Christmas Eve and Morning!

 Instead of Christmas Eve pajamas, everyone got work out sweats! Even though Collin's are little big :)

 Jaq and her Christmas Loot.

 Seth and his 2016 Christmas

Mr. Collin's Christmas!

Slices of December

 This was a "special" day for us.  Ok, not really.  I was having a lunch over at a friends house and was supposed to make homemade rolls, but somehow while I was showering and getting ready Collin found an empty egg carton, filled the slots with various toys and was proceeding to climb up onto the stove smashing my rising rolls, open the microwave in order to cook his toys.  YIKES!  Luckily the sound of random buttons alerted me to something not being quite right adn I found him here. To which yes, I did stop to document, because he is not normally this mischevious and I couldn't get past what in the world he was doing!!  haha.  funny day.

 There is no greater joy for a kid than a large, empty cardboard box!  And this one was a huge hit!

 Collin was super sick for a couple days and just wanted to be held.  Can't say I didn't love that part, but its never fun when they don't feel like themselves.

 

Even Dad got to be cuddled during scriptures while Collin wasn't feeling well.

 

 I think this was taken by Collin, but it reminded me that I painted my chairs different colors...(ok, not the brown on that is not normally upstairs) but isn't it bright and fun?

 Couple projects for Dec.  Above was my sister's birthday present....haha!  All she wanted was water containers for her food storage.

 Then of course we have our homemade fire place, made out of paper and an old bed frame.

 And I included this picture...because it showed our Christmas Tree this year!  This was a huge accomplishment for me.  No, I didn't decorate it.  Matter of fact I did NONE of it.  The kids decorated the whole thing and I resisted the urge to fix any of it EVERY SINGLE DAY.  But ultimately I let it stand as is all the way till Christmas.  Take that OCD.  I win. 

Christmas programs and activities

Christmas time is full of activities....whether its playing in the snow or singing at school, December sure keeps us busy!  But it also brings in the Christmas Spirit, so....we'll take it.

Seth memorized the whole poem, "The night before Christmas" with his class and sang some 3rd grade Christmas songs for all the parents.  He did great!

Seth, Collin, and Seth's friends Braylor and Jake

Helping with the PTA this year keeps me at the school a lot.  We did a Christmas week for the kids where we let everyone make a craft and decorate a cookie and see Mr. and Mrs. Claus.  Here are they all together!

Mid December we went up North for our Mason family Christmas party.  But while we were up there we got to see Grannie Annie perform with her "Deci-belles" group!

 And....not so much Christmas-like but something fun we did while we were up north for the weekend was go to our first BYU basketball game with the kids!

 We of course went with some of our favorite BYU fans, the other Morris.'

 We even found our other cousin Gaven and managed to all sit together after half time.

Most importantly though, we got to be with our Mason family for Sunday dinner, talk about the birth of Jesus Christ, let the kids dress up, sing a few songs and open up presents from people we love and that love us.

And this little cute Dayla, stole the show.  She was so much fun to watch!  We don't see them enough!  It was so good to see them.

This was at our ward Christmas party...always a good turn out.

The primary kids all sang a song!  There are so many!

 

 

I love that I have this picture, because I don't have any other photos from this night.  Every night before Christmas Eve our good friends the Christians invite us over for breakfast dinner and we each HAVE to share a talent, then we sing everyone's favorite Christmas song.  For the past 2 years it has been us and the Frisby's.  Sadly the Frisby's won't be here next year.  I will love this fun tradition.

November Odd and Ends

I dyed my  hair!  I loved going dark enstead of blonde.  These are the only pics I have of it (some of the pics Cordelle took while he was trying out his new camera). Even here it faded so much, but I still like being a brunette for a change.

JESSE!  So our good friends the Morris' (no relation) that we met back in college just happened to move back to Cedar City!  Jesse got a new job with the Leavitt Group's IT department and needed a place to stay until his daughter finished school in California, so he got to stay with us for about 6 weeks!  The kids absolutely loved him.  Probably too much, but it was fun having him in our home during the week.

One Sunday Jaq and I just went to town Crafty.  We spent literally 3 hours making our own little snowman family.  I forget how old she is getting.  She totally bossed the hot glue gun and every other job I gave her! 

Once again I did not take pictures of Thanksgiving so I thought I should write something about it here.  We went up on Tuesday night with the intention of doing a little car shopping.  Needless to say we found our Toyota Sequoia out in Lehi and brought that baby home with us! It was so exciting buying a new family car that we will definitely need once the baby arrives.

We spent Thanksgiving with my family at our home.  Krista and family was with the Paces this year (actually she was at home sick for the day), Brett and Tiffany's Abram just barely got home from the NICU so he couldn't come, Neal and Brittlyn's Dayla was super sick at home.... so it was us, Tallies family, Mark and Ensci, Scott, my parents and my Grandma and Grandpa Durrant.  Smaller but fine.  Still tons of food and a very chill relaxed day!  Friday we spent lounging, and ended up taking Tallie and Krista's family pictures in the BITTER cold.  It really was SO cold.  But we managed to get some good ones.  Saturday was busy as we had breakfast with the Morris' at Curts house, watched the BYU vs. Utah State game and then I rushed back to get to a baby shower for Tiffany.  Sunday we went to church and headed home.  It was great to see family but nice to be home!

 BYU game with Uncle Kent

 Crokenole with Grandpa Grannie Annie and Great Grandpa after Thanksgiving Dinner

And somewhere in there we managed to go to an SUU bball game!