We All Scream for Ice Cream!

We live about five minutes from Thanksgiving Point and the cutest ice-cream parlor ever!  It is our family's favorite place to go on Saturdays (Their ice cream cones are only 25 cents!)  We love to order our ice cream, and then sit in a booth and talk until we're stuffed. 

Once, Jason and I decided to share an ice cream sundae.  We were expecting one of those little ice cream sundaes like you get at Sonic.  Instead they gave us this monstrosity . . .

 

It was just as delicious as it looks, and they practically had to roll me out of that shop!  Yum!!

The Girl's Got Talent!

The kids' school has a big talent show every year at Christmas time.  Olivia wanted to perform in this year's show.  We chose a song, and she practiced diligently every day to prepare for her audition.  She  was the youngest student to make it into the show.  Livi loves to sing and perform, but this was her first time singing in front of such a large crowd . . . more than 1,200 people!   I was SO proud of her!  Seriously, I cried because I was so proud to be her mom.  Here she is, performing "When Christmas Comes to Town" from The Polar Express. (If you click on the title of the video, you can watch the full-screen version).

Bravo to our little Livi!  We Love you!!

Christmas in March!

It's March . . . and I'm just now getting around to blogging about Christmas.  I have four crazy sweet kids, so I guess I'm giving myself a pass.  Batter late than never!  We had a fun Christmas together.  Admittedly, I felt extra stressed this holiday season.  I'm a perfectionist, and life just isn't perfect (It's something I'm learning to accept).  But there truly is something magical about Christmas when you see it through your kids' eyes . . . Here are some pictures of our fun!

Our attempt at a "happy" Christmas Sunday picture:

The kids in their Christmas jammies:

Grandma Dalby gave the kids a kit to decorate gingerbread men.  Here they are showing off their treats:

Cookies and Thank-You Notes for Santa:

Santa left gifts for the kids:

Opening Gifts on Christmas Morning:

Playing games on Christmas Day:

Merry (Ridiculously late) Christmas everyone!  

Sledding Fun!

We have an awesome sledding hill in our neighborhood.  Every day after school, the kids beg to go sledding.  We haven't had a ton of snow this winter, but Jason has been able to take them a few times . . . 

 

There is seriously nothing funnier than Ethan in his snow suit.  We die laughing every time he puts it on . . .

Hooray for snow!

Growing Up

In November, Logan officially became a nursery boy . . . Hallelujah!!  He had been looking forward to nursery for a long time.  Every week when we dropped Ethan off, Logan would beg to go with him.  Naturally, we were expecting it to be a smooth transition . . . Oh how wrong we were!  The moment Logan discovered he was being put in a different nursery than his big brother, the reaction was something akin to this:

He pretty much looked like that for the entire two hours of nursery.  Fortunately, when we got home his big sister found him a cookie, and he went right back to his happy self (cookies have magical powers in our house).

Growing up is hard to do!

A Sunny Thanksgiving!

In November, we drove to sunny Arizona to spend Thanksgiving with Jason's family.  Almost all his siblings were able to be there- no small feat for the Davis family!  Allison was kind enough to play host to the lot of us.  It was SO much fun . . . I hardly saw my kids the entire week!  They wanted to spend every minute of every day with their cousins.  Get ready for a lot of photos . . .

Arizona was a blast.  The 13 hour car ride to GET to Arizona . . . not so much a blast.  Fortunately we found this guy at a rest stop to cheer us up (He was seriously so real looking, it was freaky).

The best thing about Thanksgiving in Arizona?  We can spend it outside . . . and we don't freeze our booties off!

The neighbors had this crazy swing contraption that we couldn't get enough of.

No Thanksgiving is complete without a Turkey Bowl!

The Feast (for all 42 of us!) . . .

 

The girls did some Black Friday shopping.  So much fun!

We had a talent show one night.  Olivia sang "Somewhere Out There" for everyone, and Joshua showcased one of his drawings.

We went to the Mesa temple one night to see the amazing Christmas lights.

We are so grateful we were able to spend Thanksgiving with family.  We know a lot of sacrifices were made to bring us all together, but we made some awesome memories!  Love you all!!