December

The month of December always flies by. This year was no different. We started the month with a visit to Santa at our local grocery store. Not the friendliest Santa, but he did the job! The boys were ready with their lists. Ezra wanted 5 surprises and a Lego "bad guy" house, and Nolan wanted some magic dust, a time machine, and a shrink ray. Yeah, I love it when kids ask for that kind of stuff. Oh brother!

Ezra did so well at his preschool program. He was the star... literally. He got to play a Christmas tree during one part, and then later he held a star over another tree. It was a big deal to hear him sing and see him participate happily. He usually decides to pout during these types of things. We were so proud! Miss Susan is really a fantastic teacher. She has done wonders for his confidence this year.

We had a huge snow storm that the kids were thrilled about! It must have snowed about 8 to 10 inches in 24 hours. Nolan and Ezra had lots of fun playing outside with Clairice.

For our upcoming 10th Anniversary, Justin decided he'd get our rings buffed up and cleaned, and get my wedding rings sautered together. So we drove to Provo to the jeweler. The boys were so excited that we stopped in at Krispy Kreme Donuts. They had never seen "the donut factory" before. It was hard to get them to leave! The next morning, we found that our elf had sneaked into the donuts and eaten half of Mom's donut! The rest of the morning was spent playing donut factory. They built a conveyor belt and then spent time packaging each donut in individual wrap (from a previous Amazon order). They were so creative and had fun delivering donut orders to Justin and me.

The weekend before Christmas was pretty special because my brother, Grady, came for a visit. My parents drove him up and stayed two nights. I haven't seen him since he moved to Austin, TX nearly 3 years ago. He looks so great and is starting an exciting new life there. Darian came to stay also. It was so good to catch up with one another! Darian gave Grady a photo album of funny old pictures that we enjoyed looking through. I only wish we could have had more time together. Hopefully it won't be so long before we see him again.

Lucy started baby food at 5 and a half months. She doesn't love the oatmeal, but she was willing to give a little smile for the camera!

We also went to Logan for Grandma Moulton's big family Christmas party. It was held at the clubhouse in her retirement community. It was quite the place! The kids loved the theatre room. And I even enjoyed the theatre room too, as a quick place to hide when they started the line dancing. I discovered that I'm not the only adult with braces. Kathi has braces on her front teeth to hold them in place after a motorcycle accident. The catered meal was so yummy and it was nice to visit with family that we haven't seen for a long time. The boys were glad that we could sleep at Grandma K.'s house that night. We exchanged presents with her that evening and had a delicious breakfast together on Christmas Eve morning. Nolan even convinced Grandma K. to go sledding before we headed home. She was late for work, but she couldn't resist the time to play!