The Nutcracker

This past Saturday Amber and I had our traditional trip to see The Nutcracker in downtown.  It was such a fun trip.  They offered some discounted tickets for the show through Barth's work at the end of the summer, so Barth got 2 tickets on the floor of the theater for us!  What a treat it was to be closer!!!  As usual, Amber had such a great time.

We went to McDonald's for lunch and then went downtown!  We found our seats and got all settled for the show!

During intermission, Amber went to find as many ballerinas as she could to take her picture with!  I am so glad to have a fun girl that I can go to the ballet with!

Sleeping Babies

It doesn't matter to me how big my babies get, there is nothing that I love more than to see a sleeping baby!!  Enjoy these pictures of all my sleeping babies!!  I love them all to pieces.  I am one blessed Momma!

Christmas Band Concerts

This month has been quite a busy one for us.  One week in particular was very busy every single night.  We had Brian's band concert on night immediately following an academic team match.  Brian did such a great job.  As usual, I forgot my real camera.  I am glad that I have a camera on my phone, but it just isn't as good of quality as my real camera.  The 6th grade band had really improved over the last few months.  Brian LOVES band!!  He has such a fun time playing the trumpet!

This one came out so blurry, but I like it because Brian is looking right at us!  :)  They played one non-Christmas song, followed by a Christmas medley and a song called Santa's Noisy Workshop!  They were all so good.  We also got to hear the 7th grade band and the jazz band and percussion ensemble.  I always love band concerts.  The night following that, we had the elders over for dinner and Barth went on splits. 

The next night was Thursday and Aaron had an academic match which we had to leave as soon as the 4th grade was finished so that we could get home to pick everyone up and head over to Weston's Christmas concert.  His concert was sooooooo good.  He is in the top band and they looked and sounded fabulous!  Once again, I forgot my camera and so these are kind of washed out.  Weston is right in the middle in front of the tubas. 

In an attempt to keep Katelynn happy, I got out my camera on my phone to take some pictures.  She had only had an hour nap that day and was so tired and cranky!  Oh well, I thought that this was a cute picture though!

She started to be fussy, so I took her to the back of the auditorium.  She must have been exhausted because she fell fast asleep during the Sousa march that they played.  Weston's band was very good.  They played Sleigh ride, Greensleaves, some Sousa march, and then A Russian Christmas Medley!  They all sounded fabulous!

 

 Here he is after the concert!  The following night was the ward Christmas party.  Like I said, a very busy week!  But a lot of fun!  I am so glad that my boys love to play in the band.  I certainly enjoy the concerts!!!!

Swedish Cookies

 When Barth was growing up, he would make Swedish cookies every year with his Grandma.  And every year, we continue on the tradition.  This Christmas season has been very busy, but I was glad to have everyone home this entire week so that we could do quite a few things together as a family, like making cookies!  :)

 Now that the kids are all bigger, (except Katelynn who can't touch them anyway because of the wheat) they all know pretty much what to do and don't really need a lot of help.  They had fun decorating the cookies with red, green, and peppermint sprinkles!

I love to do the traditions from both of our families!  We are both blessed to have had such good families with fun traditions.  Hopefully our children will enjoy the traditions that we are continuing in our home and want to do them as well when they grow up! :)

O Christmas Tree

 We went and picked out our Christmas Tree Friday night in the rain.  We have had such good luck at Kroger the last few years that we decided to skip the other places and just go there.  They had just gotten in a fresh batch of trees and we had the pick of the bunch.  We found the perfect on right off!!  We had to cut a good half foot off the top because it was scraping our ceiling!!  :)  We got it up on Friday night and let it dry off.  Saturday Weston had a debate tournament all day, but when he got back home, we got busy decorating the tree all up!!

 As always, I hand out the ornaments and the kids are always so excited to get their special ones from the years gone by that they always get from Grandma and Grandpa Whitley!

 This one is a little blurry, but I love it because you can see the stockings and the two elves that Aaron and Evan drew for us that are up on the fireplace.  You can also see how tall Weston is getting and how high he can reach on that tree!

 But this picture is my very favorite!  Brian simply loves Katelynn!!  And he loves to help her.  He let her put up half of his ornaments and helped her with every single one.  Most mornings, I will have just gotten back from dropping off Weston for Seminary when Brian is getting out of the shower and going downstairs to get breakfast and get ready for his day.  Being the exhausted and lazy mother that I am, I try to lay back down for just a little bit longer.  Katelynn usually wakes up for the day around 6:30 or 6:40, and every single morning, Brian comes back upstairs, pokes his head into my room and says, "I'll get Baby, Momma.  You can rest a few more minutes"  And then he goes in and gets her and turns on a show for her downstairs and plays with her.  Honestly, he is so, so very sweet with her.  He loves his little sister so very much.  It warms my heart.  And so, to me, this picture is just a physical reminder of how much he loves her and how good of a brother he is!  I am one lucky momma!

 Katelynn loved the decorating of the tree.  She couldn't quite figure out how to get them to stay on the tree, but she loved trying!  I can't believe my baby is so big!  18 months old!!  Where has the time gone to?!?

 And look at this moose-y baby!!!  Just 3 and half more years and he will be done with public school and heading off for a mission.  And I know that those years will fly by!  Weston had just as much fun as the other kids.  He was commenting as we were hanging the ornaments that last year was probably his last time to get to put the star on.  By the time it cycles around to be his turn again, he will be off on a mission.  That is crazy to think about!  But what a fine young man he is turning into!

