4th Memory of Christmas...A visit to This is the Place Monument

On Thursday night John's sister and her family came to stay with us. We thought it would be fun to take the kids to This is the Place. We double layed the kids in their pants, socks, shirts, hots, and gloves. Beth had the best idea ever...to get the hand and toe warmers. That ended up being a life saver. It kept everyones hands and toes nice and toasty. We left the twins home with a babysitter because we knew they would only be miserable in the cold. This was so much fun for the whole family. We loved it and will continue to visit every Christmas.

The pioneer children would write their letters to Santa Claus. Instead of mailing letters to him, they would place them in the fire and the letter would magicly be sent to him. The girls weren't too sure at first about burning thier letters they just wrote but soon decide to be like the pioneer children.

The elf village was very cute. It was fun to see all of the little houses with elves doing Holiday activites.As soon as we enterd the doors into the dance hall, we were invited to come learn the Charleston Dance. John and Brilynn were partners and Maycie and I were parterns. The girls loved learning the new dance and their favorite part was being able to stomp their feet and clap their hands!!!They do a wonderful job of creating a pioneer atmosphere.

In two of the buildings they had crafts for the kids including, an advent calander, a gingerbread necklace, an ornament, a beeswax candle, a woven basket, a gingerbread sticker scene, and a wreath ornament. We had to stop by the ZCMI store and buy some of their penny candy (and no, it wasn't a penny it was 10 cents a piece)At the printing press they showed the kids how the first Christmas Cards were made. They each got to bring home a replica of the card.At Brigham Youngs home they had live reindeer and Father Christmas. Father Christmas was very quite and really didn't say much to the kids. Much different than the Santa Claus that we see at the mall. We don't have a picture though because we didn't pay the $5.00They also had a live Nativity. Before we walked through they asked us to please remain very reverent, so I didn't feel comfortable taking a picture. This morning John asked Maycie what her favorite part of last night was. She said that it was seeing baby Jesus in the manger. She was so sweet when she said, "It almost made me cry when I saw Joseph looking at baby Jesus."

We had such a fun time together as a family, we missed the twins but at the same time it was really fun to be able to have one on one time with Brilynn and Maycie.

3rd memory of Christmas...Christmas Chimes

The girls were a little disappointed at first when they opened this gift since it wasn't something new. However, once we started playing them, their attitudes completely changed and then they were upset when it was time to stop and go to bed. Thanks again Grandpa Batty for the chimes!

2nd memory of Christmas

The 2nd memory of chrismtas this year was a trip to the mall to get their ears pierced. This was something that they both had been asking to do for a couple of years. We decided that they were old enough to take care of their ears on their own and we would finally let them get their ears pierced. Maycie went first and didn't even bat an eye. They only had one person there so they could only do one ear at a time. When it came time for Brilynn we could tell she was very nervous. She jumped on the first one and her eyes started to water on the 2nd one. However, she knew that Maycie hadn't cried and so she had a little pressure to be just as tough. This was a fun christmas memory and one I think that they will remember for a very long time. I loved this picture of the girls. This is such a classic picture of Preslee and Payge. Preslee will just get mad out of the blue and Payge just looks at her like she is completely crazy. I'm pretty sure they are complete opposites in both personality and looks. Love 'em!!!

Snowflake and her bag of tricks!

The girls are continuing to love having Snowflake visit our home for the Christmas Season. One night she toilet papered their bedroom. The next night Brilynn and Maycie were fighting so they didn't get to sprinkle the magic snowflakes on her. That was a huge disappointment to the girls and they have been on their best behavior ever since:) This morning they looked and looked around the house to find Snowflake but couldn't find her. It wasn't until they went to get milk for their cereal that they found her. She had made the milk green and was standing on the top shelf of the refridgerator. Silly Elf!!!

