Snow Day!

Will and Ella got these great igloo making forms from their Aunt Amber and Uncle Paul for Christmas. They had a blast playing in the snow. And there's plenty of it!

Christmas at Grandma's

Here are some pics of the whole crew at Grandma's house. 

Thankfully, the weather cleared up enough on Christmas Day for our get together and everyone arrived safely, which may not have happened on Christmas Eve!

Kai is giving Jane a hug in her new coat and Alex opened some awesome Legos from Uncle Adam...

...Will and Jack stopped rough housing long enough to watch Ella open some beautiful jewelry from Grandma.

Uncle Adam bought Will an Ant Farm!?! 

Cameron made a beautiful scarf for Ella, with which she adorned her Webkins poodle.

Dallin opened Bananagrams and played a game with Matti!

And Uncle Adam opened a pillow from Grandma.

Aunt Nikki looked through the new family album of scanned images from our growing up years.

You know, next time I am going to take pictures of the amazing dinner we had prior to opening the presents. It was awesome this year! Everything turned out great and we had delicious desserts after!

Merry Christmas!

Santa got more Webkins!

Ella's favorite present was a My Little Pony castle that she had to assemble on the spot.

Alex got his very own blue Wii remote (remote ownership is of very high importance).

Ian got this awesome Imaginext castle that talks and lights up and changes shape and shoots ... I don't think any of us have figured out all the things it does yet.

He got a cute horse to go with his castle and gave it a hug!

 Will did an awesome job of being excited for everyone else and helping them open their presents.

Will was super excited when he got his own Ipod! Now Mom can have hers back...

Christmas Eve!

Will helped Ian open his cute jammies. Will has been so sweet with helping Ian lately.

Alex was super excited about his Avengers jammies.

Ella got these awesome cheetah print, super warm jammies. 

She likes to think of them as Ocelot jammies.

Cutie Patooties!

My sweet Christmas darlings! The one thing I wished was that Will could have chosen his own because I couldn't find something great for him, but he was so sweet about it, trying not to be disappointed. I think as you grow up, the magic of Christmas changes, but it's always still there. :)

Christmas Treats

I love the way Ian's little mind works and how he arranges his treats before eating them. The kids cut out a bunch of snowflakes after our Ward Christmas party and we hung them on the window. It's a Winter Wonderland on Christmas Eve!

Alex made this amazing Santa's Sleigh at a birthday party! Looks delicious!

Christmas Choral Concert

I had to snap this photo of our teacher's Christmas Lunch. It was fun to decorate the lounge to make it look more festive! There was lots of garland, holiday music was playing and we even had a parent do a 10 minute massage for our teachers! 

This was our Christmas Choral concert. The kids did a great job! 

I was really impressed with how many songs they learned and they had cute choreography. 

Ella's group sang Santa Claus is coming to town and Oh Come All Ye Faithful.

Will's class sang the Twelve Days of Christmas and different kids sang the different parts of the song. 

Will's group was Eight Maids a Milking. They also sang Joy to the World.

Artistry

Ella made this Ocelot poster for school. It's Kimball's favorite animal. She did a great job. She also made a diagram of the rainforest with its different canopies. 

Halloween and Thanksgiving artwork!

My own creations! :)

Alex was proud of how he made his bed, so we had to take a picture.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The kindergarteners and first graders had a fun Thanksgiving feast. I just had to get this picture of their cute fruit loop necklaces. They also did a couple cute songs about pumpkins and turkeys. We had a food drive this week. And just when Will's arm had healed from the buckle fracture he got from getting tripped on the playground right before Fall break, Alex was balancing on the edge of the van and slipped and got the same fracture on his right arm. Luckily, it wasn't as bad and he only needed a splint for about 3 weeks.

We had a great Thanksgiving at Lauren's house this year. Too bad I didn't get any pictures.

Snuggle Time

I guess it all catches up with you sometime! Ian decided to join me in a snuggle. 

Then, he got out and brought all of his stuffed animals to join us. 

Happy Halloween!

Of course, Will was Harry Potter for Halloween! Alex was a ninja! 

The kids had a fun parade at the school and then a class party.

Ella was Cat-arina and Ian was Thomas. Ian knew just what to do to get the loot this year!

It was so cute to hear him say "Bick Oh Beat and Appy Hawoween!"

Mascot Assembly

In August, I signed up to be in the PTO for our new school. I helped organize the Ribbon Cutting Ceremony, worked on the school newsletter, developed a character program, and helped with Parent-Teacher Conferences and the Book Fair.
In mid-October, our school had an assembly to reveal the school mascot. The kids had all submitted entries and we also used this assembly to kick off our Cookie Dough Fundraiser. We invited Leo from Salt Lake Real and Cosmo from BYU to help get our kids excited about it the mascot and working together.

We made an obstacle course they each had to go through. They weren't supposed to be able to do the course so that they had to work together with kids at the end to demonstrate teamwork. 

They did it anyway. It was hilarious.

Leo had to help Cosmo through the toddler-sized tunnel. Once he had him, he pushed him into the wall a couple times. It was so funny. Their energy was something else.

Then, they helped the kids race through the course. We gave out awards for all the top mascot submissions by kids and each got to take their picture with the mascots. This was the top winner. We all had our fingers crossed that Leo didn't drop him!

They did such a wonderful job with the kids. It was really fun and exciting.

It was a lot of work to do the decorations, music, certificates, getting the mascots, making the obstacle course, etc. My most genius idea was the inexpensive tablecloths for a backdrop! 

Aunt Breanne came to take pictures for us and they turned out great!