Merry Christmas!

I don't know why I have been dreading doing my Christmas post. I think it's because there were so many good or funny pictures to choose from that I had a hard time deciding which ones I should put on here. We had a fabulous Christmas! I hope you all did as well. We were SO busy as I'm sure you all were! On Tuesday my dad came up from Utah to spend some time with us and my brother Kris and his boys who is home on leave from Kansas. It was nice to spend some quality time together! No I did not really plan the matching outfits- it's because we had family pictures earlier in the day:)
On Wednesday night, Christmas Eve, Ed's side of the family always does a big Christmas Eve party. The kids all exchange gifts (pictured below) and the adults do a white elephant gift exchange. It was absolutely hilarious this year. I haven't laughed that hard in a while. For one of our gifts Ed and I did "Shaving Barbie"- thanks Holly! There were many other funny gifts. Ours wasn't even the funniest!

Santa stops by the party every year and the older grand kids think they have figured out who "Santa" is. This year Santa tried to trick them, but no such luck. If you look closely beneath that beard you might be able to guess who Santa was this year. I haven't sat on Santa's lap in years!!!

Santa came while we were all asleep on Christmas Eve and we woke up on Christmas morning to a lot of nice things. A tradition that was started in my husbands home as a child was that Santa hid presents all over the house and left clues for them to be found, so that is what Santa does for us! After they read a clue they go in search of the present and bring it back and whoever's present it is opens it while the family watches. The boys all love it and it makes Christmas morning last a little bit longer.

This is the madness and total chaos that our house was after we opened everything! CRAZY!!!

Doesn't he look a little too happy about his socks? I just thought that this was a funny picture! My mom has given Ed socks for the last 12 years so now it's a tradition and she has to keep it going!

We were so blessed this Christmas season. I know the world has commercialized Christmas so much that the true meaning of the holiday is almost unrecognizable. While I do enjoy gifts as much as the next person I am thankful to know that the real meaning that we celebrate this special holiday is to celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. I truly am thankful that He was born and spent his life being such a remarkable man! I am thankful that we have such a wonderful holiday to celebrate Christ's life!

Three Kids For Sale... Any Takers????

Okay- I won't actually sell them but you can definitely borrow them for a little while. I know... You look at these cute little innocent faces and think what could they ever do wrong... right? Well... With Christmas just around the corner you'd think that they'd be a little more conscientious about their behavior. They fight and fight and fight some more... AHHHH!!! I can't take it anymore. I never thought I'd have to pull out the old "Santa is watching you!" bit, but believe me it's been a life saver a couple of times this week. By life saver- I mean THEIR lives. Maybe they'll get a lump of coal in their stockings. Okay, now that that's out of my system... they sure are cute, but I have decided that school is a good thing. It's keeps us ALL occupied!

One quick story that I thought was so funny, a bit irreverent, but funny! Talen brought me a picture of the Idaho Falls temple and we were asking him who was on top and he said Angel Moroni. We said good job then asked what Moroni is holding and he thought about it really hard for a minute and said "Hmmm.. A shotgun?" Well- guess that's one we've got to work on. He now knows it is a trumpet :)

Merry Christmas to you all!!! I hope you all enjoy the holidays!

Our trip to Utah...

So sorry- be prepared for picture overload! I couldn't decide which pictures to post!! We went to Utah over the weekend with our boys and some of Ed's family. It was such a fun relaxing weekend. This was the view from our room. It was gorgeous! We stayed at the Marriott and had valet parking. This was a first for us. It was awesome- we just called from our room and told them to have our truck ready and we'd walk out the door to our truck pulled up to the front and warm. It was so fun!
My boys were obsessed with the revolving door at the hotel. Each time we went out the door they went around and around and loved it! Although it got really old to us!

Me and the boys with Ed's mom and sister Shanda and our niece Sierra.

The lights at temple square. I wimped out and decided to hang out at the hotel with Meisha and my mother-in-law. I was freezing because it was snowing, but Ed said that once they started walking it was warmer. What a good hubby to take the kids without me!

I think this is so beautiful!!! It's a picture of the boys standing in front of the temple. I love it!

The boys loved looking at the lights! Apparently Tegen takes after his mom because he was frozen according to Ed!

Ed and the boys and Paul, Sierra, Cason and Tylee in the pool

Ed would throw the boys up and they would do flips in the air. They had so much fun!

Meisha and Talen sitting by the pool- HA! I finally got a picture of you!

It was so gross- the hot tub had tons of bubbles and the kids would coat themselves in the foam then jump in the pool. Sick- but whatever floats their boat I guess! We had a lot of fun. Sorry to all my family that we didn't get a chance to see. I wish there had been more time! One funny thing that happened that I don't have a picture of... Ed came out of the bathroom the first night we got there and said "Am- what is air-o-mu-thrapee?" I spelled it like that so you can maybe understand how he pronounced it. It was the bottles of shampoo, conditioner and lotion. It was from Bath and Body Works... Aromatherapy. I thought it was hilarious and we kept teasing him all weekend about the airomuthrapee in the hotel rooms! We had a great time- thanks to Ed's family for making it so much fun!

Oh Christmas Tree... Oh Christmas Tree....

Well- Hallelujah! We got our camera back from being worked on. They fixed it fast and shipped it back. I am happy once again! Before the camera was broken we were decorating our tree. Here are a few pictures of us decorating...

The finished product.... Of course it didn't stay like this for long. The ornaments are re-arranged on average 2 to 3 times a day courtesy of Mr. Talen. We used to have a kid tree downstairs, but it has been a couple of years since we put it up. The last time we did one the boys took all of the ball ornaments off the tree and "batted" them all over the basement with their baseball bats where they shattered all over the floor. Also, I had spent hours upon hours hand making a bunch of cute kid ornaments and they took them off the tree and snapped off all the pieces one by one; thus, we have NO kid tree this year. Maybe in a couple of years after I have forgotten that nightmare we'll do another once, but for now THIS is our beautiful tree. We love decorating it together every year. I love the holidays and the fun family traditions. I hope that we are creating memories that will last a lifetime!

I feel like I've been on blogging vacation! We haven't done much so there hasn't been a whole lot to post about. We put up our Christmas tree and we took a few pictures, but then Tegen knocked our new camera off the counter and broke it :( I was so sad I almost cried. I guess that's what we get for buying a $600 camera and leaving it out on the counter. Thankfully it's under warranty and we should hopefully get it back in time for Christmas. I am keeping my fingers crossed anyway!

Ed and I went to West Yellowstone for the weekend. It was so fun. Our company pays for our hotel room and they have a big dinner with a comedian and a live band/dancing and a fun drawing with some great prizes. Ed and I BOTH won this year. It was awesome! I won a garage/deck heater which Ed will love once we finish our shop and Ed won a backup camera that you put on your car/truck. He's excited because it will help when he's backing up to our fifth wheel. Ed's sister Triska and her husband Lance watched our kids for the weekend. Thanks guys! We appreciate it- and yes we will be returning the favor because they get to go to California in a couple of weeks.

That about wraps up our last couple of weeks!