New Christmas Tradition

Since I've been sick the past few Christmases it was fun to start some new traditions with the kids this year. We decided to do hand-dipped chocolate pretzels for our friends and family that live here locally. Here are the kids all ready the start dipping!

Dallyn was in charge of the chocolate mint candies...

Cameron did the Heath Tofee bits....

Kaylie did peppermints and Kyler did sprinkles. Truth be known...we didn't really give away any of Kylers. If you can see, there was a lot of finger licking and germ spreading going on so we just let him have fun eating the ones he made.

Christmas Eve

Today we created our graham cracker gingerbread houses. It was a fun, yet messy endeavour!

Kyler is showing me the C he made on the wall of his house!!

This morning Dallyn and Kyler helped me make some fun Christmas treats...the older kids were still sleeping and Scott was at a morning swim so it was little boys and mom morning!

Gingerbread Houses

Here are the completed Houses!! Kyler's has a bowling alley in it! This was all his idea after he decided the gumballs looked like bowling balls.

Dallyn's was the only house with a real roof. Scott helped him so he had a great contractor to work with in designing it. He's waiting for the roof to dry before decorating it, or so the contractor recommended!

Cameron's was very colorful and included some lego pathways, a lego snowman out front, an orange tree and a very colorful tile floor inside.

Kaylie loaded up the walls of her house with so much candy that they fell over!! So by the time we took photos of her house most of the candy had fallen into the garden! Kaylie didn't mind since she just wanted to eat it all up! Kaylie had a great island with barstools in her house! The kids were so creative and had a great time eating as they went!

Chocolate Covered Pretzels!!

Kaylie was a great helper in making these treats! We had some trial and error and next year won't take nearly as long I'm sure, but we had fun!!

The kids ready to go caroling and deliver the pretzels!

YUMMMY!!

Family Photos

My handsome boys!!

Mother and Daughter...

Grandma and Grandpa Black with their 6 grand kids!! Soon to be 7 when my brother and his wife have their baby boy in January!

The lights at Temple Square

A few weeks ago we took the family to Temple Square in Salt Lake City to see the amazing lights. It was freezing but we all enjoyed walking around and seeing all the holiday lights!

We went with Scott's two sisters, their families and Scott's Dad and Pam who were visiting from CA. Here's the whole gang..

Isn't this a great picture?? There was a Nativity Scene in the middle of the reflecting pool. It was really amazing all the work that goes into making this spectacular display!!

Kyler enjoyed himself so much he fell fast asleep on Uncle Andrew's shoulders!! Can you believe this?? In all the excitement and everything! But don't worry we took him down and Scott carried him the rest of the night so he could sleep more comfortably. In all the effort to bundle everyone up before we left the house we forgot to take the stroller!! We ended the evening with hot chocolate. It was a great time for everyone and a holiday tradition we'll continue every year!

Bad Hair Day??

If you look closely at this photo you can see that I have some baldness peeking out from the lefthand side. It's covered up pretty well...this was three weeks ago and now it is NOT easy to cover up.

This is what my hair would look like if I tried to wear it down. Somehow I'm thinking that I'll be wearing my hair half-back for the next few months!! Talk about a crazy LONG bald spot!! Having bald spots is really not very fun. Sometime I'll update you with newer photos...its getting worse as more hair falls out. So for those of you WITHOUT bald spots....think twice about bad hair days as it really could be worse!

Kaylie's Christmas Concert

Kaylie takes vocal lessons from Miss Debby and is really enjoying it. She's had two concerts so far with this group. Miss Debby teaches private lessons as well as group lessons so Kaylie is a part of her choir group as well. In October she did some songs from Suessical with the choir and then she sang a solo of "My Favorite Things" from "Tjhe Sound of Music."

For her Christmas concert she sang "Let it Snow" in a quartet, along with a bunch of other songs with the entire choir. They performed this week at a local nursing home too, so Kaylie is getting lots of chances to share her talent this holiday season.

The Mud Room is complete!

If you've been following the blog you've seen photos of Scott's progress of the MudRoom in our garage. Well, over Thanksgiving Break Scott finished it!! Here he is doing one of the many coats of paint!!

All the hard work paid off!! We love the new mudroom!!

Each cubby has a shelf for hats, gloves, scarves, etc and then three hooks for backpacks, jackets, ski pants, etc. When I took this photo he hadn't hung up all the hooks. He put up wainscotting along the back, top and sides of the mudroom so it looked more finished. Even though it is a part of our garage, and not a part of our house, I'm loving having the organized space!!

Here's the full view. The cubbies on the far side are for Scott and I to put gloves, shoes, hats, etc. The left side bin is for Scott's shoes and then the kids each have a cubby for shoes underneath the bench. We get SO much use out of this!! The kids and I sit here to put on our shoes and after a snowy day the boots sit here in the garage to dry off!

New Friends!

Moving here to Utah has been really hard and the adjustments hit at different times and in different ways for each of us. One of the things that makes the transition easier is making new friends. We are so grateful for the William's Family. They are our neighbors and friends and we feel blessed to know them. Here are some photos from a recent family dinner we shared together.

This was a playdate where the boys wanted to have a 'picnic' and needless to say you can't picnic in Utah in November, so we had an indoor picnic!!

Thanksgiving Weekend Memories

We enjoyed more time as a family over the Holiday weekend. Here's my brother and Laura reading books to the boys!

We celebrated Austin and Scott's birthdays, a bit belated...one of them is old and the other one is young still....can you guess which is which?

Watching a BYU game with Grandpa just hit the spot! Of course the fact that BYU won in overtime made it that much more exciting!!

We also enjoyed a piano concert by Jason, anytime he plays it is like having our own private concert! Dallyn directed while he played.

More Turkey Day!

It was fun having Ryan and Laura with us for Thanksgiving. We'll miss them at Christmas time. They can't come to CA since Laura will be too far along in her pregnancy. It was great being together!