It's the most wonderful time of the year...

This year for Christmas Eve we went to my sister-in-laws house.  We had a yummy dinner and then acted out the nativity.  My sister-in-law made a bunch of costumes, even for the adults.  It was a lot of fun.  Camille was Mary.

Jared was Joseph.  How precious.

Grandpa was a wiseman.

Hailee was a star.

Traci, me, and Taylor were angels.

And I didn't get pictures of anyone else, but you get the idea.  Then after we went to Temple square to see the lights.  It was freezing cold, but we had a good time.  Mason was a little stinker!   He cried in the stroller and cried if we held him, so that wasn't much fun.  But we survived and made it home just in time for bed.

Christmas morning we just relaxed and had fun with the kids.  They were so fun this year!

Garet and his new bike!

Camille and her new scooter.

After the fun we headed over to my parents house for more fun!  We had a brunch and spent the morning with cousins and family.  My dear sweet mother made all the girls matching aprons!  They are even reversible.

The whole family!  It's been awhile since everyone has been here.  (I think baby Owen was sleeping)

Then we headed out to our new house because everyone wanted to see it.  It is almost done!  We are hoping to close next Thursday!  Yipee!  I'll post a picture soon.

Next up, Taylor family.  Jared's family, except for Jason and Melissa, came to our house for dinner.  We had a great time enjoying each other.  Family is what makes the season so enjoyable!  Sadly, I don't have any pictures:(  All in all it was a wonderful Christmas.  We kept it simple this year and loved it!  Since all our stuff is in storage we bought a small 3 foot tree with a few decorations and bought stockings at the dollar store.  Camille made some little stars and crafts.  We tried to visit an elderly person/persons every Monday night in December and share a Christmas story and then have them tell us about a memorable Christmas they had when they were young.  It was a great experience.  I think we'll do that again.  It helped us remember the true reason for the season.

One last bit of news.  Mason is going to get tubes put in his ears in a couple weeks.  He got his 5th ear infections in 5 months last week, so I took him to a specialist today.  We are so excited to get them done so we don't have to deal with anymore antibiotics and unhappy Mason.  Hopefully we can make it through the next couple weeks.

Nativity

Last weekend we were able to watch our good friends two sweet girls, Reese and Mia.  They are Camille and Garet's age and are best buddies.  Camille, being the ring leader that she is convinced all of them to act out the Nativity together, so a few creative dress-ups later they came up with this.....

We are going to miss living so close to these guys!  We'll have to have lots of playdates for sure.
Thanks for the fun night!

Let it Snow!

Hooray for the snow!  The kids love to play in it.  Today they got all bundled up and only stayed out for about 20 minutes because it was freezing cold and the wind was blowing.  Oh well, they still had a great time.  They got some safety goggles at Lowe's a couple weeks ago and they think that they work great as snow goggles!  Funny kiddos.

Shoveling with Brother B.

Last Saturday we went up to Midway to see the Creche display and all the fun Christmas things.  It was a lot of fun.  They even had a place for the kids to dress up and be in the nativity.  Ava and Garet didn't want anything to do with the dress-ups.  Garet had a really bad day, which was no fun for us.  Still pretty cute I guess!

The kids made this santa craft the other day.  I realized I didn't have any cotton balls, so we used marshmellows instead.  They thought it was great.  The marshmellows only lasted a day!  Yum-yum.

Ride 'em cowboy!  Mason has discovered the horse and he loves it!  Yee-haw.

He leans really far forward and giggles and laughs!

What we've been up to!

I haven't posted in awhile and was looking through all my pictures!  Wow, we have done quite a bit lately.

Jared went deer hunting with his brothers and Dad.  They got skunked, but still had a great time together!

We had a Halloween party with all my cousins, Aunts and Uncles, and Grandma and Grandpa.  Grandma even dressed up as tigger!  She is such an awesome lady.  I have so many fond memories of doing things with her when I was a kid.  I'm so glad my kids are getting to know her.  Every year for Halloween she and my Grandpa make homeade donuts and make all the trick or treaters come in and do a "trick" (sing, etc.).  Since we are all married with our own kids now we decided to do a party before Halloween and have donuts with Grandma and Grandpa.  It was so fun!  We hope to do it again next year.

Halloween afternoon in Grandma's backyard.  All the grandkids.

Isaac = batman, Garet - Cowboy, Amelia = pink bug, Elle = Witch, Camille = fairy, Mason = pumpkin who won't keep his hat on, (my sister Kaydi), Owen = cute little boy, Scarlett = bee, (sister Carly)!  Now that picture was a huge feat!

