We had a fabulous Christmas this year, so many wonderful memories were made. There's a lot of pictures, to tell the story. 

Monday night we had the annual "Surprise Dinner" with the Shields. It is a fun dinner full of yummy surprises to eat. The kids had a blast; they made a play with their cousins, we opened cousin gifts and had a blast!

Tuesday night we went out to dinner at an authentic Chinese restaurant. Danny had asked his students where they like to eat and this is what they recommended. It's called "Hon Hong"
The food was very good, spicy, and apparently authentic. 

Christmas Eve day we went skiing at Solitude. It was Lizzie's first day skiing and she loved it! We met Brett & Teresa and their family there too. 

Everyone was exhausted after asking all day. We had a nice dinner, read the scriptures, watched a couple of christmas youtube videos and the kids opened their elves gifts (pj"s) then they all headed to bed. They were so excited about Santa coming and couldn't wait for morning. 

Here's the pictures after Santa came. lizzie was worried about Santa coming into our house, she wouldn't get out of bed in the morning until she as sure he had left the house already. Guess he can be a little scary. 

It was so fun to have a white Christmas! The kids were all thrilled with their gifts from Santa. Lizzie especially loved her pink dog, this was a last minute request, good thing Santa had room in his sleigh for this doggy. she also loved all her Frozen stuff she got as well.
Isaac was ecstatic about his drum set. He has been wanting this really bad, and he played all day long! He also loved his legos and new sled too.
Emily loved her new gigantic stuffed bear. She named him Fred and she hauls him all around the house. he's huge! She also liked her clothes/shoes and new games etc...
Taylor always is happy to get new instruments and musical equipment. He love his new Vans shoes, fart blaster gun and sled too. It snowed all day and the kids went sledding at the church in the afternoon. 

Lizzie loved her Elsa braid and wore it all day long. She insisted on being in Elsa character as well.
We had a great Christmas and are feeling blessed for all we have been given. We love spending time with family and friends during this holiday season. 

We had a busy, full week of fun during Christmas! There was lots of snow which was wonderful to have a white Christmas.
We had at the Shields extended Christmas spectacle, in Provo one night. It was a lot of fun.

It was really nice to have Uncle Derek around for the holidays, he came over and we had fun playing music! He taught Isaac a lot about the drums. He is a great musician, and very talented. 

We had a fun day sledding at the park. Mono and her girls came too, it was a lot of fun! 

We got Lizzie's preschool pictures back this week. She was so happy in them and so cute! I really love her smile. She seems too big and grown up lately!

I went in to check on Lizzie the other night and this is what I saw. She completely rolled out of her bed and just kept on sleeping! She was so exhausted. She has pretty much stopped napping, so by 7:00 she is too tired to even stay in her bed!

Here's a couple more school pics from Lizzie. She has been really into arts & crafts lately and she LOVES playdoh. She plays with it for a long time and she makes all sorts of creations.

After 11 days in China Danny finally came home on Friday! We were all so happy and excited to have him home. But I think Lizzie was the most thrilled, she really missed Danny. She had a meltdown at school because she was sad about Danny being gone. Everyday she'd ask when he was coming home and tell me how much she missed him! She is such a daddy's girl!

The kids had their annual Christmas sleepover at G & G Shields house. They had a blast!
Taylor and Jeffrey stay up really late and draw on the other kids faces. They think it's pretty funny.

We had a really fun Hawkins Christmas party in Provo on Saturday. We had a yummy dinner, a snowflake making contest, played Bingo and visited with family. It's a wonderful party!

More pics from the Hawkins party. Cute little Hannah, she's our favorite!

More pics from the sleepover. They did so many fun things; pizza, scavenger hunt, gelato at Harmons, treats, games, hot tubbing, drinking cocoa, opening gifts, sleeping around the Christmas tree etc... The kids all look forward to this party! Thanks for a fun night!

The boys both started basketball this week. Isaac scored 4 points at his game and Taylor scored 6!

Here's a couple of pics from Danny's trip to China!

He had a good trip in China. The food was interesting. Here's a fish for dinner, some other things he ate were; duck, donkey, snake, turtle and camel hamstring! It sounded really exotic and a little gross!
Less then 2 weeks until Christmas we are so excited!!!

We've had unusually warm weather for December this week. The high's have been in the 50's or 60's and it's which is crazy warm for this time of year.
The kids have been playing outside on the trampoline quite a bit, especially Taylor and his friends. It's great because it gets all their energy out!
Danny has been in China this week, he will get home in 5 days, he's there for a total of 11 days. It's been hard to have him gone. We all really miss him. But Lizzie especially misses him, she says everyday over and over and over
"I miss my daddy; I want me daddy, I need my daddy" She will exstatic when he comes home on Friday and so will I !

Emily had her "101 Dalmations" 3rd Grade play this week. It was such a cute play and all the kids did great! We had fun going to see Emily and hear the fun songs, and see the costumes etc... She had a lot of fun and got really animated at the play.

Taylor performed with the school orchestra at the Festival of Trees. He plays the cello this year and he played great! There are only 3 celloists in the orchestra so they had a lot to play. Lizzie and I had fun going to the festival and seeing them perform.

We had Monica's girls over for dinner and a movie night on Friday night. They are so cute and we had a blast with them. Hannah is basically a celebrity in our house right now. All the kids adore her!

Saturday we kept busy by going to a trampoline jumping place with all the kids and a few friends. The kids ran, and jumped & played for 2 hours. They all left tired, sweaty and hot! It was the perfect outing for a Saturday without Danny in town.

Sunday night we had a yummy dinner at mom's house and then decorated Gingerbread houses with all the kids!  All the kids got really invovled and wanted to make their just perfect. We all ate too much candy and had fun too!

We love this time of year, there are so many wonderful activities! We are counting down the days until Christmas! 

We had a yummy dinner and a birthday party to celebrate my birthday and Dave's birthday on Friday.
It was a fun party complete with cake and Ice cream. I am feeling old and tired this year, I really am OLD though!

Thanks for the yummy cake, Mono.