Only one month behind now!  As you can see I'm loving the collages for catching up a lot of photos.  On to December!  It's been several years since we made gingerbread houses so it was time to try them again.  I bought two houses this year, one for the boys and one for the girls (I'm pretty sure there was a lot of fighting involved in our last attempt which is why it's been several years).  Having two houses was a big hit!  The boys came up with some very creative  ideas like an ice pond, a bird bath, and Santa sticking out of the chimney.  Not to be outdone, the girls made an igloo, an owl, and two reindeer.  We declared both houses winners!
Adam also celebrated his birthday this month.  Only one more year until a very significant birthday (cough- 40- cough!).  Adam was a very good sport this year and let me plan a neighborhood Christmas party on his birthday.  Instead of doing neighbor gifts, Jodi Goodrich and I invited the whole ward boundary to a neighborhood party where we shared treats with eachother, had hot cocoa, and donated to the St. George Soup Kitchen.  It was a cold, drizzly night but with some fire pits set up outside, everyone had a great time.

On Christmas Eve Eve (we call it Christmas "Adam"), the cousins all came to our house to reenact the nativity.  Baby Van Niederhauser made the perfect baby Jesus, being only a couple of weeks old.  Audrey loved holding him as Mary.  Justin and Mikaera were narrators, Dallin, Marcus and Truman were shepherds, Tali, Whitney, and Uncle Ben were the wisemen, and Troy, Rani and Eva were angels.  Justin and Whitney also accompanied a few songs on the piano.  It was a very cute nativity, and some very creative costumes, involving Star Wars robes and light sabers!

After the nativity, we headed into the kitchen to decorate Christmas cookies.  Big mess (which is why we did it the day before Christmas Eve) but a lot of fun for the cousins to be together.

On Christmas Eve, we took our family and drove up to Pine Valley in search of some snow.  It was actually pretty dry all through Central and Pine Valley so we headed off on a trail and finally found some good snow (and subsequently got our van stuck).  We had a lot of fun sledding and everyone loved the hot cocoa at the end.  I loved going out to Brick Oven for dinner afterward so I didn't have to cook or clean anything up that night!

On Christmas morning, we were informed that poor Audrey had been throwing up all night in her bathroom, but Whitney wouldn't let her come get us because we told them not to leave their rooms until 7:00 am. Bad parents!  She perked up for the presents but then was so sick the rest of the day.

Some of the kids' favorite gifts this year were a new cell phone for Whitney (she hasn't stopped texting), bikes for Justin and Audrey, and Lego sets for Troy and Dallin. Since it was Sunday, Adam took the kids to church at 1:00 while I stayed home with sick Audrey (and actually Dallin since he fell asleep right before it was time to go).  I heard the choir did a great job that day, but I was snuggling on the couch with Audrey holding a bowl in front of her chin :(

November 1st was Dallin's 5th birthday.  We celebrated by taking his four best friends to the park and Del Taco for lunch.  Easiest birthday party ever!  Dallin of course wanted another Star Wars themed cake, maybe some day he'll outgrow his Star Wars obsession.
November also brought the end of soccer season.  Dallin was the only one to do soccer this year and he really loved it.  He may not have been the top scorer of this team, but he was a defensive animal  and was always kicking it out of the pile-ups so that one of his teammates could score.

Whitney participated in a special Veteran's Day program out at Sun River.  Her middle school choir performed, and let's just say when they sang all of the individual songs for the armed forces and all these old retired men stood up, there was not a dry eye to be found! She is really enjoying her choir class this year and wants to try out for Madrigals at the high school next year.

Justin and Troy had their piano recitals with their new teacher Melissa Ord.  Troy did great, even with just playing with one arm (did I forget to mention that he broke his arm AGAIN?)  Justin was the last performer and he literally blew everyone away with his Viva la Vida.  So proud of the both of them!
Thanksgiving was spread out over several days this year.  We had dinner Thursday with the Blunck family in the Puriri's back yard and the weather was gorgeous!  There were name cards spread out over several tables so everyone got to sit by various cousins, Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents, etc.  Friday we had another dinner, this time over at the Webb's.  Saturday was another beautiful day (are we noticing a theme with St. George weather??) so we went to Snow Canyon with Webb cousins.  The Hughes and Niederhausers met up with us a little later and we had a great time hiking around beautiful Snow Canyon.  It's literally less than 5 miles away from our house, but we don't go there very often.  That needs to change!
We also took new family pictures in November.  Once again Robyn Lamoreux did a fantastic job making us look good.  I loved the color scheme this year, those fall leaves were so gorgeous.  Did I mention I love living in St. George??

So it's now 2012, and I have LOTS of New Year's Resolutions, one of which is to do "better" with my blog.  I don't want to set myself up for failure by saying that I will blog daily, weekly, or monthly.  Just that I will do "better."  And I will start by catching up from the last few months of 2011.

OCTOBER:  Whitney and Audrey were in Snow Canyon's High School's production of The Wizard of Oz.  They had lots of practices and rehearsals, followed by over a week of daytime and evening performances.  We were all pretty much exhausted by the end, but it turned out really great and the girls had a fun time being in their first "real" performance.  Audrey was a munchkin and Whitney was an Ozian and a Flying Monkey.  It was extra special because Mikelle Atkinson who played Dorothy is on our ward, and Audrey's violin teacher Abbey Hafen was in the orchestra.
I had a birthday in October, can't really remember how old I turned but I'm sure it's old.  I spent the day playing volleyball in the morning, having lunch with my Laurels in the afternoon, and attending Whitney's choir concert that night.

Halloween was a lot of fun this year, especially since Adam's costume was hilarious!  We had a neighborhood party and it was so funny to see him walk up the street and see everyone's reaction.  Maybe he should lay off the desserts though...