The Holidays

On Monday I was sad thinking that the holidays were over. The time flew by and I felt like I do after coming back from a vacation, a little sad that it is over and we have to go back to the daily grind.

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. The kids were so excited for Santa to come. On Christmas morning we made them wait in the hall until Dad had the video camera set up and ready.

When they walked into the living room they say that they each had a present from Santa that wasn't wrapped. Max got a mega block track set for cars and Maddie got a princess dress up trunk.

They played with those gifts for a long time. They were having so much fun we didn't even mention all the other presents that were there. Max went and got all of his Cars mega block toys and started building a track and Maddie was having a ball dressing up. After about 1/2 hour I reminded them about the other gifts :). Bret commented that they would have been happy with just the one gift each and he was right.


The kids got a lot of fun gifts and it was a great day to relax and to spend time together as a family. I surprised Bret with a JetBoil and a water filter for backpacking and he surprised me with new blinds for all the windows in the house, and chopper, food processor and a sewing machine! We were both very excited about our gifts.

A few days later with our Christmas money from Bret's parents we got a couch and loveseat for our family room. Here is a picture of our new blinds and couches.


Max and his cousin Charlie both got rockets on Christmas so they spend some time on Christmas getting them put together and painted. On Saturday we drove out to no man's land so that they could launch them. It was freezing cold but the kids had a lot of fun watching the rockets and then running to catch them when they came down.

Here is a little video I took of Max's launch.

On New Year's Eve we had a fun party at our house with some friends in the ward we played games and ate yummy food. Surprisingly all the kids stayed up until midnight.

On New Year's Day we went down to Manti. My neice got baptized on Saturday, it was a beautiful sunshiny day so we went sledding down dump ground road again.

Bret decided to take a video as he was sledding down. This will give you an idea of how long of a run it is. We love this hill, it is so much fun.

After sledding we launched some rockets. Bret made Maddie a pink and purple rocket. She was excited to have her very own princess rocket.

Bret and I also celebrated our anniversary on the 29th. We have been married 9 years and I couldn't have asked for a better husband. It was a great couple of weeks to have Max home from school to spend time together as a family and with our extended family. Max said it best when he said, "Christmas is the best day ever!"