These are a few of my favorite things!

Every year when I decorate for Christmas I get all nostalgic and think about how each of my favorite decorations came about. I love decorating and so I thought it would be fun to share a few of my most favorite decorations that are now decking my halls.

This is the candelabra that I haven't bought candles for yet. When I was growing up we always had dinner by candelight in December. My parents gave us these a few years ago and we love having candelight dinners for the month! The kids also love taking turns lighting them and blowing them out!

This isn't really a decoration because I have to hide it under my bed to keep it from Kate and Rocky. But it is special because it is an important tradition. My Grandma Strebel started it when I was little and then my Mom did it when I started having kids. After she died my Dad decided he would carry on the tradition himself. There is a bag for each day of December with a little goody or treat inside and the kids just love it! My Dad has totally outdone himself with the treats and he bought these cute new boxes this year.

This is my luminary for Phil. He made the picture in the middle and I wanted to make it more of a focus point this year so I added the candles on either side.

I love my tree that is full of ornaments from my girlfriends. I love taking them out each year knowing that my friends have the same ornaments on their trees. However, my favorite ornament is the one of my Mom and I also love my star that I made 11 years ago out of cardstock and twine. It has held up great and people always ask me where I got it!

I just love this spot. The stocking are the first ones that Richard and I had when we first got married.

This little quilting project is in my entry way and it is special to me because my Mom helped me make it at a Relief Society Super Saturday. I didn't know what I was doing and she helped me step by step and I think it is so darling!

I love my stockings (I got the pattern from Julianne, so I'm sure she has the same ones!) that I cross stitched. I love to do needlework and I worked on them each time I was pregnant.

I had to do a close up so you could see the details a little better.

These are all my nativity sets. I never tried to collect them, but these have all been given to me over the years and I love setting them up on the piano and having it be the true meaning of Christmas spot in our house.

This is the Nativity Set that Landon made when he was like 5 years old. He made it one night with a babysitter after I had given them some supplies- isn't it fun?

This is my favorite craft project. I have done ones for Halloween and Thanksgiving as well and they turn out super cute! It is just scrapbook paper mod podged onto a metal star! So fun and cute!

This is the advent calendar my Mom made. I can't even fathom the amount of work that went into it. But I love it because she made it and the kids love putting another ornament on the tree each day.

This is the house that Layne Huff made me years ago. She made it out of cardstock and it is a little replica of our house. I love it and I always think of when they used to live by us and we would get together and eat good food and sing Gift of Love and Alfred Burt Carols with Richard and John. Then Layne and I would play Ruloph, Sleigh Ride and Petersburger Schlittenfahrt duets on the piano.

Thanksgiving weekend

Sometimes I love it when the kids are out of school. I love having no schedule, not having to teach piano, being lazy in the mornings (oh wait, I'm always lazy in the morning!) and just hanging out. We started off the week with my piano recital. I teach my 3 oldest kids and they all did a super job- I was very proud of them! We checked the kids out early on Tuesday to avoid the BIG STORM! that never came as we went to visit friends in Payson. So we took them to Sizzler for dinner that night and pretended there was a blizzard. Wednesday the kids and I went to Harry Potter (Richard and I went first on Saturday so I got to see it twice!) and we all loved it and can hardly wait for the next movie! Thursday we went to my Dads for dinner and we had a great time! My Dad makes everything so special still! Friday we went to Cabela's and bowling and had another fun day together. Saturday was spent in Mt. Pleasant with Richards family where we shot guns, had dinner and attended the lighting of Main Street event- freezing cold! Landon and Daniel were awesome shooters- they were hitting moving targets from a thrower and they were spot on! We were really proud of them and they loved it. Here are some picture highlights - I forgot my camera on Thanksgiving Day. :(

Landon, Emma and Daniel before the recital. I should have taken one with their teacher!

The fish tanks at Cabelas

Sometimes these kids act just like these wild animals!

Kate stayed in the car during shooting watching Tinkerbell and staying nice and warm!

Daniel and Riley

Emma and Addi

Grandpa giving Landon some pointers

Landon and Richard

The very cold hay ride- it got much colder after the sun went down!

My funny girls

Last night I was giving Kate a bath and I started washing her body. I said, "let's wash your privates so we can be all clean."

Kate: "Pivates....cary."

Mom: "No, no...privates aren't scary!"

Kate: obviously trying to get her point across, "pivates...cary! Cary pivates!.....Aaaargh!"

And then she made a PIRATE face, like the one you see here! I was laughing so hard. Yeah, don't really want to get those confused.

Emma has been spending much of her time making these flyers. Hundreds of them. She cut them all out individually and is writing each one individually. I'm not sure anyone will hire her (except me) and I told her we don't even know as many people as she has flyers, but she persists. Oh well, it keeps her busy. Anyone need a cheap babysitter?

Happy Fall

Wasn't the weather last week wonderful? Usually I am ready for the cold, wet weather, but this year I would be happy to stay at 60 degrees for a lot longer!

Look how big Rocky is getting! Now that it's cold I feel all bad for him and we will probably let him sleep in the laundry room.

Love these kids!

This was at the Reflections Award Night. Kate has loved this darling Abby Cadabby costume that Aunt Emily made for her. She had to wear it to the school!

