New Year's Eve

This year we spent New Year's Eve with some friends in our neighborhood.  We all had kids about the same ages, which was perfect because then all the kids could play while us adults played games & ate yummy food. 

The kids were mesmerized by a movie for most of the time, which helped us to be able to better play all the crazy games that Angie & John brought over...  Laron had to work REALLY early the next morning (like 3:30 AM!), so he had to leave early, but he said he'd love to just hang out late with friends EVERY year for New Year's!

The Sunday before New Year's, Laron had heard a song at church about "Ringing in the new & out the old,"  so he took the kids to the store earlier in the day & bought a bunch of bells that they could ring at midnight to ring in the New Year... The kids LOVED the idea & rang the bells all the way out the store!  So needless to say, they were excited to finally be able to ring them again when we left that night (they actually stayed up until 11:30 PM, which was pretty impressive for them!).  So "Happy New Year"!  This past year was fun, but I can't wait to see what adventures this NEXT year holds for us too!

The BEST Christmas EVER!

Christmas this year was SO much fun with the kids!  Mainly because all the kids are at really fun ages this year & because our celebrations were a little more spaced out this year (only ONE place to go or visit per day!  Quite a breakthrough for us!).  We also had saved up a little extra money this year towards Christmas, so we finally felt like we were able to buy some funner presents for the kids, which is always exciting as a parent!

MY favorite Christmas present this year was some new couches that we got ON CHRISTMAS EVE!  I had actually ordered them on "Black Friday", but they got them in in the wrong color & had to re-order them, so luckily we were at least able to get them by the day before Christmas!

The first thing we did when the kids woke up on Christmas morning was to open up our present to Jesus, that we've been working on all month.  We've had this "Sparkle Box" sitting up on the piano all month & any time any of us have done something nice for someone else, we would write it on a paper & put it in the Box as a present for Jesus.  We figure that since we're celebrating the Birth of Christ, then our focus should be more on what we're giving HIM for Christmas, not just US.  And since we can't actually wrap Him up a present to open, we figured that us serving others is the present that He would probably like us giving Him the most!  So one-by-one, we each took out a paper & read out loud what someone else had done nicely for someone else.  The kids just lit up every time we read something that THEY had done (things like making someone else's bed, or cleaning up someone else's toys, or taking someone cookies, or shoveling someone's driveway, or drawing someone a picture, or Skyler even scraped off the snow of our neighbor's car for her a couple of times!).  Laron & I tried serving in BIGGER ways, but it was nice for the kids to see that even little kids like THEM could serve others.  What a perfect spirit to start off our Christmas morning with!  I think we're going to start making this a yearly tradition...  And then of course that morning we finished up reading the rest of the Christmas story in the Bible, since we'd gotten to bed too late the night before to read it then.

Laron had made us a nice home-cooked breakfast, but the kids were antsy to start opening presents, so we let everyone open up ONE present & then we went and had a yummy breakfast as a family, which was a special treat.  And then off to the present-opening & present-playing!  I loved that we weren't RUSHED this year to be anywhere too early, so the kids were actually able to open a toy & immediantly PLAY with their toy.  Then they'd open another toy & play with THAT one.  These are the BEST mornings to be a parent to small children!  Their reactions & squeals of delight are sure PRICELESS!

 Kimberly wore this little princess dress ALL day!  What a cutie!

At lunchtime we headed over to my parent's house to talk to my brother Tim who's currently serving a mission in Concepcion, Chile right now & only gets to call home twice a year.  After a quick lunch, the kids were anxious to start opening presents from Grandma & Papa...

The day AFTER Christmas is when MY extended family does our annual "Progressive Dinner," driving from house to house, eating & playing games & visiting with family.  That's always a fun day!  Then that night, all the Grandkids (except Bailey) had a sleepover at Grandma & Papa's house.  We were sure glad that we kept Bailey home with us that night, because she happened to throw up in the middle of the night!  My parents were pretty thankful too!  Over the next week, ALL of our kids one-by-one got the flu, and although that's always no fun, I was SO thankful that at least they weren't sick for most of our Christmas parties & celebrations!

The Sunday BEFORE Christmas is when we went & visited Laron's family.  His family gave each of us a box of "health food" that they tried educating us on, which was kinda fun & different & extremely useful!  Nice to get something we can actually USE, instead of some decoration that we feel obligated to STORE, whether we like it or not.  And then Grandma Liz made each of the grandkids a tied fleece blanket, which they've all LOVED!  One of the MOST unusual things about our get-together this year, was singing around the piano as a family, which is something I don't EVER remember doing with the Pace's.  I got brave & started us off with a Michael McLean song that has personal meaning to the family, "We can be together forever someday..." & then everyone begged Laron's Dad into playing Christmas songs on the piano after that (I didn't even know he PLAYED the piano!) & we all sang together.  What a spirit of Christmas THAT brought to the party as well!

And then we got together with Laron's Mom the week AFTER Christmas, after all the kids were feeling better.  Kinda fun to have the celebrations drawn out over more than a week's period of time though!  Better than all crammed into ONE day like we used to try to do...  Well, "Merry Christmas" everyone!  Let's make some more memories NEXT year!

Making Gingerbread Houses

On Christmas Eve this year we wanted to do something fun, so we invited our Turkish friends over again & introduced them to this silly tradition us Americans have of making Gingerbread Houses (which of course they'd never done before! :)  But they definitely were naturals at it!  Samil definitely had the fanciest house-DESIGN, but the kids still had fun eating candy & decorating with candy for quite a while.  Skyler figured out this year that the more candy he attached on his Gingerbread House NOW, the more candy he'd be able to eat the NEXT day!  Our kids are sure growing up!

