I Am So Behind Posting Here

I have been so busy lately getting a few websites up and going. Life just keeps on flying by! Here are just a few things that have happened since I really wrote last:

We went to our family reunion to the San Bernardino Mountains in California! This was so much fun! We went swimming at the pool and lake and played a lot of games! Below are some pictures of the event.

Jed went on his first waterslide!

We went to the Hopkins family reunion in Honeyville, Utah. It was so fun to see everyone there.

We also went and visited my sister right before school started in Idaho! That was fun!
School started!! Jedidiah started third grade and Elise started first. I can't believe they are getting so big.

Ian is growing so quickly He will be one years old in two weeks. While at the reunion he learned to crawl. He did the army crawl for sometime and now is up on his hands and knees. At his nine month well visit the doctor said he is a little weak (muscle tone) and we need to watch him. So I am anticipating he will not be walking for a little bit. He does cruise along the couch really well and he will sometimes let go and hold his own. Below are a few recent pictures of him.




Lauren turned three and three days later Charles and I celebrated our ninth anniversary on 09/09/09! Another number thing...Charles turned 33 on Sept 3rd and three days later Lauren turned three! We have some number things going right now!

We have officially started canning. Okay well Charles has! He canned 21 quarts of peaches in September and a few weeks ago he canned 21 quarts of applesauce! He did a great job!


Our last news is not great. We were suppose to leave for California yesterday for a river trip down at that Colorado river. We are most likely not going to make it. We are waiting for a final confirmation that Elise has the Swine flu! Yep H1N1! She has been wearing a mask for almost 24 hours now. If she has it she will wear masks for another six days. She will be contagious for a while! We are sad and disappointed that this has happened but I am so grateful she got the symptoms almost 12 hours before we were scheduled to leave. It wouldn't have been fun to be sick on vacation! Lauren doesn't quite understand yet. She keeps asking "When are we are going to the water?" or "When are we leaving to California?" So unless the strep culture they took comes out positive we will be staying put in Utah!

Okay I am a slacker!

I have been so busy lately that I haven't thought about this blog much. But today I got a tag from Mariah To do 8 things...so here goes:

8 Shows I love:
1. The Biggest Loser
2. HawthoRNe
3. NCIS
4. Psyche
5. Monk
6. The Amazing Race
7. Deliver Me
8. Oprah

8 Things I did yesterday:
1. I slept in until 9am (that is amazing)
2. Donate Plasma
3. Went to the post office
4. Spent some time on the phone with Digis (our internet was down)
5. Bought a new router
6. Worked on my new walking blog
7. Fed Ian
8. Helped Charles with his new blog

8 Favorite Restaurants:
1. Red Lobster
2. Olive Garden
3. Rockne’s
4. Arby's
5. Benihana
6. Pizza Hut
7. Cici's pizza
8. N/A

8 Things On My Wish List:
1. To create successful affiliate sites that are profitable
2. To have a few days a week to work on Genealogy
3. To be able to read all the books I want to with out getting to sucked into them.
4. For Charles to be able to be home full-time
5. To have a cleaning lady come in once or twice a week.
6. To build our own home.
7. To be debt free
8. To be able to give, give and give some more

8 Things I'm Looking forward to:
1. Getting my Walking blog up and going.
2. Getting a good check from affiliate marketing
3. Seeing my sister
4. Spending a few days at the Familiy History Library
5. Not giving plasma anymore! I can stop when my business pays for itself
6. Going to Disneyland (next spring)
7. Getting the kids back in school (one more week)
8. Most of all seeing my Heavenly Father!!

8 People I Tag (Considering I don't know who all reads this not to mention who would actually do it):
1. Christine Cahan
2.Mikell Gehret
3. Not good at tagging!
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

Busy Busy Time For Us

First of all life has been so hectic around here. Maybe not for the kids but it has been for me. I have three more weeks left in my blogging internship on Mom Giveaways! I don't where time went. If you want to check it out I have tons of info on all kinds of aspects of doing sweepstakes! It has been fun!

So going back a month ago, Jed turned 8 years old! Crazy to think my little 5lb baby is now 8 years old. On JuneBlogger: Forever Johnson - Create Post 6th he was baptized! Yay! He was so excited. We had a lot of family and friends there. He and another little girl were baptized the same day. Okay and get this her last name is Hopkins. Funny isn't it! On the left is a picture of Jed and Charles.

