Last day before the break

 For the kids last half day of school before their Christmas break started they got to wear pj's to school.  I had gotten them pajama pants and pj's for Christmas Eve.  So I had them open the pants the night before so they could wear them to school the next day.  They were SO excited, (and so was I).  It's always fun to open a present before Christmas!!!  :)  I got to go and hang out with them at school too and help with the games they did all day before they got let out.  

 Burke has been into origami lately.  He has such patients as he folds these tiny pieces of paper and hooks them together.  I don't know how he does it!  It's pretty neat though.  So when he got home from school that day, this is what he wanted to do first.

Let the partying begin!

School Christmas Program and Party

I always enjoy going to see the kids sing the Christmas songs their classes prepared.  It's so cute!  After they sang they did class parties in their rooms.  I got to help with Kaiya's this year.  My friend Melissa brought gingerbread man cookies with all the fixin's to decorate them.  The kids loved doing that.  Then I had wrapped a few small toys for each child in her class.  There are 18 kids in her class.  I passed one out to each kid, they sat in a circle and I read them a Left Right story I found online.  It was really cute.  They got the hang of it after a few tires and had a lot of fun passing their presents left and right through out the story.  They had fun with their little prizes too.  What a fun day!  :)

 Kaiya's second grade teacher, Mrs.  Wilske.

Kaiya's darling cookie.


 Peter and Katelin even decorated a cookie.

 Oh, hahaha - I caught this girl teasing Kaiya with her sponge nose.  Kaiya was such a good sport about it.  It was too funny.

 Kaleb's class did Up On The House Top in sign language!  It was pretty cool.

Neighbor "treats"

This is what we put together for our friends this year.  We put a little note wishing them a "Healthy and Happy Holiday"!  I saw the idea on Pinterest.  Burke found these trays at Sam's club and shaped them into a triangle and then I arranged the snow, tree trunk, tree and ornaments.  Burke cut the little cups down to be the star and we filled them with ranch dip.  We had so many all over the table and I forgot to take a picture.  Kaleb got so into it and helped out a ton.  He got paper and wrote down the names of who we were bringing them too and even checked off the names as we dropped them off at each house.  All of the kids were so excited to deliver them.  They each went up together at every house.  We love doing this with them.  It is such a fun memory!  I was glad to hear a lot of people really liked this "treat" since they get so much sugar this time of year.  I was a bit worried, but really happy it was received well.  :)

Fun filled Saturday

Saturday morning we headed to McDonald's to meet Grandma and Grandpa Simmons for breakfast.  The kids loved it and had a lot of fun playing. 

 I love Kaiya's face in this one.  She's so much fun to tease.  She gives you just the expression you want.  Hahaha!

 Then we headed over to my mom's house for a Christmas party.

 We had yummy food, decorated cookies, played games and sang.  What could be more fun with a bunch of cuties like this!?!

 Boston decided to give me a CUTE smile!  So happy to capture it.  We all just LOVE him.

 I thought it would be fun if we went caroling with the kids to different rooms in the house.  We went and sang to Opa, he doesn't always feel so good with his MS, so we went to him.  I think he enjoyed their cute little voices.  Then we went to the kitchen and sang to Omi, she even dances along.  And we ended downstairs singing to the dads in the movie room - even interrupted a movie, but they enjoyed it too.

 Then we all headed out to see Scrooge.  These two cuties (Katelin and Kennedy) stayed with Omi and watched movies.

 Here we are waiting for the play to start.

 It's a neat set up at the Hale Center Theater.  We'd like to take the kids to see something else there sometime.  They really enjoy it and sit through it very well.

 Afterwards we all went out to the Golden Phoenix to eat.  It was delicious, as usual!  That was all us, taking up the whole wall of the restaurant.  Two Grandparents, 10 couples and a whopping 16 Grandkids.  SO COOL!

We really had a FUN FILLED weekend, for sure!

Temple Square

We decided to go and see the lights Friday night.  After we parked we walked past my dads work and realized he was still there!  So we stopped in to see him and then headed on to the food court to eat and meet Ryan and Tiff's families.

Kaiya decided to take a rest before we headed outside.  This is in the food court across from Temple Square.  It's pretty new, really nice.

This waterfall behind the M was a huge hit.

I thought these blue and green lights were awesome.

I LOVE to see the Temple!!!!

Tiffany and Ryan, 2 of my cute siblings.  :)

Erin and little Sally.  She was in her Santa outfit and I forgot to get a picture of her out of the bag.

Oakley, Katelin, Kaiya and Reagan..

Erin and Ryan.  Ryan decided to stand on the step to make himself even taller.  Hahaha!

Riley, Quentin and Kaleb.

The big nativity outside.  I always love watching this and seeing the big light go up into the sky for the star.

Me and my sweet/cute kids!  I REALLY love them.

Burke and I in our awesome hats.  Ha!  I think we have a picture of us with hats on every time we've been to see the lights.  I should find them all.  :)

Burke and the kids in front of the awesome light tree.  Love that thing!

And my favorite of all...family portrait in an ornament at the Joseph Smith  Memorial Building.  SWEET!

After the lights we headed back to Ryan and Erin's house.  We loved Erin's sweet gingerbread house!  Isn't it amazing??!!!

Primary Nativity

Our ward party was on Tuesday.  The Primary did the nativity and sang songs.  It was adorable.  Kaleb was Samuel the Lamenite.  He made a great one.  He stood up there on the stage while they all sang the song about him (Samuel the Lamenite).  SO cute.

 Katelin and Kaiya were angels.  Katelin said she was scared, but she still sang and did a great job!  Kaiya was behind kids and I could not see her at all.

 Katelin and Kaiya both went on the stage with all of the angels and sang.  It was such a sweet program.  The Primary presidency and music people did a great job getting it all put together.

The Nutcracker Ballet

Kaiya and I went to see the Moscow Nutcracker in Grand Junction on Monday.  We went with my friend Danielle and her girls and mom.  We went out to eat at the Olive Garden first, yum.  Then headed over to the Avalon Theater.  It is a pretty old place.  We were at the very top, but it wasn't too big of a place that we couldn't see well.  It was a different show than the one I've seen in Salt Lake, but still fun.  Kaiya loved it!  I really want to take her to the other one one of these years.  

This is the only picture I took of them dancing on the stage, since it didn't turn out so well.

Kaiya and Collette outside the Avalon Theater.

 We got to get all dressed up.  That was really fun.  Kaiya is growing up so much.  I even found some black clip-on earrings from my mom that I had Kaiya wear.  She was excited to wear them and kept saying she looks like a mom with them in.  :)  She got this pretty dress from Burke's mom for Christmas.  We let her open it early since she had a special occasion to wear it.  She looked beautiful!

 They loved posing with the program for some reason.  Hahaha!

 Me, Danielle and Chloe.

What a fun girls night!