We definitely had a fun night with friends & even sang some songs around the Christmas tree with them (but of course, OUR family was the only one singing them!).  One of the kid's favorite parts was having their own little table to eat dinner on... Always fun to have a fun night filled with family, friends & food!

Dressing up in Christmas Clothes!

I'm not sure what it is, but I sure enjoy dressing my kids up in Christmas clothes!  Too bad they can only wear them for such a short period of time...

Temple Square!

This Christmas, we made our annual visit to Temple Square to go see the lights.

But the highlight of our trip this year was that our new friends from Turkey, Nejla & Samil and their two kids, Azra (3) & Mert Omar (1), came with us!  It was a pretty chilly night, but once we got everyone all bundled up & cozy, the kids did pretty well.  But of course they wanted to switch strollers after we got going, so they could all sit by their new friends... :)

After walking around for awhile, all the kids were getting cold, so we headed over to "City Creek" to get a bite to eat & watch the fountains for a little while.  That raised everyone's spirits enough that we were up to the long walk back to our cars.  Then Laron surprised everyone by having a thermos full of Hot Chocolate waiting for us back at the van, which was the perfect way to end our night!  What a thoughtful husband I have!  Right before we left, our friends said that this was the funnest night they'd had since they'd moved to Utah a few month ago... What a compliment that was!  We definitely had a fun night too!  We'll have to do it again sometime!

The only drama with our night at Temple Square was that Bailey threw-up on our drive down there... Like three times.  So normally we would have just turned around & gone another night, but tonight was different. Between our 2 families, we had been arranging when we could go for awhile, & this was literally the ONLY night before Christmas that worked for both of us, and we were REALLY excited about taking our non-member friends to see a place that so special to us, so Laron & I said a quick prayer in the van, asking Heavenly Father what we should do.  After praying for a couple of minutes, we both still felt like we should continue on with our night as planned.  We figured we'd be walking outside, so hopefully we wouldn't get anyone else sick either.  But I PLEAD with Heavenly Father to at least help Bailey to not throw-up again, at least until we got back into the van.  Well, Heavenly Father took me pretty seriously, because Bailey didn't throw-up again until about 10 minutes after we got back in the van.  Bailey certainly wasn't her happy, perky self the whole time, but what a blessing though that a kind & caring God, could hear the simple prayer of one of his daughters, & help their night out with friends still go well!

Odds 'n Ends

My kids are growing up SO fast!  I especially love it when Kimberly & Bailey put on jewelry & pretend to be little mommies with their little baby strollers.  SO fun to have another sister to play with!

And Mr. Skyler here has always LOVED tying things in knots (oftentimes things he should NOT by tying in knots, which drives me CRAZY!), so when we happened to be given a bag of Twizzler's Pull 'n Peel treats a couple weeks ago, we found that it satisfied his knot-tying desires, but that I didn't have to help him UN-tie it, because he could just EAT whatever crazy creation he came up with... I never thought that eating a treat would be such a simple solution to helping indulge Skyler's tying urges.

Kimberly's 3rd Birthday

Kimberly just celebrated her 3rd Birthday & we're SO glad we have her!  We started off the morning with our traditional "Mickey-Mouse Birthday Pancakes" (because what kid doesn't like to blow out candles TWICE in one day?!).  Kimberly had spent the previous afternoon pretty miserable from an ear-ache, so we were worried she'd be sick & grouchy on her Birthday, but she did pretty well considering.

After church, a neighbor came over & gave Kimberly a present... A new baby & stroller wrapped in a REALLY big box!  I'm not sure which the kids were more excited about... The present or the really big box!

While Kimberly took a nap because she wasn't feeling well, I finished up her "Butterfly Cupcakes!"  It was definitely a step-up from my usual last-minute cupcakes with sprinkles that I normally end up with, but I couldn't have done them without the help of Heavenly Father.  You see, I was planning on going to the store the day before to buy the last-minute ingredients I needed (pretzels & jelly beans for the bodies), but Kimberly was SO miserable & needy the day before, that I just never got around to it.  After going to our "Ward Christmas Party" Saturday night & then putting Kimberly to sleep multiple times because of her ear-ache, it was suddenly 11:30 PM, & I wasn't really feeling like a quick trip to the grocery store for 2 ingredients.  But I also really wanted her to feel special on her birthday.  So I went over to my pantry cupboard & said a silent prayer that I'd be able to find SOMETHING I could possibly use for butterfly wings for her cupcakes...  It wasn't long before I found 2 mini bags of Halloween pretzels that the kids had gotten from Trick-or-Treating, that I'd been saving to take as a quick snack on an outing or something.  I almost started crying as I counted out the pretzels & found that we had almost EXACTLY enough pretzels to make cupcakes for all our family members that were coming!  I know that Heavenly Father cares about even the littlest details of our lives.  He cares about things like "Butterfly Cupcakes" because he cares about ME!

After she woke up from her nap, it was time for present-opening!  Her favorite present was some new Chapstick!  What a girly-girl she is becoming!

 We were SO happy to be surrounded by family & Kimberly LOVED being the center of attention (like always!).  And we're always glad to have Grandma's & Grandpa's around, because they spoil us & love us, no matter whether we're sick or healthy!

Bailey & Skyler both figured that Kimberly had WAY too many new toys to play with by herself, so they graciously decided to adopt one for themselves... Bailey seems to have officially adopted the baby & stroller & Skyler seems rather attached to a stuffed animal cat.  And by some miracle, Kimberly seemed to be okay with that!

 Our sweet little Kimberly!  It's hard to believe that you were only 3 months old when we moved into this house & now you are a grown up little lady!  You definitely bring a little SPUNK to our family & we wouldn't have it any other way!  Love you Kimberly!