Christmas Day

It came!  It really came!  Christmas morning came!  Tianne has talked about it and sung about it for over a month now.  We listened to the Cinnamon Bear every night in preparation.  We wrote our letters to Santa and set our alarm.

  Time to go see what we got....

Notice sweet little Cambree's face.  She was so concerned that she had been put on the naughty list.  She stopped and asked me to look first to see if Santa remembered her or not before she went in the room.  The pressure to be good was just a little too much for her and she buckled under the pressure.  But Santa knows her heart, and knew her to be a good girl and remembered her!

First stop was to check out whether or not Santa ate their cookies. I was surprised that they didn't go straight to their gifts.

Checking out the loot!

Now to open their presents....

(how has Shayla grown up so much?  She looks like a young woman!)

There always has to be a crying gift and this year I gave it.  However, I was also the one who cried.  As I watched each of these beautiful girls open the book I made them of their first year of life, I shed tears.  Where does the time go?

Brian wins for the most dramatic reaction to a gift!

The story of the accordion is as follows:  We were in Cedar City visiting Grandma and Papa this summer.  We ate at this cafe attached to a antique consignment shop.  Brian saw this accordion and fell in love with it.  He thought about buying it, but decided against it and we drove back to Salt Lake right after lunch.  I call my mom when we got home and she went in to buy it.  They brought it up on one of their trips and I hid it in the basement for four months.  Truth be told, I had serious buyer's remorse and wanted to get rid of it.  I'm sure glad I didn't...Brian LOVES it!

The biggest present under the tree was the last present to be opened by the three girls. Out popped a Mickey balloon with a note asking them to come visit in DisneyWorld in a couple of months.  What fun!  But I think we might have to ship them in the box in order to afford getting them to Florida.

Merry Christmas to all!!!

The Grand Month of December

After having a perfect November, we moved right into the grand month of December.  I know now why January and February are always so depressing. Two amazingly fun filled months in a row is hard to follow.  


These three girls love each other! (most of the time)

Shayla decided she wanted to learn to ski.  So she signed up for an after school program that buses her up the mountain, teaches her lessons, then brings her back to the school once a week for six weeks.  Lucky her!!

Brian decided we needed to host his work party this year.  So I went about spending money to decorate the house and buy Christmas dishes to make everything look perfect.  Then I called on the big guns to come and help me decorate the table.  I think it turned out pretty decent.

We partied it up on 12-12-12 at exactly 12:12.  Well we commemorated it by taking a picture of it on our phone at least.

Lucky us...we got in the Deseret News Paper.  It was a sad sad day in the news and the reporters showed up at our school to get a story of parents picking up their children from school.  We were followed all over the school by a reporter taking our pictures.  They got some cute pictures, despite my not wanting the attention. Shayla was off to ski and we had lots of tears from Mom as I tried to send her off instead of hold her close on that dreadful day.

 Fun times luckily came our way and we were off to the Baird family Christmas Party.  This was a fun-filled event full of cousins, games, food, music, candy and laughter.

 

We also had a Broadbent gathering the day after the Baird gathering. Unfortunately the whole clan was not together, and all we did was have Sunday dinner at our house, so I didn't get any pictures.  How sad!  We still had a fun-filled evening with cousin, food, fun, and plenty of stories.

You can't celebrate Christmas without going to Temple Square to see the lights.  So we bundled up warm and met our cousins there to enjoy to beautiful surroundings.  Tianne loves her cousins so much, that she can't let go of their hands, even if her uncle carries her... 

This year I bought two tickets to the Ballet West's Nutcracker.  It was a special date for Shayla and me to attend together.  They did a great job and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

We better make time in our busy month to make cookies.  This was the first year I didn't frost a single cookie.  All cookies were done as a curtsey from my beautiful girls.

The Sunday before Christmas was a busy one for Brian and I.  Brian had the choir numbers to worry about, and I had the Primary Nativity Program.  But this did not stop us from dressing up in our Christmas best and getting our photo-shoot in before church.  We got some good shots this year.

Christmas Eve was spent with Jennie and Phil for dinner, a Nativity puppet show, and singing of carols.  Hanging out with "the boys" is how we learn about what life would be like with brothers.

We decided we better have some winter fun.  So we sledded with our cousins at Grandma and Grandpa's house, then decided to have fun as with our own little family in an ice skating rink! We have some great ice skaters in the family. Cambree and Tianne had never been on skates before and did great!!!  Their determination to learn was unbelievable and they both were skating without help at the end of the day.

I don't want this month to end!  We have had far too much fun and can't wait to continue to make great memories together!