Christmas 2011

What a great Christmas! ALL of my family came from California, Utah and New Mexico. Between my house and my sister Holly's--we had two FULL houses! All of us 6 siblings were together with my parents--I can't even the remember the last time we were all together for Christmas.  But before everyone got here we were busy cleaning and prepping the house.  One thing the kids have always wanted to do is make a Gingerbread House as a family.  Is that weird we've never done that?  So this year was our first.  And it turned out pretty darn cute....

Once everyone got here we wasted no time playing in the snow. Well, what little snow we had. We were lucky to have enough to play in just in time for Christmas.

Riley and Landon.  Landon was plum tuckered out.

Riley and Landon with their cousins Brooklyn, Weston and Blake

Katelyn with my sisters Lauren and Teri

Christmas Eve is my sister Caroline's birthday! So we decided to go to an Evans family favorite--Big Jud's. You know the restaurant where the burgers are bigger than your face. So good!

My nephew Weston. Pretty big, right?

Later that night we had another Evans family favorite for Christmas Eve dinner--my mom's famous bread bowls with potato soup.  Seriously so good.

Later that night we had our Christmas Program and nativity scene with all the cousins...

 

Then there was Christmas morning!

Yes, Emma and Mason each got a hamster. Don't ask.

Later, all of us went to my sister Holly's ward for church that day. I was definitely not complaining about that since her ward was at 1:00 p.m. It was nice to all be together on Christmas day at church. The day was especially sweet because my little brother Steven was ordained an Elder that day. So it was neat that we could all be there for that.

The whole family.

All of us siblings.

Lauren, Caroline, Me, Steven, Teri and Holly

After church we went up to the cemetery to visit my brother-in-law Nate. The headstone is finally in and it turned out beautiful. 
He was and is sorely missed.

Later that night we played some Christmas "Minute-to-Win-it" Games. Seriously, hours of entertainment.

The how many candy canes can you balance on the yard stick game.

The how many Hershey kisses you can unwrap with gloves on in
a minute game.

The Nut-Stacker game. Balance the nuts with a candy cane.

The close your eyes and try to hook the candy canes together game.  This one seriously so funny!

The how many marshmallows can you get through the wreath game.

The next day we went to Rexburg to go ice skating at teacher from BYU-Idaho's house that Josh's mom works with. He has an ice skating rink that he built himself in his backyard. This was the first time our family has ever been ice skating. What a blast! Seriously, we had so much fun. They also made us homemade french fries and hot chocolate. So grateful that Josh's mom set us up with this guy.

Holly, Lauren, Me, Joshua and Ethan

    Then the next day we went to see the movie "We Bought a Zoo"...

We had such a great time with all of my family this last Christmas. It was a Christmas of many firsts for our family and it will be a Christmas our family will never forget.

Thanksgiving 2011

Okay, I'm getting caught up now before Christmas comes. One more thing to check off my list! For Thanksgiving this year, we mixed things up quite a bit.  We celebrated our Thanksgiving  the Sunday before with Josh's family to accomodate a couple of sisters that were going to be out of town on Thanksgiving.  We did all the regular stuff--turkey, pies the whole thing. It was great.

But then I didn't know what to do for the actual Thanksgiving day.  Do I do it all over again with just our family?  I did not want to go through the hassle of cooking a turkey and all the baking when we just did all that 4 days earlier. But we wanted to do SOMETHING! So we talked to the kids and asked them what we should do. Boy was that humbling....they suggested that we go volunteer at a Soup Kitchen for those less fortunate.  Perfect. So I started making some calls and got us on the list to help serve for The Salvation Army on Thanksgiving Day.  What a neat experience.  They let all our kids come and help serve (minus Landon who hung out with a neighbor). The kids loved it! If you have never done that, I highly suggest it.

After we left from serving, we decided to have a feast of our own and go to Chuck-a-Rama.  Definitly not one of favorites, but the kids love it!  The place was packed!! The line went clear outside. I always thought it was so lame when people would go out to eat on Thanksgiving. And this year we were those people. 

Later that afternoon, we went to the movies to see Dolphin Tale.  Such a cute movie! Afterwards, we rushed home to have some family over for pie, games and of course looking through the Black Friday newspaper ads! Always a favorite. 

It may have been a little unconventional this year, but I know it's a Thanksgiving my kids will never forget.

Katelyn's Halloween Party

Now that Katelyn is in Middle School and is so grown-up, she and her friend Presli wanted to throw a Halloween party.  And not just a come and decorate a pumpkin and have some treats party--a boy-girl party. Yikes! It's a good thing Katelyn has really good friends that I actually really like. They had it at her friend's house and invited over 20 kids. It was pretty over the top. The invitations were hand delivered on a silver platter with both girls dressed up in all black. (Wish I had a picture of that.) And Presli's house was decorated with over-the-top decorations.  Her mom goes all out for Halloween, so their house was perfect for the occasion.  I was in charge of food and came up with some pretty ghoulish treats. The party was a hit for sure! Let's just hope it's not an annual thing!

Katelyn and Presli made these costumes themselves.  Pretty cute.

Their friend Drake decided to join in on the masquerade theme as well.

Halloween 2011

Oh, how I love Halloween. I love that our neighborhood is perfect for trick-or-treating. I love that I can send the older ones out on their own now. I love that Josh will take the kids out every year door to door and brave the cold, while I get to sit in my warm house, sip hot chocolate, and watch scary movies while I pass out candy. I love seeing all my kid's friends come to the door. I love it when my kids come home with huge smiles on their faces so excited to dump all their candy on the floor and show me what they got. I love eating their Almond Joys and that they don't even mind because they don't even like them. I just love Halloween.

This year Katelyn and her friend dressed up in Masquerade stuff. Whatever you call it. They made the costumes themselves, they turned out really cute. Emma was determined to be something scary this year. She can't just be whatever Katelyn was the year before. She's so over that. So she was a zombie vampire. Whatever that is. Mason was Dracula, Riley was a butterfly and Landon was a firefighter. They went trick-or-treating with their cousins and friends and had a great night.

Catch Up

So this is me playing catch up.  I've been a little out-of-commission lately, and have lost all desire to have anything to do with my blog.  There's always that nagging in the back of my mind that I'm so far behind and I don't even want to think of catching up.  Well, I've made a feeble attempt.  I think I'm caught up till September now and maybe in another several months I'll catch you up until November.

It has been a really hard few months for our family, with the passing of my brother-in-law, but we all have so much to be grateful for. I am grateful (most days) for this blog and that it gives me the opportunity to document my kids and our family. Someday I'd like to turn it into a book, sorta like a journal. Ugh...just thinking about putting that together gives me another headache. Well, here's August-September for now......

Riley is the BIG 5!

My little Riley is the big 5! This was her first friend birthday party as well and BOY can I tell you she was SO excited about it! I've seriously never in my life seen this little girl more happy...EVER! She just couldn't believe that all her friends came to her house, all at once, brought her presents, all sang to her and that the whole day was all about HER! She was on cloud nine! She had a butterfly themed birthday party, complete with a butterfly cake and wings. It was a perfect day for my Riley Mae.

Selena Gomez Concert

This year for Emma's birthday she got a ticket to the Selena Gomez concert that was last September. LAST year, Katelyn got a ticket to the Justin Bieber concert for her birthday and so did Emma.  So I couldn't just take Emma and NOT Katelyn to see Selena Gomez. They were both thrilled when they found out their friends got tickets as well and we made a big fun day of it.  All in all, it was a really fun concert with good friends, which made for fun memories with my girls.