Gingerbread Houses Throught the Years

Making a gingerbread house at Christmas time has become a tradition in our house. Ryan and I both love to make these. So I think a competition might be in order one of these years. Boys vs. Girls old school style :)

2011

2010

2009
We took a little break...

2008

2007
(That is not Lincoln next to me. I am 7 months pregnant with him in this picture. Can you tell they are brothers?)

2006

My wonderful mother at my childhood home

2005

We were still living in married student housing

Nutcracker

On Friday the girls and I went to see the Nutcracker. We went with a couple of Evie's friends and their Moms. Kaitlyn brought her best friend, Lauren. It was such a fun night, just us girls.

Grace and Eve
(Grace and her Mom gave all the girls a locket. They were a huge hit!)

We are so lucky to live near such beautiful theaters. We were in the last row of the top balcony but it wasn't too shabby for are awesome deal we got on the tickets :)

Kaitlyn and Lauren
(it was hard to take normal pictures in the theater because it was dark in the room and the flash was blinding us)

All of the little girls

Brutus

Evie's kindergarten teacher is so creative and lets each child in their class have a turn being "lucky buckeye" for a week. They have a special activity that they get to do every day such as; making a poster, bringing in pictures, show and tell, estimation station (where they can put whatever they want into a plastic bag and the class guesses how many items are in the bag), and bringing Brutus home for the weekend. In case you don't live in Ohio, Brutus is Ohio State's mascot, he is a buckeye. On Monday the "lucky buckeye" gets to share what they did with Brutus over the weekend. Here are some pictures of Eve with Brutus.

We love to go to our church's historical sites every year at Christmas time. They put on a phenomenal display of nativities. This year there were over 600! There is no charge to go and you don't have to be a member of our church. Eve took Brutus with us and Evie dressed up like an angel.


Riding in the car with our Brutus and Brutus from school.

Christmas party

We had our annual church Christmas party last weekend. We had a dinner, Nativity, coloring for the kids, a cookie decorating station, blanket tying for charity, and the big guest was Santa. This year is so much fun because Lincoln really gets it. He was supper excited when Santa appeared. Lincoln sat on his lap and then had his eyes glued on him while the other children had their turns. On another note this year was Kaitlyn's first year not sitting on Santa's lap, they really do grow up too fast!

Temple Trip

Where we live it takes us two and a half hours to drive to the closest temple. Since it is so far it is always an event! We went down with our friends the Wilde Family. We switch off watching the kids so that all the adults can go inside. This time we hung out in the chapel across the parking lot and let the kids play. We had to get some pictures of all the kiddos! It was a wonderful trip, hopefully we can go again soon!

Going to the Zoo

I had a Friday free from babysitting recently. Lincoln and I thought that it would be fun to go to the zoo with our friends. We packed a lunch and headed to the zoo's rain forest. Lincoln and Jayne are so adorable together!