Christmas

                                            Joseph and Austin in their new  church clothes

                                                Betsy and Austin's new church dresses

                                             Betsy loves her new doll

                                            Joseph is ready to rock-n-roll with his new guitar

                                               The snow fort!!!

                                           Samuel and the Snowman, and playing in the snow

The Tuesday before Christmas we got almost a foot of snow over 2 days of constant snowing.  So Travis decided we needed a snow fort.  He spent hours making this big snow fort in the front yard, with occasional help from various family members.  I don't have a picture of the finished product, but it was really tall.  The snow was perfect for packing and building, and we all had a blast playing outside and building a snowman and a fort.  It was a wonderful snow day, full of hot chocolate and going in and out of the house playing in the snow.  Since Travis has been out of school, we've been working on lots of projects getting ready for the baby, and we're almost there.  Christmas Eve we went to Travis' Uncle Nick and Aunt Nora's house in Salt Lake City, with his sister Maia's family and had a nice early dinner, and then went to see the nativity at Temple Square in Salt Lake City, the lights were amazing, and the nativity was really neat.  It was cold, and crowded and we we're having a hard time getting the kids to behave appropriately so we didn't stay too long.  We decided to cross the street to see if we could use the bathrooms in the conference center (we couldn't find anything open on temple square) and then head to the car where we parked to go home.  Travis stopped to give a homeless man some Christmas cookies, and didn't see us cross the street, and we didn't realize he wasn't with us until after we had crossed the street.  So the kids and I waited at the water fountain by the conference center for Travis to come across, but he never did.  His sister made it over, and told us Travis was looking for us on the other side of the street, so we went and crossed the street again.  After looking for a moment, I realized it was silly of me to try to walk around and find him with four kids, when he knew we were going to the car, so we turned around, and crossed the street again, and went to go look for a bathroom in the conference center.  We finally found a door to go in, as someone came out, and then went through another set of doors, that we hoped would lead to a bathroom, unfortunately it lead to a stairwell, with only roof access, and the doors locked behind us so we couldn't go back the way we came.  After climbing around for 15-20 minutes we finally found an exit door, and made it out.  We still hadn't found a bathroom, but decided to go to the car first, to see if Daddy was still there.  Thankfully he was, and we drove to a McDonalds, and took all the kids to the bathroom.  After coming home and putting kids to bed, Travis and I stayed up until almost midnight, putting together a 3-in-1 game table that he got a really good deal on.  Then at 4am the kids were up and ready to open presents, I quickly sent them back to bed, and then a little after 6am, we allowed them to come into our room, and we had scripture study, and then went downstairs to open presents.  The kids were so happy and excited to open their presents, they loved them all.  We spent the rest of the morning putting together the girl's new barbie mansion, the boys train table/Lego table, and opening up and figuring out new toys.  I made cinnamon roll Christmas tree, bacon, and scrambled eggs for breakfast, which we're very yummy.  A little after 2pm, Travis and I finally went upstairs to shower and dress for the day, and just as I finished my shower, Austin came pounding on the door, saying that her cousins we're here.  Sure enough after dressing quickly and coming downstairs, our house was full of Travis' Sister and her family of 6 kids.  It was a fun surprise, as the kids got to play with their cousins, and show off their new toys.  They had tried calling us, but had the wrong phone number.  Anyway, they stayed for a few hours, and then left to go to their in-laws for dinner.  We had a nice ham for dinner, and had a wonderful Christmas day.