New Year's Eve

We loved having Abby (holding Matt & Candice's baby Zach) & Paxton visit us from Texas. We had fun playing games... and let me just say.... Tiebreaker. My ego suffers from losing at Scrabble, so I guess I'll have to study my Scrabble dictionary now and pray I'll get a J, Q, X, or Z.

We had a (not so) surprise late birthday party for my mom. The big 60.

Scott came to visit over the winter break and the kids enjoyed playing games with him. They even made 2 quilts (without complaining)--one for him and the other for their sister Hope.

Our Christmas Trees

This is the tree in our front room that mom gets to decorate.

The famous Tree-Pee! Each child got to decorate one pole with the ornaments that they've gathered over the years. I saw the idea at Festival of Trees last year and came home and made my own with PVC pipe, lights & garland. The guys at Home Depot thought I was a little nuts.

Christmas Eve

For the past few years our Christmas Eve tradition has been: drive to Salt Lake and park at Temple Square, ride the Trax to a restaurant for dinner, and return on the Trax to Temple Square to see the lights, the nativities (my favorite), and the candlelit bags with words and pictures illuminated in different languages. (I thought Arabic was the prettiest.)Marshall hitched a ride on Jim's shoulders keeping his hands on Jim's face for warmth.

Here we are on the Trax: the most memorable part each year. We sang Christmas carols (loudly) and many of the other passengers join in. This year there was a young couple who didn't make much eye contact, but the man "conducted" us with his finger on his lap while the woman smiled at us as tears streamed down her face. Everyone was touched and we loved the feeling. We were all very happy and at one point Mark (Mel's brother) broke out into a dance where he grabbed the side poles with each hand and his legs went crazy in the aisle. Very funny!! :-)
Here's Jess and Meg waiting for the Trax.

They realized that they matched: they were both wearing black coats and black boots.

Random Pics

Jess was awarded "Student of the Term" at Layton High School after being selected

by her English teacher. Each teacher chose one student who was either outstanding,

much improved, or motivated others. All the kids skipped school to attend

the assembly where she was recognized and given a certificate.

Brandon is often found holding the babies! Here he is
at Thanksgiving holding Zach (Matt & Candice's baby).

Lindsey, Leah, and Marshall LOVE to play "dress-up."

Since it is now the Christmas Season, they enjoy the biblical costumes.

Thanksgiving

This year Matt, Candice, and their family came over for Thanksgiving. It was loud but very fun!

Here's the little kid's table.

Thanksgiving Pies

So I decided that I needed to make money for club volleyball, and my mom came up with the idea to make pies the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and sell them. She said people would like homemade pies and they wouldn't even have to make them!! It was a great idea, because all 16 pies sold in exactly an hour! I went around my neighborhood and neighbors were more than happy to buy them! It worked out great!
Here is an apple pie. We had to do something to them to separate them from the jumbleberry pies, so there's little cut-out apples. Cute.

Jumbleberry pie.

Here's a picture of us. Sara put flour all over me, it was a mess. Left to right: Mom, Sara, Jessica.