This year was Brian's year to get to do the star!  He is growing too.  He is catching up to me fast in height!  He is such a happy and good boy!  I am thankful to have him!

 Brian being his goofy self.  The kids sat on the couch while Daddy got the star hooked up to the other strand of lights.  The tree was awfully wobbly!  Barth and I were woken up at 5:30 this morning by an awful crash!  Yep, the tree had fallen and had broken probably a dozen of the ornaments.  It was a huge mess to clean up.  I was surprised that none of the kids woke up.  Katelynn woke up around 6:15, but by then we had righted the tree and cleaned up most of the big ornament pieces.  Barth went and rocked her in the recliner in our sitting room while I vacuumed everything else up.  Surprisingly, no one woke up for the vacuum either.  I guess they were all pretty tired!

 Look at this cute girl!  She has gotten to be such a good little reader.  She loves 1st grade.  She goes 3 times a week to another 1st grade teacher's class to read and also twice a week to another teacher's class for math since she is one of the top students in reading and math.  She loves that too!  She is happy and loves to follow Katelynn around "mothering" her.

 All of the kiddos are pretty smitten with that baby sister of theirs.  And she loves them too.  Although she can be kind of fickle and is trying her best to get into the terrible two's already!  She thinks that screaming at the very top of her lungs is the best way to get her own way.  But she is learning that it doesn't always work!  Still, she is a sweetheart and we love her to pieces!!

 I love this picture of Aaron!  He really came out of his shell last school year and continues to try to make and do new things.  He is really enjoying academic team.  I think it is good for him because he is learning to think fast and speak up!  He has made some good friends on his team!  He loves school and is as smart as a whip these days!  Just like his older brother, he loves all things science.  And just like his mom, he loves math.  He is a super duper math whiz!!  :)

 What a great looking group of kiddos!! 

 Amber and Evan were laughing at something funny.  I'm not sure it was as funny as they thought it was, and I honestly can't even remember what was making them laugh, but I love it when they are happy!

Merry Christmas season!!!

Christmas Dresses

 Oh my!  I have so much to catch up on.  But, for today, I wanted to post a picture of my cute girlies today in their matching dresses.  I had Amber's done by yesterday morning, but she said she wanted to wait to wear hers until Katelynn's was done too!  So, I sewed Katelynn's last night and they were so excited to wear their matching dresses this morning!  Here they are, bright and early and ready for Amber to head off to school!  Aren't they so cute?!?

I am so thankful to have these two sweet girls that like to match and are good friends!  It's looking an awful lot like Christmas at our house!!  :)

Snowy Day Fun!

We were all so excited about the snow.  The kids spent most of the day outside in the snow having lots of fun.  Barth worked from home, which was nice.  Even Katelynn was excited to go outside.  We tried to get a few shots of everyone together!

The snow was perfect and plenty deep enough for snow angels.  In all, we got just less than 6 inches! 

Brian makes a beautiful snow angel doesn't he? :)

We have never had this much snow so early in the school year!  But it was fun to have a day off and then a one hour delay yesterday.

Katleynn was too tall for the blue snowsuit that everyone else has worn, so I stuck her in some size 3 snow pants (those were too big, but we made them work), boots and her big puffy coat!  She tolerated it for about 2 minutes.  And then she began to cry.  I tried taking her to the driveway where she could walk around better, but it didn't make a difference.  After that, she just stayed inside!

It felt like we were walking around all morning in some other place entirely!  We were truly "Walking in a Winter Wonderland!"

The boys got to work making a snow fort.  That didn't last long though.  They were more interested in sledding!

I think every single one of the kids made a snow angel.

Aaron said to me, "Take a picture of me!  This is the first time anyone has ever snow swinged!"

Everyone thinks that it is so fun to shovel the driveway.  I don't mind!  :)  It gets my driveway clear!  We are all so thankful that Auntie M went to BYU-I all those years ago and that we could have her hand-me-down scarves, hats and gloves!  They have gotten a lot of use over the last so many years that we have lived here!

Time for sledding and snowboarding!

Aaron and the perfect snowball that he made all by himself.  No help from those snowball makers we got a few years ago!  He did a great job.  He hid it under a bush while he went sledding so that no one would bother it!

Let the fun begin!!

Brian love, love, LOVES snowboarding!  One of these days I would like to take him to go snowboarding for real.  I bet he would love it!

All the boys out sledding together.  I am so glad that they still enjoying doing things together.

Aaron

Brian

Weston

Evan

I had to get one picture from across the street of what our house looked like in the snow!

Taking a break in the snow!

Hanging out while we wait for the snow plow to pass so that we can sled again.  Our hill is too fast and if there are cars, they have to stop the sleds.  On most snowy days there are little to no cars, but I don't want anyone to get hurt.

Here is Weston working on the jump that they built towards the bottom of the path that they were using for the snowboard.  They love to build up a jump!  So fun!

Yesterday was soooooo cold!  It only got to 18.  Today is supposed to be warmer, up to 30.  By the weekend it is supposed to be 60 again with thunderstorms.  And then back to more snow for Thanksgiving weekend.  I think that the crazy Texas weather has moved up north with me!!!  :)