Christmas Fun Wrap-up

This December was full of fun.  Toward the beginning of the month the 1st graders put on a holiday musical.  William was a reindeer and even had a speaking part.  It was so much fun to watch him sing and dance!  For a kid who doesn't like to be up in front of a crowd, I couldn't believe how good he did.  (He had a talk in Primary earlier this month and we barely got through that!)

Since I don't have a great camera (one day... sigh) I only have pictures from after the show.

 Of course, we visited Santa.  Once at Bass Pro Shop (where the big boys wouldn't talk to him) and once at the ward Christmas party (where James still wouldn't talk to him!)

The week before Christmas I tried to get a nice picture of the boys before church (in their new Christmas ties).  This was the best I got... but better than nothing because I didn't get anything from Christmas Sunday.

The week before Christmas was full of school parties,

gingerbread houses,

and making last minute gifts.

 William and James designed and helped make these puppets for Alex.

James and William made each other pillowcases.

On Christmas Eve we had a feast!  I tried to get a picture of everyone... but the boys just wanted to walk out of the picture.  Stinkers!

We also read Luke 2 and acted it out.  Unfortunately William didn't want to participate.  But James was willing so he was both a shepherd

and a wise man along with Alex.

We don't do super early Christmas mornings.  So when the boys woke up sometime after 7 we took a look at what Santa brought...

... and then had a yummy cinnamon roll and eggnog breakfast.  Then we got ready for 10:00 church.  William really wanted to open some presents before we left and since they got ready so quickly we let them open the presents from Aunt Elise and Uncle Austin (which they loved.)

After church we changed and opened the rest of our presents.  It was a pretty low-key Christmas but the boys loved it just the same.

Later in the day we headed to Grandma and Grandpa Crane's where we were all completely spoiled.  It was a wonderful day.

Here's wishing you all a Happy New Year!

Henry at 6 months

Today my baby is 6 months old.  I can hardly believe that the time has flown by so quickly!  A little too quickly.  Henry is still the sweetest little baby.

He loves his brothers (and they love him).  And rolling.  He rolls all over the place.  I get a little nervous leaving him upstairs because I always think he'll roll himself down stairs!

And I'm sure that he's teething... he is so drooly and loves to chomp on anything he can get his little hands on.

But he is almost always happy.  I'm pretty sure that Alex isn't aware that babies cry.  Everytime we ask him what a baby says he refuses to comply when we tell him "waa!waa!"  Henry is about the happiest baby ever.

We love this little boy!

 Last weekend our church hosted a nativity display and cantata.  Saturday we took the boys to see the (over 650!) nativities and in the evening I took William and James to the cantata.  Because the display was open on Sunday this year all the wards in that building had to meet elsewhere... so we all had only sacrament meeting.

I wanted to keep the boys busy doing something Christmas-y and appropriate for the sabbath when we got home so I turned on The Nativity movie and had them watch it.  The boys loved the two lego nativity scenes they had seen the day before so I encouraged them to make one while we watched our movie.  William is a whiz with legos and came up with a great little nativity for us!

 the wise men

Mary, baby Jesus, Joseph

the angel and the star

 the shepherds (in the back and around the side)

Scenes from Thanksgiving

Only a few weeks until Christmas and I still haven't blogged about our Thanksgiving.  So much is going on around here that I just haven't hopped on my blog!  Here are some scenes from our Thanksgiving with very little commentary from me.

Thanksgiving morning James helped me make an apple pie.  He's a good little helper in the kitchen.

Clockwise from the top: Pecan, cinnamon swirls, apple, sweet potato

My boys wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

Funniest scene of the day: William (the most "anti-girl" of my boys) and BenSam playing with the pink doll house!

It can't be Thanksgiving if Rich and Bob don't play basketball in the backyard!

We always love when the cousins are in town to play with!  They all get along so well!  Plus, the weather was perfect (in the 60s or 70s) for playing outside!

This boy made sure he got his picture taken... isn't he cute?

Our days are filled with holiday preparations and fun... we hope that yours are too!

William's 7th birthday

It's hard to believe that William is 7 years old!   The day of his birthday he got to choose breakfast and dinner (cinnamon rolls and monkey bread pizza).  He had a great time opening his gifts in the evening.

 (He received a spy kit from Grandma and Grandpa Fisher... he loves it!)

We did cupcakes this year... lego cupcakes.

That weekend we had a small birthday party for William... lego themed.  (Thank you Pinterest!)
 

(the invites)

We played a little game of "pin-the-head-on-the-lego-man"...

And "lego, lego, who has the lego?"...

Opened presents...

And played with legos (of course!)

After a little lunch we ate some lego cupcakes.

We sent each boy home with some lego candies and other goodies.

I'm so glad that William had a good time for his birthday but let me tell you, I'm sure glad that we don't have birthday parties every year!  Having 8 little boys running around the house wore me out more than expected!!  (Thankfully it was a nice day and I was able to send them out in the back for a bit). 

We sure love having William in our family... he is such a good, smart, helpful, creative boy!