We were proud of Daniel for getting a trophy this year. He was SO excited because Landon has won trophies before, but this was Daniel's special award! He wood burned his picture for the Reflections contest!

On a totally different note, I cannot begin to tell you how bad it hurts to drop a can of soup on your bare foot from counter height. And yet......I just did.

Halloween 2010

We had a good Halloween, despite the cold, rainy weather. I always like it so much better when its warm and dry. The kids had parades and parties on Friday and we went to our ward Trunk or Treat on Saturday. Most wards do it a few days before, but not ours (I don't like this). We went late so we wouldn't eat dinner because we wanted to eat at Grandpas, we had to leave before the actual Trunk or Treating began. We had to make a decision- stay at the church or head up to Grandpas. The kids chose Grandpas. My Dad made chili (from scratch!) that was most excellent and witches brew and had the tables all set cute and decorated. He's so great! We had fun Trick or Treating around his neighborhood with cousins. Daniel held up his bag after about 15 houses and said, "Look how much candy I've got! This is awesome!" I'm so glad that my kids felt like they got a lot of candy, because they really didn't, and they were happy with it! Landon and Daniel bet Richard they could go for a full week with no candy, treats or sweets. They have both done it and will be paid on Sunday if they can keep it up! Emma chose not to participate- shocker!

Kate was a beautiful Snow White- this is a re-staging (hence the purple plaid) because the real Halloween day picture was unable to join the blog.

Daniel was a spooky skeleton

Our lovely pumpkin carvings

Aloha!

Cousins ready for Trick or Treating at Grandpas

Emma was Jasmine, even though she insists that she doesn't like Princesses anymore.

This costume was a big hit. It was not easy to make, but I think it turned out great!

Jake and Traci were the perfect Barbie and Ken!

Katelyn turns 2!

Kate turned 2 on Wednesday, October 27th. She loved her presents (especially ripping off the paper!) and her special dinner of hot dog mummies and mac n' cheese and her fancy cake (brownies). The highlight of her day was her haircut. I took her to Cookie Cutters and she thought it was great! I know I could never have gotten her to hold still for me! She has really grown up in the last little while and she brings so much joy to our family. Here are some of the things we love about Kate:

*She gives awesome hugs and kisses. Sometimes her kisses are so long it makes us a bit uncomfortable!

*She is starting to talk in sentences and it is so fun to hear the things she says.

*She is funny- she makes silly faces and noises all the time. She makes us laugh on a daily basis.

*She finally is a great sleeper! Yahoo!

*She is a real princess and she knows it. She changes (brings me dress ups to change her into) her dress a few times a day and walks around dancing and saying, "I princess!"

*She is always so excited to see Daddy and loves it when he comes home.

*She definately adds spice to our family and we love her to pieces!

We let her blow out the candles 5 or 6 times because she loved it so much!

Isn't her hair cute? It was getting so long and stringy, I love how it looks now!

In the morning (pre haircut) riding her new Princess bike and wearing her new boots!

She is my princess baby! We love you Katers!

California

We got back from our wonderful vacation on Sunday. Before my Mom died she told my Dad she wanted to give each of her kids some of the life insurance money. We decided to spend ours making family memories. I felt like it was something she would have loved us to do and the memories I made with my parents and siblings on family vacations are some of my most treasured. So I really felt like this trip was a "gift" from my Mom. We stayed the first night in St. George and did 4 days at Disneyland with a beach day in the middle. We also went to Medieval Times on our beach day. Its a dinner show with horses, knights, jousting, fighting, etc. and the kids loved it! It was overcast, cool and rainy most of the time, but that didn't stop us from having a great time! We drove the whole way home on Saturday- holy cow! I didn't think we could do the drive all in one day, but we did and we all survived! We had a great time and loved being together. Here are picture highlights of our trip, even though many moments were not captured in pictures- like the ferris wheel at California Adventure where Daniel was in tears, convinced we were going to die, Emma was also crying and Landon was nervous (scared) laughing. All I could do was laugh so hard- it was seriously hilarious! And now we are back to real life! Not nearly as much fun!

Disneyland is so cute at Halloween time!

The boys on Pirates

The girls on Pirates

Kate loves princesses and since Tiana's line was short we decided to take the photo opportunity!

The happiest place on earth!

Kate was holding on to Richard very tight, and I love Richards face- what a great Daddy!

Teacups- the kids loved to spin. The parents, not so much.

I love Richards face in this!

.......and this!

No spinning for me! Blugh!

Our cold, but still fun, day at the beach. It was only like 62 degrees!

Kate thought it was great!

Precious!

Funny Dan man!

Feed the birds, tuppence a bag

The birds were literally eating out of our hands

Medieval Times- the kids loved it!

Getting ready for the yummy dinner and show

Dumbo!

Why buy a hat when you can just try one on and take a picture!

Kate loved all the characters!

I love Disneyland ice cream! My favorite is the chocolate covered bananas, and the Tiki Room Dole pineapple soft serve! Num!

California adventure- I love that Landon is on the phone trying to find Richard.

Toy Story was a great new ride and we loved it!

Richard likes to call this picture Mickey Mouth

"L" for Landon

"L" is for Danie"l"

"A" is for Emm"a"

The last time I took a picture here was with my Mom

Happy Disney Halloween