It's Not Christmas Without....

Santa?  Christmas carols?  Elf?

Well, yes, all of those.  But what I really mean is...PICKLEVILLE!

We made our winter pilgrimage to the university to watch the Christmas show.  It was awesome, as always.  Henry stayed home with Grandma Judy and loved being the center of attention there.

The kids saw Santa and visited with him - well, all the kids but Chloe.  I don't even want to talk about why...it makes me too sad.

It's always so crowded afterward, so I didn't get any pictures of the kids with the cast, but here they are with Santa.  Too adorable.

 I love our little tradition with Pickleville.  It makes the kids excited for acting, the theatre, etc.  And it just warms my heart every Christmas.  I love it.

Odds and Ends

Amazing how quickly I can get behind on the blog.

A few collages of things that have gone on around here lately.

We drove to Brigham City to visit my Grandma Rose at her care center.  This was maybe a week before Henry was born?  Also, we've had Olympic fever at our house.  Lily made this gold medal, Brigham wanted a picture of him watching the Olympics through the mirror, and Cannon was doing something funny.  Gold medal for him in that department!  :)

We were brought so many wonderful meals after Henry was born.  Oh, how we appreciated them!
We made our annual trip to Bear Lake for the Pickleville Playhouse Bandito show.  Chloe hopped up on stage with a cute little girl and they danced their hearts out after the show.  Chloe had NO fear, which was pretty cute to see.
 The boys got bunk beds!  Cannon had NO trouble at all switching from crib to bed.  We knew he wouldn't, but it's still funny to me that he made it to his 4th birthday before we finally got him a real bed.  :)
We're loving our baby Hen.

 We've had quite a harvest this summer.  Tons of produce and even an adorable baby!

We took the kids to Chuck E. Cheese's on Saturday as a final summer hoorah.  It was a blast!  The kids enjoyed every second and I have to admit that Stanton, Henry, and I did, too!

December Daily - Thursday, December 1st

This awesome first day of December was spent finishing the last little bit of my Christmas shopping.  What a wonderful feeling!  I don't think I've ever been done this early.  (Okay, I have maybe 3 more things to pick up, but they don't stress me out a bit.  Wait, correction -- there is one that is still stressing me out a little.  Chloe has NO idea what she wants for Christmas.  She did say she'd like to learn how to sew, so I'm thinking maybe Santa will bring her a sewing machine?  Or maybe 4H sewing lessons?  I don't know about that one yet.  We've gotten her some great gifts, I just don't know what Santa is going to bring her.  We'll get it figured out. 

After I got home from Christmas shopping, we had a salad for dinner and met our friends, Mitch and Vanessa and family, to go to 12.25, Pickleville's Christmas show.
It was SOOOOOO great this year!!!  SOOOO great.  Can I say it again?  SOOOOO fantastic.  We laughed and cried and enjoyed every single second.

The kids loved getting to visit with Santa --- the REAL one.

This is Chloe telling him that he can just surprise her for Christmas.

Lily told him she'd like roller skates.

Brigham told him that he could bring a surprise for him, too.

Cannon had a great time getting a candy cane.  For as attached to me as he is lately, he really enjoyed talking to Santa.  Isn't that left picture so great?!

This picture sums up the fun of the night.  Aren't they adorable?!!!

An absolutely awesome kick off to the Christmas season!