Yew Years

Friday was Temple Day

We went to the Logan Temple and then ate at the Blue Bird.

It's very comforting to know that we can all gather at the temple.  A true blessing.

When we have a large group for New Years Eve we rent out the church and party til we drop:)    

Volleyball

  

Dodge Ball 

Balloon Relay Races

Basketball

Apparently Targhee was feeling pretty good about his basketball skills. 

And of course Dance Parties!

Oh dear!  Another Snow White dress:)

We had the Wii set up with the projector in one room and another projector for movies in another room.

You know it's a true party when you walk in to your mom groovin to "California Girls":)

And don't forget the mounds and mounds of FOOD!!!

Sadly I didn't get a picture of the bar mitzvah, but it truly is a sight to behold.

Cousin love:)

The little ones that can't stay up that late get booted to their very own private room to snooze the night away while the older ones (who can but probably shouldn't stay up that late:) get booted to a movie in hopes that they will fall asleep.  

We play a grueling round of jeopardy, written by my brother-in-law, and when the clock finally strikes 12:00am we shout a slightly lame "HAPPY NEW YEAR!" before we start the mad rush of cleaning up:) 

I love it when my family comes to town!!

Temple Square

We took an outing to Temple Square via the Frontrunner.

It was my first excursion on this particular public transit and overall it was a pretty enjoyable ride. 

Was it less expensive than getting in the car and driving there?... No.  Was it less hassle?... No.  Was it faster?...No.

It was an adventure that I got to share with my family and that is always fun:)

All of us waiting at the station.

Leilani stayed in her stroller for approximately 2.4 seconds and then I chased her around the grounds the rest of the night. 

It was a perfect time to go.  The weather was hardly even cold, so I could let her run all she wanted without feeling miserable (aside from the difficulty of walking after our ice skating excursion the night before).

This is her looking at the temple.

She felt a need for some reverence and I took advantage of this rare quiet moment as I snuggled close to her and we sang "I love to see the Temple."

It was very sweet.

I'm quite pleased by my temple photography, if I do say so myself:)

We ate at the Lion House which was way too crowed and took way to long to get through the line.  It wasn't until we all sat down that we realized we had less than 30 minutes to make our train or we would have to wait another hour for the next one.

We stuffed our faces and raced to the trax only to find that indeed we had missed our train.

SOO what does a large family do to keep busy for an hour?

Play silly games of course.

Such as...

What's in your purse?

Objective: to find something in your purse that no one else has

Camera Fight Club

Objective: take the most ridiculous punching face action photo

(sadly this was not on my camera or it would have been quite the viewing entertainment)

The children...well they ran a muck through the train until other passengers got up to find a more peaceful place to ride...sorry fellow riders.

So we got home much later than we had planned but it was a fun excursion all the same.

Ice Skating

Nothing much cuter than a little munchkin out their strutting her stuff on the ice:)

She didn't fall, she just wanted to play with the ice:)

Oh and p.s. apparently ice skates and high heels have the same effect on a pregnant lady.

I couldn't walk the next day.

Darn sciatic.

I guess it doesn't help that I was leaning over for an hour trying to hold up 35lbs on a sheet of ice - lol.  But it really was a lot of fun and Leilani loved it.

We'll have to go back when Dad can go;)



Christmas Day

What a great day!

We woke up to a room STUFFED with things from Santa.

(we had 13 kids at our house that morning)

Leilani, ironically enough, slept until Targhee had to actually wake her up or we'd be late for church:)

I really liked having Christmas on Sunday.  I felt like it gave Christmas the correct reverence of being on the sabbath and going to church.  It was a perfect reminder of why we celebrate.

After Sacrament Meeting we opened gifts from the family.

The living room was not big enough for everyone to sit in, so we made an assembly line from the tree to the game room and sorted presents into families out there:)

Leilani was happy to wear her Christmas "pretty dress" while we opened presents and even sneered at this little sweater outfit until...

she opened THIS!

She immediately wanted to rip off the red dress and put on the snow white.

My favorite part is that as soon as she got it on she announced, "I need an apple!"

and she ate the ENTIRE thing!  Core and all.  You go girl:)

We then went to Gramma and Grampa Fuzzy's (Targhee's parents) for lunch.

Leilani was not about to give up her Snow White dress.

(is it bad that I have to admit that she wore it for two whole days, including sleeping...I had to hide it from her during a temper tantrum when I had to take it off)

In a snow globe trance

Somebody knows about little girls and dress ups:)

Thank you Aunt Nana!!

I couldn't get her to wear a shirt:)


Merry Christmas!!