Lazy January Days

 I honestly am not doing great with this whole blog/journal thing cause I honestly don't remember what we did for New Years Eve and I took no pictures. All I can remember is it was just us.  No friends, no family.  We were lame. haha! New Years Day we did go out and go sledding with our new sleds and broke 2 of them.  But it was fun!

 Not sure why I took this other than, he is just cute!

 For Family Home Evening one night we talked about prayer and then made our own prayer rocks!  They turned out great.  Its funny how quickly the rock becomes apart of your bedroom furniture and you forget about it, but the art project was perfect and the kids still have them while I'm writing this (9 months later).

 Cordelle's. (unpictured)

 Seth and Jaq headed back to school and I snapped this picture (below) just because I love watching them walk out of school for some reason.  It just reminds me of how they are truly in their KID LIFE.  Anyways.  I just love capturing everyday regular life stuff some times.  (We got a good kick out of some of Seth's journal he brought home--so sweet about missing Scott on his mission. I think this pic was taken to sent to him).

 You cannot give an 8 year BYU football fan a helmet and not expect him to create his own BYU football field in our basement and constantly beg people to play with him.

 Love my little BYU fans!

Oh the Pinewood derby begins.  We have no idea what we're doing.  But here goes....

 The finished product. :) Hum...a BYU car?  NO way.   He definitely didn't win a lot, but at least he won once!  He was a tremendous sport about it though and loved just watching the races.  He's a good kid and has a great attitude.  Of course we would have loved to win more, but he was happy for the kids who did well.

 I love that Jaq and Collin were doing this all on their own. Even thought she can't really read, she will scan the lines with her finger (like she's reading brail) and say she's reading the scriptures.  And sweet Collin just is following suit.  SCRIPTURE POWER!

 She earned it!  Her pink football.  (I can't help that she was a little influenced by someone in choosing this as a reward for good behavior and cleanliness)  But she REALLY wanted it.  Hence the picture of both of them.

 And now they're ready to play.

 Collin having a party with all his "friends."

 And this is what you get on a lazy morning before Kindergarten and your mom is in the shower. :)

 This was one of about a million pictures I found of all these barbies on my phone.  Who could possibly be the culprit?

 Collin teaching or reading to Olaf.  

 For some reason, pictures like these crack me up.  

 I LOVE THESE PICTURES.  They are so sweet to me.  One day Jaq created this whole little set up with snacks and blankets like they were on a picnic.  Then they laid down to take a nap after they ate and lo and behold they really fell asleep!  Collin loves her and I am so grateful she is still home (even for a half day) to play with him.

This package totally made this girls' day.  While we were up north at Christmas singing songs with Cordelle's family, Jaq was trying to remember a song she had learned in Primary that no one knew.  Anyways, later Lisa Morris found it and sent it to her in the mail so she could have it.  How thoughtful is that?  She was just as excited to get her own package as she was to have the name of the song she couldn't ever remember. 

December Extras

 This picture is really the only picture I have of my kids up north when we went to the Mason family Christmas party which we did for the first time AFTER Christmas.  We celebrated it at Tallie's this year and had a good time exchanging gifts and visiting together with everyone. My parents gave the two older kids their very own ukelele's since Granny has been teaching them every time they get together lately.  They loved these! They came with their own cases and everything.  They gave Collin a huge Olaf which he of course loved!  It was a great evening.

That weekend Tallie suited and boarded up Jaquelle an took her snow boarding for the first time down some sledding hills near her home. She was INCREDIBLE.  Seriously, I have no idea how she did so well, having never done it before.  It was so much fun to watch her.  She almost never fell and had complete control and just went down easily.  Seth didn't try because his collar bone was still broken from slamming into a neighbor boy while jumping on the Perkins trampoline. But tried sledding a few time until he got nervous that he would hurt it even more. 

And then the above picture is before church on Sunday.  I love Collin just leaning on Gaven.  Cousins!

 Seth spreading his BYU love with his sister.  All of that stuff is his.  But he is cute that he wanted everyone to feel apart of HIS team.

 Jaq got this for Christmas and  I got to say, I had so much fun with it.  I remember these from when I was a kid and they are hours and hours of fun.  So one night after she went to bed, I made this art piece for her.

 Cuddle time

 Mermaid blankets.

Our busy December!

Christmas Morning

 

 Collin was surprisingly not too concerned about getting down to business of opening presents, but rather saw the boxes of cereal and wanted breakfast....like now.

 

 but he did get into it eventually.

