Christmas 2019!

 It was another fun/memorable Christmas. Cute matching pjs, hover boards, new clothes and yummy food.

    

Christmas morning line-up.

A snapshot of their gifts.

    Our sweet friend gifted us this super nice Christmas decoration. We paid her a visit a couple weeks ago and I told her how amazing all her Christmas decor was and that I could take a 10th of it and probably not have room for it so she decided to give me 1%, which is a perfect addition/amount!

    And there's no denying this was the perfect gift from Kayli and Tanner.

Cute Wendel family.

    Now a photo documentation of the sibling gift exchange for 2019.

Christmas cocoa and cash for the Wendel's.

She was over the moon for her new mermaid costume from Kayli and Tanner.

    And this cute girl is all smiles!

    Greg got sucked into this cool puzzle of Alpine that was a gift from one of our neighbors. He's a patient man!

     Christmas dinner was DELISH!

     So there you have it! Some how these kids made it on the nice list once again, but barely! Now let the New Year festivities commence!

Fun, hot, and new arrival.

     We've had another eventful week. Movies, piano 'recital', neighborhood fun in the winter, dogs, cats and more. The boys went and saw "Ford Vs. Ferrari" while Charlie and I saw "Frozen 2". Both movies get 2 thumbs up from us!

    This was the best piano recital. We showed up at the assisted living center and they played their pieces with just us as the audience plus their piano teacher and then went home. They were all pleased with their quick/painless performance.

   Sometimes Greg gets so hot he just can't bear to keep his shirt on. What a weirdo!

     And when it's cold outside but you still want to gather with the neighbors we just bust out the burn barrels and socialize like it's summer. It was actually a request of our neighbor as a celebration of his early graduation from high school. I love our neighborhood!

    We spent a couple days with this big girl! She's really just a big baby and pretty sweet!

It's a good thing Tanner's so 'buff'!

    And welcome Sapphire! She's 3 months old and pretty cute and Smalls is dying to be her best friend and she's slowly warming up to him. I don't know why but I've been wanting a cat for the past few months so when this kitten needed a new home and Greg gave his approval I jumped at the chance and so far she's been a fun addition to the family and all the kids love her.

    These three went a little crazy decorating the gingerbread house. It's pretty gross and they already have destroyed it and started eating it.

    Here's a couple more photos of the new kitten and her tolerance of Smalls. He just follows her around and stares while wagging his tail. She lets him get close but definitely has ways of sending him away when she needs her space.

Allergic he claims, yeah right!

They were holding paws by the third night.

     So that's our week. Can you believe it's less then a week before Christmas!? Let the Christmas break/chaos begin!

Date night, flashback, bowling, Christmas cuteness and lost teeth

     It's been a fun week. Greg and I, along with some neighbors, visited our other neighbor at work/fire department after dinner with even more neighbors. It was fun and we have some great neighbors.

     I found the perfect Christmas outfit for cute baby Beau!

I love red and white stripes!

    With a portion of our Christmas money from G & G Baker we decided to have some fun as a family and our first outing was bowling. It was fun but one kid/McClane, was more interested in the arcade portion of the afternoon.

I can't remember who won but it wasn't me!

     And Greg and I keep reminiscing about our fantastic time in Australia and I realized there were several photos Greg took that should be shared/saved on the blog.

Mega pineapple, the rainforest and our first leg of the journey/flight.

I sure miss these girls!

Our last couple days in Brisbane and at the beach.

      So how perfect did this outfit go with Beau's first encounter with Santa and Mrs. Claus?! She's a perfect sidekick for them.

And after weeks of a snaggely tooth we finally got the second front tooth out of Charlie's face and made room for her permanent teeth to move in and they're already growing in quickly.

    For our second family fun adventure with our Baker grandparent Christmas cash we took the train to Temple Square.

We rarely have more then 4 kids with us these days.

 A little rainy but a perfect night.

We even treated ourselves to a visit to the mall and food court.

    We also wanted to share some of our monetary blessings and had the chance to visit the Giving Machines in the Joseph Smith Memorial building and bought 200 meals for people in need. It was fun and hopefully a new tradition to add to our Christmas celebration.



     I may have been confused at first but it was still pretty quick and easy. Tonight we're headed to the movies as another fun Christmas money adventure. Thanks mom & dad, Grandma and Grandpa, we really appreciate your generous Christmas gift!

My birthday and a little more

     I already had a never-to-be-forgotten birthday celebration in Australia but, since my birthday was really on the 30th and we were back in the states, friends and family decided we could celebrate it again with my favorite Mexican restaurant and yummy bundt cake.

For some reason my friends and Greg thought the restaurant staff should know it was my birthday so they serenaded me and brought me ice cream.

That's 4-5 NOT 5-4!

    Smalls also got a little attention this week with a much needed haircut and bath. He's so much handsomer with a haircut! Isaac got a haircut this week too and also looks very handsome but he's got it covered up in the video below so you'll have to tune-in to a future post in hopes of seeing the handsome version of Isaac.

    I also thought I'd better document the Christmas decor now that we have a tree.

I love when Kayli gets the decorations out and all I have to do is rearrange what she puts out, ha ha. (She was slightly offended by my rearranging but I do have my issues!)

      Beau was here this afternoon for a visit and I thought I should capture her uncles interacting with her for posterity. They're pretty silly but cute with her.