Oh Christmas Tree...

We had such a great time going to get our Christmas tree this year!!  Yes, it was on the 18th of December, but the wait was worth it.  We went up by Warm River and had the best day. The weather was perfect, the place we found was great and the tree turned out to be a great tree for a 'home grown' tree.  The kids had fun (mostly) and were just so cute. When we pulled off the main road and Jake told the kids to start looking for a Christmas tree...Jenna started saying "Christmas tree, where are you?  Christmas tree?"  It made us giggle!

We got this first picture of all of them smiling and didn't get a single more with Lydia smiling...it was mostly this next picture.  She was tired.

We found it!!

I wish I had an audio clip for this one.  Jenna was telling Anthony "You can do it!  Good job NeNe!"  It was so cute.  I love these kids.

They each took a turn using the saw to cut down the tree.  They enjoyed it so much!

This sums up Lydia's attitude the whole time.  I'm not liking this, but I will tolerate it :).

On the way back, Jake pulled me pulling the tree, Lydia and Anthony on the toboggan and put Jenna on his shoulders.  Thank goodness for the snowmobile trail that helped us along or we might have had to put Jake on the toboggan and pull him out.  It was fun though!

 

This was Lydia about 30 seconds after the suburban started down the road.

We stopped at the big fish on the Warm River and feed them crackers and watched them jump out of the water.  The kids really enjoyed it and giggled each time the fish jumped out of the water.

After that, we stopped at Big Judd's in Ashton and shared a Big Judd with the kids.  It was such a great day spent together as a family after such a long absence of that.  Wrestling season is fun and enjoyable, but when it is over we all enjoy the time we have together!

Gingerbread houses...

 We love making Gingerbread (graham cracker) houses at our house each year.  It is fun to see the kids get into their creations!  Jake constructed the houses and then the kids went to work.Jenna ate her candy as fast as she could put it on her house, but she still had fun.   Anthony really gets into decorating his in as many ways as he can.  Its fun to watch.  I told Jake to surprise me with a creation this year and he came up with some tree houses that we decorated together.  It was a fun night!

Ward Christmas Party...

We got to see Santa at our ward's Christmas party. None of the kids were afraid of him at all and it was fun to see them get excited over it. This is the first time they have really seen Santa.  He gave them candy canes and they decided that they LOVE them. Anthony asked for a football helmet and Jenna wanted a baby doll with a binkie and bottle.  Cute!

Idaho State FolkstyleTournament...

 State Champ!!

 His first match with Sione.  He pinned him in the 1st period.

 We do a lot of snacking and coloring in between matches.  The girls do so well!  They put up with a lot during these long tournaments!

 Wrestling Xander.  He won by points in the 3rd period and did really well turning him each time Xander got away.

 I was trying to take another picture or Anthony and Xander and Lydia walked in front of the camera right as it went off and I got a fantastic picture of her!

He was so excited to stand on the podium in the #1 spot.  He was really proud of his new singlet too.  I think he will remember this day for quite a while!  So will we, we were so proud of him!  

State Champion as a Kindergarten Pre-Bantum 40 pounder!!

The first snow fall...

 We got a huge down-pouring of snow the week before Thanksgiving after a beautiful fall. Promptly after the snow fell, the cold weather set in so it wasn't very much fun to go outside but the kids were itching to go play in the snow.  When we got home from Thanksgiving in Logan, Jake took the kids out in the snow on the four-wheeler and they all had a blast. They came in with very cold fingers and noses, but they couldn't wait to go out again!  I enjoyed the quiet house for a little while and made sure there was hot chocolate for them when they came in :)!!!

New Pictures...

It is amazing how quickly the kids grow up.  We took pictures in April shortly after Lydia was 1 and looking back on those pictures, I am amazed that these pictures make the kids look so much older.  Lydia has more attitude, Jenna has more hair and Anthony is growing up into a young person!  Its so crazy. Thankfully we have a great photographer for a Grandpa and the kids love to smile for him (most of the time).  We love these new pictures from November 2010.

Halloween 2010...

We had a fun, relatively warm Halloween this year.  I had been very cold the week up until Halloween day and it was supposed to be yucky that night too. I was so sad because I hate having to put coats on over my kids costumes, but it turned out to be a very nice night.  We had our ward trunk-or-treat and the kids came away with lots of candy.  We started a new tradition this year that the kids got to eat LOTS of candy that night but as soon as we got home the picked out some candy they wanted to keep and put the rest in the magic bag.  The Great Pumpkin came that night and exchanged their candy for little gifts.  Anthony got a light saber, Jenna got a princess book and Lydia got a Pinkalichious book. They were so excited and we didn't have to go days on end of having them ask for candy every 10 minutes.  I think it worked out great.  The kids still enjoyed a lot of candy, but I kept my sanity!  It was a happy Halloween!!