Happy Christmas Season!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I know it's a little late to post this but that seems to be how we roll around here. We had a great Christmas season full of fun activities and traditions. This year I felt like we enjoyed every bit of the holiday! Here are a few pictures from the holiday season.

Concerts galore! Jake and Ethan both had band concerts. I was so sad I was unable to attend Jakes because of sick kids. I heard he did great. (Ethan took the pictures) Maybe he was being artistic- Jake is in the back-blurry- on every single picture. oh well-it makes for a memory. I did attend Ethan's and he did great. 

Ethan, Jake, and Jocelyn also did well at their piano recital. Jocelyn played "Jolly Old Saint Nicholas"

Jake played a song from Zelda, and Ethan played a Doctor Who song.

Jocelyn and Riley were cute at their schools Jingle Jam. Jocelyn sang The Reindeer Rock and Where Are You Christmas.

Riley sang I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas and a stirring rendition of the Chipmunks- Christmas, Christmas Time is Here.

Everyone picked out great ornaments this year!

Owen-Lightning McQueen, to remember his first time going to Disneyland.

Ethan-Penguin

Riley- Power Rangers

Jocelyn- A glass present with little pink beads inside.

Jake- a lego guy- we man-handled a few lego guy packages to find this one.

He was so excited when we opened the package to find the one he wanted. He doubts my power of

lego guy finder!!!???

We picked out a Mater ornament for Will since it was his first time to Disneyland also.

Ben and I always get a Santa- it's getting harder each year to find unique ones. 

This year we went to see the temple square lights with our good friends, the Hills. We started of with a rocky dinner at Chick Fil A. I was ready to bail out on the lights. I was glad we didn't. It was cold- very cold but we had a good time. I think the best part was watching Jocelyn and Andrew fight like brother and sister. Pretty cute.

It can't be Christmas without new sunday clothes. The boys looked quite dashing in new ties, shirts, and cute Will in his new sweater. I made Jocelyn a dress and she had new shoes and sweater to complete the look. Her curly hair was her idea - she looked perfect. 

                           

The next day we went to my moms to meet up with some of the cousins for the annual construction of Gingerbread houses. They didn't disappoint with their creativeness.

Jake -just startin'

The stiff frosting was pretty gross- At least Laura thought so.

I didn't get a final picture of Ethan's- he took forever- it looked great though.

Will just wandered around Grandma's house while everyone was making their houses.

Owen's house, complete with bears walking up the sides and his favorite candy-starburst on the roof.

Andy, AmyLyn, Scott, and Jen hanging out in the kitchen.

Jocelyn- partway through creative masterpiece.

Riley- Almost done.....

 Other traditions and memories were made this season also. Jocelyn helped me make fudge, dads candy was made a couple of times (eaten mostly by me!) Sugar cookies were made, decorated, and devoured, gifts were made for each other, presents were wrapped by everyone, the ward christmas party, Christmas shopping at midnight with our best friends......soooo many good memories. 

Christmas Day coming next..... 

Thanksgiving

    We spent Thanksgiving here in Utah with my side of the family. With so many of us living here in Utah- no one has a house that could accommodate all of us without feeling way cramped. We should seriously start having get togethers at the church! So that being said...This year the Leatham family was a house divided.  My sister Laura and my brother Bob, and their families came to my home for the festivities. We had a great time. Tons of food- everything a Thanksgiving dinner is and then some- the pies were awesome! YUM! It was so fun to sit around and talk and play games while the kids ran around, inside and outside. They watched movies, played wii games and those cute little boy cousins followed Ethan and Jake around while they were shootin' their sling shots. It was so nice to have the cute girl cousins follow Will around and keep him entertained. I actually got to play a game! It was a really good Thanksgiving- everyone happy and enjoying themselves- no stress- and even a good prank made it's way into the day.

The "grown-up' table. Nothing fancy. Simple. 

The kids table. I found the cutest table cloth that had activities printed all over for the kids to be entertained while final preparations were being made. The kids loved it and kept them busy.

Poor Bob! Just after he had filled his plate and sat down, Cole had a blow out diaper. So while he was off changing it, we took advantage of swapping out his dinner for a bowl of Lemon jello. My mom has made this salad every year for Thanksgiving and Christmas for as long as I can remember. I don't mind the salad-I still like it. As for Bob, he hates it! So after talking with Laura the night before, we devised a plan to make him his own mini salad. It just happened so perfectly. What a good baby Cole was to help out with the execution. 

Games!

Great cousins!

Yummy Pie!

More cute cousins!

More yummy pie!

Cute little babies!

After all the fun and festivities, Laura and I went out and had some fun Black friday shopping. We found some great deals and were back home by midnight. It really was a great Thanksgiving!

