Christmas Vacation

So, Brad was forced to take the last two weeks of the year off of work (using his vacation time). I always hate it during the year as we are trying to plan everything and don't seem to have enough time. However, when it comes to those last 2 weeks....I LOVE IT!!!! Here is a quick look at December and all the fun festivities!!!

It began with our annual gingerbread house making FHE. I totally cheat and buy the wonderful package at Costco. The kids love it and ogle the tasty house all December.

Setting up Christmas

We always set up Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. Brad was a champion and fought the Black Friday crowds for some important Christmas presents. He was successful which made it worth the early morning. We spent the rest of the day setting up Christmas. I only got a couple of pictures of the kids decorating "their" tree downstairs. This was the first year we had a smaller tree down stairs for the kids. They loved it.

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. It was the first year we have had to "split" our time between the two families. The Bells were in town for the BYU/Utah football game....oh yeah, and Thanksgiving. The most exciting part was Bre announced she was having TWINS!!!! A boy and a girl. We are so super excited. I am grateful that I have had two ultrasounds that have showed only one baby. If I had twins this time we would have to buy a new car....and a new house (okay, just kidding on the new house, but not really). Bre will do wonderfully well with twins. We are super excited for her and Mark.
On Thanksgiving we spent the morning doing a turkey trot with the Sweeneys. The later morning we went to Bre's house, the afternoon at the Sweeneys, and the evening at Bre's house with the Bells. During the afternoon we did the very fun Sweeney Family Scavenger Hunt. My dad always puts together a really fun scavenger hunt for us to do Thanksgiving afternoon. This year was the best by far. He had taken pictures of parts of buildings and other things in Alpine (in a 2-3 block radius). He then gave us a map of the area, the pictures, and we had to go find those images and take similar pictures of them. He was quite specific. I was separated from my husband and two oldest kids. Although my team got the hardest to find pictures, we did not win. I am happy to say Brad, Ryan, and Kayla's team won!!Turkey Trot. Next year I will be running the 5 K. I could barely walk 1 mile....how pathetic. My older kids almost ran the whole way. Maybe next year I can get Brad to run the 5 K with me!!!!
Here are a couple of the pictures we had to take. It wasn't a picture of just any handicapped sign, but this specific one because of the crease in the middle. Yes, we got that (the others didn't). The one above is looking down on a mailbox in a bucket. Those were our two pride and joy finds!!!


What is a family get together without a HUGE MESS!!! This is what happened in Bre and Marks living room while the adults were chatting in the other room. The games were all mine, fortunately!!!
The girls innocently playing while the adults picked up their mess!!!
Apples to apples, ticket to ride, and settlers of Catan. All the pieces were out. That was fun to clean up!!!