Randy had a break from school AND work, so that meant I put him to work around the house! We finally got things done that we had been wanting to finish for a while.

  these are the projects he worked on with his free time during Christmas Break.
(written by Randy)
1) New Faucet to replace the old one that had already been fixed twice by a real plumber and still leaked.
2) Repaired drain. Turns out it was leaking too.
3) I feel like I'm always repairing a towel rack.
4) Heather wanted a new dishwasher for Christmas.
5) I finally finished fixing the kitchen floor
6) Pulled the Carpet out of the Dining Room and replaced it with laminate. Base Boards went in today. I'll finish the caulking tomorrow.
7) 2 shelves built for the storage unit

.

 

 

 hh

dd

 

 

I'm so incredibly excited to have all this done! its better than Christmas! Thanks babe

Merry Christmas!

My friend Cathy made me this awesome Diet Coke themed Christmas wreath! She is so thoughtful and sweet! It is adorable.

 Here are the kids ready for Santa to come on Christmas eve! They look really sleepy don't they? Yeah, I know, They were probably awake for at least another hour or so.

 

Happy faces and opening presents. It was a wonderful morning.

 My parents came to watch the fanfare. It is so fun to have them live so close by.

Anna and Elsa: The princesses of Christmas this year.

Have a great Holiday!

Tyler is 11!

 I have an 11 year old today! He's had a pretty awful day with the whole family (including him) being sick. Hopefully we can make it up to him. I'll never forget my little Christmas baby in his tiny Santa suit! Happy birthday Tyler! Hopfully tomorrow will prove to be a little better.

Sweet Sick Alyssa

Alyssa had been at primary children's all day today with a bad case of the croup. The poor girl had a fever of 103+ and couldn't breathe very well.

Yep, I did it again!

What in the world is wrong with me!?

I was trying to get ready for an enrichment activity and was chopping green onions. One of the kids came up to me and asked me a question. Instead of stopping the chopping, I kept going and looked up to answer the question. That's when I accidentally chopped off the end of my finger.

It hurt so bad! I finished up making my crustini's and went anyway to enrichment. I held it up to help stop the bleeding the whole time I was there. Call me crazy! Anyway, that's what happened. Randy of course, said "You're not going to have any tips left!" haha. He may be right...

Poor kid

Jacob has a good friend named Alex. He loves to play at Alex's house. Unfortunately, Alex has a lot of pets at his house. Every time Jacob goes to play, he comes home looking like this. I've learned that it is very important that I give him some Benadryl before he leaves to help with his allergic reactions. He is also told not to play with the animals. Too bad they both prefer to stay at Alex's instead of our house. Sheesh!

Ward Christmas Party aka the Bountiful Hills Express

The primary was asked to be in charge of the ward Christmas party this year. It wasn't something I wanted to take on, but, being the primary president, I didn't have a choice. I am lucky to have amazing counselors with great ideas. We had the theme of The Bountiful Hills Express,

We had four different stops on the train. But first, here is what you saw when you walked into the church. I bought a cute train stand up

 

we decorated the tracks with duct tape on the floor to show people which way to go.

 

The first stop: Bethlehem Station

 

Because the primary was in charge, we had the kids  participate in our "Angel Choir." The bishop spoke for just a couple of minutes and the kids sang as well as had bells.

Tyler was part of the bell choir. He was happy to be one of the few chosen.

 

After Bethlehem station, you could choose which stop you took next.

 

Since it was a breakfast, one of the stops was "Waffle Station" where we served waffles and hot chocolate.

 It was in the gymnasium and my counselor Cathy did a fantastic job decorating. the activity day girls helped with the centerpieces.

 The next stop: MTC station

This is where we had our service station. We had about 15 missionaries out from our ward at the time. We put their plaques on the table along with a card and a book of Mormon for each missionary. People were free to write on the Christmas card to the missionary as well as write their testimony in the Book of Mormon for the missionary to give away.

We also had a kids craft table that I did not get a picture of. It had felt Christmas ornaments that the kids could make and either keep for themselves, or give to one of the missionaries. I think this room went rather well. we had a lot of people end up participating.

 

The kids, of course, wanted to see Santa at the North pole station the most. I made this cute north pole sign.

 

Here was our setup for Santa. I think it turned out rather nice. If  I do say so myself.

I also bought a background and some props so families could take some fun Christmas photos. It was a hit!

H

 Here are my kids enjoying the pseudo photo booth

 Tyler sort of ran off and did his own thing, (he's old enough not want to hang out with his mom now!) so I didn't get any photos of him.

Here
 is Jake with Santa. I think he asked for a tablet

 Nobody was more excited to see Santa than Lily! She could hardly contain herself.

 She asked him for makeup, if I remember right.

Alyssa did NOT want to talk to Santa. I was ok with that and didn't force her to do so. 

That was our ward Christmas Breakfast! I am so thankful that it is over! Primary is really busy at the end of the year and planning a party on top of everything is really hard to do. Luckily, we got the party done at the beginning of the month, and now the REAL work begins!