More Pre-Christmas fun

The kids had the whole week before Christmas off of school, so we were able to have some fun.  Monday Katie and Nicole did some caroling for activity days.

Tuesday Hailey was able to go caroling with her church group.
Wednesday my parents made a quick visit over here.  It was fun to see them.  They got to join us on our Christmas light drive, which is always fun. We finished this puzzle and started another one.

Thursday night we made some Christmas goodies and did some deliveries, we sang Christmas songs and dropped off treats, it was lots of fun.
Friday was the Murdock Christmas party.  It was great to see everyone.  They do a white elephant gift exchange,and then we ate cookies and drank hot chocolate and visited for awhile.
Saturday morning we decorated our Gingerbread houses, everyone always looks forward to this.  Everyone was very creative and they turned out great.

It was a fun week before Christmas, some of the best things for me was just having all the kids home, it was nice watching them play together, and enjoy being together.

Temple trip

Last night Marc and I and Kyle and Hailey had the opportunity to go to the temple to do baptisms.  Hailey has been really good at finding names that are ready for baptism, she had 278 names ready.  We left the younger kids at a friends house near the temple and met up with another family to do baptisms.  It was really nice to be in the temple with the kids and Marc, we made it through 105 of the names. 

We picked up the girls and all went out to dinner.  It was a really nice night.

Our first broken bone

Last night Marc and I were out running an errand and we got a call from Hailey saying we should come home because she was pretty sure Kyle had a broken finger.  We hurried home and sure enough it was hanging at a really weird angle.  Our neighbor came over, she is a hand therapist, she looked at it and said we should take him in, she told us that the orthopedic doctors have a late clinic so we toke him there, which was way better than the ER.  They x-rayed it and it was broken, it was the growth plate, they gave him a big shot of Lidocain and put it back in place, it is in a big soft cast thing.  We take him back Wednesday and they will make sure it is healing right.  He says it hurts pretty bad, he cant get it wet or anything, it will take at least 4 weeks to heal.

So the story of how he broke it.  He was watching some video of football players doing hurdles, and so he decided to see how high he could hurdle, so he started stacking things on top of each other and jumping over them.  After he had to plastic bins on top of a metal stool, he hit his hand as he jumped, and broke it.  I am very glad that it wasnt worse than it was, and am hoping that maybe he learned something.

Fun in December

We have had lots of fun so far this month. Last weekend we attended 2 different Nativity programs.  One was at our church it was a musical nativity, it was very well done and the music was beautiful. The other nativity was at another church, it was a live nativity where you walk through the streets of Bethleham and visit the inn and the stable, there are live camels and donkeys, it is a fun activity that we attend most every year, it is neat to see so many people from the community there. This weekend Marc and I attended several holiday partys, and then we all attended the ward party Saturday morning. We had breakfast, there were some musical numbers and then a special visit from Santa.

We have been having a lot of fun participating in the light the world advent activities, it has been great to serve and to think about others.  We have watched Christmas movies, ate Christmas cookies, drank lots of hot chocolate, and sang lots of Christmas songs.  It has been extra fun with the snow, we met up with friends yesterday and went sledding.

December has been great so far, and luckily we still have a couple more weeks to enjoy all the fun of this special month.

First snow

We woke up this morning to our first snowstorm, we got about 6 inches.  It was beautiful.  The kids had a 2 hour delay so they spent an hour enjoying it before school.

Lydias Christmas Program

Tonight we went to Lydias Christmas program, it was lots of fun.  She was an elf and had some speaking parts, which she memorized on her own and did a wonderful job.

Lydias artwork

Thanksgiving

This year we ended up spending Thanksgiving at home.  The plan had been to go to my parents for the weekend, but the weather wasn't really looking all that great and so we made the decision to stay home and not have to worry about the weather.  It was nice, we missed seeing everyone, but it was nice to spend time together, it is always fun to watch the kids play and have fun together.  Wednesday night the girls and I made pies, we made apple, pecan and Amish cream.  Thursday morning the boys went and played football and the girls and I started the turkey and rolls and then we all watched the Macys Thanksgiving parade, which was fun.  for a table cloth I put white paper on the table and the kids had fun all day drawing and writing things we are thankful for.  Dinner was really good.  We had a family from church over for pie, it was fun to get to know them a little better.  It was a really nice day, I have so much to be thankful for.  We spent the rest of the weekend shopping, playing lots of ping pong and other games,putting up the tree, and just hanging out together, it was a nice weekend and a great break from school and work.

 Lydias Thankful turkey she made at school

 The tough football players

The girls sitting around the tree looking at the adds

We got the tree all decorated

kyles bathroom

We have been working hard to finish the upstairs bathrooms, and finally finished kyles.

Before pictures

After pictures