Christmas! Hope you all had a wonderful holiday with your families and friends. We enjoyed D.C. temple lights last weekend. We were able to attend a great concert at the visitors center and walked around and admired the lights. My girls posed as Shepard's, they were long distance attendees at the Bonner Christmas nativity. They loved posing for pictures and wanted to leave the turbans on for the day.

Christmas Eve was the usual traditions for our family. Soup with bread braid, watching Rudolph, receiving new Christmas pajamas and the girls exchanging gifts they had bought for each other. We had one of Rob's coworkers over for the evening. She doesn't have family in the area and we are happy to have extra visitors. The girls loved the extra attention that she provided and after the kids were in bed I appreciated the extra hands in wrapping presents.

Christmas morning was crazy and fun, all three girls received a new American girl doll and have been playing with them since.

My Shepard's abiding in the flocks

Lights at the temple

Four girls on Christmas morning

Christmas breakfast traditions

Dreaming of a White Christmas

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas or balmy sandy beaches. It is so bitter cold here this week, couldn't a little of that white stuff fall? There was a water main break this morning in the lower county, up to 96" of water was flowing down the street, school was closed early and they are hoping to restore water pressure by Christmas. We were not affected much, besides school out early. M & S were supposed to make Gingerbread houses at school. Instead we got to bring the mess home and had a great time adding to our village. The news is reporting that it was due to the frigid temperatures. Of course the humidity doesn't help during the winter either. Could you Utahan's send us a little snow for the week of Christmas? or send me to Hawaii. I could lay on the beach, with the sand between my toes for the week, maybe next year thanks to Obama.

Annual Traditions

We are all enjoying the traditions that December brings. This year at our Ward Christmas party they invited a special guest. That eased up the pressure of running the girls to the mall to sit with Santa. All three were able to make their requests. Any guesses?? The house is going to be brimming with American Girl dolls if Santa completes his requests. Samantha did not specify the doll that she wanted, of course she worked herself up over it until I took her back in the room 1 hour later to talk to Santa again. This time she specified the particular American Girl doll that she wanted and all was well. My little worry wart, not sure were she gets that from, I tell Rob it is all from him :)

For Sunday activity we built and decorated our Family Gingerbread House. It would have been good to have read the instructions (build the house and let it set for 15-30 minutes). By this point in reading the girls had plastered the house with candy and not so gently. The roof was caving in, one wall was leaning and the candy was slipping. Oh well, not to worry Rob propped the house with wooden sticks and it survived. The final outcome, a very well done house by children's standards. I told Rob it would be fun to have an adult gingerbread decorating party. Next year we will have the addition of a 1 yr. old to help decorate, eat and add sticky fingers.

Last but not least, Christmas goodies. Christmas is not complete for me without baking, cooking, preparing and eating Christmas treats. This is what I accomplished on Monday. The treats I made; Peanut butter cups, cinnamon almonds, oreo truffles and macadamia nut clusters. This weekend it is cookie baking and then we will make our deliveries to teachers, home teaching families and v.t. families.

Hope you are all enjoying your holiday traditions.

Deck the Halls

My tree has been sitting in the living room for the last two weeks. Lights are on, lite up every night and the girls keep asking when we could put on the ornaments. The problem was the tree decor was a little to fancy for my current house decor. I was looking at a blog the other night and found this cute idea with felt. You cute the felt into small circles and stitch together on your sewing machine. I finally made it to Joann's yesterday and spent all last night cutting circles. Aubrey helped my sew the circles today and presto I have a decorated tree. I think that the bright colors go well with the ornaments and give the tree a little more of a primitive look. Most of the ornaments were made by my great grandma and mom, a few I picked up at antique stores.

Our family is enjoying Christmas music on my iPod and have started a little baking this week. Nice and simple but it is fun to continue the traditions.

Aubrey has also loved playing with the playmobile nativity set that Aunt Jenny sent to us last year, thank you aunt jenny she has had so much fun!!

32 Weeks

This is for Megan! I was talking to my sister this week and she asked if my belly had arrived. She is expecting triplets 8 weeks behind me, we are all hoping she at least makes it to my due date. Anyway, here is the pic to prove the belly. Pregnancy is going well for the most part, these are a few of the things that I miss:

-tying my own shoes

-socks that don't turn my ankles into fat Italian sausages

-wearing my wedding ring

-getting up off the couch without needing help

-moping the floors, actually I'm not missing that, Rob can continue with that job as long as he would like

-no heartburn caused my anything, and I mean a bowl of corn flakes.

Ahh, I would like to countdown the days but there is still much to be done. This may be the only pregnancy picture I post so live it up Meg.