Jacob and Marie at a gymnastics theme birthday party for a school friend of Jacob
Marie's birthday
Our Thankful Tree
new dress up clothes from a few days after Halloween
Playing with Addie in the dress up clothes during her short November visit
Marie's preschool friends
Jacob's art and story
Charlotte's art
Marie's art
lots and lots of snow
Thanksgiving cousins
Our Christmas Eve devotional and the tree with no decorations on the bottom because of Charlotte (and non at the very top because Spencer was ill when we decorated and no one else could reach the top)
That's not the real Santa Clause. His beard is curly like paper. Said Jacob and Marie. But they decided to talk to him because mom said they could have the candy he offered them. Charlotte can say and recognize Santa.
Jacob's ninja gingerbread men
We had a secret santa who brought us a piece of the nativity set and a treat each evening. Charlotte loved playing with the nativity. Joseph lost his head, hand and part of his rob, but Spencer was able to mend him and the other pieces that endured Charlotte damage.
puzzles that the secret santa gave the kids. "I've always wanted this!"
The holiday season was quite busy for us as was school and work for me and Spencer.
Spencer - finished up his Physics II class with an A. He put in a lot of hard work and also drew on his experience calibrating lasers and trouble shooting phones from previous jobs. He also helped my dad various tasks for his work.
Kristin - collected her first round of data for her dissertation. Her proposal was approved with minor changes and things (after several obstacles) are moving forward. I finished teaching my BYU-I class, CCA class, and CCCOnline classes. I finished teaching a JWU class and started another one in December.
Jacob - had a never ending Christmas list and was so wound up waiting for Christmas. He had fun making several arts and crafts at school and loved the time off with his sisters and cousins. He and James had so much fun together during Thanksgiving and Christmas
Marie - was so excited to have preschool at Grandma King's house (taught by mom) and is a great helper. She loved playing with Addie and Daniel during the holidays. She also turned 4!
Charlotte - gets into everything and is doing a really great job at expressing herself. She loves her baby cousins and calls all of them Baby Aarr (Baby Aaron), including David's Wyley and Laura's Leon.
We had Kevin and Stephen's families over for Thanksgiving and we spent the weekend at my parents. We had so much fun playing with cousins and games in the evening.
David's family was out for two weeks in December, Stephen's came out for a long weekend, and Kelsey/Matthew, Laura/Cody/Leon came out for a long Christmas weekend. We had a nerf war with both families, game nights, cheese tasting nights, and lots of fun.
School starts back up for Jacob on Jan. 7th and we are planning on going to Utah for Joey's baptism shortly there after. Additionally, Jacob has a scheduled ear tub removal surgery at the end of the month.
Spencer got a new calling - he's an activity day boy's leader. I'm a 14-year old Sunday school teacher.
A few memorable things from the Christmas season was the kids acting out the nativity and a game with the Hesses where we looked into the scriptures about the birth of Christ. It reminded me that even though there is a lot I don't understand, the spirit testifies of the truth when you are reading the scriptures.
