December 2014

There's always a lot going on in December but I've decided to do the whole month in a single post.


Ada with Santa at our ward Christmas party. Kate was home sick. I'm not sure why there isn't a pic with Ly

Poor Kate became deathly ill. She had the stomach flu and couldn't ingest anything for days without it coming back up. I finally took her to Instacare and they gave her an IV because she was so dehydrated. After a day or so she was pretty much back to normal

These two got a kick out of dressing alike. I hope they don't get sick of it for a long time!

Lyla didn't want to feel left out

Silly Ly

Ada had a piano recital. She was the last student to perform. She had both her pieces memorized and even used the pedal. She did a great job on that cute yellow piano!

We took a trip to Disney World in the middle of the month. Tyler bought tickets in May because he found an amazing deal on flights. We took the red-eye to Orlando. It was exclusively Disney. We went straight to the park, stayed at a Disney hotel, ate Disney food, and took Disney transportation. I'd be okay taking a nice break from Disney for a while! Tyler made my job easy by blogging about the trip: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

The trip made Christmas prep a bit crazy. Here are the girls in their Christmas dresses

On the 23rd, Grandma Dickson had her Christmas party. We were happy that she moved it to the 23rd so we could attend. After dinner, the famous Nativity production was put on. All the little girls got to be angels

The entire cast

Then it was time for presents. Grandpa helped Lyla with hers. Ly was thrilled to sit by Uncle Joel so she could sing Joel the Lump of Coal

It's quite hard to get a decent pic of three three-year-olds. This was the best I could do

The next day was Christmas Eve! Tyler took the bigger girls to 'The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe' at The Children's Theatre and invited Sally and Austin to come along

That night we had the annual candlelight dinner with the Squires. We missed Kim and Nancy this year! After dinner, we played Bingo and Family Feud. Lyla was so thrilled to be the first Bingo winner

All the Squire grand kids in their Christmas jammies, minus the Steeds

Our girls got robes and slippers with their jammies

Santa came!

Our Christmas morning tradition is to read Luke 2 before going to see what Santa brought

We put the baby gate at the end of the hall so nobody gets up early to peek

We did a poor job of getting pics that morning. Here I am opening the boots that Tyler picked out (and that I took back)

Kate got a science kit. She says she wants to be a scientist!

We woke up to snow on the ground. It was a Christmas miracle!

Enjoying breakfast

Tyler helped the girls build a snowman

Late that day we went to my parents' house for dinner and more festivities. We had a talent show and played some new games, one for the kids and one for the adults. My mom gave these butterfly wings to all the girls, and superhero capes to the boys. It was a great Christmas! Everyone was there except Neal, who was still in Qatar

Twinning

The next Sunday, we all attended the blessing of Baby Lucy. A sibling picture was in order

 A couple nights later I went to Into the Woods with some of my siblings. This is what was going on when I left

Angie and Hyrum actually stayed around for New Year's Eve for probably the first time ever. They took all their nieces and nephews bowling (the Hewitsons didn't come). Tyler, Emily, and I tagged along. I think that miniature bowling shoes are one of the cutest things ever!

The crew (including Hyrum's brother Reese)

No pictures were taken that night, but we all went to Spencer and Korrin's house for their annual NYE party. We had a Nacho party--we watched Nacho Libre and ate delicious pork nachos. It was fun to have everyone around.