Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is my favorite night of the year. It is the night that my family celebrates Christmas together and we always have a great time. This year was no exception. It was so nice to have all of our family that lives close to celebrate this year. We've had one of those years where you really feel blessed to be together. Both my aunt and my dad have survived cancer and my Grandma is still with us to celebrate her 95th Christmas. I don't have many memories of Christmas without my Grandma and I love having her there. Even Alexis has decided that this family thing isn't too bad after all and had fun. We had a great night!







We started out with an early dinner, and then did our traditional Christmas program which begins with the kids acting out the nativity. This year Skylar was the angel, Nick was Joseph, Kade was a shepherd, and Alexis was a wiseman. They looked so cute.The nativity is always so wonderful to watch and the kids do such a great job acting it out. I love listening to my dad read the story from the Bible and the reverence that settles over the room as we reflect on our Savior's birth and the entire reason we are there to celebrate. I'm so glad that the older cousins are still willing to participate with my little ones so they can enjoy this favorite tradition of mine.








I really didn't think that Alexis would participate this year but she loved dressing up and being a part of the group of cousins. Plus she got to wear a crown which is our little princess's favorite.After the nativity, we had a little talent show where everyone showed their stuff. My nephew and nieces played piano, guitar, and violin and Skylar played the piano and then our little contortionists Katie & Nick showed off their amazing flexibility!
















For those of us that didn't (or weren't willing to) have any talents to show off, we broke out the good ol Rock Band Beatles. Talk about bringing the family together. Everyone in the family, across lots of generations of music, was having a great time together.

Then of course, there were presents to open. This year we kids all chipped in to buy my parents some well-deserved and well-needed recliners which I think they were pleased with.








But what we didn't expect was the amount of fun that the kids would have with the boxes they came in. The kids had a blast!

We had such a wonderful night having fun and remembering the Savior's birth together. I love my family!

Someday at Christmas...

To celebrate this most wonderful season we:
~Went to the Live Nativity at the Provo Tabernacle. This is always a favorite tradition of ours. This year was even better since they moved it indoors and we didn't have to freeze! It was such a good way to start the season off.







It was a lot of fun to get to go outside afterwards and see all of the fun animals of the Nativity.








~Had a visit with Mr. Santa Claus & the wife. The kids were convinced that this was the real one. He totally fit the bill. Some were more enthused than others to sit on his lap:~Celebrated my Grandma Henricksen's 95th Birthday and got a chance to catch up with my extended family. ~Celebrated St. Nick's Day with the kiddos putting their shoes out overnight. They got some Christmas books, a gingerbread house, and the LEGO Nativity which brought lots of fun to our house every day in December.
~Played in the snow a bit:







~Went to the Festival of Lights with our friends the Tongs and the Hoens and then had some fun at the Tongs afterwards.
















~Skylar and Ben went on a date to see the Nutcracker Ballet:
~Woke up to cinnamon rolls delivered by the oldest girl in the house on St. Lucia's Day:
~Went on a chilly, but very fun and beautiful Christmas Cruise on the Provo River where we got to see the big guy again. The kids pointed out that he was definitely not the real one:















~Watched our adorable Joy School kiddos put on our annual Nativity for one of our Joy School kid's Great-Grandma and then again at our Joy School family Christmas party:~Went to a Jordan Family Christmas Party with many in attendance, including Great-Grandma & Grandpa Jordan.
~Had a light scavenger hunt with our friends, the Coxs, and saw some cool light displays.~Had a wonderful, yet always too short Christmas season and loved just about every minute!

Skylar's First Piano Recital Mixed with My Awesome Parenting Skills

P.S. Santa, we really, really need a new camera!! Sorry about the weird clicking noises!

We are human. Skylar's dancer.

So the title of this post refers to the Killers song, Human, aka Skylar's song. I've heard people say that song doesn't make any sense but it makes total sense. It is about Skylar. She is dancer. Everyone in the family sings this song to Skylar on a regular basis because it totally fits. That girl is always dancing. Have you seen her walk? She's always on her tip-toes. She is dancer.
So when your dancer girl wakes up with a fever off 99.6 on the day of a dance performance you expect her to want to crawl back in bed, right? Oh yeah, not Skylar. She's dancer and she's not about to miss out on a chance to perform. So back in November (I'm slow to post) her dance group was dancing at the Gingerbread Festival. She was so sick but would not give in and insisted we still go. We went. She danced. She danced beautifully! She had a smile on her face and a spring in her step and did a great job!

After her dance Skylar went back to feeling awful and pretty much huddled in the stroller all miserable while we took a quick look at all of the cool gingerbread houses. There was an amazing one of the SL temple and an awesome sand castle. There was even one done by the Scouts in our ward. The kids really did enjoy it but Skylar got increasingly more uncomfortable so we didn't stay long. By the time we got home her fever was 102, she felt awful, and I felt awful. But she had danced and she was happy.

There was still another chance for a dance when she was not sick. Every year Skylar's group performs at the Festival of Trees. It's become a fun family tradition since we've now been going 5 years. This year her performance was last Friday night at 9 pm. What?!? So, so late. Anyway, we figured we'd make a night of it and use the gift card Ben's work gave us for Jordan Commons and take the kids to the Mayan for the first time. We hadn't been since before we had kids and the food was still way over-priced and not too great, but the atmosphere is fun. The kids loved it! The divers jumping off the waterfall cliffs were so fun for them to watch. They've got some pretty crazy divers there. Our favorite was this girl who came and saw us later. She was totally a monkey and climbed everything. She stayed in character too and spoke some weird language filled with ooos and grunts. Nick, our monkey, was totally enthralled with the whole experience. He declared it "the awesomest awesome of all awesome nights!"

After the Mayan, we made it over to the Festival of the Trees. It was really cool, as usual, and super crowded, as usual. The coolest tree was the Star Wars one which was actually more like 5 trees. It had a big display with a bunch of vintage stuff mixed in with new stuff. Our kids were in awe. Little do they know that their daddy has a lot of that stuff packed away in boxes. Someday Ben will have his Star Wars tree.
Skylar finally got to do her dance and she did a wonderful job, of course. They danced to Winter Song by Sara Bareilles. It is such a beautiful song and they did an amazing job. I love Skylar's dance group and all of the opportunities she gets to perform. I asked her if she ever gets nervous before she goes on stage and she looked at me like I was crazy and said she never does. Well, of course not, she is dancer.