Now going back to May 13th. Jed and Elise had a concert. Jed is in the Mapleton Children's Community Choir and Elise is in New Beginnings. If you don't know it, Jed LOVES, LOVES, LOVES to sing! He is always singing. At the end of school this year his 2nd grade teacher gave him an award that said "The Next American Idol". When he came home with that I asked him why she gave him that. He said she liked his voice. I then asked are you always singing in class? He said "Yes!". I don't know why this is a surprise at all to me since I have to tell him to quit singing in his bed or he will wake Ian up!

Anyway back to May 13th. Jed and Elise had a concert that was held in the Prove Tabernacle. They did great! Here are two videos! They both include Jed having two solos and Elise with a speaking part! It was really fun!





The only thing that has happened other than these is that school ended. With school ending came kindergarten graduation for Elise. I forgot my camera at her graduation so we do not have a picture. Now here is my personal opinion about kindergarten graduation...it is dumb and a waste of time! We did preschool graduation which I think is great but other than high school and maybe junior high I think kindergarten graduation is just dumb. We crowded into a very hot cafeteria to see all the kindergartners sin songs and then we went home. They didn't get their diplomas until the next day. So those are my two cents for what they are worth. Of course despite my feelings Elise did fabulous!

So I think this post is long enough! I am hoping to update it more than once a month! You can check out my blog Danielle's Journey and of course Mom Giveaways. There you will be able to see what I am doing each day!

I Am a Slacker!

Okay so I just saw that I haven't posted anything for a whole month! I have been so busy with my internship that I have let this blog slide! I am so sorry! I have pictures and a few videos that I need to post on here. Jed had his 8th birthday, his baptism, his concert and they all finished school. So life has been busy!! I am not going to post any pictures or videos today because I don't have time. I did want to say we are happy and (currently) healthy. I will probably post more on Sunday since that is my day to do all family things. No business or internship activities are done on Sunday it is truly my day of rest (and time to do genealogy)! So I will update you all on everything then!

I Have an 8 Year Old!

The evening 8 years ago I have my sweet 5lb 2oz boy. I wish I had a digital picture to show how small he was. We named him Jedidiah! He was in the NICU for a week. Then we brought him home. I can't believe he is 8 years old! Time goes by so quickly! Here is a picture of him now!

He is a smart and sensitive child. He loves music and especially singing. He is very curious and is thoughtful. I am so thankful Heavenly Father sent him to us!

What a week!!

It was my first week as an intern.
Things went pretty well. Ideas came to me easier than I thought they would. I learned to use Wordpress. For those that don't know Wordpress is like blogger but it is a lot easier to use. Since I am getting comfortable with Wordpress I decided to move my Danielle's Journey blog over to Wordpress. That was more of a challenge than I thought. I lost all of my comments from my blogger blog but I did get all the posts over to Wordpress. If you check out my Journey blog you will see some changes and it will continue to change this week.

We are sick again!
I can't believe I am even saying this but after I finished antibiotics last Monday I am now sick again! Obviously the antibiotics didn't do the trick. I am coughing and weak again! Today it is better. Also Ian had his six month check up. He got his shots and had a reaction to them. He was very cranky and had a fever of 101.8F. Ian really never cries. I mean that! So this week when he cried for an hour straight I didn't know what to do. I have never had to comfort him. It was really hard to see my happy baby so miserable. After 24 hours he was fine. He is sick with a cough and runny nose. But he is not as miserable as he was after the shots!

Happy Mothers Day!
To all the Mothers out there! I am sure grateful for my mom! She was always there to take care of me. I especially miss having her around when I am sick. She took such good care of me the many times growing up when I was so sick and in the hospital! I am glad I still have her around. I am also grateful for my Mother-in-law! She raised a wonderful family. She is very thoughtful and asks about my family. She doesn't forget birthdays or holidays. I am especially grateful how she raised Charles! He is a great man! He takes such good care of me and is very thoughtful.