 Seth and his loot

 Jaquelle 2014 Christmas

Collin Christmas 2014

I guess we didn't take as many pictures as video's but hopefully we captured it there.  It was a fun and magical morning followed by a very chill day. Merry Christmas.

Christmas EVE!

The excitement is growing!!!  Everyone's equipped with their new jammies and its time for..... bed!

 Before Santa......

 After Santa!!

A few things around Christmas time.

 One Monday for family night we got to watch my friend's little boy and Collin enjoyed reading to him.

 We took him and our kids over to Debra Ley's home (a woman in our ward) who has an incredible array of Christmas trees throughout her large home. The kids have a fantastic time finding the 100+ baby nativity scenes around the house and seeing all the tree's theme decorated in each room. She has an incredible electric train and always serves hot chocolate, cookies and/or herbal tea.  Such a great, fun Christmas tradition.

 Little Ben!

 This was Collin who fell asleep in this totally chilled, relaxed position.  Totally made me laugh. Who can fall asleep like that??

 

 ....Because I am the coolest home ever! Errr, I mean Melf and Kelf are the coolest.  We have 2 elves at Christmas time that do funny things around the house.  This time "they" created a fantastic toy town with action figures, train tracks, a dance off between princesses and star wars action figures. :)

Cuddlin' on the couch in the basement after the kids are in bed.

MORRIS FAMILY CHRISTMAS LETTER!!

Dear Family and Friends,
       Merry Christmas! This year has been crazy, but full of a lot of adventures!  
  This spring Cordelle took Wendy skiing for the first time. It was interesting. Jaquelle cut about 10 inches off her hair and joined her mom for a girls weekend at Lagoon, where she and her dance group danced in a national competition (Jaq that is...ha!). Cordelle did a lot of travel for work and we finally purchased our first tent trailer and took it out on the desert for Wendy's family's Easter reunion camping trip. No more tents!! In May we celebrated our 11 year anniversary and are happy to say, we still sorta like each other. ;)
 This summer we had the opportunity to go back to Disneyland because Cordelle had a conference in Southern California and just couldn't pass it up. We were able to keep it a surprise for the kids which is the only way to go....and they were ecstatic!  Then, a few months later we got to take the kids to Yellowstone for the first time as part of Cordelle's family's reunion.  Combine that with Carrie Underwood at Stadium of Fire, Girls Camp, and a huge "unplugged" summer program for the kids that we felt like we barely slowed down this summer.  But we'd rather be busy than bored. :)
  The end of summer and the start of Fall brought birthdays for everyone but Wendy (Feb birthday).  Collin turned 2, Seth turned 8, Jaq turned 6 and Cordelle turned....(do you think he'd care if I put his age?  Is that allowed?)  Hum....Anyways.  He had a birthday too.  With Seth's 8th birthday came his baptism in September! It was a fun day with family and friends and the most memorable part of the day for him was, "the water, because it was soo warm." Haha! With fall comes the start of school where Seth started 2nd grade and Jaq FINALLY started Kindergarten!  At our house fall also means a lot of soccer and football.  Seth has suddenly discovered the game of football and is BYU's newest, truest and bluest fan!  He eats, thinks and lives for anything BYU or football and Cordelle is just eating it up.
  As winter and Christmas approach there is an excitement that only a house with little kids can bring.  Its infectious.  As we watch Collin now talking and having full blown conversations we have realized how quickly they are growing.  Sometimes it makes us want to slow down time and other times we want them to hurry and "grow up past this phase." Its a roller coaster for sure but there are definitely more blessings than we can count.  
  We think we have a pretty incredible little family, and are so grateful to be where we live.  We are mindful every day of the blessings that come from having the knowledge of the gospel in our lives.  We are honored to know that the birth of Jesus was only the beginning of the miracles He would bring to this earth.  We could never become who we are meant to become, accomplish those tasks we wished to achieve, or experience the joy we hoped for in this life, without HIM.  We hope you all feel His love especially this time of year, even if it just comes in the form of a little extra gratitude and hope for the people you love. 

Merry Christmas!  

Love, 

The Morris'

Oh kids!

 We decided to give Collin a flu shot even though its late in the season.  Yea, turns out he had some sort of allergic reaction that I mildly freaked out about.  Pretty sure we might take a break from the flu shot for a couple of years. 

Notice, his right (left in the picture) collar bone.  yup. He broke it playing with some friends on a trampoline.  Wasn't able to use it for a couple of months, but remarkably got pretty coordinated playing football and basketball left handed!  Haha!

PERFORMANCE!

Jaquelle at her Christmas dance performance!

Seth singing with his 2nd grade class for his Christmas performance

Collin performing his "cheese" at the dinner table.  :)