Claire's Christmas Performance

Claire had her annual Christmas singing program with Mrs. Karen, and it was absolutely the most adorable thing we saw all season! Claire is so secretive about the songs she learns each week - she never tells me what she works on - so it's always so fun for me to see how well she has learned both the words and actions to all of her songs. She sure is a cute little singer!

I'm sad my video's won't upload, so the pictures will have to do.

Of course Claire has her finger up her nose.

After Claire's performance, we went to Cabela's for our annual Christmas picture with Santa. Cabela's is the best kept secret for Santa pictures. It's free, and they give you a candy cane. So fun! We were thrilled for Santa to be back this year. He was still behind a plexiglass window, but who cares?! He was back!

He was surprised to hear that both of our girls only wanted 1 thing. He said most kids have a list a mile long. Sof asked for an L.O.L Doll, and Claire wanted a Kitty with 4 batteries. She was very specific.

Grand America

 Grand America was letting people come tour their hotel and see the giant gingerbread house again. Yippee! Last year only visitors to the hotel could view the Christmas windows, so I was so happy to be able to go again. I'm not sure why I love the grandeur of this particular hotel so much, but I simpl do! 

Because it's me, I failed to get pics of the windows, but know they were amazing and I was the only one who looked at and read them. Greg and the girls blazed through them, too busy running around the enormous halls and oogling all of the people dressed fancy for dinner parties.

December Fun

 December was a fun-filled month for us! We made 2 separate trips to Cedar City after Thanksgiving for various reasons, and tried to soak in as much Christmas joy as we could, but found it hard to find nights/weekends to accomodate everything we wanted to see and do. But, we did our best and I think made some fun memories. There is something so special about December and the Spirit of Christ we feel, when we allow it into our lives.

Claire picked up some kind of sickness at Thanksgiving and had a hard time shaking it. It knocked her flat (literally). She took a nap 3 days in a row, which is not like her at all! I found the poor girl curled up in the sunshine of my room with Mittens. They had a good nap together.

Eating a picnic lunch at the park on the last sunny day of the year. A storm hit us good the next day.

We [finally] woke up to Snow! You better believe we were out there playing in it as soon as we could get our snowpants on after breakfast!

What you don't see is me in Greg's snowpants, stretched to the max, and still unable to button them up. Oh well! The things we do for our children :).

If only this cat knew (and fully appreciated) how much he is loved.

Our Christmas cards for 2021. I kind of love them.

Pajama Day at Preschool, and the cutest reindeer ever!

We started a fun little tradition this year. We did a "Sisters Night" where we went out to eat and then divided and conquered at a local store so the girls could each pick out a Christmas gift for each other. It was a lot of fun.

Claire was in her happy place. We love Pizza Pie Cafe.

Playing in the snow one night.

We got passes to Get Air in Kaysville, thanks to Mark and Kathy, and we have loved being able to go jump whenever we want!

They got rid of the Dodgeball court and filled it completely full of inflateables. So fun!

Where's Claire?

This cat - so spoiled and onry!

Thanksgiving in Cedar City

 We headed South for Thanksgiving this year. It was super low-key and so much fun. 

I of course didn't get any pictures of the actual meal or the people who were there. It was our little family, my parents/Shelby, Tiff/Jake and their kids, who came in from Disneyland, My cute Grandma, cousin Chanel and her boy Oleon. Nothing super fancy, but it was fun socializing and enjoying time together while the kids ran crazy with their cousins. Oh, and the food was amazing!

The cutest turkey I've ever seen!

My Mom tried on Kobe's helmet from Disneyland. It was hilarious!

Claire loved the chocolate pie. I'm pretty sure she had the most slices out of everyone.

Cedar has created a little mountain biking course for kids and it was so fun! Definitely a must-do thing everytime we visit.

Just to prove I was there.

Sof is determined to be a mountain biker, just like her Daddy.

Greg was able to sneak in a ride ... which took him super South of town. He had to ride all the way back. His poor leggies!

Our cute Thankful Tree! The girls needed to learn a lesson on what it means to be grateful (they're pretty entitled most days), so every night during the month of November we would all write down one thing we were grateful for that day. It ended up being super cute and I'm pretty sure we'll do it every year now.

One Last Hurrah

 Mark & Kathy received their mission calls to the Syracuse, NY mission and were scheduled to leave after Thanksgiving. All of the Spjute's came to town for their Farewell and we had a fun weekend together.

We were able to have dinner with all of the adults. It was delicious!

We started the morning off with breakfast at Mark & Kathy's, then headed to the Get Air trampoline park in Kaysville to have fun with cousins.

We had fun but had to leave early to get to Sof's dance performance on time. I enrolled her in a Musical Theatre class and it was cute to watch. She did great!

We had a few hours to kill before a big Spjute/Bingham photo shoot that was organized. The pictures actually turned out really cute and the kids loved running around together. 

I kind of love this picture!

The girls were loving it too!

Sof taking the wheel!

That night we walked around and saw some Christmas lights. They were beautiful!

The next day (Sunday) was Mark & Kathy's farewell. Both did amazing and we all gathered back at their house. The highlight of the day was finding Claire and Henry hiding in the pantry, binging on cinnamon rolls. This picture is here courtesy of Toby.