Six degrees of Separation

I was talking to Charles recently about six degrees of separation. My sister informed me that this was originally a book. I haven't looked it up yet but I believe her. So I got to thinking this week and realized I am less than six degrees to a lot of people. So her is a few of my degrees of separation. I am now a blogging intern for Kelly McCausey. She is now the General Editor of Sparkplugging.com which is run by Wendy Piersall. I found Kelly through Sparkplugging.com. I found Sparkplugging by watching the Today show one morning when Wendy was on. Now she was interviewed by Meredith Vieira. So I am five or six degrees from a bunch of people that Meridith has interview!! Crazy! Here is another one. I went high school and was good friend with Sharon Scalabrine. I knew her brother Brian Scalabrine who happens to be a NBA player. He plays for the Boston Celtics. So that means I am three-six degrees away from a whole heckuva lot of basketball players. Okay one more my brother-in-law married a great girl in 2007 and her name is Becky maiden name Mortensen. Now Becky has an uncle who is a commentator (or something like that) on ESPN for football. His name is Chris Mortensen. So there you go! Not that any of this makes me better than anyone else. It was fun though. I think we all have connections to people. It may not matter but again it is fun to think about!

What a weekend!

I feel like a tornado hit the house! I spent all day yesterday in bed. I think that really helped! My fever finally broke for good on Saturday morning. Now it is all in my chest. I am having to do breathing treatments about every 6-8 hours but I see the end in sight!

While I was laid up this weekend I was able to finish two books which was great for me. I read Chat Room (Teri Blake-Addison Mystery Series #2) by Linda Hall. She is such a great author! She keeps you on your toes and I can't ever figure out what is going to happen! I also read The Choice by Nicholas Sparks! Like always I cried! His books are always heart wrenching.

Sick Again!

Jed started it! He got sick while on Spring Break. He was throwing up and then started coughing. Then Lauren woke me up at night several time last week. One of the times she woke me up she had a fever around 101F. Then at the beginning of this week Ian starts with a cough and a runny nose. He never got the fever thank heavens! Then there is me. It is in my chest and I am coughing a little but the worst part of all of this is the body aches and fever. I get so cold even though I have a fever and then get so hot!! My fever was up to 102.2F this morning when I got out of bed. It has fluctuated all day but has not gone away. It is some strange virus. So needless to say I have been catching up on movies I have recorded on the DVR today.

The kids have been very helpful. This morning I was laying on the couch and I sat up and was complaining to Jed how I didn't feel good. He got up and got my ice water and said "Here Mom drink this it will make you feel better." Then as soon as he walked in the door from school he said "Are you feeling better?". Elise got Lauren dressed, changed her diaper and helped her do her morning chores. I sure have good kids! This soon shall pass.

Pictures of Ian and Lauren

Here are some cute pictures of Lauren and Ian I took at the end of March. They were sitting in our over sized recliner and here are some of the shots I got! Ian is almost six months old! I can't believe it!

You know it is amazing how all the little things you have to do take up so much time. Just an observation! Mom's do so much not only are they taking care of the kids by teaching, feeding & playing, we also have to clean, organize, pay bills, help with homework, take care insurance & financial matters. I always thought what am I going to do will my time when my kids are all in school. I only have two in school but it seems that before I know it they are home! It is a great blessing to be home and enjoy this time with them! Check out my new post on www.daniellesjourney.com!

New Look for the Blog

I decided on a new look for the blog! Do you like it? We are doing well now. Lauren is almost over her illness. She ended up sleeping with me the night she had a fever. I was surprised how well she did in our bed. It appears that Jed didn't share the bug he got. Thank heavens for that!! I went to give plasma yesterday. It was my first official time donating! I didn't do so well. I believe the problem was I ate right before I went and that was at 1:30pm. I didn't get set up to actually donate until 4:40pm. So I was very woozy. That put and ice pack behind my neck and got my knees up in the air. I also had a personal fanner (someone fanning me) and some refreshment (a powerade, well actually 3). I felt better soon after. I did feel lightheaded the rest of the day but they say it is normal your first time! So I will try again tomorrow. I am actually looking forward to the time I go. It will be an hour and a half of time I can listen to audio books and pod casts!

New Blog

I just started a new blog! You can find it at www.daniellesjourney.com. I am excited about it because as you know I am trying to figure out what I want to do for an internet business. In this blog I am going to post just about everyday about my research and journey into starting this business. Check it out and follow it! I come across a lot of things such as ebooks, software, websites that I will share with others.

The podcast for Charles and Kirk is coming along. I am still doing some research for it. I was delayed by the absence of my computer last week. I am trying to figure out what the best microphone is to get. Any suggestions?

On a more personal note. Today was the first day of the kids spring break. We were woken up to Jed throwing up! Charles had to handle him all morning on his own. I had to go to the doctor and I went to the temple. We had pouring rain this morning and when I came out of the temple the ground was covered in a very thick layer of snow!! I was a bit shocked! So we once again have snow on the ground. To top off the day Lauren is sick with a runny nose and cough! Tonight she is not sleeping well and has a fever of 101.2F. I am not sure what happened!!

