A Giant Christmas!

The kids woke up Christmas morning to find GIANT stuffed animals waiting for them on couch from Santa!

Grandma and Grandpa Smith sent John Deer tractors and sweatshirts for the boys!  Very fitting.  Sydney got an MP3 player which she is very excited about.

Christmas Eve Dinner was at our house,

complete with a deep fried turkey by Brian,

and carved by Lance.

Our traditional "program" followed dinner.  It began with the kids acting out the nativity.  Here is Mary and Joseph.

Followed by everyone else.

After the nativity we had a talent show.  The older kids each played a piano song, and the grand finale was a group performance of Sleighride.

Santa and the Fireman

 A few nights ago we were putting the kids to bed, reading books with them, when a loud fire truck with the siren on came down our street.  The siren stopped and christmas music began!  Immediately the kids flew downstairs and outside.  The truck stopped at the top of our street and out jumped several fireman and Santa!  He was passing out candy canes, big ones!  With all the rucus every neighbor came outside to see what was going on, and suddenly the dark street was filled with kids!  Santa and the fireman walked through the whole neighborhood with the fire truck and ambulance right behind them.

It took awhile to get the kids to wind down and get back in bed, and once they were finally in bed, we could then hear the siren blast everytime the truck entered a new neighborhood.  I remember they did this last year too, but our kids were totally asleep when they came and they missed the whole thing.  I'm glad they saw it this year.

12 Days of Christmas

 The 12 Days of Christmas is the way Grandma and Grandpa Huffman have been doing Christmas for the past few years.  Last year it was all in a neat big box, this year it showed up in a big santa bag.  The kids have loved playing with it.  There is one present to open everyday for the 12 days.  The kids take turns opening the presents each day (except day 12 there is one for each of them).  Each year the 12 days all follow a theme, and the theme this year is "Our Heritage".

 Day one was some Swedish gingerbread cookie mix.  Day two was the Swedish cookie cutters and the instuctions that you hang the cookies on the tree ( and sneek them later).

Day three was $10 to do a service project, or something nice for someone that we maybe wouldn't have thought of otherwise.  Since we walk to school everyday, we chose our crossing guard.  The kids picked out a scarf and gloves and gave it to her on the last day of school.  I had typed up a note and attached on the present explaining the gift and why we chose her.  She was very surprised, flattered, and grateful!  I wish I had brought my camera to take a picture of the kids giving the present to her.

Thanksgiving Pictures

 My good friend Ann was so kind to take a few pictures for us.  We found a bench near Target and headed over there after church one afternoon.  So lucky it wasn't raining!  Here were a few of our choices.

Waiting for Santa

 Santa was going to arrive by helicopter, so we waited and waited.  Then we found out it was too foggy for the helicopter to fly so Santa came inside a fire truck.  HUGE let down!  Waste of time.

Setting up Christmas

 The just couldn't wait any longer, so they are helping to set up Christmas stuff!

Thanksgiving 2011

 Sydney and Grandma setting the kids table.

 They boys enjoying some appetizers.

 During dinner.  We had my mom and Gary, Gary's parents, Mormor, Jeremy, and Gary's brother Jeff. 

The kids love to play with Uncle Jeremy.  Here they are playing "go fish".  I with Jeremy would come over more, he's so great with the kids.

Neighborhood Fun

This is how our kids have fun in the neighborhood.  Riding bikes and scooters and tying them all together with jump-ropes.

Halloween 2011

 Sydney a black cat.  Tyson a knight.  Carson a dragon.  So Tyson's costume is actually a Roman soldier, but he wanted to be a knight, and he really liked this costume.  If you take off the helmet, which he did often, then I think it works!

 It worked out great that Tyson was a Knight,  and that Knights fight dragons.  We just needed Sydney to be a princess, but she was pretty set on being a black cat.

 This year we trick-or-treated in our own neighborhood, which we've never done before (last year was our first year halloween in this house, but it was on a Sunday, so we didn't trick-or-treat).  It was the perfect amount of houses, and it's extra fun because we know everybody.

Counting the candy afterwards!

The Bird House

 Last year Sydney made a bird house in school.  We hung it in our back yard and over the summer a family of chicadee's moved in and hatched some babies.  We learned that we are supposed to clean out the bird house every fall, so we opened it up last week.  We found a nest and two eggs that never hatched!  The nest included a lot of Lafawndah hair.

Hot Hot Chili

 The ward Halloween party is having a pot-luck chili dinner.  Lance really really wanted to play a joke on everyone and make the HOTTEST, as in spiciest, chili possible.  He bought a couple cans of chili, then added the habanero peppers, which were the hottest available in our area.   This first picture is of him trying to get me to try it.



This next picture is the face he made after he tried it himself!

Pretty obvious what this picture is.

In the end, he did take the chili to the church and warned no one.   He strategically placed it first on the table.   Yes there were small children fanning their mouths crying for water, and Lance laughed all the way home.

Last Game

 Sydney's last soccer game was today.  She is excited to have it over with.  She does not like to run much, so she has preferred to play defender, which she does a pretty good job at.  She doesn't think she'll play soccer next year, but we'll wait and see.  I didn't think she would play again this year, but she wanted to.

Apples

 It's time to pick apples at the nearby U-Pick apple farm.  The boys had lots of fun, too bad Sydney was in school and couldn't come.  Soon we will make applesauce.