Christmas break is here!  We are so excited to finally be out of school and have a nice long holiday break! We headed to temple square and to see the lights downtown one night. It was crowded, but so beautiful!
Emily and her friend worked on their science fair project.  Their project was testing tastes of cookies. 

Lights at temple square followed by gelato at Sweetaly! 

The next day we met cousins at the nickel arcade, and then swapped kids for a cousin playdate. Emily loves to snuggle up in our bed with her bunny Joey! Cutest little bunny ever!

Sunday was Christmas Eve!  We had a wonderful meal of homemade pizza on our new pizza oven! It makes delicious pizza and we had fun making it too! 

We had a program, opened sibling gifts, the elves dropped by with pj's too. Lots of fun, excitement, energy anticipating Christmas Day! 

It even started snowing a bit on christmas eve! Which makes it feel so much more magical! 

Christmas day came bright and early!  The kids were awake and ready to go!
Lizzie got an American Girl Doll, dog etc...
Isaac got a cool nerf gun, and a big lego set.
Emily got skis and her new kindle, and clothes.
Taylor also got skis, a robe, a concussion helmet.
Danny traded in his new boat for a new bigger boat and also got his new Ukulele from Hawaii! 

Christmas day we opened gifts, had a big delicious breakfast, and then headed up to Alta for a day of skiing! We had fun on the slopes and it as fun to be outside, poor Isaac was on Hot chocolate duty with his broken arm 

There was a gorgeous sunset on the way home from skiing! What a great day! 

Tuesday we went and saw the movie Coco with cousins. Then Wednesday we headed to Provo for bowling, lunch and dinner and then the big Shields Christmas Party extravaganza!
it was a fun and exhausting day and night! 

Thursday morning Joey was sick and we took him to the vet.  He could not be healed. It was a hard, sad awful day but Joey died. Emily was heartbroken and really sad. she couldn't even talk about it. Lots of happy memories with Joey and we will really miss him!  

Friday they took the boat out on the lake to try fishing. Saturday we hing out at home and got this interesting package from someone Danny works with. It was two live lobsters from Maine!! It was so surprising and we didn't know what to think about it. 

Saturday night we all met for dinner Adults only at Trio.  It was an early New Years Eve day celebration. 

Good food, fun and lot of laughs! 

Cute Lizzie and her new American Girl Doll matched for Church today and she was thrilled! 

Lobsters for Lunch!  It was an excitng lunch! 

We have a wild time with Isaac and breaking his arms lately. When we took him to the fracture clinic to get the cast off of his left arm, they decided to sedate Isaac and reset the break on his right arm. It was not what we wanted to hear! And it was a super scary and stressful day/night! He's on the mend now and hopefully he'll be good for awhile and no injuries etc.. 

Christmas fun is in full swing around here! Parties, concerts, movies, performances, Elf on the Shelf by the kids principal, seeing santa Claus etc.... So much fun and so many festivities. 

We had the Shields Christmas Surpise Dinner/program/gift exchange etc... It was a ton of fun and a great night!  

Emily had her choir concert, she sounded great and did wonderful! She would not let me get a decent picture of her. 

Lizzie made gingerbread houses in her class, and had a blast. She is loving her makeup kit and does makeup all the time now! I had a wonderful Christmas brunch with some friends this week.
It is our favorite time of the year!
Christmas is in 4 days! 

We had the first snow of the year, it wasn't a lot of snow, but it was beautiful!

A few more pics from our gingerbread houses. 

We had a rough weekend. On friday night we were at Danny's work party and Isaac was at Monica's house for the cousin sleepover. He fell at the church gym and broke his OTHER arm!!! Unbelievable! It is just awful! We all felt so bad for him and wish he would just stay safe!
We went and picked him up and headed to the ER to get X-rays. It was clearly broken and he was in a lot of pain.
We had to cut his shirt off so wrap the arm and then we'll head to the DR. on Monday to hopefully get a hard cast. YIKES! 

Here are some cute pics from the Christmas Cousin Sleepover! The older kids went to Brett's house to sleep and hang out with grandma Shields. 

Lizzie's dance recital pics. 

Lizzie had parent day at dance this week, it was fantastic! She is loving dance and does so well. Love my little dancer!

This was a fun week! I had my 40th Birthday this week and it was memorable. I was feeling old and then I decided to just enjoy it and have a great day! The kids spoiled me with hugs, kisses and gifts. I had lunch with Danny at our favorite Greek restaurant. then I did some shopping, got my nails done and had a relaxing afternoon. Later Danny made dinner and we went ice skating with the the YM/YW in the ward.  It was great day.

The night before I went to dinner with some friends to my favorite Mexican food restaurant. It was a fun night! 

We started other Christmas festivities this week too. We went to the Christmas festivities at This is the Place, and it was super fun. We started all our advent calendars on December 1st. and had couple more fun celebrations for my big BDAY! 

Followed by a cousin sleepover with hot tubbing, movie etc.. 

Saturday we decorated for Christmas! We got our tree, set it up, and got everything all ready. Later we went the Hawkins Family Christmas party, complete with chimes, dinner, Bingo etc...

Taylor had his first ski day at Alta even though theres hardly any snow.

Sunday we decorated Gingerbread houses, and hoped it would snow! This is the BEST time of year! We have so many fun things this month! 

Thanksgiving We

We had a terrific Thanksgiving week. The kids had no school Wednesday-Friday so we had lot of time for fun! We played at the park, went swimming with cousins, and spent Thanksgiving day at G & G Wall's house.  It was a fantastic holiday because Katie, adam & Hugo were in town and we had SO much fun spending time with all of them. 

We got another new pet, it's a Lorakeet bird, name pending. The kids are all SO excited to get another pet and they were good at working tougher to earn all the money to pay for the bird. 

We love long Holiday weekends! 

Danny and taylor had a successful fishing day at Strawberry reservoir. They caught some big rainbow trout! They had a terrific day and tons of fun! 

Isaac had a fall off of the slide at school. He was pushed by a 5th grader and fell on his arm hard. He broke his wrist and will have a cast for 5 weeks. It was a sad day and he's a tough kid. 

Emily's hair is super curly underneath and it's getting even more curly! 

The new WINCO by us just opened, it's SO exciting! I really like shopping there for all our food, and think its' a great store. 

I taught a YW lesson on Gratitude on Sunday. It went well, it's such a wonderful time to think about our blessings etc.. 

Isaac got a blue cast on his arm. Only 4 weeks until he gets it off. 

Saturday we all went out and ran some errands and then went to lunch at Sage Restaurant. It was a fun lunch of delicious Japanese Ramen. It was tasty! Emily stole the last cream puff and popped it in to her mouth so quick! 

Lizzie and Brin with their ears etc.. 

These cute kids should start a band! They sound great!

Thanksgiving is this week and we can't wait!