Newest Member

Jocelyn was baptized on the 3rd of November.  What a sweet girl! She looked beautiful in her new white dress. She was so nervous and excited. The program went smoothly with some great talks (one of them was mine!) and cute primary songs. I love primary songs- Jocelyn picked "I love to see the Temple". Ben baptized and confirmed her. Soon after we went back to our home for some sweet desserts and to visit. We loved sharing the day with our large family. I love spirit that a baptism can bring into our family.

This was almost the whole family- Bonnie and her family had already snuck away!

Here are a few pictures I was able to take- I hope to get some better ones soon. We took these quite quickly when we were picking up Ben's mom at the temple. I didn't have a whole lot of time- oh well. Some of them turned out cute. I sooo need Scott to take some better ones!

Mummy,and monkey, and bat, OH MY!

Halloween is one of our most favorite times of the year here at the Allen house. And while I thought of just skipping this post and trying to catch up with other ones, I just knew I couldn't. We love Halloween. So, after returning from Disneyland my schedule was a whirlwind with costumes, birthday and party, and a baptism dress to sew, and .... the list went on and on. I was a little stressed at making costumes with everything else that was going on, but it all turned out. The kids picked some great costumes and I must say they looked pretty cute. The night was great for tick or treating - weather was perfect and Ben's mom stayed at our house to hand out candy. Which meant that for the first time in years I went out with the kids and Ben. It was fun. They returned home with full bags and happy faces. The candy was gone in a week! Thank goodness! I must say that Will was the best sport in that he just sat in his stroller the whole time and was content at just watching all the cute kids around him. What a good Monkey!

Riley was finally able to be a red power ranger (I was quick this year and bought his costume I think in august.) 

Jocelyn couldn't decide between a donut or a mummy. I think the donut would have been easier to make. She played a great mummy!

Cute Will! Brought back memories of when Ethan wore this on his first trick or treating night- 13 years ago- OH MY! Will is now addicted to suckers!

Months ago Owen watched Diego Halloween. Diego was a bat. Owen had to be a bat. Not batman- he will correct you! His costume was easy to make- thank goodness! He wore it a lot!

Not the greatest picture of our pumpkins but carving was fun- the boys were introduced to power tools and creativity was endless. Grandma even carved a pumpkin- her first in many, many years, she said.

Oh, Bens last minute costume, that won him a hundred bucks at work. The night before I sent him to Smiths and he returned with zombie attire. not so unique these days but add the pfizer test sticker and those awesome zombie shoes and he was a winner! Yeah for a free date night!

As for Ethan and Jake, they  went out with a large group of friends and had what sounded like a good time. Their bags at least looked like they had a good time. Full size candy bars and sodas. People were generous this year! What a great night for all of us.  

Party Time!

It's been a few years since Jocelyn has had a birthday party. So this year I promised she could have one. We chose a cupcake theme. The girls had fun playing games and decorating cupcakes. Jocelyn has really great friends and she received thoughtful gifts. She's such a lucky girl! Each of those cute girls went home with some cupcake party favors and and apron. They loved them! 

Eight is totally GREAT!

My sweet Jocelyn turned eight! I can't believe it. She's growing up and I am sad. I want her to stay little. I love doing her hair and making her dresses and listening to girl chatter (OK maybe not ALL the time), but I do love it. I also love that she is social. She has lots of friends and wants to play ALL THE TIME! She is also great with Owen, playing countless games of "puppy and person". She always is asking to help out but for some reason hates to clean her room- go figure! She is starting to get really good with playing the piano even though she struggles with practicing. Although it is hard to watch her grow, she's turning into such a great little lady.

We decorated her door with streamers before she woke up!

She couldn't decide what kind of cake she wanted, except for the flavor, strawberry. So I decided that a little bit of glitter and pearls would be cute. She loved how her cake turned out and I was happy with her reaction. I don't proclaim to be the best cake decorator but I like to make my kids happy with their birthday cakes. Jocelyn received a new set of scriptures (which she started reading that night) and a CTR necklace for her birthday. What a happy girl! It was so hard for her to wait the 2 weeks to her baptism.

Soccer!

 The season of soccer ended mid October with mixed emotions. Yeah for having my Saturdays back and Tuesday nights are going to be quiet again but I'm kinda sad. Jocelyn and Jake had a great season. They played hard and did amazing. Both of them have come a long way. Funny that both of them are goalies for their teams. So now we will enjoy the quiet (Ha - is it ever quiet around here?) until Spring session starts up again.

Jocelyn was such a tough goalie- during one game the ball was kicked into her face. A really bad bloody nose followed. Once it was cleaned up, she was back in the game. She was a little nervous that she would get hit in the face again but was still aggressive.

    

Jake was really excited about soccer this year and as soon as he found out he was goalie, he used his own money to purchase goalie gloves. He worked really hard at practicing his moves and they paid off.