Christmas Eve and Google Earth!

For the past three years or so we have done our Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve! It makes for a busy day, but it works out better for everyone. Then Christmas isn't spent cooking all day and we can usually all be together. Now that all of us have other people we need to spend our time with, it's nice to all be together on Christmas Eve! Everyone comes to my house, but my Mom does all the cooking! Works for me!! :)

Grant was so excited that Nana brought his snow boots! We keep them at their house cause we don't ever need them here. We sure could of used them this year! He didn't take these off the entire weekend!

We always go over to my Grandparent's house on Christmas Eve! I didn't take very many pictures this year! My Grandparent's have this Santa that does a cute little booty shake and Grant does a cute little booty shake, so they are a perfect match.

While we were cooking dinner we made Aliya fold and hang up her clothes. She wasn't very happy about that!

Pretty Nana and baby Trey!

After Grandma and Grandpa's we went in the hot tub, showered and started our Christmas Eve traditions. The kids opened their sibling present! It's so neat to see them choosing a special present for each other. We choose names so they just have to buy one present. (There is only three of them, but they have fun picking a name.) They are always very thoughtful in the gift they choose and very grateful for the gift they received! Next was reindeer dust!! And yes, that is snow on the ground! We had a white Christmas this year. Unheard of in St. George! For two weeks Aliya asked for a white Christmas every night in her prayers! She says the snow was Heavenly Fathers gift to her. I think she was right! Next was opening Jammies fom Mommy and Daddy!

We got to talk to Misty and Lorelai on the web cam! So fun to be able to share a little bit of Christmas Eve with them! Then we put out milk and cookie bars for santa! The kids love to write him a note and he always writes them one back!

The big hit of the day though was following Santa all day on Google Earth! Thanks Dad! The kids were so excited to see throughout the day where Santa was and it also helped them to go to bed that night because they saw that he was in Texas and they didn't want him to skip our house!!

Night at Tuacahn!!

Tonight we went out to Tuacahn and saw the live Nativity and rode on Old Salty. This has been a tradition of ours since Aliya was a baby! This year was pretty sad cause my parents weren't here. They tried to surprise us and come down (My Dad even took off work), but because of the big storm they weren't able to. I know I whine a lot about my parent's not being here, but my family is big on traditions and it's sad when they aren't able to be here. We still had a lot of fun. We didn't freeze as much as we thought we were going to. Usually there are so many people, but tonight we got to sit really close. It's such a beautiful setting and amazing music. I look forward to it all year.

This would have been a perfect picture if Grant was only looking. It's very rare to get all of them smiling and looking at the camera at the same time. Still cute!

Crazy Josh!

Like Father like son!

Trying to keep warm!

On the train!

Snuggle bug!

She has a new tooth!

We took Aliya to the Dentist today. Our dentist is not in on Fridays so we took her to a different one and Aliya was really nervous. She did great though. I am always so impressed with Aliya. She is very good at concentrating on something else and does not make one peep! Landon feels very bad and has been very nice to her.

Aliya's new tooth. Yay! They did a good job. It matches the other tooth very well.

Tooth+Truck=Trip to the dentist for a very expensive visit.

Landon got mad at Aliya and hit her with a truck. Here is the result. If I survive Landon it will be a miracle!

C Position, G position, F position... Pretty much gibberish to me!

On Saturday Aliya had a piano recital. She played Trapeze Artist. This is her second year of piano and she is doing great. I am unable to help her anymore because I am musically challenged so practicing is getting a little harder to do.

This is the only picture I got before my camera died. She looked so pretty with her hair all curly and girly! Thanks Brittany!

Moon Sand....Oh how you make my life miserable!

We had a few of the Bundy kids over today for a couple of hours. Shanna just had an adorable baby boy (congrats guys) and so we decided to have a little fun. I just had to get a picture of the kids playing with Moon Sand. Brooklynn, Alyssah and Carter were very excited to play with the Moon Sand, but were all a little nervous their Mom would not like them making a mess. I assured them it would be okay as long as they left the mess at my house. Hehe.. Anyone that knows Shanna knows she is a little bit of a clean freak. Love ya Shanna!

What I wouldn't give for a little boy like Carter. Everything we did he said "But we are not going to make a mess, right?" in his sweet little boy voice. What great kids they are.

My adorable child..

Aliya was asked to sing a couple of songs at the Dickens Festival this year. She did a great job. Here is a video of her Christmas song. If you want the link to the other song she sang, just leave me a comment. It's worth looking at. I think! :) Being the dork that I am I forgot to turn off the recording so when she is done singing there is just black and another cute little girl singing. Also, you can hear Grant saying he wants to hug and kiss the little girl singing. Cute to us, probably not so cute to anyone else.

My house always looks so bare when all this comes down.

I am such a bad blogger lately, so I thought I would post a couple pictures of my Christmas decorations. I love this time of year and I get so excited to get out all my fun decorations. I am not very creative when it comes to decorating, but I love it anyway.

Here is my mantel. I always have an internal struggle with this. I love all these decorations, but I have a really pretty lighted garland that I also love here, but with the garland being so big, there is no room for anything else. I think this way won this year.

My Mother-in Law paints us a house every year and I never know where to put my village. I am paranoid about anything getting broken, so they are on top of the cabinets this year. See the cute little Fireman in the left hand corner?

I have a strand of lights to string though the houses, but haven't gotten around to doing that yet.

The Stockings were hung...... Umm.... not by the chimney. Every time I hang them on the mantel my kids pull on them and the holder falls and breaks (luckily not on any one's head.).

Here's the tree. My tree skirt tore so I have to find one still. The kids had so much fun decorating the tree. I need to straighten that star.