General Conference

We really enjoyed conference last weekend. It was wonderful to hear the prophet of God! We also had a great time with Lalana my neice. She came for the weekend from BYU-Idaho. She brought her room mate Tanya too. They are now done with school as of today. So we will have to wait until next fall to see her again!

Without a Computer

This week has been a bit crazy. I lost my social security card. Found my social security card. Tried to give plasma. Was told I couldn't give plasma because my veins were too small. Tried again to give plasma. Told once again I couldn't but for another reason, then I was told to come back next week. Had my computer taken for repairs overnight. Then my computer had to be gone for another day. My computer had to be stripped down and totally restored. Computer is back and working great now! It was crazy to be without my computer. I still had the desktop but my laptop is what I always use! I told Charles it was like having my left arm removed!! The other thing that happened this week is we got a fence in our back yard! It is great! It is completely closed in and vinyl. We have had some beautiful weather this week and we have really enjoyed being in the back yard!

Future Podcasters!!

I have been studying up to start a new business. Yes, Yes, I know!! I am always starting something new! I want to start a website or two of things I really like, such as being frugal, sweepstakes and genealogy. As I was reading up on somethings this week I was reading about podcasting. So I got the idea that Charles and his brother Kirk could do a podcast on Sports!! They both LOVE sports and could talk forever about sports. Not only can they talk forever about sports but they can be quite entertaining to listen to when they get together. So I finally convinced Charles to call Kirk. They both agreed! Yeah!! So now I have to do all the research on how to run a podcast, you know, all the nuts and bolts! If anyone has any knowledge on the subject let me know. We are also going to be putting up a blog that Charles and maybe Kirk (haven't talked to him about that) will update daily about what is going on in sports. I don't know about Kirk but Charles is a fabulous writer (he just hates to) so it will be fun to see what he writes!

One of my visiting teachers was telling me about how her husband started a podcast and then was contacted to do a radio show and now he is on a board for latino issues. So things can happen. If people like their podcast maybe they will get a sponser and so on. We will see if not they will just have a lot of fun together each week!

A fun Enrichment night!

Tonight I went to enrichment night at church. We all brought things from our houses that we didn't want. We had a dinner and then we went to the Relief Society room were all the "stuff" was. All the sisters went "shopping"! It was so fun. I got rid of several books and some baskets also the boppy I never used! I got a case of ready made formula! Yeah!! I also got some crib sheets, a crib toy. Also some clothes for Lauren and Jed. I got a great nativity set too! It was so fun! It was a great night!

No so sunny day!

Today the wind is howling and it is bring in a storm. We had such a beautiful week. It is hard to say goodbye! Lauren got a sunburn twice this week so we had to breakout the sunscreen. I guess it gets put up again for a bit!
Today we only had two hours of church. We meet in the afternoon and needed to be out for the Draper temple dedication. So I gave a talk and didn't have to give the lesson I prepared! I was actually disappointed because the lesson was "I am thankful for fish". We were going to have goldfish crackers and go fishing. Maybe someday we can do the lesson!

Lauren and her songs!

Lauren loves to watch videos of songs that we pull up from YouTube on our computer. When Charles sits down to the desktop she says "I want song! I want song!". Then he first pick is "Jesus Take Wheel". She love the song by Carrie Underwood 'Jesus Take the Wheel'. Her next choice is always "Under a Sea" which is 'Under the Sea" from Little Mermaid. I took a video clip of her watching 'Jesus Take the Wheel'. She is pretty funny. I wish I would have kept recording because as soon as the song was over she says "Another song!!"

A Sunshiny Day in Utah

We had a beautiful day here in Utah! Temperatures actually got up to 82 degrees! The kids were off of school today and they played outside most of the day. Elise has been wobbling around for two days now. She sprained her ankle on Wednesday at school and only when she feels like it will she walk on it. She definately milking it for all it is worth! It is still a little swollen but not much.

The kids!

Jed is conquering his bedwetting! We bought a bedwetting alarm on amazon.com. Here is a picture of it:

It is a great alarm! There is a sensor that attaches to his underware, then a wire plugs into the bottom of this alarm. When he starts to wet, the alarm lights up (red flashing light), vibrates and goes through 8 different alarm noises. We have used it for almost a month. Jed has now gone six days without wetting at all. Not even a drop!! Before we tried the alarm we tried a pill the doctor prescribed that didn't work at all for him. I am so excited for him! He is almost 8 years old. He never complains about wetting and we don't make a big deal about it. I am sure it really is a big deal to him! Elise has also gone without Goodnights this month and only wet the bed twice! Charles and I are so excited to not have to buy Goodnights on top of two different sizes of diapers!

