A very Merry Christmas

We started out our Christmas celebrating on December 14th with a Christmas family home evening that my mom put together. This is the first home evening we have done as a complete family in five years! It was so much fun! Dan, Angie, and their girls arrived from Texas for the hollidays! We were all so excited that they were able to come!!

Dan, Angie, and the girls built this cute little snowman. They were so nice to let Keagan and Kaiden help out. Oh the fun snow can be.
On the 17th we all went to the "library school" Christmas party. It was hilarious to watch how excited Avery was getting. (Jumping up and down when it was time for announcements- oh yea!) Miss Sally did an awesome job as usual. Santa came, there was a puppet show, lots of fun centers to make reindeer food and candycanes, treats, etc.
Camden LOVES Miss Sally. If I ever can't find him at library time, he is usually sitting on Miss Sally's lap or following her around. Camden was so un happy with the idea of sitting on Santa's lap, but he was passing out fruit snacks so, he toughtened up and at least talked to Mrs. Clause.
We all went over to Lori's house Thursday for some Christmas cookie decorating. There were 14 kids running WILD around Lori's house. It was party time! The kids had lots of fun of course and got very creative with their cookie dough!

This is Kaitie's snowman cookie that she made all by herself. So cute!
Oh the joy of traditions!! It was time for our annual friend party and I was so happy that all the origional party goers were there! It started out as the Knights, Garners, Angie, and I about 9 years ago. It's amazing how our families have grown and we are so lucky to have some awesome friends who have joined! Heather did a great job organizing this year and even included a visit from Santa and a cookie exchange. Thank you Heather and everyone for such a great time! The Hollidays are so much better with friends, family, and fun traditions!!

Tobey and cute little Evann
Angie, Mary, Heather, Lisa, Summer, Stacie, and Janet
Mary, Casen, Hayleigh, and Heather
Lisa was so nice to let my kids jump in on her gingerbread house since ours came with nasty slime frosting. Janet and Jeff were so nice to contribute some candy and icing so that we could finish ours later. Thank you friends!!
Kelly's family Christmas party was Saturday. When I told Camden that Santa was there, he grabbed some older cousins and exclaimed that Santa brings fruit snacks! Wa Hoo!! All the Santa fear was gone!
Casen's first visit with Santa


Santa brought all of my kids new webkinz. Kaiden was so happy to join the webkinz world. Even Casen got a new webkinz friend. My kids are webkinz crazy lately!



Sunday was my family Christmas Party. I LOVE the annual soup dinner! Here are some of the Great Grandchildren. My Grandma has over 21 Great Grandchlidren with five on the way this year. It's amazing how fast a family can grow!! They were so cute singing Christmas carols for us. Notice that my kid isn't wearing a shirt. Nice
My grandma is amazing and buys everyone a gift every year. I don't know how she does it with such a huge family! She is amazing!! My uncle Dennis was calling out everyone's name as he passed out each gift. Every time he picked up a gift to call out Camden would yell out "that one is mine!!" He wasn't excited or anything! When he finally got to Camden's gift everyone clapped and cheered for him! It was hilarious!! I am so grateful for such a wonderful family and for wonderful family traditions!!
Megan (Adam's woman), Kaitie, and Casen
Casen and my beautiful cousin Lauren who lives in Cali.
Tuesday night we all headed over to This is the Place for a little Christmas fun Pioneer style. It was really cool and we had lots of fun. Casen slept inside my coat most of the night. This is Kellie and I riding on the train.
Angie's beautiful daughter Avery who was being a "big old two year old!!" according to Angie. She is so delicious and I wish she was mine!
At one of the homes we learned how to do some pioneer dances. Keagan was totally excited about this and I got to be his partner.
Camden became a reindeer in one of the craft homes. This kid loves stickers on his face, I just don't get it.
At one house they got to put together pioneer toys. This was Keagan's dream come true! He and Auntie Mandolyn did a great job.
When we got home and were getting ready for bed, Camden decided that he needed some Carmex. Yum!!

Here are the kiddos in their Christmas Jammies
Oh happy day!! Christmas eve at last!! We had a huge feast of yummy food and then watched the Reflections of Christ video by Mark Mabry (a guy who is only a year older than me and was in our old ward in Mesa... Awesome!!!) It was so nice to have some quiet time dedicated to our Savior as we celebrated Christmas Eve this year.

We had quite the nativity this year with Kaiden as Joseph, Kaitie as Mary, Casen as Baby Jesus, Adam as their mule, Ethan and Keagan were wise men, and Jaeden, Addie, and Avery were all Angels. It was so cute to watch them all surround baby Jesus and kind of smother him. Adam the baby snatching mule tried to help relieve the smothering a bit. It was so much fun to watch and the kids did a great job. Kaiden took a lot of pride in his role as Joseph and stayed in character for a while. So cute!

