Zoolights

The Hogle Zoo decorates for Christmas - who knew? 
Colby and I thought it would be fun to take the kids and check it out.  Mike, Emily and Gavin came and froze with us.  Besides being cold, the only other downside was that it was dark and you couldn't really see the animals.  I think next time we'd go an hour earlier to check out the animals but, other than that everyone thought it was great.

They even had Santa and two of his reindeer.

All of the tigers were awake and prowling... it was a little creepy, but definately my favorite part.

Combined Family Christmas Party

Colby and I thought it would be fun to try and throw a Christmas Party with both of our families....it was fun, but it was also A LOT of work.  Colby didn't have a single Christmas decoration in his house... you can't have a party without decorations, so we decorated, organized, cooked and voila - a Christmas Party was born!  We ate, played games, had a white elephant exchange and the kids decorated sugar cookies - pretty eventful for our first go at it.  Thanks everyone for coming and supporting us - even if it did seem a little odd.

The aftermath...

Jaxon has so many fun new toys to play with.

His favorite new toys are his Bakugan Dragonoid and his stomping dinosaurs.

Kyah has a new chest filled with princess dress up clothes.

She also loves to carry around her new Littlest Pet Shop animals.

Both kids received hand made quilts from their Grandma Kristi and lots of clothes (they just keep growing). Harley and I were just grateful to get to watch their excitement. We were also grateful for Harley's new video games and my digital picture frame and camera.

What a Christmas!! It was fun to

stay up late and play games, hang out with the families and eat lots of good food.

I am thankful for this time of year and for the giving spirit. I am thankful to celebrate the Savior of the World, Jesus Christ, not only for his birth, but for his life, his perfect example and the greatest gift of love - the atonement.

T'was the night before Christmas....

So we made and decorated sugar cookies. We hung our stockings from the fireplace with care and we spent the night at Harley's parents and stayed up causing chaos until all hours of the morning.

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Christmas is coming...

These are SUPER cute hats and would make great Christmas gifts - I'm just sayin'. The gal that makes these hats recently found out she has cancer and is making them to try and supplement her income while she goes through treatment. A worth cause and a great gift.

Perfect!