A Must

Temple Square is always a must do during the holidays.  We weren't able to go when most of the Sillito clan went.  So, we went the next weekend with Tavi and Brian's family.  We got there at 4:45 which is the perfect time.  We didn't have any trouble finding a parking place, it wasn't insanely crowded, and it wasn't as cold as it usually is when we go later in the evening.  We definitely need to remember that in the future!  It was a super fun night!

Ashlyn and Ally… always 10 steps ahead of everyone else :)

 Love this girl!

 Joshy was so good to just chill in his stroller the whole time.

 Most of the group 

 These poor kids had to pose for a zillion pictures.  

Our Family Favorite

We always LOVE LOVE LOVE our sleep around the tree night.  The kids look forward to it and talk about it for weeks.

This year we started the afternoon off by going to see The Legend of the Guardians.  This is really the only time during the year that we take our kids to see a movie at the normal theaters (versus the dollar theater) so it's always fun.  It happened to be a really good movie, too.  After the movie they had Santa waiting to visit with the kids.  He told them that they needed to keep their rooms clean and obey their parents.  I love Santa!

We decided that for one of the kids' presents from us this year, we would get them each a new pillow.  We thought that our sleep around the tree night would be the perfect time to give it to them.  So we all went to Gordman's to choose them out (not that they had a lot of choice… it was either the cheap one or the cheap one :)

Then, we went out to eat at Chillis.  Tanner and Mickell really wanted to order something off of the normal menu and not the kids menu.  Both of their meals came with an appetizer.  Plus I had a coupon for a free appetizer.  So, we had three appetizers, four adult meals and two kids meals. It was so much food that there wasn't an ounce of room on the table.  We decided, though, that it's getting to expensive to take our kids out to eat (now that they eat more) so next year we are just going to get Chinese take out.

When we got back to our house we had lots of fun playing games.  The kids always love the right/left candy game.

 They also opened their presents from each other.  They always choose their gifts for each other at the dollar store.  

 We ate lots of yummy treats, read the Polar Express and then fell asleep watching Arthur Christmas.  It was a super fun night!

Some Christmas Festivities

I sure didn't do a very good job of taking pictures in December.  We had a great Christmas season.  We love Christmas traditions!

This is something new that we did this year.  Baylen and I left a Minivan Express ticket on our kids' pillows when they went to bed one night.  It happened to be a school night, so I think we got some serious cool parent points :) for that one.  We all loaded in the van and went through the McDonalds  drive in for Peppermint McFlurries.  Ironically, Santa was in line in front of us.  There was a guy that looked just like Santa.  He was driving a PT Cruiser with a license plate that said "THE SLED".  How awesome is that?!  After picking up our treats, we drove over to Layton park to see all of the amazing lights.

 Another new thing we did this year was the Christmas thing at Tri City Nursery.  It was really neat.  They had Santa, face painting, cookies and hot chocolate, sleigh rides and a petting zoo.  Everything was totally free.  It was lots of fun and something that we'll have to make a tradition!

These reindeer were hilarious.  They would totally pose for pictures. 

Another thing we were able to do was our traditional dinner on our special snowman plates.  We always have a special dinner (usually ham and potatoes) when we pull our plates out for the first time each year.  This time we had Grandma and Grandpa Sillito over.

My Little Singer

Ashlyn's been doing Singer's Company this year and has loved it.  We're so lucky to have such a fun singing group right in our neighborhood!  For Christmas they put on three different performances.  They each only got to do their solos at one performance.  Ashlyn's solo was the first several stanzas of When Christmas Comes to Town.  She did a great job!  

Here she is at the rest home performance.

 This is the performance that they did at the Barnes and Noble story time.  She was lucky to have Broman and his family and Tavi and her family come see her!

 This was the family and friends performance.  It was an eventful evening.  They kept having problems with the sound system and someone threw up right in front of us.  But, the girls did great, regardless.  Both grandparents were sweet to come cheer her on at this performance.  

The Giant

This is what I found when I came home from a Super Saturday.  My kids have such a fun dad!!!

1st Meet

Tanner had his first swim meet in November.  Baylen and I were so nervous for him.  We'd never seen him race and we weren't sure what to expect.  But, he did great.  He competed in two different events.  In his freestyle he placed 3rd and in his breaststroke he placed 5th.  I think that's awesome for his first time competing.  We told him, though, that all he should worry about is improving his own score each time.  

Tanner LOVED doing the meet!  He kept saying how he wished they had meets every week.  I'm glad he's found something that he loves!  

As an added perk, he is in such good shape.  He usually swims three days a week for 2 hours each day.  I'll drop him off, go run errands or go home and clean the house,  and make dinner.  When I pick him up I'm always amazed to think that he's been doing laps that ENTIRE time.

                                                 

This is Halloween!

Halloween this year was a little different than our traditional Halloweens with the Whipple clan. Baylen was suppose to work.  So, I was just going to take the kids out trick or treating by myself.  However, Baylen got put on call at 6:00.  He went trick or treating with us, we got the kids to bed, and then he got called in.  It worked out perfect.  Because on-call pay is time and a half, he got paid the exact same but was able to spend Halloween with us!

Halloween night was super warm.  We didn't even take jackets out trick or treating with us!

This year Mickell decided that she wanted to be a pajama zombie.  I told her I thought she looked just like Beetle Juice!

 Ashlyn was a ballerina.

 Hailey was a ladybug

 Tanner was a skeleton.  He could pump fake blood through his costume.  It was pretty cool.

Here's the candy exchange that took place after trick or treating.

 The Zombies!

 Ashlyn and Mickell's pumpkins.  Baylen helped turn Ashlyn's into Minnie Mouse in honor of our Disneyland trip.

 Hailey's pumpkin.  I was pretty impressed that she came up with those Frankenstein marks on her own.

 Tanner's pumpkin (I just realized that it matched his costume!)

Photo Shoot

We attempted to take a few family pictures while we were up at the cabin.  I've decided that the kids don't cooperate quite as well when there isn't a "photographer" there.  I'm sure it was also torturous because I was taking away from their cabin time.  Here are a few of what we got.  I'm not going to wait for Baylen to photoshop them.  So, this is definitely the raw version.

We also took some of Bailey.

 This is Ashlyn's "I'm soooo done taking pictures" look.
                                                 
Hailey- 8 years old

 Ashlyn- 5 years old

 Tanner- 11 years old

Mickell- 11 years old