylee the hat she is wearing for her birthday.  Kylee specifically asked to have a number "7" candle on her cake.  I was planning on buying one while we were out, but I forgot.  So I looked in the cupboard for our stash of candles and we only had 6 left.  Great apparently I didn't plan very well.  Fortunately after looking more I found a number "7" candle that we had used for Brittany's birthday hidden under some stuff..whew!!

I had it easy as far as the cake and dinner went this year.  All she wanted was a cheesecake (my favorite) and for dinner she wanted leftover turkey dinner.

Wearing the hat Brittany made for her

Waiting for present time

Both girls wanted their picture taken

Brittany gave her a Webkins frog

We gave her the big horse she has been wanting

Cheesecake with #7 candle

Getting ready to blow out the candle

Last night at mom and dad's house they gave Kylee her presents.  They gave her a big Hop 66 (Hippity Hop) and The Princess Barbie and The PopStar DVD.

DVD she had wanted

Now she can bounce, bounce, bounce

Thanksgiving 2012

This year we stayed home and had our own Thanksgiving.  We were supposed to go to Jon's side but it was cancelled this year.  So we were able to actually have leftovers of our own...yea!!!

In order to keep the kids occupied while everything was getting cooked Jon found some color pages for the girls to color and cut out.  

Heather also gave me a suggestion to get a painters canvas and make a teepee for the kids to play in. So we did that too.  The girls loved making their own design on both the inside and outside of the teepee.  When Jon placed in on the table and told them they could draw on it, Brittany was shocked and asked "Does mommy know we are going to do this?".  They spent quite a while playing under the table.  We later used this table as our buffet table.

We had a nice lunch at home with just the 4 of us.  After we finished eating and cleaned up we took off for the day to visit both grandparents.

Jon cutting out a paper teepee and Kylee coloring one

Brittany coloring

Playing in the teepee with a homemade fire you
can see Kylee warming her hands next too.

Artwork on top of the teepee

Carving the turkey

Part of our buffet

Christmas Tree Hunting

November 17, 2012 was our annual Christmas Tree hunting trip.  

We met everyone (all of us and the Lomax group) at Lisa's Country Kitchen in Nephi for breakfast.  It was really good food and lots of it.  Well not everyone, Shelley and James' family didn't meet for breakfast we met them at the Flying J for gas.  Then headed out to the mountains.

We went to the Fish Lake area to our normal spot.  There seemed to be lots of trees to choose from this year.  There wasn't a whole lot of snow.  But there was enough.  Darren and Jenny had a little trouble getting up the mountain road, they had to back down a little bit.  We thought we were going to need to put them in someone else's vehicle, but he put his car in a different mode and made it up.  As far as I know everyone else was ok.  Darren said he will have chains for next time.

It didn't take us to long to find out trees. Brittany and Kylee kept Grandpa and Grandma company while they cut down their tree while Jon and I were able to go find ours.  I think everyone's trees that were chosen looked nice.  I think Shelley and James won on the largest tree.  But it was really pretty and smelled so good (quite heavy as well)!

After we got our trees the kids threw snowballs and made snowmen and then we ate some lunch. We had sandwiches, fruit, hot cocoa, and lots of cookies!!  Very yummy.  Then that was it for the day and we all headed home.  

Mom and Dad had all the trees in their truck so they made deliveries to everyones house on the way home (well except Kristy and Craig's they will get theirs later).

The tree we picked

Jon sawing it down

There she is

The girls next to our tree

Pictures in the mountains.

Our two cuties

Camden and Grandma starting their snowman

Waiting for the truck to come pick up trees

Kylee wanting to pose

Silly face

Grandma and Camden

Kylee with her snowman base

Brittany forming her snowman

Jon and Kylee (Jon is "helping" Kylee with her snowman)

Thats better help

Camden having fun

Darren hanging out with his tree

Kristy's, Mom and Dad's, and Darren's trees

Getting ready to take pictures

Brittany next to her snowman

Close up of Brittany's snowman

Kylee still working on her snowman

Camden on his snowchair

Camden having fun pushing the snowball

Grandma and Camden.  The snowball got to heavy for them to move.

Darren to the rescue

Now it is huge!

Moved a little bit.  He was pushing hard!

Camden on his snow chair

Kylee showing Camden how to make snow angels

Cute little Zoe

Grandma and Brittany working on her snowman again.

Kylee with her finished snowman.

Cute little Cierra

Finn hanging out in his car

View of the area

Another view of the area

Camden and Kylee made this snowball all
by themselves