Merry Christmas!

Well the big day finally came! We had a really nice Christmas this year. The kids slept in until 8:00 which was a great way to start the day. We looked at all the fun things from Santa (who thankfully didn't leave us any coal) and then my dad came & had a nice breakfast with us. Our day was so relaxed so we just took our time after that opening gifts from one another, playing with new toys, and just hanging out. I even stayed in my jammies all day! It was nice to be with just our own little family most of the day and enjoy time together. Mark's parents & sisters came over for a Turkey dinner that night & that was a nice new thing for us too instead of just snacking and eating treats all day! Here are some pics from our day...my one complaint is that I didn't know our camera lens had a fingerprint on it (thanks Josh!) so some of these look a little blurry. Oh well!

Two sisters loving their new fairytopia barbies, bibbles, and polly pockets

Could Tinkerbell be any cuter?

I must admit I was glad I could fit into my new non-maternity jammies!

Josh, Raphael, & Batman!

A sweet little bride

Mark doing the stocking thing

Holly's new Ariel dress-up

The boys working on legos

We had a great time at all the family parties and various holiday events of the Season. I lost track of how many family parties we had but they were all a lot of fun and it was nice to see loved ones we don't get to talk to very often (& even those we do!) I'm grateful for our families who do a nice job of keeping the Spirit in our celebrations. We were also very grateful to be able to help a few different sub-for-Santa families and had a great experience teaching the principle of Christmas giving to our children.

We waited to do our gingerbread houses this year until daytime on Christmas Eve and it worked really well so we may make that a new tradition...it used up lots of time & kept the kids busy and entertained while awaiting Papa Noel. I baked two real gingerbread houses so Mark and Josh did one and then the girls and I did one. I think they turned out pretty cute :-)

Eight Years Later...

So I've been so busy I never posted about our anniversary. Mark and I celebrated our 8th anniversary December 18...it's so fun to look back over those eight years and see how far we've come! It's hard to believe everything we've done, everywhere we've been, and how much we've grown (including 3.9 kids!) We feel so blessed to have such a wonderful marriage and to be living our dreams - a great job for Mark, a house, a family, Emily can stay home with the kids, lots of love and support from friends and family, and of course our testimonies and so many other blessings.

We actually celebrated our anniversary by going to the Kurt Bestor Christmas concert a few weeks ago and it was so great - as always - this is a fun tradition for us. Thanks for taking me Mark! Then on our actual anniversary we watched a video & had Martinellis & chocolate, just us without the kids...I know it doesn't seem exciting to some of you but we don't get to do that very often so for me it was very relaxing and snuggly and best of all I didn't have to put the kids to bed! Oh, and how can I forget waking up to a dozen beautiful roses and a very sweet card!!! Thanks for eight wonderful years Mark - I love you!

Happy Birthday to Me!

I was informed that it is okay to blog about your own birthday so here goes! It was yesterday and it was a fun day. Ella and I spent the morning shopping, I spent the afternoon wrapping Christmas presents, then later Mark and I had dinner at Thanksgiving Point and saw Enchanted. The kids were all really sweet to me all day - I'm glad they realized it was a good day to be nice to mommy. Mark did a great job on picking gifts this year - my favorites I have to mention are a really cute new coat and a gift certificate for a prenatal massage - WAHOO!

I so loved the movie Enchanted and can't wait to take my kids to see it. The cast was perfect, the songs were wonderful, and the story was great (just what we expect from Disney!)...I'd say it's for sure one to put on my purchase list. My only complaint is that after seeing it I had a dream last night that I had a cockroach crawling through my hair! (I've had personal experience with this from living in Vegas so I have reason to call this a nightmare!!!) It took me a while to fall back asleep after that one. Tonight we got to celebrate a little more by having dinner at my sister Janelle's...she pretty much re-created the birthday dinner I had when I was five and her fiance came to dinner - gotta love tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches! I also did a bit of shopping today and braved the dollar store for stocking stuffers and I have to say that's my least favorite part of Christmas shopping so I'm glad to have that done! I can't believe how soon Christmas will be here, but I still have one more big event before that - my anniversary is Tuesday so that will be my next blog!

Christmas-time Festivities

My how time flies! We are in the full rush of holiday festivities & having a great time...

A few things we've been up to lately: The girls and I had a fun time at the Festival of Trees - with my sister Janelle, her daughter Jessica, & Jessica's daughter Addie - it was a fun girls' outing and a great way to kick off the Christmas season. We especially loved the gingerbread village and of course all the beautiful trees. Ella loved seeing "snowman the frosty" and "Mary, Joseph, and Jesus." And of course we couldn't resist the yummy scones. It's been a fun tradition to go there every year.

We finally got our Christmas tree up and decorated too, along with our Christmas train. We've had fun building snowmen with these great last few storms, and love driving around to look at Christmas lights.

We took a fun drive up to Zermatt resort in Midway for an evening of swimming with Grandma & Grandpa Bishop - it's always a treat to get to swim in the middle of winter. I love swimming when I'm pregnant and for a few blissful minutes I felt weightless...ahhhhhh.

We had a fun time at Provo's Christmas Parade (in the falling snow) with Marian and her girls and the kids cashed in on candy there too. Santa rode on the firetruck at the end - the real Santa!

We enjoyed the Stum family Christmas party...yummy food and a cute nativity play by the kids. Josh was the narrator and did a great job reading his part!

We finally took our kids to see the lights on Temple Square - a first for all of them. We bundled up good and managed to stay warm. They loved it and thought it was pretty magical - the nativity, the floating lights on the water & the all the amazing red lights on the Cedar of Lebanon. They also had fun throwing snowballs into the fountain at the conference center.

I haven't been very diligent (at all) about taking pictures at any of these events...so thanks Stephanie for these ones of my kids at the lights & my early b-day cake at our family dinner. Yes I know I look ready to pop!

I've also started getting ready for Ammon - washing, sorting, & organizing all the baby clothes & goods. I've had fun doing some shopping for him & I'm getting more and more excited to meet him. Last dr's visit went well & now I'm down to two-week appointments - hooray, the end is in sight!