More Joys of the Season....

Just a few more things that filled our lives during the Christmas season before Christmas actually arrived.

This years Christmas Ornaments. Ethan- as always a snowman, Jake- as always some star wars guy, Jocelyn this year picked a candy, Riley- picked out a cute race car, and Owen not having a choice yet but still liking his ornament, got a gingerbread one. Ben and I stuck with our santa theme from the first year we were married but this year while in Yellowstone we picked up a cute santa in a canoe.


The annual Jingle Jam at school gives me mixed feelings. I love to see the kids sing but uugghhh!, the parking, my other 2 kids not in school yet being completely bored, the other crazy parents trying to get photos of their kids, and not to mention that it's during naptime and usually the millionth time I've been to school that week. (yes just a little exaggerating, just let me have it!) This year was no exception as well as my three kids were the last three to sing! Owen was losing it by then but it was still fun to see the kids sing. Jakers was less than enthused. Ethan is in choir anyway- he loves to sing-all day!. Jocelyn was soooo excited to finally participate and looked quite worried until she found me in the audience. They all did great! and yes, I did enjoy it. What parent doesn't?




The kids have been practicing hard this year for their piano recitals and did great. Jocelyn was so cute and nervous. She did great. i love her cute little ughs she does when she messes up and starts again. It brought back flash backs from the primary program last year. This time when the chuckles from the audience started she carried on!- No tears! I was so glad! Jocelyn played We wish you a Merry Christmas, Ethan played Carol of the Bells, and Jake played Deck the Halls. I must admit I have loved listening to them practice and become really great at these pieces. i think it also gets them excited to play every day pieces. Jocelyn has since learned "I love to see the temple" yeah to not having to remind them to practice!




Gingerbread houses with the cousins were done again this year at Grandmas house. The kids had fun decorating and devouring their candies. Owen ate his entire house- crackers included, just after we got home. The other kids unfortunately took days to eat theirs. Once I started baking for Christmas dinner they were tossed out!






This year I procrastinated on Christmas church clothes for the kids. Luckily it all came together in the end. Yes, I did make Jocelyns dress and I don't think I will make one like this at the last minute again. It was a little involved and not just the simple dress pattern. It didn't help that the company I ordered the nylon from made an error in my order, but were nice enough to 2 day ship it to me, Thank goodness! She loved it and that's all that counts!

'Tis the season

Jam-packed already, the holidays have been in full swing at our crazy house since before we left for Washington for Thanksgiving. I was determined not to get behind this year and have done fairly well so far. The weekend before Thanksgiving, we headed up for our annual trek to find the perfect Christmas tree ( a little less dramatic than the Griswalds process might I add) Ben and for the first time, the older boys headed up into the woods while the three little kids and I stayed behind to sled and have fun. Fun was had - Jocelyn and Riley found a great hill to sled on and eventually Owen got in on the action. Riley was our one casualty with a few scrapes from a crash - nothing that a few snacks and hot chocolate couldn't cure! It didn't take long before the boys returned with a great tree and joined us in a little fun before we headed home to sink our perfect tree into a large bucket of water in the garage. Decorating was going to wait till after our vacation.









The first week of December, Ethan had a choir concert at the Joseph Smith Memorial building so to make the best of it we also walked around temple square and enjoyed the lights and nativity. It was a great night - a little rainy but not crowded and not too cold. As always we went out to eat and I headed to work while Ben took the kids home to bed. What a great husband!

The blues at Thanksgiving

Just a few highlights and photos from our ordeal of a Thanksgiving but totally worth it!


The Allen brothers at their best- watching football!




Lots of cousins to play with.


What's a Thanksgiving without olive fingers on someone?


Lots of games were played- I was even able to play a game without the kiddos around!


Melissa looking through the ads- we had fun staying up all night and I must say it was easier with the spread sheet she made- yes a spread sheet! Who would have thought? We got some great deals!


We were able to finally meet Gray. What a cutie!


Connor has grown fast and I don't mean tall!


Jakers all smiles for turkey!


As far as the ordeals- This was our weather for the drive up and back! We expected the Blues to be like this but not the whole way! Our 10 hour trip took 17 hours (thank you to eight new movies - the kids did great!) The road was closed on the way home at burley to ogden! We had to go up to pocatello- adding about 2 hours to the trip! We counted 32 slide offs, a jackknifed semi, and a pickup teetering on the edge of a guardrail! The weather was cold (-10) while we were there and Chuck and Lora may never have us back- We froze their pipes and happened to get some kind of stomach bug which most of us were throwing up! (Thank you Mcdonalds in pendelton- the half that didn't get sick had chicken. No one outside of our immediate family got sick! Also a thanks to Laurie who called to tell us that alarms were going off in our house back home! Once we made it home we were confronted with a car that wouldn't start and the alarms that tripped the breaker in the house and took some doing to get them to stop! Going to work that night was actually relaxing! So after re reading all of this and thinking back on it - yeah I would do it again. We had some great times with Ben's family and crazy enough it did feel like a vacation! So Happy Thanksgiving- two weeks late - was yours as memorable as ours?!!!!