Our Christmas Season in Pictures

Hope yours was as merry as ours!

Concerts:

 

 

At the Mall to see Santa:

Taylor Family Christmas Party:

 

 

 

Cookie Baking:

 

 

 Snow Fun:

 

 

 

 

Christmas Eve:

Christmas Morning:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope you all have a very Happy New Year!!!

O, Christmas Tree

We bought ourselves a real, live Christmas tree this year for the first time in like 14 years! It is so much bigger and more beautiful than the old artificial tree. And the smell . . . I'm in heaven. When Tracy put the lights on it yesterday, though, he gave serious consideration to a pre-lit tree next year. I don't know. I don't think I can go back to fake now.

We decorated it this afternoon:

Ryan must have been a little sleepy.

Rusty was comatose on his bedroom floor.

Don't know what's Sam's doing here.

The finished product

Xander likes to feed the kitties. Their bowl is outside, so today it was freezing cold. You can see he's trying to hold it with just one finger on each side.

Anyway, we're looking forward to a wonderful holiday season. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Don't miss my earlier posts from today:
Finlay's Grandparents Day and The Music Man
Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving

On the Sunday before Thanksgiving, we attended Denise's annual Thanksgiving dinner, held at Megan's house in Highland this year. The kids played outside despite the freezing weather.

Dinner was yummy, but then it started to snow pretty hard, so everyone took off. The drive wasn't bad until we got close to our house. Then it was pretty much white-out conditions. We made it home safe, though.

We went to Vegas for Thanksgiving this year. It was fun! The weather was perfect and it was fun to see everyone. We even got to see Tiffany for a few minutes before she left for Arizona. Ike, Madi. and Becca stayed over every night, which was fun for all the kids. We even had Auri and Andrew stay on Thanksgiving night. The dinner was so yummy, despite the now infamous roll incident. The kids played with marshmallow guns, which made a lovely mess in the backyard.

My true personality shines through

We were sad that Amanda and Lenny were sick, and we didn't get to see much of them. Lenny came to dinner, though. On Saturday, my mom and dad celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary! Way to go! All in all it was a fun holiday, and I have so much to be thankful for.

P.S. Don't miss the post about Finlay and The Music Man below!

Grandparents Day and The Music Man

Okay, I'm trying to catch up a little here. On Nov. 20, Finlay's class put on a Grandparents Day program at school. He was really happy to have Grandma Cindy and Papa Larry and Grandma and Grandpa Lofthouse join him for this special day.

 

They sang songs like "Grandma's Feather Bed" and "It's Always Fun When Grandpa Comes."

I was so impressed with how loudly and enthusiastically the kids all sang. Finlay very efficiently served us all treats at the end. It was a fun time.

Later that night, we all went to see Ryan in The Music Man at the High School. It was a very impressive production.

They worked hard on it for months. For a while, I felt like I never got to see him. The show was terrific, but it's nice to have him home more often, too.