Boys Monthly Letters

The boys have posted their monthly letters to their blogs. You can access them by clicking on their pictures to the right.

I also felt it fitting as we are finishing out the year to post a little letter from Dave & I since we are never very good about sending out Christmas cards.

This has been a good year for our family. Dave & I started out 2010 on a cruise to the Caribbean to celebrate our 10th anniversary. It was a really wonderful trip for us. Throughout the year we have spent many weekends up at our cabin which is a wonderful retreat for us to get away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. We also spent some time in Yellowstone and in Billings, Montana with my sisters and their families and my dad. That was a fantastic trip that I hope to repeat again, hopefully with my brothers this time. We had many a family party with Dave's Utah family which are always fun. We hope that with Dave's dad retiring this year that we will get to see Don & Jinx more this year as well.

We are planning our first family Disneyland trip for March of this year and we are very excited for that. Dave continues to work for Pacificorp and enjoys the job and the people that he works with although some of the bureaucracy does get a little much. But we are glad that he has a good and stable job and consider ourselves blessed, especially in this economy. I continue to spend my mornings at the gym and my afternoons taking care of kids and the house, all endless jobs. :)

We have got to a really good place with our kids. Kyle was potty trained this year so we are DONE with diapers and other baby type stuff. Eric started kindergarten this year and is looking forward to starting first grade in August when he can stay at school all day and get to take a lunch and have more recess. Brandon continues to be very advanced in his schooling. He is a math wiz and reads at a 9th grade level even though he is only in 2nd grade.

We hope that you all have a wonderful 2011 and that we get to see more of our out of state family. We love you all and hope to hear from you soon.

Love Dave & Shanna

Christmas Morning

Merry Christmas!!

We were hoping that the kids would give us until their customary waking hour of 6am this morning. But Eric woke us up at 5:30 because he had changed his clock forward to help get to 6am faster. Once he was up, all hope was lost ... little stinker. :)

Santa did infact come to our house although there were some times lately where we weren't sure if he would. He brought Lego's for Brando and Eric and guns for Kyle. Thanks Santa.

I think the number of guns in our house quadrupled over the past two days. :)

We spent the day building. And when I say we, I mean me and Brandon. Eric likes to build the guys and cry for me to help him with the rest. Good thing I like Legos and don't mind helping him.

Grandma Chris, Grandpa Clark and Aunt Lizzy came over this afternoon to visit and so the boys got to show off their loot.

Christmas Eve

We hosted the annual Christmas Eve bash at our house this year. It was a lot of fun.

The kids put on the annual nativity play even though we were short quite a few cousins this year. The sheep were a little bit uncooperative but it was still cute.

Grandma Chris brought presents ... thanks grandma!

The adults played Christmas songs on the chimes (ok, that might be a little too generous to say we actually played them) and we had a yearly White Elephant gift exchange where Uncle Eric went home with the famous Troll. :)

And after everyone headed home, the boys opened their gift of new Christmas cozies and put out cookies and milk for Santa and hurried off to bed.

Christmas Cookies

Another of our family traditions (one of the more messy traditions) is to make and decorate sugar cookies. We did that tonight and the boys had lots of fun.

Brandon can actually decorate cookies pretty nicely now.

Eric ends up with more frosting then cookie and even more frosting on his fingers then on the cookies.

Kyle ... well, he basically needs to be hosed down afterwards. But it's worth it! They have fun!

Ward Christmas Party

Our ward put on the best Christmas party this year. We always have a morning breakfast party which is perfect during this busy time of year. They had a little play about the Grinch which was totally cute and afterwards the Grinch (aka our neighbor Brad) let the kids sit on his lap and tell them what they wanted for Christmas. :) It was a lot of fun!

School Christmas Concert

The boys had their school Christmas Concert this evening. Eric was asked by the music teacher to sing a solo ...




West Jordan Madrigals ... here he comes! :)

Jingle Bells

The Elves at Gardner Village

We took the boys to Gardener Village tonight to see the Elves. We had so much fun.

The boys had their picture taken by an elf ...

They got to check out Santa's mail box ...

and see where Santa's elves work ...

and how they get around.

One of the boys favorite thing to look for each year is the Naughty & Nice list.

Brandon wasn't on either list this year ...

Neither was Kyle.

But unfortunately both Eric and Dave were found on the Naughty list this year. This was an especially disappointing discovery to Eric who found his name on the Nice list last year.

Santa!

We took the boys to Maceys this afternoon to see Santa. Needless to say, they were VERY excited. Even Kyle marched up there, climbed on his lap and told him that he wanted Legos for Christmas. Eric's eyes were so huge that Santa's elves that were there helping out just couldn't get enough of Eric. And Brandon was very calm and serious about making sure that Santa knew just what was on his wish list. :)

The Dickens Christmas Festival

Dave grew up going to the Dickens Christmas Festival every year and loved it. We went there the first few years we were married but they haven't had it for the past 7 or 8 years so Dave was really excited when it came back this year.

Brandon's best friend Jace came along with us this year. We were able to take a ride in a horse drawn carriage which the kids thought was just so cool!

We were also able to see the play "Oliver" which was really cute and well done. It was a fun night!

4 Handsome Boys

Miracle of all Miracles!! I got Kyle to put on his suit this morning and he kept it on all through church. What handsome boys!!

Decorating the Gingerbread House

Decorating a Gingerbread house has been a traditional family activity for us at Christmas time for years but after the fiasco we experienced last year and the mess I had assembling the one this year I was about to call this tradition quits. But once I got the house built and setup we had a lot of fun decorating it. The boys decided to forgo the pictures on the box and use their own creativity in decorating. I think Eric ate more candy then he put on the house. Kyle just watched and had fun while Brandon really planned out what to do to make it look cool. We had a good time doing it and I guess the tradition will live on.

A Night on the Town

Dave and I were able to go downtown last night for his company party at Little America. While downtown we went to the Gallivan Center and to see the beautiful lights at Temple Square. It wasn't crowded which tends to happen as you get closer to Christmas and we had a really nice time. And thanks to Aunt Lizzy and Grandma Chris who helped us out with our kids we were able to stay overnight at Little America. It was a really nice night and a nice break for us. Thanks Lizzy & Chris.

Oh and at the company party they had a White Elephant gift exchange where we scored a multi-colored disco ball which the kids are so excited about. They have already had multiple dance parties downstairs in the theatre room where they can show off their breakdancing and other dance moves. Dave also won in the prize raffle a Blu-Ray player which just so happens to be what I got him for Christmas. So hello Blu-Ray in the theatre and back to the drawing board for me! :)

Presents!

Dave and I did some wrapping last night and decided to put the presents out under the tree which ... well that might have been a mistake. The boys were SO EXCITED of course this morning to come down and find presents under the tree with their names on it (even Eric who is bordering on the naughty list this year). They are so excited that like typical little boys they have reorganized and restacked those presents more times then I can count (my little brother Shane was the MASTER at that growing up). Needless to say, I have had to retape many presents in the course of the day. Kyle managed to open one of his presents and when I told him he wasn't supposed to do that he told me "Sorry mom, sorry ... accident!"

Getting in the giving spirit, Eric decided to do some wrapping of his own. He got some boxes and put some old random cars and Legos (that is my guess) and wrapped presents for his brothers. Obviously he didn't mind not having enough of one kind of wrapping paper and managed to improvise to get Brandon's gift wrapped ... more or less. :)

After seeing the presents under the tree, Brandon told me that he knew that dad & I couldn't be Santa because we write in cursive and Santa writes regular. :)