December

December sure came quickly! I decided to put this garland on top of our cabinets this year instead of our stair railing with was a great choice until i took a piece of "tape" off and realized that it was in fact snake skin!!!  That was NOT a welcome surprise but it did make for some great laughs! I still don't like to think of the logistics of how a snake got into the box with the garland in our garage...

Stylin with her baby

Christmas mean sugar cookies! The kids loved to do the rolling themself.



Grancy came for a visit and we went to do some shopping, we had to get reese this chicken balloon to walk with!

It was so dang cute



I enjoyed seeing my mother walking it as well haha

Then we napped to Polar Express

We got togeher to decorate the cookies we made at home...there are so many kids between shelley, katie and i now that we had to do different shifts with the kids to try and keep the level of chaos to a minimum!



Braden received and award at school, we are so proud of him!


Got some hail and the boys rushed out barefoot to try and catch some



Katie threw her annual caroling party and the spirit of Christmas finally hit me!

Christmas piano recital! Riley is not liking piano lately but we are making her stick with it! she does really well when she tries and i hope she starts to enjoy it soon.


Decorating the tree as a family is of course a "must" as is the tin of popcorn we enjoyed while we did it.




Pajama day at school!

Braden has been asking to learn to sew since last christmas when riley learned to make rice packs for her friends as a christmas gift.  Braden gives things to people to show his love.  It can be a picture he drew, to one of his treasures to a dandelion.  He really wanted to make rice packs to give to 5 of his buddies for christmas.  He did really well on the sewing machine and loved it! He picked out the fabric special for each friend and even wrapped them up by himself.  He was so excited to give them to each friend (thomas, noah, anthony, xander and brady)

Josh gave braden his old beanie and braden loves is, i think he looks pretty handsome here!

After the kids were in bed, this is what the house looked light

sisters at rileys winter performance

Max falls asleep like this often, piles of books in his bed!

Josh took me and the kids for a day of dirt bike riding...the kids had a BLAST! Max was even big enough to drive the quad by himself after a few loops around with josh

On the weekend of my Grandma's birthday my Aunt hosted a "Celebration of Life" for her. It was really nice to see all the people who love my grandma come together and talk about her.  My aunt bought these dog and cat treats for people to take and give away in honor of my grandma and her love for animals.

Riley and Braden were invited for sleep overs one night so josh and i took the two littles to skytown trampoline park for some fun! Max is still too young to ride this bull but they let him take a picture on it!

Reese LOVED the free jump area!

Easton, Luke and Braden

Another night we had Rawson and RT over and Riley spent the night at Romi's house.  They had so much fun playin mario kart toghether

Things i didn't want to forget from this month:

-Reese likes to pick out her own outfits, she even told josh "I don't like that outfit", picked a different one and then said "I need a jacket" and pointed to the closet haha

-Max says "seriously" and it is just the cutest thing.  "Do you seriously like this movie?"

-Max has been very cute lately and very well behaved, he used to be so wild and difficult and hard to enjoy.  lately he has been a very easy child, still hyper but not as much, he does what we ask with out whining.  Josh and i are really just enjoying being around him a lot lately!
-Max tells me throughout the day, every day, several times a day that he loves me.  Just a simple "I love you mom".  I'm not sure what sparks it but i sure LOVE it and NEED it. such a sweet boy.