Happy Holidays

THANKSGIVING DAY

For the first year in the history of Thanksgivings we had Thanksgiving at our house. Every year we run from house to house and this year we just decided that we wanted to have a nice relaxing day and not spend the day driving around for hours. The girls asking me if we could just stay home for Thanksgiving helped us make the decision as well. My mom & dad and Lisa & Rory's family came to eat with us and brought lots of their own food with them. It was great, and everything was super delicious.  It was a wonderful Thanksgiving. We missed our family that we didn't see, but there are many holiday's and many more to come.

Hunter, Jakers, Jamie, Jae, Lulu, Cam

  

 DAY AFTER THANKSGIVING

It's become a tradition for us that we put up our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. The kids decorated most of the tree themselves this year and they did a great job and I think they were very pleased with their work.

Decorating the tree.

Daddy helping with the ornaments.

I just love these cute kids!

Mama and her boy.

Daddy puts the star on for us every year. The kids did a wonderful job on the tree.

Jamie 8yrs old

Camrie 6 yrs old

Hunter 3 yrs old

FAIL FAMILY CHRISTMAS PARTY 

The Fail family is getting SO big. I vaguely remember a time when we used to have our parties in someones house. For years and years we've had it at a church now, but no matter. It's a tradition and an event we look forward to every year. Everyone shows up with their meal/side dish/pot luck/food, and we all have dinner, then Santa comes and gives the kids each there little sack of treats and then the kids play with family and their new toys and the adults gather in a big circle of chairs and play the adult gift exchange. Then we all just visit and clean up and say our goodbyes. I love our HUGE Fail family and all their traditions.

This year one of the babies grabbed Santa's beard and ripped it off. It was SO funny. Camrie came up to me later and said, "Mama, I know that isn't the REAL Santa because his beard came off." Too funny.

 

Jake

Mason

Jamie

Camrie

Jaelynn

Haylee

Hunter

Lexi

 

 CHRISTMAS BREAK

I think we spent most of Christmas break coloring, gluing, drawing, painting, cutting, just creating in general, and making forts of course. The kids made this fort in our basement family room. They ended up sleeping on that mattress almost the entire Christmas break. They had so much fun with it I just couldn't put it away.  Gymnastics, forts, reading area, pile on "so and so". lol. They loved it. Wish I had more pictures from Christmas break because the kids sure got creative. 

The creating/play room was covered with all sorts of decorations by the time Christmas got here.

Best fort EVER!

CHRISTMAS EVE

Our Christmas Eve tradition is to get together with the Holmes side of the family for a Christmas Eve dinner and to open Christmas Eve presents. We had it at our house in Stansbury and I made taco soup for dinner.  This year we read the Luke: 2 story as a family. It was nice. The kids listened as much as can be expected on such an exciting day.

Grandpa Holmes reading us the true Christmas story from Luke: 2.

Grandma Holmes

The brothers: Zach and Colby

Aunt Nae Nae helping the kids understand Luke: 2 a little better.

Lilly, Logan, Cam, Jamie, Abby

 CHRISTMAS DAY

On Christmas day we all wake up, open presents, play with presents for awhile, then we head to have breakfast with the Fail family. The Christmas breakfast was at Kris and Bill's and it was super yummy. Thanks to my mom who bought all of it and left it there for us to cook up.  We hung out there for awhile and visited with family. Everyone made it except Lisa who was sick at home, poor thing. Then in the afternoon we headed over to Zach and Nae's for dinner. They made a tasty roast and I made mashed potatoes to go with it.  It was a yummy dinner and a nice Christmas day.

This year for December we made a chain for each day that had a word on it that had something to do with Christmas so that each night before bed we could break the link off and talk about that thing. I think it helped the kids to remember the true meaning of Christmas. It was nice to hear more talk about Jesus then about Santa.  The kids seemed to be more genuine when they received their gifts as well. Jamie learned "the truth" this year, and I thought she'd be sad, but she was actually just full of questions and really excited to help with anything I'd let her help with. She said she was glad to know the truth.

Christmas morning. Jamie & Hunter were just playing in his room until we got up, then Jamie RAN downstairs to wake up Camrie. Merry Christmas!

The kids favorite toy of the day. Hunter got Lotso, Jamie got Pocahontas, and Cam got Merida.

Kind of a funny story.... Colby and I both got each other a set of pots and pans for Christmas. I guess we both know what we needed. We ended up keeping the ones I picked out that are sitting by Colby.

 NEW YEARS EVE

For New Years this year we just goofed off together. We had a few different plans made, but they all fell through, and we just ended up spending time with each other and it was so great. We played games, danced with Just Dance games on the Xbox, and laughed our heads off at each other when we replayed our videos from dancing, we made ginger bread houses, ate, and ate, and ate some more, and then ended the evening with half of a Pirates of the Caribbean movie (Jamie's choice). We gave kisses and hugs for our Happy New Year, then we jumped into bed. We were all beat. It was a wonderful night. I love my family.

These kids make me laugh. I'm so glad that they get along so well. I'm a very lucky mama.  It was unbelievable what great helpers they were all Christmas break, and how well they played together and kept each other busy.

They were laughing so hard it was so hilarious.

Daddy made some homemade sugar cookies. The kiddo's love them.

We made a Gingerbread house village on New Years Eve, and they were eaten before we could even say HAPPY NEW YEAR! hahaha

Finished product. They were so creative and did such a great job. We had one house left for Daddy to do when he got home from work, but the kids ate the left over candy. Little stinkers.

NEW YEARS DAY

Hunter was funny New Years day. He was wiped out from staying up late dancing on New Years Eve.