Wake Up!!! It's Christmas Morning!

I love Christmas morning! It's so much fun when your kids are bouncing you out of your bed because they are so excited! They can see all of the gifts under the tree on their way to our bedroom, but we FORBID them from going downstairs until we brush our teeth and look marginally presentable. We didn't take a lot of pictures this year, but here are a few of my favorites...

Josh decided the night before that someone should play "Santa" and hand out the gifts to everyone one by one. Ya, that lasted for about 1 present per person, then it was fair game for all! No one paid any attention. But Santa gave the kids lots of fun gifts this year. Some of our favorites are...

Jonathan was so happy to get the new GI Joe DS game! Yes, it was on his list to Santa and Santa actually gave him something that was on his list.... I love 10 year olds! (hint of sarcasm)

Jilly got all of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse characters and a few of the stuffed animals that she didn't have as well. She is so in love with all of the "Mickey" friends!

Jon and Josh got ipods... Wow! Santa is nice!

Jilly watching her new "Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas" movie. The love of her life!

Jimmy got a new bike!!! He was so excited! No hand-me-down for him! Santa got him a Lightening McQueen bike with training wheels and he LOVES it! He wants to go out every day and have me watch him ride his bike. Notice how he is wearing his Lightening McQueen clog shoes (yes, they are the same ones he's been wearing for about a year and a half!).
Thanks Santa for all the nice gifts!

Josh's Winter Program

I feel obligated to post this since I love my son dearly, but to be honest, I have no idea what the point of his class Winter Program was all about. It was based on the book "Snowmen at Christmas" and they had different classes act out different parts of the story. But watching K-2nd graders can be so "painful" at times and I didn't really get what was going on! And I was trying to take pictures and watch Jimmy and Jillian at the same time, which is almost impossible! Of course they were all cute and sang a few songs. I was so proud that he did all of the movements for the songs and even smiled! There was one little boy that screamed the last song that they sang. There were so many of us in the audience that were laughing so hard we were crying. I love these performances solely for the fact that they give the kids an opportunity to perform, and that's a huge self esteem boost that all kids need! Josh was great!

New Primary Song

Here is the new Primary song for 2010 that is not in the Children's Songbook. This is a great side show... take a peek!

Jonathan's 1st Piano Recital

Jonathan had his first piano recital after 2 1/2 years of lessons this past Friday night. He was fantastic! He played 3 pieces: the first was Wake Up Call, next was Keep the Commandments, and the final piece was Jingle Bells. He played perfectly and we were so proud of him and all of the effort he put in to practice for his performance.

Jonathan with his teacher Lorie Martin and Trevor Martin. Jonathan and Trevor take lessons together every week and have been friends since he was 2 years old. Thanks Lorie for having the recital and being such a great teacher!

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

We were SUPPOSED to go as a family to hunt for a Christmas tree this year, but Jillian came down with a fever and she and I stayed home while the boys all went on the annual hunt again. Earl is such a sport! I don't think they were expecting to see so much snow! Of course, we don't own snow clothes (why would we???) and the boys thankfully had their heavy coats. I think the boys had more fun playing with the Knudson family in the snow than looking for a tree (except Jimmy who was miserable the whole time!). But they didn't let their mommy down and found a beautiful tree to bring home.

They had to drag the tree back to our truck! Thank goodness the Knudson's truck is a 4 wheel drive. Can you tell how relieved Earl is that the adventure is almost over?!?

Earl stopped on the drive back for a Kodak moment. Handsome boys!

Yes, it is beautiful! Jillian kindly redecorates it every day for us too!

Thanksgiving Adventures!

We started our Thanksgiving day with a BANG! Our power was knocked out for blocks because someone hit a power pole with their car. Thankfully we woke up in time to head out at 6:45 for the RUN TO FEED THE HUNGRY. Earl has participated for several years now and Jonathan and I joined him this year. We ran the 5k together (well, I dragged Jonathan for about 2 miles of the run) and Earl ran the 10k... his personal best time for a 10k at less than 51 min. We had a great time running with the thousands that participated. When we got home, we found our power still hadn't come back on, but we continued to get ready to head down to Fresno to visit our families for the holiday. About 2 pm, we still had no power, and were getting ready to cancel our trip (we didn't want to leave a freezer full of food and no power!) and Jonathan came to me and said he prayed and asked Heavenly Father to make the power come back on because he really wanted to go see his grandparents and cousins. I told him that sometimes Heavenly Father has other plans for us (hoping he wouldn't get his hopes up) and just minutes later, the power came on! My lesson in faith came from my 10 year old, and I am truly thankful for him and his faith!

We had a great time visiting family, shopping and just hanging out! Thanks for Aimee the family for having us and to Grandpa Earl and Dad for making great turkey dinners while we were there!

Ghosts and Goblins

I'm a little slow with my posts lately, so I'll do a few to catch up... Halloween has come and gone, and we STILL have candy leftover from the many parties and doors we knocked.

Jillian caught on really quick how the whole thing works... go up to a stranger's house, get candy, eat candy. It was great... for her! Of course, for days after, she carried around her pumpkin and I finally had to take all of the candy away. She was the cutest princess you ever saw! Who wouldn't want to give this precious little girl some candy!

Jimmy decided to wear his Buzz costume again this year (YAH! One less costume to buy or put together!). He loved it for a while, but after a few blocks of knocking doors, had to practically be carried home. The costume was wearing him down!

Here is the whole crew together. Josh was a ninja again this year (Cha Ching! Saved on yet another costume!) and Jonathan wanted to be a Grim Reaper (his version... not sure how much of a costume it was, but it worked for him!). Sadly this was the best picture I could get of all of them, but after the annual picture it was all smiles while we ran from door to door with our neighborhood friends.