SUZ: DECEMBER

We started December off at our local art center's Gingerbread festival. The kids loved getting their faces painted. Phin got a reindeer nose and Millie got some Frozen snowflakes.

They also got to play a little fishing game with candy canes for the sticks.

Millie's favorite house was the Frozen castle.

Phin loved this pirate ship.

I thought these Golden Graham roof tiles were genius.

This cut up Snickers bar was also very cute.

We even managed to get our picture with Santa...although the kids refused to sit on his lap. I love this shot because Phin is in the middle of saying HO HO HO.

We renewed our membership to the rec center. I have been trying to get out a couple of times a week to walk around the track. It is usually just me and the old people doing our laps.

On one of our visits an older gentleman stopped us as we were walking and held up a wooden toy car. I had headphones in and thought he was asking if the car was ours. It turned out that he makes the cars and wanted to give it to Silas. When he saw Millie tucked away in the bottom seat of the stroller he said he had another one for her. We walked with him to his coat and he pulled out another beautiful car. It absolutely brightened our day.

Seth has also been playing some basketball with Phin and Millie while I walk. Phin has shown a lot of interest in basketball...mostly because of the other boys in his class that are huge Jazz fans.

One day I spotted Phin acting as a "Teacher" for Millie. It made my mom heart so happy to see them playing this way together.

One evening we were acting out Samuel the Lamanite on the wall. Phin was our Samual...Millie was more than willing to shoot arrows at him.

We also headed up to Benson for cousin Hyrum's farewell. Millie had so much fun playing dress ups with all of her girl cousins.

Phin loved hearing Uncle Jotham play the guitar. He was so interested.

Jotham seriously has a gift for making special connections with everyone in his life. I so appreciate the attention that he gives to my kids.

He also pulled out a Music Maker for Phin. Phin was obsessed.

Phin finally lost his first tooth. It had been so wiggly. The tooth was growing in behind it and it was driving me crazy! I finally told Phin that the tooth fairy pays double if you loose your tooth on the weekend...the extra money persuaded him to let me pull his tooth out.

After the initial freak out he was quite delighted to have his tooth out. A classmate had told him about putting their tooth in a jar of water so they could find out what color the tooth fairy was. So we put Phin's tooth in a jar of water on his dresser. The tooth fairy was blue.

Phin's class also performed Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

They dressed up in Pajama bottoms and Santa hats.

He was quite delighted to show us that he finally got to put his name on the lost a tooth chart.

The last day of school before Christmas break the kids all got to wear PJs to school...as a mom these are my favorite days.

I was able to go out for a girls night with my former flatmates Emily and Anne. After a delicious dessert waffle at Station Park we wandered up to Old Navy and helped Anne pick out some clothes for family pictures. It was so fun to laugh and reconnect.

Millie had so many Christmas dresses that I had her wearing them for all of November and December. She wanted a picture in front of the tree one Sunday with her red coat.

Silas still fit into his Christmas Gnome sweater from last year.

Phin looked so handsome in his red sweater...although he tends to run "hot" like me and typically pulled his sweater off part way through sacrament meeting.

We went on a long walk one December day and stopped at this Nativity scene. Can you spot Seth and Phin?

On Christmas Eve we visited Temple Square.

Then we had our traditional pizza dinner at Nona and Papa's. The kids loved opening their pajamas and Christmas stockings.

All of the younger kids got what we call "ninja jammies." Nona picked these up in Hong Kong on her trip last year.

Our little ninjas were so very excited for Christmas.

We are lucky that they always let us sleep in to a reasonable hour.

Millie loved her doll house.

Silas loved his basketball.

Phin loved his Pokemon cards and belt.

Seth and I loved our gift from Phin. It says "Mom and Dad, Merry Christmas."

He made a beautiful calendar for us with amazing watercolors for each month.

We were delighted to open our family gift from the Hatch family...a Music Maker.

We all loved the new socks from Grandma Jo and Grandad.

The kids spent Christmas day putting together their Legos.

The day after Christmas we loaded up the car and headed down to Nona and Papa's cabin in Escalante.

We were the first to arrive after Nona and Papa and were so supervised at all of the snow down South. We spent lots of time playing with toys that we brought from Christmas.

Millie was so happy to wake up and find that Carter had arrived from Arizona.

The kids played together all morning.

Then Jeff made a little sledding hill for them so we headed out to play in the snow.

The view from the cabin was so pretty with all of the snow.

Millie loved finding icicles to turn herself into a unicorn.

I even managed to sled down with Silas. My one regret from this trip was not packing snow boots for myself.

Silas gave the best cuddles at the cabin during his naps.

Bart and Collete's family arrived and Millie was spoiled by her cousins Jane and Emily. They were so good to her and let her ride down the sledding hill with them over and over again.

We played lots of games while we were at the cabin.

We also ate lots of yummy food. Jeff smoked ribs, brisket and pork shoulder.

The kids also played with Aaron's new laser tag.

Our final night Jeff built a fire and we enjoyed some s'mores.

This is my favorite picture of Silas from the trip. It was taken by Jeff.

More Ninja pictures...

We came home from the cabin the Monday after Christmas. I had to get my car registered before the end of the month so I took Silas to our favorite mechanic shop and he played and played while we waited for the car.

We also made a stop at Costco the day after we got home...the trip apparently wore Silas out. He started to fall asleep and I ended up just laying him down in the cart.