Christmas Eve

I love spending Christmas Eve at my Grandma Genny's house. It is truly an event. We have multiple traditions that I look forward to every year. It just wouldn't be Christmas without the pipe chimes. I love this picture of Ty with my Grandma Kay. He is a social kid and loves people.

After a big dinner we always read the Christmas story from the bible. When the cousins were younger we used to dress up as Mary, Joseph and the shepards. This year my cousin Dan played Christmas Carols on his guitar. Good times....

It actually takes a bit of focus to play the Christmas chimes. Everybody watches the chart waiting for their number to come up, so they can bang their chime. We play a dozen or so Christmas carols. I love it.

Yep, I love the chimes.

Christmas Trees

Grandma Genny's tree with red lights.

My mom's santa tree.

Grandma Hauser's tree.

Our massive live Christmas tree, it dwarfs Tyson.

Temple Square

I love our annual trip to Temple Square. We ate at the Garden Restaurant at the top of the Joseph Smith Memorial building for the third year in a row. I really like this new tradition. We ate fried pickles and creme brulee (along with dinner) and then headed outside. It can get so cold looking at the lights that it is nice to be toasty warm when you get started.

Tyson wanted to dance again. He has an incredible memory and had remembered dancing in one of the ballrooms last year. We peeked and there were people in it so he insisted on dancing on the sidewalk.

We had a nice sister missionary stop and talk to us on the way in and she volunteered to take some pictures. She was cute and tried to get creative. She turned off the flash for the red one. I know it's blurry, but its still kind of fun.

JDRF Gingerbread Festival

We got to do something really great the day after Thanksgiving. JDRF (junior diabetes research foundation) is holding a fundraiser at the Grand America Hotel. The have the courtyard done up in thousands of lights with a big Christmas tree. We went the night they kicked it off, so we had free hot chocolate, scones and yummy roasted nuts. The courtyard felt very festive and special. We walked around and looked at giant gingerbread houses they are silently auctioning off. They are pretty amazing. The boys got to decorate gingerbread cookies and see the presidential suite all decorated with teddy bears. It was neat event, I am looking forward to going again next year.

Gingerbread Houses

It's always fun to get together with the Hauser girls and make our gingerbread houses. It's amazing what a giant mess we make while we are in the process of building the houses. I love this picture because it shows all the chaos. This is the first year my kids made big ones, in the past they have done graham cracker houses.
Tyson was really into it. He took his time and did a really great job. He is a University of Utah fan, so he put a big U on the roof of his house. His cousin and Hayden both had Y's on theirs.

Hayden was super excited about the army stuff their aunt brought to put on the houses. I think his turned out fun.

I am still not sure about the candy canes on the edge of my roof. It either looks like a pagoda or a handlebar mustache.

Thanksgiving Celebrations

I love Thanksgiving and all the fun traditions that we have. We get to have dinner with both sides of the family, which makes for a very busy day, but I wouldn't change it. In the past we have gone bowling after dinner at my Grandma Genny's. This year so many of us had busy Thanksgiving days that we decided to go bowling the weekend before. We had a great time. My boys really like to bowl. Hayden isn't using the ramp as much and is starting to knock pins down on his own. He holds the ball overhanded. When he throws it, it doesn't hit the lane for about ten feet. It's pretty fun to watch.

We had our first dinner at Grandma Genny's. I always look forward to holidays at my grandma's house. We have a lot of fun traditions, including the turkey egg hunt the kids do every year.
Time has been flying by lately. Thanksgiving came and went in a blur. I had worked the previous two nights and was overwhelmed trying to get my own house in shape for the Hauser family dinner that was being held there. I tried to be super organized and have everything ready by Tuesday when I left for work. Working twelve hour overnight shifts can be challenging. My boys can take care of themselves pretty well, but when I wake up it looks like a hurricane has hit my house. They did better this week and Chad really pitched in, too. We managed to fit everyone into our tiny house and had a really nice, noisy dinner. I ended up falling asleep around 5:30 with a house full of people and heading back to work that night. Crazy week....

