The Adventurous One!

This is a poor-quality image, but it gives the general idea! Everett got a bicycle with training wheels for Christmas, thanks to an older boy at church. Since it's not really great weather for learning to ride right now, he has been wearing the helmet for two days while the bike sits on the porch. But Lana wanted to try it out right away! She put the helmet on and climbed right up. That's my girl!

The Wonder of Christmas

I think that preparing for Christmas was more stressful this year than ever, but it was so much fun preparing gifts for the kids and family members and watching the children experience the lights and the festivities of Christmas morning!"

There is nothing like experiencing Christmas

through the eyes of your children.

Our Christmas Tree

This is our tree. Note the strategic placements of the ornaments--exactly one inch out of the reach of our three littlest helpers. All the kids helped to decorate the tree this year. I put hooks on the ornaments and handed them to the girls. They gave them to Everett, who put them as high as he could reach (grouped in categories). I moved a bunch of them up, or we would have had a single band of ornaments around the tree at about 4' from the floor. I took this picture on Christmas eve, and by this time it was looking fairly mangled. We all enjoyed it though, without me having to say "No" all the time!

The Christmas Program

Cary and I never thought we'd both be able to participate in the Christmas choir this year, but one of the sisters in our ward offered to watch the kids during the rehearsals! Cary was the only tenor, and I got to sing alto in two numbers and accompany the choir on flute for the other two. We had to make special arrangements for the actual performance! We divided the children between three different families, and everything went really well. It was great to be able to actually sort-of relax during a meeting, and contribute to the program as well.

The Snowman

The children have all been enjoying the neighbors' inflatable snowman. They each have their own name for it. Everett just calls it the snowman. Lana calls it "Snow", Maddie calls it "Man", and Gwyn calls it "Matt".

Tickle Time

Gwyn (in green) and Maddie,
with tickles by Cary.

Here is a picture from last

November with all four kids:

Trick-or-Treat

When we went to look for costumes for the kids, I took one look at the prices and said "I don't think so--not for something they're only going to wear once!" I was just crazy enough that I decided to make costumes that would also serve as winter coats for the girls.

I made a pattern based on one of the girls' jackets, went to JoAnns to get fur, etc., and spent hours cutting out layers and putting everything together. I spent some long nights and still had two zippers to put in when it was time to go, but I figured they were good enough for trick-or-treating! Everett decided he wanted to be a mouse, so here are our three little bears and big brother mouse. (Gwyn is in the brown fur and Maddie is in black.)

First Bunkbeds?

All of the kids like to climb (hence the need to lay all of the kitchen chairs on the floor under the table). Here are Maddie (top bunk) and Gwyn (lower bunk) in their first "bunkbed", aka the toy shelves.