Mini Golf

Dear Kate and Riley,

The past few years we have gone mini golfing on Christmas Eve. This year though we decided to do it a few days early so we could go with some friends. The boys had fun although it was a little chaotic with four boys who all wanted to participate and do their own thing (ahem, Brady).

Paxton getting a little lesson from his dad

Brady just liked taking the balls out of the hole. Whether his or not.

The light was bad so a lot of my pictures didn't really turn out well. Pax taking a swing.

I think Zach is destined to be a golfer

The volcano is always the hit. We always have to do the same course to make sure we get the volcano

The kids love doing games inside after golfing

Love,
Mom

Santa Train

Dear Kate and Riley,
It just wouldn't be Christmas without a visit to the Santa Train! Zach was so excited but also a little nervous because he didn't have super clear requests like he did last year. We stepped it up and invited a few more families this year and it was fun to have a bunch of buddies but also a little chaotic, I'm realizing that as we all keep having more kids we're getting outnumbered!

On the way, very excited

Two goofballs waiting for their other buddies to arrive

Too old and too cool to sit with mom and dad, the boys insisted on sitting in the very front of the train. It made me a little sad.

Noah, Will, Zach. Kate sat with them for about 2 seconds and decided they were a little too wild for her taste.

Dad looks creepy in this, not sure why. But we were happy to at least have someone who still wanted to sit with us!

Parker, Annie, Kate. Cuties.

Lily and Brady had similar sentiments about Santa. I just love how Noah is laughing in this.

Despite being promised candy canes and all other sorts of things, Brady still flipped when we put him on Santa's lap. Oh well, maybe next year.

We were happy there was a little kid bounce house to keep Brady safe from the crazy boys.

Loving the bounce house until he bounced into someone's knee

Seven of the nine kids we had

Not pictured-- after this adventure we kept the fun going with a dinner at Lucille's bbq. Pretty insane to take a group with this many kids to a sit down restaurant but all things considered they did pretty well. We had fun!

Love,
Mom

Preschool Christmas Party

Dear Kate and Riley,
The preschool Christmas party definitely topped all the preschool parties so far this year (since we pretty much had one every month!). Zach was SO in to all the Christmas music and just really belted out all the songs, even leading the entire group to an extra verse of Jingle Bells (pretty sure he would have kept going had he not been stopped). I was so, so sad that I didn't grab the video camera on my way out the door that day. I was proud of my boy and his performance.

When they came out they all said "Welcome to our Christmas Program. We are elves and we are helpers" it was so cute. I loved the elf hats.

Zach and Ryan. They must have sat a little too close because they both spent that night with the stomach flu.

Love,
Mom

Boat Parade

Dear Kate and Riley,
We continued the holiday fun with the Newport Beach Boat Parade. Last year everything was so smooth I was pretty sure the chance of a repeat was slim to none. We still had a fun night but didn't double check the time and showed up at the beach an hour early after rushing to get there. But the kids had fun playing and it provided for some more photo ops.

Hanging out waiting for the boats to start

A little canoodling

could they be any cuter?

The boys loved the pirate ship

We actually got a good family photo!? What? I guess I could have cropped Will's head out of it, oops.

Love,
mom

Gymnastics Christmas Party

Dear Kate and Riley,

The boys take a little gymnastics class and they have a Christmas party every year. It is just a big crazy gymnastics class with Santa making an appearance at the end. Both of the boys were excited but both had a little bit of a hard time with Santa. We were glad this was only the warm up Santa visit.

First they got to play around and Brady had a blast, no pictures of Z because he was off with his own group

Brady was NOT very excited about Santa. But he did like the candy cane he got from him. Now he will tell anyone who will listen "Santa, candy cane"

Zach got really shy with Santa and wouldn't talk. Afterward he was sad but was glad he'd get a do-over later that week.

We were excited for a kick off to Christmas!

Love,
mom

Thanksgiving Part 2

Dear Kate and Riley,
Back to Thanksgiving....

We spent Thanksgiving day at Papa Frank and Grandma Geri's. It was a nice low key afternoon with lots of yummy food.

There was some serious bananagram playing going on

And puzzle doing

And later back at Uncle Clint's lots of rock band playing

And we even got to video chat with Papa Ross and Grandma Janice

The day after Thanksgiving we went up the canyon to go sledding. For a couple of kids from California it doesn't get much better. The kids were in absolute heaven. It was so fun.

Brady was a little bit of a fashion victim since he only has girl cousins to borrow snow clothes from! But he didn't care.

First hill of the day and right after this pic they totally wiped out. Brady got a fat lip but recovered quickly.

Dad was a better sledding partner

Everyone loved going with Uncle Bret, he is so cool

Ali would just cover her face the whole time and hope for the best. I'm pretty sure this one resulted in injury as well. We decided after that Zach who is much bigger had to go in front so that in case of a crash he wouldn't land on top of someone smaller than him.

I'll admit to being a little nervous!

Brady had the best gig. He loved being pulled up the hill as much as he loved going down.

My favorite picture, look at his face! Pure joy.

I can't believe I didn't get a single picture of Summer or Ali's faces! They both hid their faces every time they went down.

Our last night we went to temple square to see the lights. It was really crowded and cold but still beautiful.

No one wanted their pictures taken, sigh. We tried!

And one more just for fun...


It was so much fun and I can't believe we're going back for Christmas!

Love,
Mom