Cousin Chaos!

The girls finished school on Friday, December 19th.  Their Canadian cousins were driving down to grandma's house the next day.  So we decided to have them take a pit stop in Logan.  So we got Lawson and Wyatt for a weekend!  And it was a party!!!

Buzz Lightyear's suit looks a little snug!

 We went to the park since it wasn't snowy and fed the ducks who don't fly South.

 Will was in heaven with older boys around!  Whatever Wyatt did, he did!  He loves those boys! He has asked several times since Christmas holidays, where's Lawson and Wyatt?

 All the kids, except Will...he refused to be in the picture, so I stand corrected whatever Wyatt did, except be in pictures, Will did!

 Will was too preoccupied with the ducks.

 And Wyatt's shorts and boots are cracking me up!!  But hey, he's Canadian, it wasn't that cold for him!

 We got pizza for dinner!

 We even made Christmas cookies.

 It was a lot of fun for all!!

 We didn't really have festive icing colors, however, so we made these really bright Christmas cookies!

 We absolutely loved the cousin chaos and would take it any time...for short amounts of time! ;)  The weekend was just right!  :)

 Will and Ava had another crazy bubble bath.  Because of the chaos, we let it get a little out of hand.  Yeah, those kids are standing up.  So those bubbles are up to their necks!!!  Crazy kids!

It was a great prelude into the Christmas holidays chaos!

December Birthday

It was that time of year again, my birthday!  I have to say, I had a fantastic birthday this year.  It all started with the girls popping out of their beds already dressed for school!  Surprise!  Then Lily made herself and all her younger siblings breakfast while Cory made me breakfast!  It was amazing!

Later, Ava did the dishes for me!

 Then Will brought in the rubbish bins!

It was a day filled with service!  I felt very loved and appreciated, the best way to feel on a birthday!  I love these kids and husband of mine and feel very blessed to call them mine!  I will always cherish the lessons of love and service taught to me by a 7, 5, 3 year old that day!  I am so blessed!

December Days

The days of December always seem to fly by!  It is such a fun time of year.

Bubble baths were Ava and Will's favorite past time.

 There was a lot of Ho ho hoing going on with their bubble beards.

 We made gingerbread houses one Sunday evening.  I was lazy and just bought a kit this year.  It was a kit for a gingerbread village, so all the houses look more like gingerbread shacks.

 Here's the whole gingerbread village completed.

 We had tithing settlement on a Tuesday night.  I was just going to take the kids in their jammies, but Mr. Ex-bishop said that the bishops office and the chapel are the two places in the church building that you should always be in Sunday dress.  Who knew?  Not me!  So we got the kids dressed and forced Will to wear a tie.  And I am glad we did!  He has loved wearing a tie ever since!  He went from absolute melt down about a tie to being so proud of wearing one!!  Blessings of obedience! :)

 We had to wait a while at the church for our appointment.  So Will was super entertained by redecorating this Christmas tree.

 So handsome in his tie!!

 The girls were entertained by the discovery of the selfie!

 Scary discovery!

 Oh that crazzzy Ava!

 Lily took these close ups of the ornaments, I thought they were quite artistic!

 This lady from another ward was thoroughly entertained by my kids antics.  She kept giggling.  They were pretty funny.

 I like this one with the tree and the picture of Jesus.  Such a great representation of the season.  

 And here is our great bishop. The only way we got Will to put on his tie is that he thought for some weird reason he was going to get a backhoe (I didn't tell him that, sometimes I do lie to my kids to get them to do something, but this time that was not the case!)  So during tithing settlement Will kept saying, I'm going to get a backhoe! Lucky, for us, the bishop had lots of treats that he was very liberal with giving out.  So Will got chocolate instead of a backhoe.  :)

Thank goodness for bishops!