Hudson Holiday Lights

We went to another night of fun! We drove down to Denver and went to the Hudson Holiday Lights. It was at the Hudson Gardens and Event Center. All I can say is...WAY FUN! It was fun walking around the gardens and seeing all the light displays. They had a cool house that was hooked up to music and different parts of the lights played with different parts of the songs. Kids loved it...and most of all, we went with our friends! They were such good sports about trekking and waiting for us with our 4 kids. (oh, and they have twin baby girls) We actually went to dinner and made a fun night out of it all. And, we got the tickets 1/2 price. Such a great night...have to do it again.

Girl Scouts & Ethan's Program

Ethan had a Polar Express program. He got to wear his pajamas to school and had a little program. He was so cute and did a great job! They sang Rudolf the red nosed reindeer and had cute little red noses. They had a surprise for the kids and Santa came! Ethan got to see Santa twice this year! He is asking for a Ninja costume for Christmas.

Emery sang at a nursing home with Girl Scouts. Just last month we signed her up for Girl Scouts. She loves it and I know we'll be doing a lot of fun things with the Daisy group. In January, she starts selling cookies. She also did a great job in her performance. She sang 10 songs, smiled and made eye contact with the audience.

Zoo Lights

Thoughts before I get started: (1) Can I say how grateful I am for cabbage leaves! (2) Was having a "rough" evening and Jac talked to Emery on the phone and the kids had me lay on the couch while they massaged and brushed my hair. I'm so grateful for my beautiful children. Emmy took care of Miles and then I felt very loved while Emmy massaged my back, Ethan brushed my hair and Miles was shoving pretzels into my mouth. And to top it off, Jac came home with flowers and donuts. Mmmm...(3) I love singing Christmas songs in church. We sang 2 closing hymns, and I loved the second song we sang "Silent Night." I love how in hymns you can truly share your testimony by singing. The Spirit touched my heart about the Savior and his divine plan for all of us. He is real. He loves us. And I love this Christmas season and may we reflect on His "gifts" to all of us.

At the last minute, we got invited to go see the Zoo Lights with our friends. They had a Zoo membership so....we got a little bit of a discount. Yea! It was just so fun! The kids got to see lights, some zoo animals and got to sit on Santa's lap.

Mickey D's

Jac went up with some of his co-workers and go skiing. It was for one night and a day....but still, that gave me the excuse to go out to eat. I talked with my friend and we promised each other that we would meet each other at the playground at McDonalds.

I was on my way to McDonalds and realized that there was no playground at this particular McDonalds. So I got my handy GPS and searched for McDonalds Playland. It popped another McDonalds restaurant up close-by so I followed "Gabby's" voice and made it there. (yes we call the voice on our GPS - Gabby - or as Jac puts it Gabby Google) And Yet...another McDonalds without a playland. It was late, kids were hungry and I was grumpy. We ate there.

Gathered all the kids up, got all their food, got their drinks, got into their seats at the table, was holding Miles on my lap and Presters needed to use the bathroom. AaAh...never a quiet moment...to sit down and enjoy the meal without getting up 20 times. Anyway, got Presters situated and we were all a little happier now that we were eating.

The cashier who took our order came up to us and gave me a gift card to McDonalds and said that the person who was giving this to you wanted to let you know that you had a beautiful family. Talk about how sweet and generous!!! After this incident, my burden was lightened. Thank you!!

Emery's loose tooth

It is interesting to Emery to check every night to see how many loose teeth she has. (it was always about 4 teeth that were loose)

Yesterday I picked her up from school and her top tooth was VERY loose. She wanted to pull on it and take it out. I told her to keep wiggling it, and it will get really loose.

Needless to say, she was OBSESSED about pulling her tooth out. She would take streams of toilet paper and wrap it around her tooth to try and pull it out. (quite funny) At bed time, she sat herself in front of the mirror and was determined to pull her tooth out. She got it so it was bleeding a little bit, and she freaked out every time she saw blood. But she didn't mind twisting her loose tooth sideways in her mouth and making funny faces. Finally, when we all gave up...there was a little voice in the bathroom that said, "I pulled it out. See, I told you it would come out." (yes, a little fact about Emery...she likes to prove her point ALWAYS...some might say she argues about "almost" everything...and this is the case...even if she is wrong) I sure do love my sweet pea.

The tooth fairy came and left her 50 cents...and Emery was thrilled!

Movember

Jac did Movember with his co-workers for the month of November. It is a charity kind of thing to bring awareness about men's prostate cancer...and they grow their beards out for the month of November. It has been the only time where I willingly let Jac grow out his facial hair. It was fun seeing him grow it out...but after the whole month...I don't like it. I didn't like kissing him: too scratchy! But to be honest, after he shaved it off after the month - it took some time getting used to his "baby face" again. But now I'm glad that I can kiss my sweetie without getting scratched!

Many faces of Jac:

Early Beard

Untrimmed Stache and beard

Goatee

Handlebar

Stache

Can I have a New Years Resolution yet?

I have thought of my New Years Resolution and that is....write in my blog once a week. I have neglected writing, and have found that I have been missing a lot of the "going-on's" that happen around here.

So even if it is a week loads worth....at least I'm writing...and my sister Morgan won't be mad at me. =)

This week's "going-on's"

Relief Society Meeting: In my ward, I'm the Relief Society Meeting Coordinator. So for our holiday meeting we decided to base it off the book "The Hundred Dresses." It was a fun idea and it actually turned out really well. We, of course, had a nice dinner. We had a speaker do a slide show of the book, then had some songs and then had another speaker talk about how this book relates to her in her life and focused it around Jesus. We did this enrichment with another ward. My ward was in charge of the decorations. Here is some...not so good pics of the evening. I couldn't have done it all by myself. Thank you so much for everyone that made it possible to have a beautiful night!

Christmas Tree: This year we decided to get a fake tree - since we are renting, less we have to worry about: needles and fire hazard. I hit a Black Friday sale and got a lit tree for way cheap. Isn't our tree beautiful!

Christmas package: We got a package from Grandma! Thank you Mom!!! There was several presents that were labeled "Open Now." We got advent calendars - which I'm really excited about...couldn't find them anywhere...so thanks Mom! And a fun hat that jingles to "Jingle Bells" music.

Haha...these just make me laugh!

This is a Halloween Photo Gallery

Halloween was fun! Miles was a bumblebee, Preston was Optimus Prime, Ethan was Bumblebee the transformer and Emery was Toph from Avatar:The Last Airbender. We went and picked pumpkins from the pumpkin patch. The kids had a blast carving them. We also had a kids Halloween party at our house. We did skeleton necklaces, Halloween bingo, a donut eating contest and had fun with our friends. On Halloween, we had several couples over and had chili. It was fun! Can't wait till Halloween next year.