Anyways, nothing new to report. Aliya was invited back to sing at the Dickens festival again this year, so we are doing that on Saturday. I will have some pictures of that I am sure. Maybe even a video. Her little voice has developed so much over the past year. I could never get tired of hearing her sing.

4-wheelin with the family

Here we are again abandoned by Mom. Just kidding my wife does everything for me:) So were off for another adventure with grandpa and uncle Dan on the 4-wheelers. We chose the desert out behind Bloomington for this weeks adventure.

Here is Grandpa, Grant, and Aiden.

Here is one of the canyons we where in.

This is the side view of where the kids are standing in the next picture. Mom would be proud!

Apparently that is a cliff behind them.

My little rock climber.

And an explorer.

Aiden deep in thought. (About the universe and his place in it I am sure.)

You can't really see it but that is a pretty gnarly cliff we went up.

The kids loved this stop. They got to throw all the sticks and rocks they wanted.

These kids love their grandpa!

Oh ya we started to day playing volleyball with Brittney and her family.

Fun with the kids

While my wonderful wife was abandoning her family for a twilight weekend I was blessed with the opportunity to spend some time with my wonderful children.

On our way through our journey we stopped at cedar breaks.

Our primary goal was to go to brianhead to see the lift chairs, but they were training the ski patrol so they had made a lot of snow. What a bonus

It was more like ice but these little troopers made the best of it none the less.

Grant spent more time throwing snow at everybody then anything else and not just at his bro. and sis. strangers where not safe either.

At the bottom of Parowan canyon is the cemetery where my grandparents are buried so we couldn't pass up that opportunity.

Neal's post soon to come.....

Well, I am home! We had a lot of fun going up North to see Twilight. Thanks to my Mom for being such a great host. It was great to spend some time with my Mom and Dad. We shopped, ate yummy food and I got to sleep in this morning. My Aunt bought a puppy. The cutest little dog. Wasn't on the agenda, but that's what a girls weekend is all about. It was a great trip with some great ladies (and a great man who was drug from store to store). Alex and I talked boys. She has already discovered at the young age of seventeen that boys are stupid and clueless. Hehe :) What a great kid she is.
Here is a picture of us before the movie. It was taken with my cell phone so it's not all that great. I guess I only remember my camera when my kids are around.

So, TWILIGHT!! Wow!!! I left the theater immediately wanting to see it again. I knew going into it that I couldn't compare the movie to the book. The story was out of order and a lot of my favorite parts about the book were not in it, but I thought the casting was amazing. Oh Edward with those peircing eyes. I thought he did a good job at showing Edwards struggle just with those eyes. Was it better than the book?? No way. I loved it though. Let me know your thoughts. I am always up for a discussion about Twilight. Neal had a great time with the kids. They fit so much into one day I am amazed. Who wants boring Mom around when they have fun Dad. :)

I love seeing Linkin Park like this...

Getting really excited for Twilight this weekend.

Just a short rambling post..

Wow, the last couple of weeks have been crazy. Soccer is now over! Hallelujah!! We have our Saturdays back. I am very excited for this weekend. I am going up North, along with my Aunt, cousin and Grandmother, to go see Twilight. We have our tickets and the theater we are going to has assigned seating, so no lines for us! Did I mention I am not taking my kids. :) Saturday night Neal went on an awful call to the high school up the street. A boy had accidentally shot himself in the head with a gun that was loaded with blanks and was being used for a school play. Neal was one of the first on scene. Our prayers are with his family as they are dealing with their loss. Don't even ask me why a real gun loaded with blanks was allowed to be used for a high school play. That's a different post though. He is a fireman, but seems to go to more medical calls than fires or car accidents. I am amazed that he doesn't curl up in the fetal position due to the awful things he has seen. My family will be coming to my house for Thanksgiving. I am very excited about that. It's always a lot of work to host a holiday, but it is well worth it to have so many people I love all in one place. This past weekend we had a bunch of family over to help us with our yard. Thank you, Thank you! We sure have a great family who is willing to spend their Saturday doing yucky yard work and their only payment being orange juice and donuts. :) We burned lots and lots of weeds. Landon sure thought that was great because Neal let him put out the fires. So Landon's desire to be a fireman like his daddy has increased. That's just a bit of what we have been up to.

Gotta love you tube!!

Get off the computer and go vote!!

Landon's prayer....

Landon said the family prayer tonight and he asked Heavenly Father to fill our money bucket. Hehe :) I always forget to add that one in my prayers.

I love Halloween!

This week we.....


Had a preschool Halloween party!!

Took a picture with a pretty Barbie Princess.

Got to walk with sister in the school parade and be just like Daddy!!

Got to be the prettiest football player EVER!!

Had a blast being called Frankie all week long!!

Got to take some pictures with some great friends.
Tyler and Chase

(Alexis and Brooklynn)

Carved Pumpkins from five to five thirty on Wednesday. (Pretty sad when you have to start scheduling pumpkin carving)

Had a Halloween feast with Putrid Punch and worm dogs!

Discovered Mom wasn't so boring after all. Oh and Landon discovered that all of their costumes this year stared with F words. (Fireman, Frankenstein and football player) His words, not mine! :)

Mom made Frankie cupcakes.

Which was a big hit with our Frankie obsessed boy!

Went Trick or Treating with our cousins.

We hung out with some handsome boys.

Stood up to everyone in class who said "Girls can't be football players for Halloween."

Got some fun treats from a crazy man named Josh.

Decided that Josh and Ashley are the coolest for dressing up.

Went Trick or Treating with cousins and had some yummy chili and bread sticks at a neighborhood party. Thanks Cazier Fam for inviting us!

Ended the night with a visit to Grandma and Grandpa Caziers and coming home so tired we could not stop crying. What a great week!!