My mom has started a tradition of doing a fish pond for the grandkids on Halloween and then she makes homeade donuts and the kids can go trick-or-treating around her neighborhood.  Such fun!

Jared surprised me (sort of) with a trip to Moab with NO KIDS!  My mom watched the kids for us for 3 days.  Thank you Mom!!  Grandma's are the best!  It was awesome, to say the least!  Everything was perfect - the weather, the biking, the hiking, the relaxing, the babysitter, I mean everything.  We couldn't have asked for a better weekend.

The first day we biked through Arches.  It was gorgeous.  Hardly any people this time of year.

More Arches...

We mountain biked and then hiked to this arch "Tower Arch".  It was very fun.  We didn't see anyone.

Mountain biking

Hiking through Hunter Canyon!  It was beautiful this time of year.

We drove to this "bow tie" of the green river.  It was gorgeous and we were miles from anybody!  We also found a really nice arch called "Solitude Arch".

The best get away ever!   I guess that makes me in charge of the next one:)

Thanks honey, you're the best!

Mason's favorite place to play...in the cupboard.

He started walking about a week ago, but I can't get the video to work.  He is so stinkin' cute because he is very wobbly!  He is getting so big!

Playing in the leaves.

My Camilley girl!

and the Garet man, hard at work.

Fun stuff!  Now bring on the snow....

Too Cheap?!?

The other day the kids and I were riding in the car and we passed the local pet shop.

Camille:  "Is that the store where you can buy dogs?"
Me:  "Yep!"
Camille:  "How much do dogs cost?"
Me:  "Hummmm...anywhere from $20 - $1,000.  It depends what kind you get."
Camille:  "We would want the $20 one huh."
Garet:  "YA, we want CHEAP!"
Me:  Uncontrollable laughing.  "Yes, we would!"

Another story....

Jared was in Walmart with the kids and he was contemplating which crackers to buy.  Camille piped up and said, "Mom always buys that one because it's a good deal!"  Garet then agreed, "Ya, it's cheap!"

I think my frugalness is wearing off on the kids.  Oh, well.  I guess that's not such a bad trait after all.

My little Mason!

This is his new scowl face and his beautiful blue eyes!

Mason had his 1 year check up a couple days ago.  I can hardly believe he is one!  Seriously, that year just flew by.  He weighed 21 lbs. 8 oz (30%), 31 in (85%), and 75% for his head.  He is still very tall, but has slimmed down quite a bit, probably because he is the busiest boy ever.  He is just about ready to walk.  He stands by himself and has taken a few steps to me.  He just has to get his courage up!

He hasn't been taking any naps the past week or so and I kind of thought something must be wrong, and sure enough he had an ear infection in one of his ears.  Poor little thing.  The funny thing is, he hasn't had a fever, still sleeps 12 hours at night, and was happy during the day, except for naps.  Silly boy, I would've never guessed!  So, after being on antibiotics for the past couple days he is napping again and it is heaven!  I was getting worried for a few days that he just wasn't going to take naps anymore.

His new favorite thing is the kitchen garbage can.  He crawls over to it and says "kkkkkuuuuu" because that is what I say to him when he tries to get in it.  So, we have to put it up out of reach when he is awake!

We love our Mason boy!  He brings sunshine to my days!

Mason's Birthday and other Taylor happenings.

Happy 1st Birthday Mason!

Wow, that year sure flew by.  He is such a sweet little guy and is still a pretty mellow fellow.  He liked his cake.

Cousin Hazel, she is just 3 months younger than Mason.

For the Cable family party I made this mermaid cake plus the fish at the bottom - I couldn't let Mason have a mermaid for his birthday:)  We also celebrated Elle's birthday the same night.  It turned out pretty good considering it was 30 inches long (huge).  At least we had plenty of cake for the entire family.  My sister, Kendra, and I got Camille and Elle tickets to Disney on Ice for their birthday.  Kendra made up this cute princess treasure hunt that we sent them on to find the tickets.  It was a lot of fun.  We are going in November with Grandma.  It will be a fun girls day.

Another exciting thing that happened this week is that Garet got to go hunting with the big boys for the first time.  He is the only grandson on Jared's side of the family besides Mason, so Daddy couldn't wait to get him out there.  He was so thrilled and can't wait to go again next year.  Thanks Dad, Grandpa, Uncle Will, and Uncle Jason! 

Daddy and Garet

Garet and Grandpa.  He got to ride on the four wheeler with Grandpa.

The house as of last week!  We can't wait.

One of Garet's little friends comes over to play once a week and yesterday they had to get out in the leaves.  They played outside the entire time!  AAAHH Fall!

They were wearing the fireman hats backwards to keep the leaves out of their faces, silly boys!