Christmas Eve

 My sister came to town a little before Christmas and we finally got to meet baby Deacon.  He is so big already it makes me sad they don't live closer.

 Christmas Eve dinner with the fancy dishes.

 Then on to cookies for Santa.  Paige mostly made a mess with the flour.

 Our kids refused to put sugar cookies out at our house, because they like to leave Santa oreos, and Santa seems to enjoy those so we don't argue.  We had fun decorating and eating some though, and Paige left some out for him and Grandma and Grandpa's.

 Christms Eve program.  Grace sang "Once there was a snowman."  Somehow I have no pictures of the boys performing, but they both played Christmas songs on the piano this year.

 Then the nativitiy dash and acting out of the nativity.  Mom was the angel, but this year went with wings and a tiarra as a costume.

 Evan as Joseph, Paige as Mary, and Deacon as baby Jesus.  Deacon behaved quite well considering we stripped him down and put him in a basket awkwardly.  

 Brandon, Kyle, and I were wisemen.

 Grace wanted to be a donkey, not a shepherd.  Whatever makes them happy.

 Dad as the narrator - or perhaps the super narrator.  Katie and Ben were shepherds but somehow I missed them.

Last but not least the kids opened their cousin presents.  Kyle got a Lego Hero Factory from Graham and was very excited to put it together.  Looks like it was pretty intense work.  We headed out to look at lights about 7 and had 4 of the 5 kids asleep by 7:30. Evan crawled in as soon as we got home and was asleep by 8:30 or so.  By far the easiset Christmas Eve bedtime ever.  All the festivities must have really worn them out.

Pre-Christmas

 The great Christmas tree hunt of 2013.  We actually decided on one of the first trees we saw, and it was close to the car.  Unheard of for our family.

 The kids entertaining Leo while Brandon cut the tree down.  Poor dog ended up all tangled up around a tiny tree.  

 Finished product.  I love having our tree up.

 We did gingerbread men instead of a gingerbread house this year and the kids loved it.

 We take our work very seriously.

We managed to use up the rest of the Halloween candy and ended up with 4 cute gingerbread people (I think Grace made a girl).  

IPhone Pics

These may not be the greatest quality, but here's a few pics from my phone.  

Our little BYU fairy.

 Evan at Scout Camp.  They do an egg drop the last day, and he decided to use a fishing net filled with toilet paper as his catcher.

He was very excited when it worked.

If you caught it unbroken you got a golden egg handkerchief slide (if it broke you got a broken egg slide).  

 Grace and I have done a lot of preschool projects.  This was part of G week.

Finished product - and her fingerprint flowers on the side.

L week involved lots of footprints

 C is for cloud

and candy corn.  There have been many more crafts, but these are the ones she's demanded photos of.

 Hamster races for family night one week.  What else do you do when you have four hamsters?

 Grace's dental appointment, complete with x-rays and foam flouride this time.  They were very impressed with her.

 Helping at the kindergarten pumpkin patch (can you tell Grace and I spend a lot of time together).

 Grace's first ever swimming lessons.  She spent the majority of the time underwater, but would bob up for a brief second to give us a thumbs up.

 Evan carved this polar bear out of soap for one of his Cub Scout things.  He managed to earn his Bear in a month.  Now we just get to work on extras until next September.

Modeling a new-to-her swimsuit and dog purse.  We get some great hand-me-downs and she loves it!

Halloween

This year Brandon did all of the carving, and I played with the camera.  Not a bad gig.  I did some crafts with the kids while he carved too - perhaps I will get some pictures of those too.

 Love the intense face.  We take our carving seriously around here.

 Evan took forever to decide on a design.  Apparently we have done too well with the carvings the past few years, and he thinks we can do just about anything.  Luckily we talked him down into this easier design.

 Brandon was away for work on Halloween, so I tried to get plenty of pictures of our trick-or-treaters.  Two power rangers (I had no idea these were popular again) and Rapunzel.

 Love how he chose to pose.  Such a funny kid.

 Grace loved her hair

 Just like her real hair, always in her eyes.

 The kids all came home with lots of candy following our two hours wandering the neighborhood.  They are slowly consuming it all, but its not gone yet.

The day after Halloween I bought a matching family set of aprons.  So funny.  We may need to do more family cooking now.