Park and Temple Square

 Tori and James loved playing at this really neat park with their cousins.  James loved playing with his Uncle Gary.  He spent most of the time running around saying, "Where's my Gary?".

Starting from Cole standing at the top and going around clockwise: Katie, Tori, Tess, James, Jordan and Jane. 

Tori and James thought the conference center was really cool.  They've seen it during General Conference but I think this was the first time they've been there in person.

 Ellie's so sweet! 

 James didn't get his nap - so he had a bit of a hard time holding still and/or smiling for pictures. :)

  

Temple Square is so beautiful at Christmas time - I'm so glad the kids got to see it. 

 

Flying Fish

 The day after Christmas we all got together and flew these really cool remote-controlled balloons.  The way they floated and moved - it was very eerie how much they actually looked like fish.

 Allison, Gary and Jeremy getting the fish ready to fly.

 Chance and Ellie were very cute together.

 The kids all just loved running around.

Christmas Day

Cute kids in their Christmas pj's waiting anxiously to see if Santa came to Grandma Katie's house.  Tori made sure she let Santa know where we would be when she wrote him her letter.  The kids had blast opening presents.  Even Ellie seemed pretty excited about her stuff.  Then we all got dressed up and went to church with Grandma and hung out with cousins.

I think James' favorite present was his guitar.  It was so cute so see him walk around nodding his head to the music and strumming his hand.  He loved playing guitar with his cousins (who are all really talented).

Above James is playing with his cousin and Chance and below his cousin Jace is showing us his new ukulele. 

Christmas Eve

 We decided to drive to Utah for Christmas this year. It was a little crazy packing up all the presents in the car, but we loved getting to spend the holidays with family.  On Christmas eve the cousins all got together and acted out the nativity.  Tori was thrilled that she got to be Mary and Ellie was very sweet as baby Jesus.  James wasn't quite as into it as the girls, but he made a cute wise man. 

 

 The kids were very excited about their new PJs and house-shoes that they got to open on Christmas eve.  I think even Ellie was excited about her new jamies. :)

Decorating the tree

This is definitely the place to find a nice, live Christmas tree.  It was so nice to shop for a tree this year and not feel like we were going to freeze. :)  The kids loved putting up the ornaments.  Tori is loving being the big kid now and getting to do most everything by herself.  James had a lot of fun, but was a little too excited and got a little crazy.  He grabbed one of the glass ball ornaments.  We said, "No James, we need to put that down."  So, he chucks it as hard as he can against a wall and it shattered.  Christmas is a little crazy with a two year old boy with lots of energy.

Ellie had fun bouncing and watching us, but you could tell she wanted to get out and get her hands on that tree.

Christmas fun

Here are just a few pictures of the Gingerbread house that Tori and James created.  I liked it because it was a very easy kit and they had fun playing with and eating all the candy.

Ellie had fun watching the craziness.

The zoo here does a fun thing called Zoo Lights.  They cover the zoo with Christmas lights and have Christmas decorations in with some of the animals and then the zoo stays open late on certain days.  It was a little chilly and crowded, but the kids had a lot of fun and it really did look beautiful.  They had live bands playing music that James just loved, too.

Christmas photos

 I kept debating this year whether I wanted to take the kids in to get professional photos done or not and use them for the Christmas card.  Life just got too busy, so I thought I would just sit the kids down in their Christmas outfits and see if anything turned out.  I was thrilled with sweet and good they were for the pictures.