Lauren should be ready to potty train in the next few months. We already bought princess underware for her! We got her back into cloth diapers this month. It is nice not to have to buy as many diapers. We still put her in disposable diapers at night. We haven't done the cloth thing for Ian as of yet! We use cloth diapers called fuzzi bunz and they are great! Here is a picture of them:

They come in all different colors and some patterns too. We have a lot of different colors for size 1 but Lauren only has yellow and white. We let her choose which she wants to wear!

Ian is getting so big! We took him to the doctor last week and he was 13lbs 14oz. That means he weighs half as much as Lauren! He is 4 months and Lauren is 2 1/2 years!! I believe he is going to be the biggest out of all of my children. He is now giggling a lot. It is really fun! He is trying to sit himself up when he is propped up. He is rolling from his belly to his back. I just can't believe he is so big!!

I am Poky these days!

I just realized it has been so long since I posted last! I have been super busy! I started a new business. Of course you know I love to enter sweepstakes! So I started a business handprinting 3x5 cards or papers for people. Most mail in sweepstakes require you to send in printed 3x5 cards with your name, address, phone number. It is time consuming to fill these out. So I do it for others. I know most of you don't need my services but check out my website www.fjhandprinting.com I am proud!! I have had only one order so far but her daughter is running a sweepstakes banquet in Maryland and emailed me to see if I wanted to donate or advertise there! Of couse I said "YES!". There will be at least 70 people attending, so I will get a little exposure!

Smiles from Ian

Ian is now 4 days away from being 4 months old. If you can believe it! I can't!! He is now smiling all the time! He is cooing and talking all the time. It is so fun to see him doing this. I will try to record the cooing sometime this week! I did take some pictures of him smiling at Charles. Here are a few of them!

Here is Lauren kissing Ian. She loves him so much!!

Here is our big boy!!

Jed's Sweepstakes win!!

When we got back from California we got our mail and there was a package for Jed.

He won a High School Musical 3 CD. He was so excited!

If anyone is interested I found a coloring contest for kids ages 4-12 years old. If you got to www.keepeastereasy.com and you can print out a coloring sheet. The kids can win a $1000 savings bond.

Trip to California

Over the Presidents Day weekend we took a little trip to California. It was really fun! Our big adventure was on Saturday. We were on our way down on Saturday morning. I was driving and the person I was passing swerved into our lane. I hit the same patch of ice and we ended up sliding off the road. All of us were fine and the van was fine. We have roadside assistance so we just had to wait for a tow truck. I took some pictures while we were their!

Here is our view as we sat thier on I-15S in between Scipio and Fillmore.

Here is the back of the van:

The kids didn't even notice that we were off the road until they looked up:

Ian decided to practice some driving while we waited of the tow truck:

Sweepstakes

I have decided to share some sweepstakes here and there. You can enter if you would like or just ignore the post. Charles and I love to get the mail and answer the phone in anticipation that we have won something.

Here is a blog sweepstakes: Enter to Win: Your Payday… in Books!. You can find it at http://thespectacleblog.wordpress.com/2009/02/08/enter-to-win-your-payday-in-books/. This is a sweepstakes to win to the books The Magic Thief by Sarah Prineas, plus The Emerald Tablet by P. J. Hoover.

Also if you are curious about where we find the sweepstakes that we enter it is in a newsletter called the sweepsheet. They are great! I have used them for years. We have won lots of prizes! If you ever subscribe mention my name. We get an extra issue or two if you subscribe!

More sickness!

Today I was looking forward to a quite Sunday at home. Since it is my week to stay home with Ian. Well not so! Lauren started throwing up this morning. She continues to be pretty lethargic. When Charles came downstairs ready to go. She started saying she wanted to go to church!! I am so glad she wants to but she doesn't quite understand that when you are sick you need to stay home!

Ear infections and Fever!

On Wednesday Elise woke us up early because her ear was hurting. She was given medicine and that was the end of it until she got to school. She is only there for 2 hours on Wednesday and she called me every hour saying she didn't feel good. I managed to keep her in school and take her to the doctor afterwards (well Charles took her). She has and ear infection and all that night laid on the couch in pain.