A very scary christmas picture!!
This year my kids all got to open superhero christmas jamms.
Santa called out "HO HO HO Merry Christmas" at 7 am this year. Yikes!! My kids were all fast asleep and Uncle Adam and Auntie Kellie had to come down and wake them up. They shot upstairs faster than we could even get up. The excitement of Christmas morning is the best!!
Santa brought Kaiden this cool R2D2 robot. It is a really cool and LOUD toy.

Jaeden got a real pink Kodak digital camera She and Kaitie were sure to capture the entire day!
Camden got a new gun and some gummies in his stocking. Life was good!
Casen got a new jitter bug toy. I dont think he is so sure what to think of it yet.


Me and my dad
Kaiden is a total animal lover. He was so sweet to his dalmation puppy from Grandma.
Auntie Kellie gave the boys a huge box full of toys and books for Christmas.. so great!
all tuckered out from all the excitement!
Guns were the gift of the year. Grandpa, Tyler, Adam, and Jacob all got 22s. Little Elmer Fudd was totally interested!
Friday we all went swimming and had a blast!
Kaiden and Keagan jumped off the diving board for the first time. Kaitie and I had fun jumping together too.

Ethan and Keagan

Saturday morning we got to go to grandma Sandra's house for Christmas brunch. It was delicious! The boys got super cute pj's and matching pillow cases, cute clothes and some planet heros! Grandma and grandpa out did themselves!!
Tuesday night we went to Temple square to see the beautiful lights. Camden was so excited to ride Trax for the first time.
Uncle Adam and Auntie Megan
It was so nice to remember why we celebrate this wonderful season!! After the lights we got to go to Uncle Ty and Auntie Mandolyn's house for some pizza and more fun. I am so grateful to have such a wonderful family.

Tuesday we had a baby shower for Angie's upcoming little man at Cafe Rio. Thank you to all the great friends that made it!

Mandolyn, Mary, Angie, and Mom. (i just deleated a friend picture... sorry friends!!)

If you made it to the end of this marathon post, congrats!! It is over. I just wanted to say that I am so grateful to my friends and family who made this Christmas season a great one. I am eternally grateful to my Savior who is the reason for this special season that brings us all together. Merry Christmas everyone!!

Be a Hero. Save a blog. Use Bloggled's Blog Backup and Win an iPod or a CRICUT

Have you ever had this experience? You are posting to your blog, click the publish button, and the very next thing you know the screen is blank. So, you click back to your drafts and nothing is there, then you click your published posts and nothing is there. At this point you are starting to think to yourself…oh no, what just happened? As you continue searching your blog admin for information you see that all your uploaded images, videos, files, and everything is gone.

Living through this situation would be enough to devastate any blogger. Knowing that years of data about your person, family, or business is gone can be difficult to overcome emotionally, but even more difficult of a problem to solve. If you haven’t backed up your blog recently, or ever, chances are your posts and everything else are gone for good.

This is the kind of situation that led Brent Ramey to the idea of creating Bloggled.com, “and to honestly save anyone in that situation the act of going insane.” Bloggled.com is a blog backup company that is allowing bloggers to backup their blog for free as an introductory product to celebrate their official launch out of beta and as a holiday gift this season. Bloggled is also offering multiple prizes to those who participate in their “Be a Hero, Save a Blog Contest” that is running through the day on Monday, December 15, 2008. Winners can choose from either a 16GB iPod Touch, or a Cricut Personal Electronic Cutter Machine and it’s quite simple to enter. All you have to do is one of the items below, but if you do more you get entered more times into the drawing…but you have to enter on Monday 12/15 to qualify so act fast, or should I say slow so I have a better chance of winning.

1. Join Bloggled. Register and sign up for a Bloggled account (http://www.bloggled.com).
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4. Blog about the Blogger Contest on another blog then notify Bloggled about the new blog post by commenting on their blog.

Anyway, as you can tell from my post here, I have met the criteria and will be hoping I’m drawn as a winner today. You can find the full contest details by visiting www.bloggled.com.

born again blogger :)

ok, so it's been a month since I have posted any pictures. Yikes! I finally got my computer back and running, much thanks to my wonderful friend Jeff Knight!!! Ok, here is our complete month of November... Keagan lost his first (supposed to come out) tooth a day or two after Halloween. He was super excited for the tooth fairy to visit him again and couldn't wait to get more "cash." (that isn't blood on his hand, it is marker in case you were wondering... gross)

Colby had a big old birthday bash at his new house and the boys were very excited to go. Keagan told me that Colby had finally earned his way up to being a best friend by inviting him to his birthday. Oh how lucky Colby is :)

my men after church. I love Casen's pleasently plump expression.

Kaiden must ask me to hold Casen about 100 times a day. This is both frustrating and wonderful. He definitely loves his little brother!!

Kaitie had her 8th birthday party at Classic. Oh let me tell you, we had some fun!! We went in the middle of the week and had the entire place to ourselves. Lori and I rocked the rink!! Adam and Megan stopped by to wish Kaitie a happy birthday too.