12 Memories of Christmas...Snowflake the Elf

I can't believe that December is already here!!! Well we have started our 12 memories of christmas. I am really excited for some of the things that we have planned to do for the month of December. The first memory that the girls opened was a little elf. This is what was included in with the elf...This little elf has come from the North Pole to spend the holidays with you. She begged Santa to let her visit with the hopes that you would grow to love her just as much as she loves you. Your elf will need a name, so decided as a family what her name is going to be. Each night you will sprinkle her with the magic snowflake dust that she has brought with her. If you do this, she will come to life during the night. We have heard that she can sometimes be very mischievious, so watch out. This little elf will be such fun for you and she will become a great friend. Enjoy her and use your imagination when you play with her. The girls were so excited to have their new elf and they chose to name her snowflake. So that night we sprinkled her with the magic dust and went to bed. The next morning the girls found her in the classroom with a marker in her hand and she had scribbled all over the a coloring book. Then you could only imagine their faces when John ran into the room to see what was going on and his face was covered with blue dots and a smiley face. The girls talked about this all day long. While I was at the mall Maycie told many random people about the elf and what it had done to her dad. So fun!!!

Stay tuned during the month to see what our other memories of christmas gifts are and also to see other things Snowflake does in our home!!!

Black Friday

I LOVE black friday. I start weeks before looking online and planning out my route in an excel spread sheet. The more kids I get and the more expensive their "gifts" become and the more money I save each year by being one of the CRAZY mom's at the black friday sales. This year I was excited that Toys R Us was smart enought to open at midnight. I would much rather stay up late than get a few hours of sleep and have to wake up at 3 in the morning. So at 8:00 on Thanksgiving Day my mom, brother, and myself headed down to Toys R Us. After being there for about 30 minutes, I was frozen. I made a quick call to John and had him bring me down an extra coat, blankets, and hot chocolate. By the time we finished in TRU we decided to just stay up all night and hit the other stores. I did come home for a few minutes around 3:00 and did some quick online shopping. We shopped until about 7:30 the next morning, came home, slept until 11:00 and then headed out again until about 6 that night. By then I was completely exhausted and felt like a zombie. I seriously don't remember the last time I stayed up that late. The next morning we headed out again to finish up a few things that we had missed. Between my mom, dad, 2 brother's, sister-in-law, and myself and hitting TRU, Walmart, Target, Kohls, Office Depot, Best Buy, Walgreens, Hobby Lobby, Lowes, Staples, Shopko, and Kmart we managed to get everything on our lists. Some people may say we are crazy, but I would be more than happy to share my savings with them:) The best thing is that I am completely finished with all my Christmas shopping and now I can enjoy the rest of December!!!

Trick-or-Treat

This was Preslee and Payge's first experience with trick or treating. It was so much work for John and I but they loved it. Preslee was making me laugh the whole night. She wouldn't let us carry her or push her in the stroller. She had to walk, by herself, from house to house. Then when her bucket got full I dumped it into another bag. She had a complete melt down. I had to put the candy back in her bucket. She would get upset if the people wouldn't let her pick out her own candy, and she would try to get 2 or 3 pieces at each house. She made it so fun. Payge was content with whatever. The only hard part with Payge was that she wanted to eat every new piece of candy that she got and Preslee just wanted to get to the next house. We had a trunk or treat on our street then we took the kids to the mall. After that we came home and went door to door. The girls got a lot of candy this year and I guess it helped that Preslee and Payge participated this year as well. After trick-or-treating, we came back to our house and had our annual soup dinner with the Butler and Smith families. We enjoy spending the evening with friends and letting the kids run wild in the basement. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays and it seems like it comes and goes so fast. Now I have to start planning Thanksgiving!!!

This made me laugh!

When my sister took the kids to the Tree House she took this picture of Brilynn. It wasn't until a few days ago that I had a chance to look through the pictures and I found this one. It made me laugh because this is so Brilynn. Always making a joke. I love this girl!!!

Family Fun

A few weeks ago my sister and mom came out for the weekend. We went non stop for the 5 days they were here. We shopped in Park City, took the kids to Chuck E. Cheese, went to soccer games, visited Frightmares at Lagoon, had a day of rest and went to church, took the kids to the tree house, went to Pack's Pumpkin Patch for FHE, and visited the Sweet's candy factory. The girls loved every minute of it except the shopping parts. It was so fun to have our family here for that long. We look forward to doing it again soon.