December update

 Well you know Christmas is around the corner and you find your kids hiding in the cupboards.(a.k.a  from Christmas Story) Yep! Porter and Kinley's favorite place to be is in their bathroom cupboards. They love pretending they are hiding from Monsters in there and they will play in there for a good half hour sometimes.

We started this month off with Patrick's work party at Ruby River and we were allowed to order ANYTHING we wanted! I was in heaven, when my jumbo coconut shrimp came to the table! We then played a version of white elephant trading with about 100 rules, BUT it was lots of fun! We were told by others to buy something you would want to go home with cuz you might end up with it. Sure enough we ended up coming home with the very 2 items we showed up with! One by choice and one by chance! It was lots of fun and I really enjoyed getting to know Patrick's work buddies better.

Then the next morning we helped my mom make most of the grandkids gifts(which I can't say what they are until after christmas) And later that night was our ward party. I knew Santa was going to be there so I had practiced with Porter before we went how the whole sitting on Santas lap routine goes. So it was our turn for Porter to sit on his lap and before Santa could even say a word of "have you been a good little boy? or What would you like for Christmas?" Porter sat on his lap and immediately exclaimed "TRAINS!"  He then wanted his candy cane and got off. He was done! haha As for Kinley we got 3 feet from Santa and she FREAKED OUT! Now I tell you... I have NEVER..EVER...seen Kinley this scared before. She was digging nails into my shoulders and screaming with terror. She wanted nothing to do with Santa. So I took her out in the hall thinking out of sight out of mind. Right?! well after about a minute she looks at me and says "Mom! Santa Fine! I see Dad now!" So we went in and once we got over to our table by Dad, Santa was waving goodbye to everyone and yelling MERRY CHRISTMAS!  So now whenever we see santa Kinley gets scared(but not as freaked as she was that night) and she looks at me when it's all done and says "Santa Fine"
The 3rd week of this month we were gearing up for all our family parties and we were super excited for them! They were on the weekend one on saturday night and one sunday down in the Salt Lake area. But then we got called into the Stake Presidents office and he called Patrick to be the 2nd counselor in our wards new bishopric! Well that changed plans a bit, because they were making the change the same sunday as our family party. Seeing that Dad and Grandparents needed to be here to ordain Patrick a High Priest that sunday anyways we decided well we'll offer our house for the sunday party. It all worked out and we were able to do EVERYTHING that weekend. It was a little stressful and hectic that weekend, but totally worth it! We went to the temple saturday afternoon, then the williams family party that night. Drove home with 2 coughing sick kids. Woke up and went to church Sunday...that day was busy and crazy and then that night all the munson family came our way and we had a riot sharing talents and playing games.
We love this time of year and would have been super bummed if we would have missed those parties! We are now super excited for Christmas to come and hope you'll come back to hear all about it!

And here is a cute little video of Kinley. Lately she has been amazingly cute when she tells you she loves you! She says it ALL the time and she can't pronounce her "Ls" very well. And we had been wanting to catch her counting 1-2-3-Sick! And I can honestly say that this video of her doing it is the last time we have heard her count like that. It was so adorable and we miss it... but now she is a smart girl who can count 1-2-3-4-5-6-8-9-tenleven. Super cute!  Enjoy and MERRY CHRISTMAS!! P.S. she just woke up from her nap so she looks pretty rough!

November 2011

This month Patrick and I started it off perfectly! The first weekend we were blessed enough to be able to go to a stake toy exchange/swap.  We were able to get almost everything we wanted to get for our kids and more than we ever dreamed of. So we were finished with our christmas shopping! how awesome is that? Ok not completely finished. I still had to get a few more and yes exactly 3 more things for the kids for chirstmas and we were done. then all we had to worry about was our neighbor/friend  and family gifts. Not bad right?  Then on sunday we made sugar cookies and the kids LOVED frosting them and of course eating them!

The second weekend of the month it snowed. So Patrick worked on our neighbor gifts and Porter and I went outside and played in the snow, while kinley took her nap. It was Lots and lots of fun! The snow was perfect for snowman making and Porter was really involved in building the snowman.
The third weekend, my mom came up to stay with us. There was a friend of the family getting married that weekend and we enjoyed a fun night that friday driving to the reception in the snow and visiting with friends. Then saturday we enlisted help from mom to set up Christmas. We were itching for the christmas season to come. For many reasons of course but 1 being we are in a new home for chirstmas this year and I was anxious to decorate it with our christmas things. 2nd of many reasons being last year we moved 2 days before christmas so I didn't set up christmas at all last year. I was missing decorating for the holidays and that fun spirit that is brought into the home with the warm christmas tree lights and the magic of santa and the thoughts of our Savior and others in our hearts.

Then the next week followed with a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. We spent Thanksgiving with the Christensen side this year. There were only 5 of us kids and our families there though. The 2 others were very missed, but it was also nice to be able to visit with the others and play games, which seems to happen less and less everytime we get together as a family because our family is getting sooo big! We enjoyed the memory name game that we played most of all.

Also over Thanksgiving weekend we helped mom with here beautiful cross stich works of art that she donated to the festival of trees. She asked us to help with making the frames. Didn't Patrick do a great job? And that is porter next to the kids tree in our basement.

Ever since coming home from that nice break and being with family we got to work on finishing our Christmas tree. It consisted of a few nights staying up til 12 to finish projects, but we finished it within a week and WE LOVE OUR TREE. We chose to make a theme for our tree this year. The theme we chose was a "music tree" We made ornaments that look like notes and a treble cleff, music books, bells, sheet music rolled up as scrolls, piano keys and christmas music words such as noel, rejoice, hallelujah, sing, etc.. It's beautiful and we really love it. So things like that have consumed our time this month other than the normal work, kids and callings. :\
All in all we really enjoyed the month of November! Hope y'all did too.