On Thursday morning Lauren just laid around the house. She was especially lethargic! I asked her what she wanted for lunch and she said nothing. If you know Lauren she loves to eat and will eat most anything! Then she said she wanted to got to bed!! This is from the girl that says everday "Go bed anymore!". Meaning she does not take naps!! She was a little warm but I didn't take her temperature. When she got up Charles says she is really warm! I took her temperature and she had a fever of 102.4F. So 24 hours later Charles was headed to the doctor again with a different child. She has an ear infection to. We started her on medicine last night. This morning she was just the same as yesterday! Very lethargic! Her temp was only 101F today. I was expecting to have to take Ian in today and continue the trend but no!

I called the doctor and we have to stay home with Ian for another month. That means keeping him home as much as possible and not going to church with him. I was ready to go to church as a family again this Sunday but no luck!

Today I got another sweepstakes win!! WOOHOO!! It came in the mail and it was a $50 American Express gift card!! We were excited since we will be going to California in another week!! It will come in handy.

We all stayed home on Sunday from Church except Charles. Jed, Elise and Lauren are all sick with runny noses and coughs. Ian isn't suppose to go to church until RSV season is over. While Charles was gone I recorded a few video clips the one above is of Laurens favorite song "I love to see the Temple". Below is Lauren singing "Once there was a snowman".

Here we have Lauren doing the ABC's.

Here is Elise doing ABC's when she was around Lauren's age.

A Sweepstakes win!

For those of you who don't know I like to enter sweepstakes. It is a hobby that I enjoy. Right after christmas we were notified that I won a Kodak easyshare digital camera. It came last week. It was suppose to be a 8.0 megapixel camera it turned out tha it was 9.2 mega pixel. We were excited. We have won things here and there. I won a enchanted call from Disney and I had Cinderella call Elise a few days after her birthday! She loved it!!

One Sunday we made some donuts with refridgerated bisquits and dipped them in powdered sugar. Here is a picture of Jed after he ate a donut!

Here is a picture of Jed and Elise with high waters! Jed's pants don't stay up very well!

Happenings

We took Elise and Ian to the doctor on Monday December 29th. Ian is 2 months old if you can believe it! What is more shocking is that he is 11lbs 2oz now! Both Elise and Ian are healthy and doing well. We think Ian might have reflux too but are waiting to see how he does on new formula.

On Monday we also found out that Charles and I have a new nephew and the kids have a new cousin. Carter Levi was born on Sunday December 28th in California. He was only 2lbs 15oz and 15 inches long. Christy and Kirk went down to California for Christmas and Christy's water broke at 30 weeks on Christmas day! She went into labor again on Sunday and delivered Carter. Please keep them in your prayers. The last we heard is that Carter is doing well but will have to be in the hospital for two months. It is going to be really hard for their family because Kirk has to come back to work in Utah and they have 2 other little boys age 1year and 2 years! After going through all we did with Ian I know how hard it can be for a week not having him home. But they have to do it for 2 months with Carter in California! So please keep them in your prayers!

On a lighter note. I have a great picture of Lauren and Ian. Lauren loves her little brother and she loves laying next to him when he is on the floor. Yesterday Jed was laying with him on the floor and she got mad and tried to get in his way and lay next to Ian! She is quite funny!

Christmas Day

Christmas was very fun!

Santa brought Elise and Lauren a doll house that is 5 feet tall!!

Lauren and Elise were very excited here is a picture of Lauren seeing it for the first time!

Jed got a radio controlled car from Santa. It is a mustang GT.

Here are some more pictures of christmas:

We enjoyed spending time together as a family on Christmas and remembering the birth of our Savior! We hope you enjoyed it as well!

Christmas Eve

We had a great christmas eve. Our tradition is to open a gift on Christmas eve and it is always new pajamas. This year they all match! Lauren got Dora the explorer slippers too. They have Dora heads on her toes and all night she kept saying "Hi Dora!".

After we opened pajamas we went for our traditional drive to look at Christmas lights. We had a good time driving around Springville.

This year we decided to act out the Nativity. It was fun. Jed was Joseph and Elise was Mary. Of course Ian was baby Jesus and Lauren was our sheep!

Here is a video of the nativity. It is really dark. I haven't figured out how to get better lighting on my videos.

Here is our little Sheep Lauren!

Here is Joseph holding the swaddled babe!!

The kids were very excited to get to bed that night so that Santa could come!