The Five Furs

It seems just like yesterday we were bringing you home from the hospital- and here you are 11 years old. You are such a precious girl! We love you Maddie!

Emmy and mom
Maddie and Dad

Jessica, Nate, Kelly and Eric
Dad and his new sweater.

Every year on Christmas Eve we have a party with all of the cousins. The kids reenact the nativity. This year all 3 of my girls wanted to be Mary... so we had 3 Marys :) pretty cute!
Right before bed on Christmas Eve Rob reads the girls Christmas stories and the girls set out cookies and milk for Santa and a carrot for Rudolph.
Christmas morning the girls are always so excited- I love the looks on their faces!
Each year we visit Salt Lake Temple Square at Christmas- its so beautiful with all of the Christmas lights and displays. This year my sister and nephew went with us- it was fun, but soooo freezing (around 10*).

Every Christmas (on December 23rd) Grandma and Grandpa take us on the Polar Express. It is a favorite family tradition. This year the girls wore their new Christmas pajamas- so cute! We board the train and as we head for the North Pole the elves greet the kids, serve hot cocoa and Chocolate Chip cookies and then we read The Polar Express. When we get to the North Pole, Santa climbs aboard the train and visits with the kids, then we sing Christmas carols the rest of the way back home. A very fun way to get the girls all ready for Christmas!

Every year the girls love to make a gingerbread house together.

The girls were thrilled when they answered the door tonight and it wasn't Emmy's friend Stella's mom- it was Santa! and he came with a bag of toys!

One Christmas tradition we love is driving through the Thanksgiving Point lights display. This year there was an extra fun treat- we got to see a real reindeer!

Maddie and Megan were so cute singing in the school Christmas show.

We celebrated Maddie's birthday tonight with her cousins. Great-Grandma made this cake for Maddie and her Aunt May and cousin Preston.

Megan lost her first tooth yesterday! The tooth fairy came last night and brought her 2 gold coins. She was sooooo excited!

Maddie had her first cheerleading competition today. Her team got first place. We are so proud of you Maddie!

Megan and Emmy had their Christmas Dance performance tonight. They were both so adorable! Such cute little dancers.

Megan made this cute gingerbread house at her kindergarten Christmas party today. I got to go help at it- so much fun!

Maddie got a Wall-E ornament
Megan got a Tinkerbell ornament

This year we did something completely different for Thanksgiving. We went to Rob's grandma's house. There must have been 40 of us for dinner- so fun!

We finally did some new family pictures this fall. Our last framed family picture was when Megan was a baby- and no Emmy.

Before heading to the airport to fly home we took the kids to the Universal City Walk to the Hard Rock Cafe. Maddie's getting quite a collection of HRC guitar pins!

Back for a second visit to Castaway Cay. It was so beautiful today. This morning started with a fun character breakfast at Parrot Cay. (great photo op) Then my sweet girls humored their mom and let me pose them for a Christmas card picture- this was the one (out of the 40 or so I took) They're so patient with me :)

After the picture "torture" we let the kids go play at the beach camp activities and us adults headed for Serenity Bay. It was soooooo quiet and soooooo beautiful. We were there for about 4 hours- no pages (happy kids off playing). We snorkeled- saw gorgeous fish, collected shells and then Shari and I rented rafts and just floated forever- until we realized we were WAY out and had a long, long paddle back to shore. We had lunch on the beach again- so beautiful.

It was so hard to leave Castaway Cay- especially because this was the end of our cruise. We were standing on our balcony of our room looking out at the island and there was a rainbow- so picture perfect- so Disney (but it was real).

The last show was great. Then the kids went to activities while we packed- so sad. The girls said goodbye to their favorite counselor- Hayley Jo. This was an amazing vacation we will never forget!

The adult only beach- Serenity Bay- was so beautiful and so relaxing. A great last day of vacation!