Christmas in Colorado Springs

Brandon talented mother MADE this floating chess set/Chinese checkers/game set box for us for Christmas! We love it and it is so beautiful! She even got us Lamanite and Nephite chess pieces!

Taylor and Logan making funny faces

Beckett it practically crawling now....i'm sure they'll be a post of that soon too!

Not sure why Callie pulled this funny face!

Christmas in Utah

Since we didn't want to bring all of our Christmas presents out to Colorado this year, we decided to have a Christmas at home before we left. We even called up Santa and he said he would come early for Taylor and Callie...that was sure considerate of him, don't you think? On "Christmas Eve" we acted out the nativity scene, with Brandon as Joseph, Tina as the donkey/wisemen/Shepard, Taylor as Mary, Callie as the Angel, and Beckett as the baby Jesus. We had lots of fun on Christmas morning...Beckett loved playing with the wrapping paper! Brandon made me the frame in the picture below of the kids feet! I love it! A couple days before we left Callie found a bag of foam animal stickers and decorated herself!

Love this video of Taylor opening this present. She had asked for a big Barbie last year but we really didn't want to get it because they cost like 35bucks, they are huge to store, and we figured she would realise quickly that it's not that much fun. So we talked her out of it....we thought! Much to our surprise she asked for it again this year! A neighbor gave us the idea to look on craigs list/ksl for one and wouldn't you know it, there was a my size Barbie for 8 bucks for sale in Spanish Fork! I guess it was meant to be!

The lights at Temple Square

Doesn't this tree look amazing! Wow, that is a lot of lights!

We went to the Church History Museum for the first time and discovered they had a childrens museum too. The kids loved dressing up and reenacting the nativity. Taylor spent like 20 minutes making a luminarie. We had a hard time convincing them to leave!

Sledding and Gingerbread Fun

Over the past few days we have gotten dumped on...so our neighbor across the street made this awesome sledding run in the movie....

Pics of the backyard

Taylor and her friend having a blast going down the hill

For family home evening we made a gingerbread house. The girls loved it, especially eating the frosting!

Beckett didn't get in on the gingerbread fun but he was having a great time playing with his Dad.

On Sunday we finally tried out our wood burning stove. It actually heated the home up quickly!

November Fun!

My handsome boys!
Taylor jumping off the rocks in the backyard.

I love this pic of Callie!

My parents came to our home for Thanksgiving again this year and we had a great time, packing in lots of activities into the time we got to spend with them. My mom bought the girls some Christmas crafts that they loved working on together.

We went to the festival of lights in Spanish Fork (actually only about a hop, skip and a jump from our front yard!)

Deer in our backyard.

Parade of lights in Spanish Fork.

We went to a 10,000 acre tree farm in Alpine and cut down our Christmas tree this year. It was really fun and the especially enjoyed riding the 4 wheeler. Here is the one we picked.

Loading up to go find the tree....

In our matching Christmas jammies that Brandon's mom made us last year.