Kicking off the Christmas Season

I'm usually one of those people who will NOT listen to Christmas music, get out my Christmas Tree or do anything of the sort BEFORE the Thanksgiving holiday. I just think that Thanksgiving gets lost in all the craze of Christmas and what a better way to bring in the Christmas holiday than to remember what we are Thankful for. Well, this year I have to admit I did get a little excited. The weekend before Thanksgiving my mom had bought a few tickets to the Nutcracker. She enjoys taking all of her grandkids to the ballet (brave... I know!) So this year, I got to tag along with all my nieces and nephews. It was so fun to get all dressed up and go to a real ballet. It had been a very long time since I'd been to the Nutcracker. I love the music and the story and epecially seeing how excited all my nieces and nephews were. Cute Emma (who is 4 and has been taking ballet the past few months) kept shouting out "look there is a real ballerina! It was a great way to bring in the Christmas spirit and got me excited for this wonderful time of year! I will admit after seeing the Nutcracker, I couldn't help but braking out my Christmas music!

Halloween Fun

I know it's been a week or so, but I hope everyone had a fun Halloween! We sure did! We did all the traditional holiday festivities....and enjoyed every minute of it! With Halloween being on Saturday, we had more of a busy Halloween weekend. Friday was the big day at school. Most teachers dread this crazy day of the year, but as hard as it always is, it's so fun to see the excited little kiddos all dressed up in their costumes. It was a busy day and I came home and just crashed on the couch for almost an hour before we got back into our costumes and met up with my family that night. We always end up doing a family Halloween party because we have a few birthdays around this time of year and celebrate those. It's fun for all the little cousins to see each other dress up. My mom is the one who probably gets into it the most....which is really funny because she never did anything like this for us when we were little. It must be the grandkids! :) We had a delicious dinner and then the kids played some fun games including the traditional bobbing for apples.


The cute kids all dressed up!


My mom as a "deviled egg"


Bobbing for some apples!

On Halloween, we decided at the last minute to go hang out with my sister Camille and her kids for the evening. We headed up to Kaysville for the night and Stephen even went around trick or treating with the little kiddos. Boy were they hyper. They came back with their bags full of candy in one hand and something unwrapped and half eaten in the other. Camille and I stayed and handed out candy to the little ghouls who came by. Living in a young neighborhood they had lots of visitors! After the kids went to bed we stayed up just talking. We sure love hanging out with our family. Thanks guys!