What a Christmas!

This was the best Christmas ever!!!! Charles said that I say this every year, but it truly was this year. The kids made everything so fun and exciting! Josie totally got it all and that made it extra fun for all of us. Charlie was just excited to be there.

Here are the kids putting cookies and milk out for Santa.

And you can't forget the reindeer. Josie put carrots in her klopen for them and was more excited that they were gone in the morning than the cookies and milk for Santa.

Charlie got to the Santa cookies long before Santa even had a chance.

We were all so excited for Christmas morning!

Santa left Josie just what she wanted... her own kitchen!

Santa left me a gorgeous diamond 10th Annivesary/Christmas

ring. It looks like Scout is trying to eat my hand off,

but she was just as excited about it as I was... and still am.

This picture does it no justice.

Great job Santa!!!!!!!

Josie as so excited to give Scout and Boo their presents!

Charles got a new backpack for him and the kiddies. Charlie loves it already!

We will get a lot of use out of it at the lot next year.

Charlie got tents and tubes and was in total heaven!

He was so happy to climb in and out and all over!

Josie couldn't wait to see when he would come out

and he loved playing with her.
Josie helped everyone open all of their presents and was so excited about each and every one. She thought they were all for everyone, which I guess they really are. After she would open one, she would say..."look what our family got!" It was so funny, and she is still good a sharing them.

She LOVES making "jungles" with all her new animals.

Scout loves getting warm by the fire.

I think the best part about Christmas morning is after all the presents are opened, then you can hang out and play with everything and look at all the great stuff that everyone got.


This is moments before Charlie hucked the car in his hand and it hit Josie on the head, bounced off and hit Charles in the eye. They were all crying after. But they had a great time before it happened.

We had the best Christmas ever for sure this year! I am sure they will keep getting better and better too. It is sad that it comes and goes so fast, but it is exciting to look forward to the coming new year!

Our Christmas tree

For the past few years the Pattens have talked about going and cutting our own Christmas trees down for Christmas. Thanks to Melissa who got on the ball, we got permits this year. We drove to Evanston, WY and then headed into the Uintahs. I was so excited to go. I hoped that there would be snow to make it feel more like Christmas. We loaded up all the snow gear and got all bundled and were off.

Our first stop wasn't successful. The trees were kind of yellowish and not what we had in mind. So we headed off to another spot. We actually went up a road called Christmas Meadows and that is where we cut our tree down.

Josie had so much fun hiking around in the snow.

As we were driving down the road, Charles and I were looking for the perfect tree. I noticed a really funny tree. It was about 30 feet tall but only the top of the tree had branches. It looked like a great tree so we checked it out. And of all the trees we saw it was our favorite.

Luckily it had a very small trunk and was easy to saw down.

Thanks Andy for helping me.

Our very own tree that we cut down with our very own hands.

It really is a beautiful tree.

When Charles got it to the truck, we realized

how big it really was. But it fit just fine.

Charlie was having so much fun in the snow.

This was his first snow day ever! He loved it!

Josie and Eliza were soooo silly. They loved eating the snow.

Here is Andy and Melissa big beautiful tree.

Maybe half of that tree would fit in our house.

We all had such a fun time. I hope that this is a

new tradition that we will continue forever!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I LOVE Thanksgiving and all the time spent with family and all the traditions!

Every year we make pies at my moms house on the Wednesday before

Thanksgiving and Josie had so much fun helping.

It was fun to see the little girls interested and helping this year.

The older girls look way too busy to help make pies anymore! :)

Josie was so into making her own pie.
I think she put some of her olives from lunch in it. YUM!

The best part was getting all messy!

Thursday we went to Andy and Melissa's home for the Thanksgiving feast.

It was a great random crowd this year. Melissa's sweet parents were there,

my brother and his kids, Mom, Dad, Clark, Allison and her family and us.

It was such a great feast with TONS of yummy food.

This is the "big kids" table...

the "little kids" table...
and this is the big, big kids table.

My brother Tyler and I (with my cheeks stuffed with food).

Ty and his girls Cleo and Lucy playing in the backyard.

Max hanging out in his jacket that his dad fits into.

Charles and Josie getting ready for the Turkey bowl.

Here is Andy running in for a TD after he had snatched the

ball right from Charles hands. Nice interception!

Melissa "jumping" all the little kids! They were loving it!

Charlie enjoying the leaves and sticks as he watched the turkey bowl.

What a great day! Thank you everyone for making it so wonderful and fun!