Christmas Letter

Reflecting on 2011


January: Kendra's last semester in pre-school; Mark and Kendra sang at church


February: 9 year anniversary, Yeah!

March: Kristi attended 3 baby showers for sisters in our ward; and she discovered a kidney stone; we built a grow-box, but the garden was a total failure :-(


April: Pics with the Easter bunny; Kristi's Easter feast with our neighbors


May: Disneyland; Mark's birthday


June: Kendra turned 5; Megan turned 2; Mark flew to CA for a buddy's wedding; Kristi went backpacking with the MiaMaids from church; Mark goes camping with Kendra (not over-night)


July: Mark's family reunion, Kristi's family reunion (same trip!)


August: Galloping Grace (free horse riding) for the girls; Kendra began Kindergarten (we love her teacher, Mrs. Clink!)


September: Megan began attending a music class; Mark had a great idea of having bees in our backyard...until he was stung


October: School carnival; Halloween


November: Kristi's birthday; Thanksgiving with Mark's parents in St. George, UT


December: Christmas with Kristi's parents in Oregon

We have so much to be thankful for. It's nice to reflect on the year and remember the experiences. It's especially nice to reflect on the times with friends from this and years past. We are thankful for our family, both immediate and extended. We are especially grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Jingle Bells

Megan loves to sing Christmas songs. My favorite is when she does this in the store.

Gingerbread Houses

Mark's family has a tradition of doing graham cracker houses at Christmas time. We invited our neighbors over to do it with us.

She made a train.

This is our neighbor's little boy - he's two.

Megan's squish face and the house she made.


Our neighbor made a manger.

Mark's castle.

Kendra's house.

Mine looks so awesome!

Letter To Santa

I saw a blog where a mom did a "letter to santa" party for her girls. I wanted to do one too! But I did it for my girls and the neighbors. First they wrote a letter to santa, and then they decorated gingerbread cookies and drank hot cocoa.

Megan had a hayday with the candy - I eventually moved it from her grasp.

Table setting - thankyou to all those creative bloggers!

Snow Day

When it snows in Albuquerque it usually melts within a few hours. For that reason we take advantage of it while we can!

This is a ton of snow for us to get - especially in early December. Kendra's school was cancelled so we had loads of fun.

Santa

Why are my children scared of Santa? I told Kendra she could eat her candy cane that Santa handed to each kid if she'd just go up there. Megan began to cry when Santa talked to her so he just focused on Kendra after that.

We found Santa at the festival of trees. The line was super short with only a few kids ahead of us.

I was surprised that Kendra even talked to Santa because she did not want to see him. The awful things I force my children to do!

Now she knows Santa is nice so perhaps next year I'll get a pic of her on his lap.

Smarty Pants

Kendra received an award today for being "proficient". Basically she is passing Kindergarten. She was VERY excited to get an award and ran to me and hugged me tightly after it was done. I was glad I went.

It's official...I hate my camera. It has problems and it wouldn't take a picture on her way up. I took like 10 seconds before it took a picture. Oh well. Her teacher is the one on the very left and next to her is the assistant principal.

Kendra all happy showing her award.


The two girls next to Kendra are the other ones that received the proficient award. They compete with eachother on counting and reading. Kendra is the quiet competitor her teacher told us.

Veterans Day

We spent Veterans Day making sugar cookies. It was very messy, but the girls had fun. When Kendra has a day off of school it's a special day so we do something fun together.

Megan

I tried to secretly videotape Megan as her elephant and dolphin talked to eachother. This is what happened:

Galloping Grace Pumpkin Patch

A lizard ran into our house and Mark was able to catch it. The girls got to pet it. Life is good.

A couple of weeks before Halloween Mark went shooting with his buddies. My friend and I went to a free pumpkin farm while they were gone. It was run by a non-profit organization. The way the make money is if you buy a pumpkin from them.

They got their faces painted like butterflies.
The girls and their friend posing with their pumpkins.

A hay bale maze - like a corn maze - but on a smaller scale.

"mommy push me" said in a whiny voice.

Megan on her tractor.

Kendra and her friend.

Megan playing with the duckies on one end...

Kendra sending them down on the other.

Halloween

Kendra's school had a carnival a couple of weeks before Halloween. The only thing the girls wanted to do was get their hair painted.

Mark's pumpkin that he spent a great deal of time on and was really proud of. Too bad it was moldy in a couple of days!

The girls' costumes. I take pride in making a costume for them each year.

We had a Halloween party at our house this year and invited some friends, neighbors, and people from Kendra's bus stop.
Here are some pics:

That's George our nerdy mummy.


I made a bunch of games for the kids to play but am most proud of this one.

Pumpking Bowling.

Bat theme:

We set up a bunch of tables and chairs in our garage. I just loved how Megan picked her chair and sat there...and waited.

Kitty

We play this game called, "what animal am I?" We take turns being an animal while everyone else tries to guess which animal we are. Megan is hilarious. Everytime she acts like an animal we say, "are you a kitty?" And everytime she begins to meow. It doesn't matter what animal she intends to be, she always ends up being a kitty...until yesterday. She was a horse.