We love Christmas Eve!

Today was so fun. We spent the whole day together as a family. We got up and helped each other get bedrooms clean, and picked up around the house. We made yummy oatmeal cookies, and of course:

Christmas Eve p.j.'s!!! (we made them all wait with their eyes closed)

Then we had hot chocolate in the new cocoa mugs and played UNO. So fun!

Now it's time for scriptures, and a Christmas movie.

Merry Christmas Eve!

So sad.

A young dad in our stake was tragically killed in a car accident on Monday. Stephen Blaylock was 33 years old and leaves behind his wife Laura, a stay at home mom, and five young children. My good friend Kathryn has set up a place to make donations on her website, babycoverz.com. She is also donating 10% of all sales to help out this family. Please visit her website for more information.

Paige is a ZERO!

And I want to be a zero too!

All of her jeans were too short for her, and since she is as tall as me I thought we would try some of the small sizes of women's. And they fit her! I can't believe she is out of the little girls department!!! Still such a cutie though :)

Don't you want to be a zero too?!

He was so good!

I went to Grapevine Mills yesterday to do a little shopping. Miles was such a good boy! Well..... at least he was after he got this:

Hey..... a mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do.

Ward Christmas Dinner

We had a fun little Christmas dinner at church on Friday. The primary kids did a cute little Nativity program. It was very sweet. Paige was Mary. She was a very good, very tall Mary. Livee was a cute little shepherd. Zoe, Carys, and Miles were Bethlehem children (I know. I know. Zoe looks more like Karate Kid. She needed to put her head covering on) and.....

.....Grayson was a body-slammer. =) (Proof that Miles isn't the only bully in the family.)

A peaceful moment....

.....just sittin' on the couch watching movies on the kids ipods.

You know, just a classic All-American evening with the family. =)

Poor little (blonde) thing!

(It's okay, this really isn't as bad as it looks!)

This happened a while ago, but I haven't been a very good blogger lately, so ...

It was time for Livee and Zoe to get home from school. I was listening for them to just come running in the door like normal, but instead I hear the doorbell. This is what I saw.

I was very concerned, and was quickly trying to figure out what happened. I'm thinking "did she crash on her bike? No, she didn't ride her bike to school that day. Did she fall down and hit her head on a rock? Did somebody hit her?"

Me - Zoe, are you OK? What happened?

Zoe - I don't know. I hit my head on a mailbox.

Me - How did you do that? Did you fall?

Zoe - No, I was just walking.

Me - You walked into a mailbox?!

Zoe - "giggle"

Me - Does it hurt really bad?

Zoe - Not really bad. It didn't even hurt until I saw that I was bleeding.

Don't worry too much, this whole conversation was going on while me and Craig were checking her, and we saw that her head just had a pretty good scrape. There was no gash, and no need for stitches. It just looked awful. Oh, and also the picture was taken after we knew she was OK too. Craig wanted a picture so that we would always remember about the day Zoe walked into a mailbox. :) We love this girl, and all of her blonde-ness too!

good stuff about my girls

Paige recently auditioned for a solo part in an upcoming performance. She is now a solo artist. :)

She doesn't know which performance she will do her solo in yet, but we will definitely let our Texas family know when and where.

Also, Zoe joined the Justin Jaguar Hall of Fame today. Kind of like Student of the Month..... only better :)

Livee is bringing home a higher level reading book almost every day. She picked up reading so fast! That's my girl ;)

Wanna see some cute pictures?

Then go here.

While we were in California, the kids were lucky enough to have a photo session with a good friend, Michelle. She just started her own photography business and she is SOOOOO good! She has a preview of some of the pictures she took on her blog. I love them! She was so fun and super patient. Miles had to look at every picture on her camera after she took each one. :)

The kids had tons of fun! It was way more fun and relaxing for me too. Usually when we do pictures we are crammed into a tiny room, and I am stressed out, hoping the kids don't get into anything, or break anything. Not this time, Michelle just patiently followed them around, letting them play and catching their little personalities on camera. The results are so great!

Thank you Michelle!

Everyone meet Phoebe! The newest member of our little family.