Christmas!

These first two pictures are from Christmas Eve. Erik and Adam were very excited for Christmas morning to come!

Around 8:30 the next morning (I know we are lucky, our kids don’t make us get up at the crack of dawn)… the fun begins…

stockings…

A beautiful quilt for Erik from Grandma Linda…

scooters from Santa…

Tyler with his loot…

in the new rocket tent…

and some cute pictures of brothers in red!

On Sunday we tried out our new ice cream ball!

We had fun rolling it….

and rolling it… and rolling it…

and then eating the resulting ice cream!    Yummy! Thanks Kate!

Adam tried out some new toys in the bath.

Erik is loving his 3-D chalk. I wasn’t sure how it would work, but it is actually really cool. You put on the glasses and the warm colors jump out towards you, while the cool colors seem lower down. It is quite fun to draw with it while wearing the glasses. Erik is having fun…and so am I.   :)

Playing with the new sandbox toys…

paper airplanes…

and T-ball!

Before Adam hits the ball…

and after ;)

What a fun Christmas!

which picture?

So I wanted to post a couple of these cute pictures I took last week. Problem is… I seem to be having trouble deciding which “couple” to choose!

What do you think? Which one is your favorite? :)

Ham anyone?

We are in charge of the activities committee at Church. So, we bought a bunch of ham for the ward Christmas party two weeks ago. Shortly after this picture was taken Alex went and delivered the hams to people who had signed up to cook them (so we got our fridge back :)

But I just thought the picture of our entire fridge full of ham was pretty funny! 

Story time with Daddy

 

 

Tyler the baby elf

 

 

 

 

Tyler with his stocking on his head :)

I LOVE this song. I first heard it at BYU when the video below was played during a class I was taking (the video below is from the choirs at BYU sometime during the 90's). Mack Wilberg was the director of the BYU choirs at that time. While I was at BYU I participated in an awesome stake choir that was directed by a man who knew Mack Wilberg I think, anyways, he had us do several of the Mack Wilberg arrangements of songs that had previously been used by the BYU choirs. That was a really amazing experience...I remember doing Come Thou Fount in stake conference with accompaniment by quite a lot of instruments (not just piano or organ). I always feel the Spirit when I hear or sing it. The words are very compelling when you listen to what the song is saying. Ever since then I have loved this song, and it also brings back memories of that time period at BYU so it is doubly special.

Then, shortly after my stake choir experience, Mack Wilberg became one of the directors for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. So now they do the cool arrangements that he did originally for the BYU choirs at General Conference and what not. Of course I was never involved with the real BYU choirs or anything, but I feel a connection to these arrangements and songs because of stake choir - so it is really cool to hear the Tabernacle Choir sing them.
Did I mention I love this song :)

P.S. Pardon the 90's hair and big earrings in the video... watch it anyways...this is my all time favorite version of the song.

Our Christmas Tree

Yesterday we got a real Christmas tree for the first time! This is the first year we are staying home for Christmas…so we decided to get a lovely Noble Fir. (Alex really wanted this kind and not a Douglas Fir.)

Here it is before we decorated it.

With just the lights.

And finally, with ornaments and the origami star  on top that Alex made four years ago.

It is just beautiful and it smells so good whenever we walk into the house. At first I thought it was a good tree – but I wasn’t sure it was great. After decorating it, however, I really love it and am glad Alex pushed for us to get it. Let the Christmas season begin! We are ready :)