Katelyn goes to Texas!

Earlier in the week (Wednesday) I took Katelyn to the SLC airport so she could go visit Texas!  That was her Christmas present.  It was kind of bitter-sweet because that meant she would not be here to spend time with us for several days, but I know she had been looking forward to visiting her mission!  I think she was a little intimidated to go off by herself (she had to rent a car and everything!) but I felt confident she could do it, and she did!  She did great! .....found her way around Texas for 4 days and visited with lots of people and  made arrangements with people to stay at their houses.  I went back to SLC Sunday morning to pick her up and she said it was a great trip, but she was exhausted!

Katelyn brought us some pan dulce from Texas!

Last family run of the year!

On Saturday we went on a family run (except Katelyn who was in Texas!  more on that later).  We went on the Bonneville Shoreline trail.  It was right at sunset and the views were gorgeous!

 

 Griffin is the only one as slow as me, so he got to be my running buddy!

winter fun

I took he kids cross country skiing on Tuesday.  I LOVE that we live so close to so many great places to go.  We headed up Green Canyon.  It was a beautiful day!

Someone had wrapped this pole like a candy cane and put a bucket of candy canes by it.  Griffin climbed the hill to get some for everyone!

Christmas 2017

The kids still get excited for Christmas morning, but thank goodness they don't get up super early!  I got a few shots of them opening presents.

And Griffin playing with one of his presents...it's a remote control vehicle that you build yourself.  He loved it!

I was super excited to receive a mess kit for backpacking!  My sister, Jalene, had one of these on our sister's trip and I loved it, so requested one for Christmas.  yay!

Then, the best part of the day . . . our Skype call with ETHAN!!!!  It was so good to talk to him.  He is doing great!  And we're down to about 7 months!!

Christmas Eve!

Sunday evening (Christmas Eve) we drove around and looked at Christmas lights.  We found a google maps map that someone had made.  They had pinned all the cool houses in Cache Valley.  We mostly drove around the south end and found some great houses!  My favorite was one where you tune your car radio to a channel and listen while you watch.  A cute little family had recorded themselves reading the nativity and had beautiful songs play after each section of talking.  It ended with the prophet's testimony of the savior followed by the family's.  I loved it!

We came home from driving around looking at Christmas lights to a bit of a dusting of snow and Katelyn decided she needed to make a snow angel on the sidewalk. haha

then the kids wanted to go cross country skiing.  So they did.

We finally got them inside for our shepherd's dinner and a performance of the nativity.  Not our classiest ever...haha  But at least everyone will still participate!

 

Some random December . . .

One of Katelyn's projects from her art class.  So cool!

Interesting gifts from the young men/young women white elephant gift exchange at church.

Carson's sewing project.... he told me he wanted to make some a pajama short onesie.  So we did.  I love this kid.  haha

We got a nice snow fall the Saturday before Christmas. 

Sitting on the back porch watching it snow!

 After Clint finished plowing, he and Griffin made a snow fort.  It was the perfect packing snow!

The end of the gingerbread

For some reason, Griffin decided he needed to smash his gingerbread house, and Carson decided it needed to be recorded.

Griffin's "eggs"periment hahaha

Another experiment from his science class that Griffin wanted to try at home.....he left one egg in vinegar for a couple of days and it's shell dissolved, then he left it in water for a couple of more days and it expanded.

His vinegar egg on the bottom, and a regular egg on the top.  It felt so cool!

Then he and Carson decided it would be fun to take it outside and break it.  I think it wasn't nearly as exciting as they had hoped. haha

Gingerbread Houses

Griffin mentioned that he wanted to do real gingerbread this year at Grandma's, so I told him I would make it. Saturday I spent a bunch of the day making gingerbread for everybody.  I called my sister, Jalene, to get some tips and she sent me over some instructions and templates.  I thought they turned out good and the house smelled great! 

Sunday after church we went out to Grandma and Grandpa's for dinner, and then made our gingerbread houses. I love that my mom still puts up all of our childhood stockings!  It makes my heart happy.

 Clint and Grandpa even got in on the action and decorated gingerbread men!  It was a lot of fun!

And here's a little clip of Emily singing for us....I think it is a song she is singing at church, but don't quote me on that.