Merry Christmas!!

I sure hope that you all had a great Christmas, like we had a great Christmas. Family time. Yummy food. New toys. Magic.  It was great--I only was sad we didn't have snow!  Here is the highlight reel...enjoy!!

We started out our Christmas fun with a Thursday evening party at Aunt Ev's.  This lady is a giver--you should have seen her face.  What a generous woman--we had a great night!  She single handedly made our Christmas fabulous, and (my family at least) is having a glorious time playing with our new toys!

We celebrated Christmas Eve with half of the Wood clan and Grandma Williams.  Tamales (not so stellar), enchiladas (awesome!), salsa (YUM!) and flan.  Perfect! A good bit of chatting and gift exchanging made for a very happy day. 

The Elves (aka, parental units) on Christmas Eve.  We set up the camera on a tripod this year, and just snapped away with our remote. It was great!!

 Ah! The Magic of Christmas morning!  There's been some talk this year of not taking pictures of Christmas morning present opening, due to the fact that this is not what Christmas is all about. There is truth in that idea, but the magic of this morning brings out the little kid in everyone and the joy that is found in family rooms all over the world is worthy of capturing.  We loved having the camera going with the remote and I swear Christmas gets better and better every year, as my little munchlets get bigger and bigger!

We made a movie of our morning--1 hour condensed into 2 minutes. Fun!

I love the growing pile of garbage! :)

By the way--Luke slept through our morning of fun~!  But he was there, eventually!!

We headed to my parents house to enjoy more frivolity and family time.  Church was awesome (I love lots of music in Sacrament meeting...and let's be honest, all the extra hands to help with the bambinos made it extra nice!).  Take special note of Katelyn's dress--made by yours truly. The boys vests are a happy Walmart special, as their homemade Christmas outfits ended up being an epic fail! :)  We loved having Christmas on Sunday and hanging out all together with family.

  

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas!

So, although I've got lots of posts hanging over my head, waiting-waiting-waiting to be posted, it looks like I'll be skipping them for now. Hopefully I'll come back to them early next year (CRAZY to say that!).  In the meantime, enjoy our Christmas Card. It's not getting sent out this year folks, :(, so enjoy the digital version!

We've had a whirlwind of a year in 2011, allow me to give you the recap!

January

Lots of family fun: bowling, sledding, building snowmen, trips to the Dinosaur Park and the Childrens Playhouse. Pregnancy was just starting to get uncomfortable again, and the countdown to baby day was on!

February

Mike and I took a trip to St. George with some friends. We hiked, ate, slept, and were kid free for a weekend. As a family we played some more, celebrated Valentines Day, and we gave Josh his first haircut!

March

Baby Month!! We had to wait the whole 31 days before Luke Joseph Williams decided to make his appearance, but it was well worth the wait. Weighing in at 8 lbs, 3 ounces and 21.5 inches long, he was instantly adored by both brother and sister, as well as Mom and Dad. What a blessing a new baby is!

April

We brought home baby Luke, put our new minivan to good use, adjusted to no sleep, celebrated Easter with new outfits and lots of candy, and planted the cold crops in our garden.

May

May brought us warmer weather, our 5th anniversary, a more alert and happy Luke, date nights and picture taking fun. We spent a lot of time at home hanging out, laughing, and being such a happy family.

June

We blessed our sweet Luke in June and Mike's mom flew out to Utah to stay with the kids while I went to Girls Camp. Sure love Girls Camp!! We pulled out the swimming pool and prepped for family camping trips.

July

Camping, camping, camping! We went with family, with friends, and with family again--we love camping! The kids went fishing for the first time, and we found out that sleep was a bit illusive in our tent.

August

August was our miracle month. We headed to St. George with my family for a family vacation and on our way home Luke fell out of a shopping cart and literally cracked his head open. By the end of the evening he was being prepped for lifeflight transport to Primary Childrens Hospital and once there underwent emergency brain surgery. We spent a tenuious 6 days at Primary Childrens, and in the beginning there were times that I was sure we were going to lose him. He finally gained consiousness again 2 days into our ordeal, and from there the miracles just kept coming. Today he is happy, healthy, and perfectly normal.

We are so blessed!

September

We spent September putting our life back together after our crazy summer and enjoying BYU football on the weekends. Luke passed his follow-up nuerological examinations, Mike spent hours developing a new hobby--RC Airplanes, family came to town, we took family pictures, and spent hours holding our kids just a little bit closer.

October

We enjoyed General Conference, BYU Homecoming traditions (the best parade, ever!), football games, watching Luke learn how to crawl, sending Mike's youngest brother off on his mission, and Halloween--we were the Incredibles!

November

We played in the leaves and in the snow (gotta love Fall in Utah!), hosted Thanksgiving at our house with Mike's family, Katelyn found a pair of scissors and decided to give herself a haircut, Luke learned to cruise around furniture (which causes me stress due to my fall fear!), Josh moved into a 'big boy bed', and we prepped for the Christmas season.

December

By the time everyone gets this, December will be almost over! We have family parties, adeventures in the snow, and Christmas morning at home planned. We are excited for 2012 and hope that it will bring less change and craziness!! Hope that your year was as great as ours, and hope you know how much we appreciate and love you all!

Merry Christmas!!

So Blessed....

I went to Festival of Trees today for the first time. I was actually a little teary as I walked around and wondered how many of the trees came out of stories of tragedy, and how many came from stories of miracles (although, I know that you can truly experience miracles, even through tragedy).

I couldn't help but think that our story could have turned out so very, very, differently.

We are so blessed!

I hope they call me on a mission!

So, we are all out of order, but by golly--I will post before December! :)  And so, a quick FHE post is born!

I stumbled upon a fabulous blog.  This lady, truly incredible lady if you ask me, has organized and planned out family home evening, each week, FOR THE WHOLE YEAR!  And, perfect for us, it's catered towards little kids.  I've found lots of great FHE sites, but most are for older kids--that doesn't work for us, as we've just got little kids.  I love this site.  Seriously, I click a link, print it off and I wouldn't have to read it or look at it again until lesson time if I didn't want to. Love it!!

Check her out!

We talked about missionary work tonight. It was great! Katelyn informed us that she doesn't want to be a missionary, she wants to be a 'missa-girl' and she is going to go to Idaho.  And, it just melts my little mommy heart, but she and Josh were so sad to leave each other to go on missions. They kept saying over and over that they would miss each other.  Yeah!! Maybe they do like each other! :) 

We wrote Uncle Tommy, we sang missionary songs, and we wore pretend missionary badges. It was great!  Gotta love Family Home Evening! :)

Lookin tired at the end of the day--10.5 hours of mental brain power for Mike; teething, cranky, no sleep baby for me.  Whew!

Last Month in Pictures...

So, I'm a slacker.  Enjoy the latest update--with minor words and major pictures!! :)

Halloween...it was 'Incredible!'

Applesaucing...always a joy.  This is only half the apples.  A LOT of work!!

Fall came...and went!

Katelyn found scissors...before-

 After: (way cuter after!!)

 He sits!!

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 We love Trains!

 Winter came, and stayed...

 

We had a birthday party for a really old lady. It was really great!

We projected....

 Before:

 After:

We played. (and slobbered)

We dated.