Big Things.

Actually, this picture is a few weeks old, we broke ground on our new house THIS WEEK. Wednesday, January 11th was the big day... and now our basement is already half way dug, and will be totally dug by saturday. Big exciting hole in the ground pictures to come!!

Good-bye

Who says this is too many sprinkles for 1 cookie?

December and all its yummy-ness is over... and now, I've said GOOD-BYE to the wonderful over-indulgence of Christmas. Like every one else in the world, the new year means we have re-comitted to exercising and LOSING WEIGHT. Back in the saddle again.

(I hate this saddle)

Last Christmas post...

The Blake Family Christmas Program

has been at my house the last few years.

I thought we would have it outside on the stage. We got 60 chairs from the church to set up... but the grass was too wet from all the rain, so we did it inside.

I didn't think there'd be enough room for 60 people inside, but it worked out even better in our entry way/living room.

Chairs in Place...

Children getting ready.

"Backstage" (aka, the family room) all the great grand children got in their costumes for the Nativity Play...

Lily was SO excited to be an angel this year. (She is my angel) And look how cute Avery is next to her too.

Audience getting in their seats for the program.

These are MY grandparents & my dad below.

♥My dad always has a baby on his lap♥

Aunt Jeni Narrating

And of course, Uncle Gordon on photography

The Nativity

Bekah playing piano in the background while the children act out the events leading up to the Birth of Jesus. Bekah played songs by memory that fit each scene, she is amazing. The sweet piano in the background really set the mood, it made me cry. Favorite moment of December!

Talent Show

After the nativity play, there is a talent show, its tradition.

{I am still trying to get the video of my kids talent to upload}

Christmas Carols

After the talent show, my aunt Marcia passes out the page of lyrics (18 songs), and my Uncle Ron (and this year Karen too) play the guitar while we sing Christmas carols... all 18 songs! I love it. There is nothing neater then singing those songs and looking around the room at all these people I love and all the kids dancing and being silly.

I ♥ My Family!!

And if you look really close below to the left, you can see that my sister Chrissy brought her new boyfriend this year... oooo la la

Santa's Lap

At our ward Christmas breakfast this year, Santa came, and some wonderful person took great pictures of all the kids on Santa's lap.

**Sophie had NO desire to sit on Santa's lap this year, ha ha.

December

Since I had to poster paint a sign for Scout Pack Meeting...

you know I'm going to hang it in my entry way as well.

Besides Christmas decorations at our house... my other favorite thing about December is Christmas Programs with my kids. Logan's 3rd grade put on a "Christmas round the World" concert. I was so impressed. The whole family went. Any surprise that I of course cried.

Since we're talking about Logan, lets talk about my FAVORITE Christmas decoration this year... Logan came downstairs early in December with this SANTA he made from LEGOS. This was not from a kit, but just what he came up with. I LOVED it!! Check out that Santa not only has his red suit lined in white fur, but he even has a thin black belt with a BELT BUCKLE.

HA HA!!

PS) And just for the record... you know my FAVORITE Christmas tree ornaments are the blessed homemade ones, right? What is UP with people and their fancy trees?

12 Kind Days

This year we were surprised to find on Dec 12th a gift on our front door step with a tag that started, "On the FIRST day of Christmas my true love gave to me..." and the giver was anonymous.

I couldn't believe someone was embarking on such a kind/time consuming thing for our family! It made me cry. So so kind. It was a beautiful Christmas Cookie Jar.

Over the next eleven days our sweet Secret Santa left us something every day, never forgetting us once. Every day I would hear my kids saying to each other, "Has the gift come yet today?" -OR- "I wonder what is coming today!!". A few times it came later in the evening and the kids couldn't go to sleep, but waited upstairs until they heard the door... then they all came running down to get it. It was such a sweet thing for someone to do for us. We received all kinds of neat things like stuffed animals, bells, treats, jump ropes, homemade crayons shaped like ornaments, Reindeer ears for everyone in our family AND homemade Christmas ball ornaments for each person with their name hand painted on them. I cried. My heart was touched so many times at all of the effort and time our Secret Santa put in to the gifts.

On the 12th Day our anonymous "True Love" showed up at our house dressed as SANTA! ha ha ha. To our surprise, it was our FIFTEEN year old neighbor Katy!!!! Can you believe someone who was 15 would spend so much time doing that for us?? It was the SWEETEST thing ever! I will always love her for it. I loved her already. (It was especially funny because she is always dressing up crazy, doing silly stuff out front and we laugh and honk at her, or she comes over in costume... then she came dressed as Santa)

We will always remember Miss Katy Parkerson.

It was such a neat experience that we decided as a family to do it for someone else NEXT year. We can't wait!!

A Skinky Christmas

~~CHRISTMAS MORNING~~

Christmas morning is so exhausting to get ready for... but is so neat with so many kids.

Most the kids got their exciting gift from Santa... Ashlin got a Droid Tablet, Logan got a 3 DS, Lily got a bike, Sophie got this big castle tent, Emma got pink glitter Toms & fancy jeans... and poor Dallin just got a couple clothes items he didn't necessarily care about.

After all the santa gifts were opened... Dallin was pretty good at hiding the disappointment. He had been begging for a snake all month. Then I told the kids to find all the gifts from mom and dad under the tree and pass them out. Dallin did most of the passing out of gifts and I was inwardly cracking up as he was trying to figure out why everyone else was getting LOTS more gifts... he kept finding gifts for everyone but him. After all the gifts were passed out, leaving Dallin with only 1, I nonchalantly said "Oh I think we forgot to put one of Dallin's gifts out".

Then Bruce and Ashlin left and carried down the stairs A HUGE reptile aquarium/cage thing... when Dallin saw it coming down the stairs he got so excited that he laid on his stomach, face down in the carpet, and started squealing and kicking his feet. ha ha. It was so funny.

Dallin got a "Blue Tongued Skink" for Christmas from Bruce and I.

He had seen it at a reptile expo in November.

Dallin has been begging for some kind of lizard or snake for years.

This year, even though we think its weird, we caved in.

(And these babies are not cheap.)

We were also so honored that MY grandparents came to our house for Christmas dinner. (Along with my sister Chrissy and my parents)

Dallin was holding his skink showing my grandparents... after like 30 minutes at our house my grandpa started asking Dallin all kinds of weird questions about how the skink moves, and how often it moves. Then he asked if it took batteries. Everyone laughed... he hadn't realized it was REAL.

Then they both held it.

I am sure this picture will mean a lot to Dallin some day...

His great-grandparents, him and his blue tongued skink.

PS- We will also always remember what a "Chicken-Bird" Christmas this was for Sophie. We think Santa had a great time shopping for crazy chicken items on Amazon. She is still so enamored by chickens... so for Christmas she got:

a farm set with chickens, a couple chicken stuffed animals, a chicken game, a chicken book, a baby doll wearing a chicken costume (from her Aunt Chrissy, SO cute) and this so funny rubber chicken purse:

Ha Ha

We think Santa had the most fun shopping for Sophie.