Going Private

After much deliberation I have decided to make this blog private. I really don't want to exclude anyone from reading this so please send me your email address and I will send you an invitation to the blog. Don't worry, I won't publish them. Thanks!

Christmas at Waters

We spent December 26th with Robby's family. We started out with a great meal. Will was excited about his Root Beer I think.

Then it was on to presents. The kids were very excited!

Sarah got a cute doll.

Isaac got a remote-control Mater from Cars.


Will got a pinball machine.


Savannah got a DS game and a doll that both she and Sarah are in love with.

The boys all got a HUGE remote-control car.

The girls all got a sweater and a bracelet. Sarah snatched my bracelet up as soon as I got that box open and she put it up on her bicep. She didn't want to give it back so I could even look at it.

We were all very excited about our new stuff!

Then we opened our presents from Ryan and Sunny who unfortunately couldn't be here this year. We missed you guys! Thanks for the presents!

We love Qwirkle. It is a lot of fun!

We managed to get all 8 kids to look in the same direction at the same time. Some of them were even smiling. The biggest achievement was getting them all to sit still for a few pictures.

From left: Gabriel, Sarah, Rebecca, Savannah, Sawyer (on Savannah's lap), Will, Isaac and Jaden.

I love Sarah's face in this last one :)

We also spent a lot of time on Skype with Ryan and Sunny and Jaimee and Scott. It was so fun talking to them and hearing about their Christmas.

On December 27th I took Savannah to the mall for a little girl time and after walking past the store four times she finally decided to get her ears pierced again. Last time was so traumatic that she was really unsure if she wanted to go through that again. Luckily this time was much better.

And you can see the cute hair extensions in her hair in this picture too.

I neglected to mention that on Christmas on our way home from my parents house we stopped by Amber and Spencer's house to visit them and they gave us our presents too. They gave me some stackable cooling racks, a pie server and a cake server and the rest of the family got a table soccer game. I was so excited to try out my new cooling racks. They are awesome! and save so much space on the counter.

Whew! What a great Christmas we had this year! We really missed all the family we didn't get to see, but I'm so grateful we were able to spend time with so much family over the course of three days. We are really blessed to have so much!

Christmas Day

This is what the kids saw when they came downstairs on Christmas morning.

Sarah got a new Tinkerbell chair but she was a little shy of all the attention we were giving her. Also Robby forgot that you can't turn the camera for video so it is kind of hard to see. She wasn't sure about it at first, but she loves it now.

Isaac was thrilled to find a new bike waiting for him.

Santa delivered for Will too, he got an MP3 player that he had been asking for.

Savannah's pictures all turned out blurry, but I had to include them anyway. She got some feathers for her hair, some earings with her birthstone and a gift certificate to get her ears pierced.

Sarah got a Rapunzel doll that she loves!

She was pretty happy about the stroller too. She kept trying to sit in it and asked us to push her. I don't think she quite understood that she was too big for it at first.

We made short work of the presents and then it was a quick breakfast of cinnammon rolls and it was time to get ready for church. Both boys got new church clothes and they looked really good for church.

Sarah was very much against getting her picture taken, but I had to have all four dressed for church on Christmas regardless of if they are smiling or not. Savannah was a good sport to hold her and smile for the camera even though Sarah was screaming and kicking.

I really liked having Christmas on a Sunday this year. It was so great to be able to do the Santa thing and presents and then focus on what Christmas is really about-the Savior. We only had sacrament meeting at 10:00 and then the rest of the day we spent with my family eating and opening presents at my parents house.

My parents gave me (I mean us) a Kindle FIRE!! I was soooo excited! They said I have to share it with Robby and the kids though. We have all been enjoying it a lot. Even Sarah loves to play on the Kindle.

Isaac got an awesome submarine toy that he loves, Sarah got a cute little whale toy and Will and Savannah got an angry bird stuffed animal and some money to buy apps and books for the Kindle. They were all very happy with their new stuff!

We are so lucky to live by so much of our family and be able to spend the holidays with them. We missed you Dan and Amber. Hopefully we'll be able to see you guys soon.

Christmas Eve

We had such a great Christmas this year! It started on December 23 when we finally opened our new TV. Robby and I went out with all the crazies on Black Friday and we found a really good deal on a flatscreen TV. So we went from this:

to this:

A big improvement I think and we have really been enjoying it!

December is such a fun time when you have little kids! They love all the little traditions that we do leading up to Christmas. We have an advent calendar where the kids take turns putting an ornament on the tree each day.

And they also love to get the little advent calendars with chocolates inside.

On Christmas Eve we went to a party at my Grandma Aird's house. This was my family's tradition when I was young so I love it when it works out that we can go there on Christmas Eve. It was a great party with lots of my aunts, uncles and cousins and their kids. I forgot my camera but luckily Heather took a few pictures for me.

Sarah loves Uncle Ben so much!

The great-grandkids all sang a few songs and then Ben Marchant talked a little bit about his experiences in Afghanistan and Randy read to us from Luke chapter 2. It was really fun to be together.

When we got home from my Grandma's house we let the kids open 1 present and then they took turns telling part of a story which mostly resembled Twas the night before Christmas with bits of the Grinch and Shrek the Halls. It was pretty funny.

Everyone liked their new Christmas Eve pajamas.