Merry Christmas - from all of us!

Merry Christmas All! Hope you had a great day remebering the Savior and giving gifts of love. Here is a picture recap of some of the things we've been doing this year.

Lindsey is 4! Lindsey had a great party - a luau theme. She picked out all the decorations at the dollar store. We bought her guests hula skirts and taught them how to hula. Her cake had rainbow sprinkles and was rainbow swirled inside - because Lindsey loves rainbows - notice her dress. She loves animals and playing make believe and playing with her alvin and the chipmunks figures.

Hannah is 6! Wow - she is growing up! She is the one in Lavender. One of the things Hannah loves is Strawberry Shortcake, thus her party theme this year. I couldn't believe how kind she was at her party. She considerately shared everything that lended itself to sharing with her guests - even allowing them to help her blow out her candle!

Tanner is Two! "What a big boy!" everyone keeps telling me. "How did he grow up so fast?" my friends all exclaim. It just sort of sneaks up on ya! Jon and I have decided that two is our favorite age. All of our kids at two are just full of personality, love and humor. We really are enjoying this phase of Tanner's life. Though he keeps me on my toes and my heart ever racing, I am truely greatful to have this little boy in our family. Hannah and Lindsey say they are hoping the new baby due Memorial day is a girl because boys are just crazy.

This picture was taken in November at our friend's house who lives on the lake. That is their pool in back of us which we enjoy sharing with them during the summers. Jon got all the kids dressed in matching attire. The only thing we couldn't quite work out was smiling into the sun!

I made Hannah and Lindsey angel costumes this christmas season. My origonal idea was to have costumes to use for our family nativity pagent on christmas eve. I tried to get one of them to choose a mary costume, but they were both set on being angels - with wings. I decided you can never have too many angels, so they both got angel costumes. Our church had a special event called return to bethlehem where each family dressed in period clothing and came to bethlehem to pay our taxes and watch the story of the nativity. Hannah and Lindsey were in the children's cherub choir, so their costumes were just perfect.

Here is Hannah at her party the last day of Kindergarden before the break. She is a true student and lives for vacation days. She likes school and her teacher and is doing really well. Her class had a book exchange during their party that I was able to attend with her.

One of Lindsey's preschool co-op mom's went all out. On the last day of school before break, she did a skit with the kids, and a party for the parents and kids. The big hurrah was when Santa came and gave each child special one on one lap time. Lindsey swears that it was her freind Brianna's daddy. Even siblings got in on it. You can't see it from this picture, but Tanner really took a liking to Santa and enjoyed getting to know him better.

Jon's Birthday song and cake: Carrot Cake with Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting - a big hit! Lindsey said, "Daddy, so you are 73?" Jon got a good laugh out of that one.