The adventure began 12 years ago.....

Saturday was our 12 year wedding anniversary!  Oh how time has flown by.  Having and raising our children has been the biggest and best part of this journey together.

 

Friday was my parent's 44th wedding anniversary!!!!  That is a long time.  They have always been such a good example to me.

Christmases long, long ago....

 

I found this adorable old Christmas card from way back in 2006 I believe.  Izzy was 3 and Lily 1.  There were lots of old Christmas cards and photos and I decided to post some on here and take a walk down memory lane...

 

Here are all the girls and their first Christmas....

Izzy

2003

 

 

 Lily

2005

 (I cannot for the life of me flip this photo the right way!  I'll try again another time.)

 Chloe

2007

 

 

Olivia

2009

I actually had all the girls wear that same red dress for their first Christmas and have a photo of each of them in it. (I think....I hope!)  It came with the cute red beret you see, and I have other photos of them all wearing that.  I have given away a lot of their old baby clothes, but that outfit is one thing that I have kept. 


Here are a few other photos from other Christmases throughout the years that were in that same box....oh how time flies and how we have changed so much!

2004

2004

2003 (This is just a picture of a picture I took, so it's a little distorted looking.)

This is from the same year and same studio!  These are the ones we handed out to everyone. Ben has a floating head in it haha



2006

2008

2009 The girls all look so little!

2010

2010

2011

2012

We used this photo for the card for 2007... I loved the red!

And here's a cute one of the kiddos in 2009.  Olivia's a baldie!

There were even some photos with Santa....

Baby Izzy's first Christmas.  She didn't mind Santa at all!
 

2005 Baby Lily's first Christmas
NOBODY in this photo looks too thrilled to be there, not even the Santa!  Haha, why isn't he at least smiling??? At least the children weren't crying!

2007 Baby Chloe's First Christmas, she also didn't mind Santa!  She had her sisters there to help her feel safe I guess. 

2009 Baby Olivia's first Christmas (again, just a photo of a photo)
She looks the happiest of all of them!  She did learn to smile at 2.5 weeks, she has always been a very happy child.

Chloe with Santa 2011 age 4

Lily with Santa 2011 age 6

Izzy with Santa 2011 age 8

Olivia with Santa 2011 age 2

School Christmas Concerts 2013

stay tuned....

Olivia's First Talk in Primary

Olivia gave her first talk in primary back in mid October.  We recorded her practicing for it that Sunday morning.  She did a great job!  It was all about Reverence and after she gave it, she folded her arms and sat so nicely in her chair.

 Lily did the recording...enjoy!

Merry Christmas 2013

The Elf on The Shelf

Ok so when I first saw this Elf on the Shelf last year, or maybe it was a couple years ago, I thought to myself and said I was not going to get into that because it just seemed like so much more work and effort to put in around Christmas, etc. etc.  But I have really come to realize how quickly our kids grow up, and that they are only little like this once.  Isabelle will already be 11 years old in the spring!  I knew how much my kids would love this, the older ones to help set it out and the younger ones to see it each day and be surprised by it.  So I thought, "Why not?" and we bought one this year.  And so far, everyone loves it!  We try to come up with ideas that do not make such a huge mess or are a lot of work and so far, it's been really fun.

 

To fill in those of you who don't know about the elf, the story is that each night the elf flies home to Santa to tell him about how the children have been behaving, and then they fly back and have to hide in a new spot each night for the children to find.  Sometimes, they play tricks on the children or do things to make them smile.  You get to name your elf and they become the elf for your home and family.  And, you could pick a girl one or a boy one, and Olivia was with me when we got ours and so she picked a girl.  They really look more or less the same.  Our girls named our elf, Thibble. 

 

This was the first trick she did:

 

 

 

All of the girls LOVED it, and thought it was so hilarious!

The second night, Ben set it out.  He had this great idea of buying a 5th chocolate advent calendar and pretending that the elf ate all of the chocolates out of it.  Poor Chloe woke up and thought it was her actual calendar and was so upset, she started crying and everything!  Ben reassured her it was an extra one and all was fine once again.  Oh the drama!  Haha

It's been fun letting the older girls help out with the ideas and setting up of it too.  Here is Izzy with the elf she set up one night....it was "drinking" syrup with a straw in the pantry!

And then last night Lily helped with this one.  The elf's face fit in there perfectly!  The girls all loved finding it at breakfast this morning. Haha

I'll make an entry later of all the other ideas we do for the elf on the shelf!

Setting Up Christmas

The Christmas set up is always a big event the girls look forward to every year.  We have to re arrange our whole living and dining room to get it to fit, so by the end Ben and I are so exhausted!  It is fun though.

All the girls want a chance to put the star up, so we let them each have a turn:

I just let the kids go at it!  I honestly don't care if it doesn't look like a Martha Stewart tree in the end.  I think it looks just fine, and this way too, the kids are happy to have helped. 

We rented some good Christmas CD's from the library for this night, and the girls loved the one CD so much they made a dance to go with it.

It sure is nice and cozy with all the lights turned on, and the main ones turned off.  Especially in this -42 C with-the-windchill weather we have been having!  Brrrrrrr!

We had a ward Christmas party where the kids all made many different crafts and this was one of them!  They had so many extras they let us take some home. They had us, the Primary, run them and it was great!  The RS had it all organized and ready to go, I just had to be there to make sure no one got hurt or anything.  The party was really fun.

Olivia with the Candy Cane Reindeer she made.


Olivia loves loves LOVES to point out all of the decorated houses on our block and in our community as we drive around.  She was the same way with all the decorated homes at Halloween time.  She loves to count them and remind me of them.  She tells me often of her disappointment with the lack of decorations on our house, haha!  She says we should, "go to the store and buy lots of lights and decorations!"  Last year we threw out all the old outdoor lights we had because they were all old and burnt out and broken.  We will buy more for sure, but it is just so funny for Olivia to say that!