New Year's Eve/Day

By about 3pm on New Year's Eve I had decided we would probably just be hanging out as a family. We had invited a few of Cameron's classmates over, but no one had really settled on anything. Luckily, my neighbor Bonnie sent me a text, and we grabbed our other neighbors, and had a great evening celebrating the end of 2015. We had a curry dinner at our house, followed by games. We then went over to Bonnie & Alan's house for a chocolate fountain, the New York City ball dropping (9pm our time-and all the kids stayed awake and happy!), followed by some sparklers. It was a perfect evening. 

The two year olds! Jane, Penny, & Maya

Dinner followed by face painting. And of course all the kids loved Geoff joining in!

 And of course the chocolate fountain was a hit! 

 Chocolate Marshmellows!

Ada was a huge mess! (Thank you Grandma Harvey for getting the chocolate out of her shirt!!) And Aubrey laughed at Ada's face until she saw hers. 

 Ada has a fear of fireworks, sparklers, etc. So she wanted nothing to do with this fun. 

What a great night! The kids crashed hard around 9:30-10 and we were in bed around 11. Happy New Year!!

We tried to take the girls out to breakfast on New Year's Day, but everywhere was closed. They were just as happy stopping by the donut shop. 

Chalk castle and city during Penny's nap. 

And also a puzzle party. We did every puzzle we own and threw away any that had missing pieces. 

And Penny FINALLY woke up after a FIVE hour nap!! She had a slight fever right before her nap and was falling asleep on the couch. She then napped from noon to five, and still went to bed around 7 (although she did lay there for quite awhile before finally falling asleep), and slept till morning.

One more round of fireworks on New Year's Evening because Aubrey wasn't about to let us forget we had extras. A great start to an exciting new year for us. We will see what 2016 has in store for us!!

Christmas Day

Our tree right after Santa came, and his cookies and milk. 

Our girls got up just after 7. I don't think we will ever allow early early risers! It was perfect! Stocking first of course. Santa brought a lot of fun things!

 Christmas morning girls. 

Scooters from Mom and Dad.

And the after mess. We got caught up in the excitement and didn't take tons of pictures. 

New shirt from Grandma and ready to go try out her new scooter. Aubrey is quite the scooterer and loves to show everyone tricks. 

Grass skirts from Grandma Harvey

 And an afternoon trip to the hot tub! Everyone here thinks we are crazy for going to the hot tub in the 'winter'. We had the place to ourselves. 

 Morning scooter ride, and Penny keep practicing her new bike. 

Christmas Day girls!

Gorgeous sunset. We at ham and potatoes and then both the Elder missionaries and the sister missionaries asked us to go caroling-at different times. So we went with the Elders first and drove around delivering cookies and singing as best we could. Then arrived home around 8 and went around to a few neighborhood houses with the sister missionaries. We got home close to 9, but we HAD to do cookies and cream before sending some very tired girls off to bed with promises of more cookies and cream the next day. 

Merry Christmas!!

Christmas Eve

We decorated gingerbread houses the Monday before Christmas for Family Home Evening. Before we went to the store I asked Ada to put on some pants and shoes. Here is what we got!

It was fun and messy!

Penny was content just watching for the most part. I think she refused to even try dinner and so we threatened that she couldn't help. Fine by her! We did eventually get her to eat a little pot pie by convincing her that the crust was bread. She still was more interested in watching. 

 We drove about 10 minutes away to Yucaipa to go and see a whole street full of Christmas lights. Because it was a Saturday evening, some houses were giving out cookies and hot chocolate- and we even ran into Santa!!

On Christmas Eve we played at home and then in the evening went to our friends, The Richards, for dinner, cookie decorating, and a little gift exchange for the kids. It was so much fun, and always nice to be able to spend Christmas Eve with friends when we don't have any family around. 

 

Decorating cookies. I think Santa likes lots of sprinkles!

 Emjae and Aubrey showed up dressed alike.

And Teck LOVES Ada. She is so sweet to him too. 

 

Getting ready for the present exchange!

 

We didn't have a chance to get a picture with everyone, but Caitlyn, Stefani, and I got one real quick at the end of the evening. So grateful once again for the great friends we have here. We certainly support each other a lot while our husbands are gone at the hospital a lot!

We came home and put some very excited kids to bed. Set up the tree, and then went to bed so we could prepare for another exciting day ahead.