Temple Square Lights

Christmas Lights are one of my favorite things about the season. Last week we made our annual trip with these great folks to Temple Square. It was chilly, but not frostbite weather, and we had a great time.

The parents of these cute girls, and also Aunt Rachel and Uncle Brennan came along as well.
It was really fun for me to see how much the boys have learned about Christmas and its true meaning this year. They were really excited by all of the nativity scenes and Henry even asked me to take this picture of them with baby Jesus... that might be because of all of the people taking pictures around us, but it was so cute.

Our budding photographer even took some shots for us, you can probably tell by the height of the camera who it was.

I am so lucky to get to spend my life with these three handsome men.

Lets Make Cookies

Last weekend I was convinced by my little helper that we needed to make and decorate sugar cookies. This is not something I am usually inclined to do, since I don't really like sugar cookies much. But after getting a recipe that would actually produce soft and chewy cookies (the only kind that should exist), we went to work.

The boys were a great help, and had tons of fun with all of it. We all probably ate a few too many cookies, as well.

After Gavin and Henry had eaten 3 or 4 each, Caleb and I were eating our second cookie and Gavin said, "Dad, you and Mom are going to get a tummy ache if you keep eating cookies." Good thing someone is watching out for us.

And the Tree Goes Up

And Christmas is here. We put up the tree and the decorations. It seems like we have less room for things in our current furniture arrangement, but we still have more than our sharing of Christmas trimmings this year. We won't mention what day we actually put the tree up since we might be some non-gratitude accusations or something, but we had a great time decorating.

Gavin was a huge help this year, and helped with everything from the hanging of ornaments to the clean up and storing of boxes in the basement.

Henry was excited for all of the new decor, but promptly dropped and broke his first Christmas ornament right after this picture was taken. We were able to glue it, but it will always show the signs of Henry's true tendencies.

Even the Grinch helped... I have this picture to prove it.

You can now guess the new favorite hiding place in our house... I guess I had better get on the ball and get some presents under there.

The Mostly New Kitchen

Last week we were finally rid of one of the most hideous and hated things in our house. My kitchen cupboards. I tried to find some good before pics of my kitchen, but apparently I have always found it was too hideous to even allow myself to take a picture of it. Since neither of these befores really show the cupboards, you will have to have seen it to fully understand. It was bad. With obnoxious small white tiles and white grout for the counter top, and cupboards that someone built as an after thought out of old sloping boards... bad. Very bad.

But a week ago, it all went away. Caleb (with lots of help from Henry) tore out the old cupboards in a couple of hours. Then we got to work on fixing up some things and putting in the new stuff.

I have to say that is it very fabulous. We decided to move the fridge to the other end of the wall, since it was pretty much in the doorway before. We did a fair amount of mudding and tiling the old surfaces to get it all ready. And while we still need to replace some trim and touch up a little paint. We are pretty happy with how it turned out. Feel free to come over and admire it at any time.

And yes- my kitchen is tiny, and that is how we finished in a week... but at least now it isn't tiny and horrid.