Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas day! The boys were all excited with the treasures that Santa brought, and I think the best part is that they were more excited to give the gifts that they had bought for each other. The best part of our day was getting the chance to talk to my sister Kate. She is serving her mission in Chile and is doing great. We got a little confused and thought we were suppost to call her at 11:30, and we got a phone call at 11:00 from the AP in her mission telling us that we were half an hour late calling her. We then had to wait for her companion to talk to her family before we could talk to her. It was so fun to hear her voice and have half of the conversation in Spanish. She will be home next year just before Christmas and we can't wait!

We went over to visit Grandma and Grandpa Tadje and Spencer loved Lydia's Chirstmas present. He played with it for hours. (I think we need a little girl so that we can have a play kitchen at our house!) We hope all of you had a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

We started off Christmas Eve with our ward's Christmas program. Every year the primary puts on the Nativity and this year our boys were shepherds. It is a wonderful tradition.

After we headed over to my grandma Condie's house for our Shepherd's dinner. We started a new tradition this year, and everyone dressed up in shepherd costumes. She had Erik and the boys reinact a story called The Last Straw and then we all went on a walk to find the baby Jesus.

Erik had a little problem with his head piece!

Dad and Grandpa
Mack and Spencer

Santa made a special trip to grandma's house just before heading out to make his deliveries.

Everyone was happy to see Santa except Spencer and Mack. Poor Mack happened to be standing on the stairs alone when Santa walked in. He was a little traumatized! This picture is as close as Spencer would get to Santa. We hope next year will be better.

The boys each got new pj's for Christmas. They were ready for Santa to visit!

December

We have had a great month of December. The boys were busy with lots of fun things at school, and Spencer was my little helper with all the Christmas shopping.

Jaxson's class put on a production of the Christmas Carol, and he was Bob Cratchit. He did a great job! He has no fear and loves to perform. We may have an actor in the family.

Cameron had a Christmas sing-a-long at his school, and Spencer and I got to go see him. It was fun to see all the first graders singing "All I want for Christmas." Cameron has been without a tooth for a long time and we are hoping Santa will help it come in!

Dallin made some fun things at his preschool. They made the cutest gingerbread houses, complete with a fence and fancy windows! They learned lots of fun songs, and he even performed them for us on Christmas Eve.

Ever since we have been out on Christmas Break we have been bombarded with snow. The kids have had so much fun building forts and going sledding. They are becoming pretty efficient at shoveling too. (They do tend to leave a layer of ice, but at least it's something!) We had one day where we spent the whole day shoveling the driveway. It was so beautiful though. We felt like we were in a winter wonderland.

Dallin, Spencer and our neighbor Cody were cold after playing so hard in the snow, so we brought them inside to make sugar cookies. I think most of the frosting ended up in their mouths and not on the cookies.

Erik was able to take off work the week of Christmas, so we were able to do some fun things as a family. On Christmas Eve morning we took the boys bowling, and they had a great time. Every time Spencer rolled the ball, he would throw his arms up and jump up and down.

Family Pictures

We have never had family pictures taken anywhere but at Kiddie Kandids, so we decided it would be fun to try having some taken outside. We had a friend of Becca's take them, and she did a great job. We had a great time, and even got Spencer to smile for a few shots.