Meeting Phynley

Jana and Stephen had the cutest baby girl a few weeks ago. The boys thought it was pretty special to hold their brand new cousin. She's the first little baby Ty remembers being able to hold, which made it even better for him.

Halloween

We go see the witches at Gardner Village every year. This year my boys actually asked me to take them there before I even mentioned it. Tyson's favorite is the witch in the outhouse. It was sad but, they seem to be getting a bit old for this. They were very tolerant while we walked around, but I could tell they waiting for it to be time for the candy store. Oh well, at least it's an excuse to get yummy fudge.

They had fun at Grandma B's party. They got a kick out of the donuts hanging on a string.

These are our super scary pumpkins. Tyson really got into creating his pumpkin this year. He loved cleaning out the guts and designing his vampire face. The pumpkin guts grossed Hayden out, and he would barely touch them. The giant pumpkin came from Chad's sisters garden, it was so big I could hardly move it.

The boys dressed up as Harry Potter and a Bakugon trainer.

I made our traditional dinner of meatloaf with mashed potato ghosties and sweet potato pumpkins. Yummy.

Once again,way too much candy from trick or treating.

The Green Dragons

Tyson played soccer again this fall with the Green Dragons (formerly the Red Dragons). He really liked it that his dad helped coach the team. His favorite part is still getting treats at the end of the game.

The Green Dragons in their diamond.

The SLC Library

Every once in a while I just need to go downtown. We had never been to the big library (surprisingly) so we decided to go there. We took trax, and pretended we were on a trip. We explored the building, got snacks and headed to the top. It was unexpectedly beautiful. The boys had fun climbing the steps and just being outside on one of the last warm days of the season.

Hayden's Fall

Hayden is in third grade this year. Whenever I ask him how school was he shrugs and then tells me all about football at recess. I think he would play sports all day if he could.
He played flag football with a bunch of boys from his school. He absolutely loved it. It's fun to watch his face light up and for him to get excited about something.

This is a picture of Hayden's play. They ran it during every game. The center snapped him the ball and he ran around the side. He scored his first touchdown this year.

He also played soccer again. It's the same group of boys that played on his football team, so that made it fun. He just likes being part of a team.

He is getting involved in scouting with the ward boys. This picture is when he earned his bobcat award. It's fun to watch him grow up and become more independent.

A Day at the Circus

Last weekend Grammy took my boys and two of their cousins to the circus. They even got to ride the school train (Trax) into Salt Lake, which they always love. I sent the camera with Hayden and he took a few pictures, they are a little blurry, but I love them. When they got back in the car with me at the end of the day they talked and talked about the things they saw. They told me about the elephants, tigers, tightrope walkers, clowns and the human cannon ball. I am a big believer that life is more about the experiences you have than the tangible things you own. I am glad they got to experience this with their Grammy.

The Peach Pie Party

My Grandma makes the best peach pie in the world! Early in the fall every year we have a party just to eat pie. She has a special recipe that she has developed over the years and it is fabulous. I look forward to it just like Christmas.

Welcome Home Robby

Last week my youngest brother Robby came home from his mission and we went to the airport meet him. He had been serving in Tuscan, Arizona. The boys made signs, I helped them with the spelling, but they designed the rest. It was fun to have all my siblings together again. We went to Mimi's for lunch then headed back to my parents house for while. At one point during the day both my brothers, my sister, my mom, my kids and me went to the mall to find Robby new clothes. I'm sure we were quite a sight at Express Mens. It's good to have him home.

High fiving my grandma.

We found this fun little donut shop in Draper called Beyond Glazed that sells gourmet donuts. My sister had been wanting to try all twenty four flavors, so she brought two dozen donuts to my parents house and we spent the day cutting off bite size pieces. Yum.