Magical Childhood Cookies

Eating their cookies

December was a rough month for me for some reason this year. I normally love Christmas and look forward to it all year. I've been known to put up Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving and listen to Christmas music just after Halloween. This year, however, was very hard for me. I'm not sure why (I do have my theory's) but for some reason I just couldn't get in the Christmas spirit and I was really grumpy (it didn't help that the kids were not listening at all.) I was on Facebook on December 10th and I had a friend mention how she loved snow days because it meant her kids could clean their rooms. An hour or so later she decided that she was 'a sucker for magical childhoods' so she made them Candy Cane Chocolate Chip Cookies, let them play outside as long as they wanted, and let friends come over to watch Elf.  I realized after reading her post that I needed to make my kids childhood a little more magical. It hadn't been very magical for too many months, but that day I made cookies for the kids and had them ready for them when they got home from school. I'd like to say the magic lasted a long time, but sadly it didn't last as long as it should have. Sometimes life is just hard and mom's can only manage magic for a day or two. Things are looking more happy around here and we're working more and more on providing 'magic' mixed in with the chores and daily grind. For that day though, I'm happy to say that childhood had a little extra magic to it.

Sarah showing me her cookie! She's such a good sport.

Adam loved the new cookies.

Yummy cookies!

Ben being, well Ben!

Our Snowy Family Picture

I wanted a picture of our family in the snow. At first we were going to use it for Christmas cards, but those didn't get done this year. Instead, I got a really cool picture to put up in our house. We headed up going up Millcreek canyon on December 7th. It had been snowing in the valley earlier, but stopped a few hours before we headed up. However, when we got as far up the canyon as we could drive, it was snowing again. Not knowing how pictures would turn out, we decided to try for a picture anyway. We found a great spot with the river in the background, got the shot all set up, and got the kids out of the warm car. The picture went well and the kids all did a pretty good job. After the picture we went for a walk up the canyon. It was beautiful outside and it was so nice to be out with the kids.

Playing With The Bunnies

Little boys playing with bunnies is so cute. Especially this little boy. I uploaded the wrong video and now blogger won't let me upload the correct one which is really annoying. Luckily this one is still cute, just not as cute as the other one.

Lost Tooth

Gracie missing her first tooth.

In November the kids were gathering for family prayers and while we were waiting Dan and Gracie were being a little (okay maybe a lot) wild. During this wildness they happened to crash into each other and Gracie's 2 front teeth became wiggly.  Being that she hadn't lost any of her bottom teeth yet and those teeth normally come out first, I was worried about how to keep those wiggly teeth in as long as possible. She did a great job keeping them in, but on December 4th that first tooth had had enough. It came out in the morning during breakfast. She was so excited to have her first missing tooth. The other tooth came out about a week later and so for Christmas she was able to say, "All I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth." To my surprise, about 2 weeks after he first tooth came out, we noticed the permanent tooth coming in. I don't know how much help the crash with Daniel did in loosing the tooth, but I was very pleased that she wasn't going to have a gap for months and months.

Learning Jingle Bells

Sarah has been working really hard on her violin. There she is playing Jingle Bells. At this point she could still only pluck the violin, but she still did a great job.

Our Thanksgiving (A Few Days Late)

Gracie sneaking in the picture of our dinner.

We had planned on having Thanksgiving dinner at home this year, but last minute we decided to go to my cousins house in Ogden. I had already bought the food for dinner so on December 2nd we had our own Thanksgiving dinner. The kids were thrilled to have our normal dinner complete with ham instead of turkey and homemade rolls. Now all we need is a bigger table so we can all sit together. :)

Hannah wanted in on the picture taking too.

The kids all eating happily.