Tis the season...

We had a busy yet fun Christmas. Melissa and Wes and their four children arrived from Illinois on Friday, Christmas eve. They brought a stow away in their van, my dad! We were grateful that PaPa was able to come out for Christmas, what a blessing (especially for my mom!) We went over Friday afternoon to my mom's house, and got busy cooking. We made gingerbread cookies, spritz cookies, and sugar cookies. My mom had already made a batch of chocolate swirl caramels, and we also whipped up a large batch of BBQ Chex mix. Brandon got into some goodies, we had left the sprinkles on the counter and he had dumped them out and was in the process of eating them. Silly boy.


Later that night, Kimball and Brandon got into their pjs and shared a bowl of icecream with their Papa. The kiddos watched a movie and the adults got in a good board game or two. My mom bought some new games, and Guesstures was one of them, great game.

When we got home from Mor-Mors and Papa's house that night, we set some cookies and milk out for Santa, and we also wrote the yearly Santa letter and left it by the milk and cookies. After the kids were in bed, Mike and I enjoyed eating the cookies and drinking the milk...hehe. The boys woke up and we had Egg Nog french toast, yummo! Following that, we had our annual Matusek Christmas Devotional. The boys were a bit restless during the singing, and scripture reading, but it is important to our family. Then came the boys favorite part, opening presents!


We joined up with extended family at Grandma Moore's house that night for dinner and presents. Here are my mom and dad enjoying the company while we opened gifts.
On Sunday night, the 26th, the whole crew had joined up at Mor-Mor's house to hang out. We had Katrina and Matt's 3 children, Melissa, Wes, and their four kids, me and Mike and our two boys, and of course my mom and dad. Here are the kids listening to Mor-Mor tell silly stories before movie time.
Comfy and cozy, ready to watch Despicable Me...
We joined up again at Mor-Mor's house, but this time the crowd got bigger, with Corey, Daymi and their three kids joining us! All the kids were excited to eat Norwegian Pancakes (now lovingly known as Mor-Mor's special pancakes.)
After the sugar high of breakfast, we gathered in the living room for... you guessed it, more presents:) Here is a good pic of all 12 grandkids (it will be 14 after me and Kayla give birth!)
My mom made a temple board, with the temple that we were sealed in and the date we were sealed and our names. It is beautiful, and I can't wait to hang it on our wall!!!!
I thought this was cute, Kelvin with his Star wars ship, Kaydien with his Halo toy, and Kimball with his transformers... all playing together!! Weston was sharing Kimball's transformers.

It was a wonderful Christmas, how blessed we are to have a big family that we are close to! We are grateful for our Savior, and feel blessed each year to celebrate his Birth. Hope that your Christmas was enjoyable and memorable!

Everthing in between, which is a lot right?

Here is my "I'm to tired to make individual posts for all events" post. So here is the space of time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, in a nutshell. We decorated the house and trimmed the tree. We have a special ornament for every year since we got married. We go out as a family and pick out an ornament together. This years ornament was a stuffed gingerbread man that we bought in West Yellowstone when we went there with Mike's parents and sister this past summer. There is a cute little shop there that sells Christmas decor year round, what a great store huh?

Kimball and Brandon had so much fun preparing for Christmas this year.
They got very excited at times, ok super excited...
Mike and I took some time out one Saturday night to ourselves (thanks to my mom for taking the boys!!) We made a scrumptious pasta meal together, and set the table for two... with candles, low lights, and romantic music, compliments of Frank Sinatra.
We were able to set up our camera on a box, and take some pics of our family for our annual Christmas card. This is the best pic we got, in my personal opinion.
My niece Abigail turned 2 years old on December 23rd, and we were invited to a little party for her. What a sweet girl she is, and doesn't she look darling all dressed up in her gifts from Mor-Mor and aunt Tiff?
Corey setting up Abigail's baby gear....
And Mike trying to help:)
It is so fun to see Mike with his boys, they are so close, and he loves them so much! These three have so much fun together. I snapped this pic a few days ago, and it is such a great pic, love it!
Next post: Christmas

Thanksgiving 2010

These last couple of weeks have been heaven, and it all started with Thanksgiving. It is such a blessing to spend time with family, even if we just get to speak with them for a few minutes at a large get-together. We are grateful for the friendships that we develop in these family relationships, my sister is one of my best friends. I love love my sister in-laws, Daymi, Mia, Alyssa, Chris, Katrina, and hopefully soon Kayla! My brothers rock, and my brother in-laws are just as awesome. More than that are my parents and grandparents, Mike's parents and grandmother. Each of them has done so much for us, and we are who we are because of them. Speaking of Grandparents, I love any pictures that I can snap of my boys with their great-grandpa, and this is no exception. It is a great pic!

Brandon was just chillin with Great Grandpa Moore at Thanksgiving. I talk all the time about what a crazy boy Brandon is, but with all that energy and mischief comes an equal amount of love and cuddliness. This is one of his favorite things to do, find someone that he loves and chill. His hugs are the best, and his kisses are the sweetest.

Our Thanksgiving was wonderful, we missed Mike's family in Florida immensely though. We had 2 beautiful dinners, one on Thanksgiving day in Idaho Falls with Grandma and Grandpa Moore.

On Friday my mom made another dinner at her house in Pocatello, and it was equally as enjoyable in Pocatello as it was in I.F. The girls had a fun time making ribbon christmas trees, a simple and fun craft. Here are our creations (Daymi made one too, but she and her family had already left Mor-Mor's house.)

Traditions, don't they warm your heart?!? One of my favorite days of the year is Gingerbread day at Grandma Moore's... simple the best! It is always the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Kimball didn't last long with his gingerbread housed, maybe 10 minutes tops... but he still enjoyed it. Here is his creation, and his handsome little grin!
I wasn't feeling creative at all, kind of nauseous though. So, I quickly threw lots of candy on mine without any thought, so I could warm up some soup and eat. A week or so after we had made the houses, Kimball came up to me and said "Mom, you forgot to put a window and a door on your house." Yes Kimball, I did... you are sweet to notice.
Rebekah's creative juices were sure flowing, and so were Amy's and all my other families as well. The green themed house is Rebekah's, so pretty huh! And Amy's is right next to it on the right. You can't see it, but she wrote her name in licorice candy on the other side of the roof, and it looked way cute. The kids loved looking at the Ginger village of houses.