My little mini man

This is my newest niece Julia. She belongs to Stephanie and Brandon. When I found out I was having my 4th boy and she was expecting her 3rd girl, I told her we could work out a swap.

My cute little buddies fast asleep. I love it when they play nice!

Camden and Addie are special children!! Their minds think unlike most children's! On this most special day at Lori's house Addie painted Cam's face twice with Lip Gloss, Camden dumped out an entire bottle of Caladryl lotion, a whole bottle of Ajax, and half a bottle of goo gone. Yea, so fun!! Doesn't he look so pretty!

After all the fun that I have with my creative children, I was read for a break. Heather, Lisa, Summer, Stacie, and I went to Park City for the weekend for some girl time. Casen came too, but he was really good and it was so nice to just be able to have some one on one time with the little guy. We missed Janet, but I understand that Twilight weekend was also important :)

Me and Stac chillin on the couch

How can you not build a tower of phone books and purses and take a picture on this cool stair way?? Yikes!

On the 15th my sisters and some very special friends had the oh so special opportunity to see New Kids on the Block. Ok, I know it sounds lame, but seriously it was like going back to your favorite childhood playground and reliving the fun!! I had a total blast!!! It was such a fun night!


The crowd was insane!! I can't say I had very high expectations for the show, but they sounded great and it was probably one of the most fun shows I have ever been to.
Rachel and Lori

Janet and me. I had to temporarily rock the side pony tail. So hot right?? Jordan K, I'm with you all the way!!! (Ha ha!! Love you forever Janet!)

I found this larger than life button on one of the seats behind us. We couldn't resist a picture with it. Janet, Lori, Me, Rachel, MaKell, and Christy. Thank you ladies for an unforgetable evening!! (ps, if anyone feels the urge to check out their new cd, I strongly urge you to skip the track entitled "Grown Man" that is only if you don't like throwing up in your nose!!)

We had the family over to watch the very sad and dissappointing BYU vs U of U game (the one where Hall thought he was on the red team). Camden so proficiently displayed his ability to open soup cans. I think the final total of cans was 15. Wow! We have been eating a lot of Cream of Chicken soup around here lately! Once again, so special!

During the game it got too quiet, I went looking for the kids and found them in Grandma's laundry room having a puppet show. It was hilarious!

All of my boys!! I am one lucky mom!

This is Keagan the pilgrim. Oh so handsome! I am loving that collar!

Every year we go to breakfast on Thanksgiving day. My dad started taking just the kids when we were little so that my mom could get all the food organized. He used to take us to this little restaurante and buy us gabage pail kid cards. So cool! As we got a little older and could help my mom more, she started coming too. We always go to the same place and always take a family picture after breakfast. It is so fun to see how much the family has grown.

The wild ones

Keags and Ethan enjoying their hot chocolate, a Thanksgiving day must!

After breakfast we headed over to Kelly's parent's house for the rest of the day. This is Cam getting a head start on dinner. Yummy Jell-o from Auntie Diana

This is Kelly's brother Chris and his new wife Connie. They just got married the day before Thanksgiving. She is super wonderful and I am so happy to have her as a sister-in-law!

Casen, Keagan, and Piper

I walked Keagan out to the bus stop the other day and came back in the house and found Kaid reading a story to Cam. I love to see my boys being sweet to eachother!!! I had to take a picture

Keagan and Kaiden were playing together the other day when Kaid said, "Mom, Keagan's tooth just fell out!" Ok, that was easy enough! Now he has three beautiful gaps in his mouth! I am so excited for some of them to start filling in! It's cute to see my toothless wonder. Keagan was SO excited when the tooth fairy brought him five quarters instead of one dollar bill. He thought he was so loaded! It's fun when they don't really understand the concept of counting money.

The other night we were watching the Polar Express and all the boys piled on Kelly to see the show. It is crazy to think that all these guys belong to me! I am one lucky girl!

Kelly went to check on the boys in bed last week just to make sure they were warm, but he couldn't find Kaiden. He looked all over and finally started to get nervous and started calling his name. Finally noticed that the closet door was open a little so he went in and this is what he found. That shelf that he is so soundly asleep on is about 4 ft. off the ground. When I asked him about the next day he said that he climbed up and read a story to himself and fell asleep. Of course, why not? Kelly quickly carried him back to bed. So funny!! (Sometimes I actually clean this closet, and sometimes it actually stays clean for 5 minutes, but not very often).

Lori and I took the kids to the gingerbread house on Friday. I couldn't believe this house, it was huge! They said it took over 40 hours to make it. It was completly decorated inside and out! Wow!

Keagan really liked this gingerbread house. This is my kind of house!

After we looked at all the houses, we had to decorate some gingerbread men. I love Addie's super cute cheese-a-rific smile.