Hailey's Kindergarten Christmas Program

On Decmber 15th, Hailey's kindergarten class had their Christmas Program.  We were lucky enough to have Aunt Afton, Uncle Bubby, and Uncle Taylor all come down to see her program.  Her daddy also took the morning off of work so that he could be there.  We had quite the group to support her.  She was very nervous, but did a great job.

She knew we were all coming, but was so excited when she saw us finally walk through the door.

She was so funny, she was always looking around.

She was really good and sang all the songs and did all of the actions (when she wasn't waving at us, which she spent at least 50% of the time doing).

Her little class was so darling and I loved watching her along with the rest of them.

And of course we had to include some video of some of the songs.  Here's the first ...

And the second.  You can tell how excited they were to ring those jingle bells!

And this is her turn with the microphone to tell the audience what she asked Santa for for someone else.  The teacher explained that they were talking about the joys of giving, not just receiving.  So they each chose something to ask for for someone else.  She said she wished for a kitty for her cousin Branson - so cute!

I have been looking forward to this program for a while and was so excited to go and see her.  She was darling and so happy to have everyone there to see her. 

This is just the first of many programs we'll be able to see of hers and we can't wait until the next one comes along.  Way to go Hailey, you were darling and we are really proud of you!

Downs Family Christmas Party

A little over a week ago, we drove up to Logan for a family party with my Dad's side of the family.  We always have a great time and even though it's a far drive, it's definitely worth it! 

This year a few of my cousins put together a little rendition of the Christmas Story with all of the grandkids.  It was so much fun to watch!

Hailey was thrilled to be an angel, she was the angel that visited Mary to tell her that she would be Jesus' mother.



Zach was so excited to be Joseph.  He took his role very seriously - taking care of Mary and Baby Jesus is a big responsibility!  Isn't Kase cute as Baby Jesus?

This is the scene where the angels visit the shepherds and tell them to find the baby.

And here's a picture of all the actors.  Aren't they cute?  Tate was selected to be a sheep, but he had a hard time with everything going on, so he stayed in the audience with us, but he was a sheep in spirit!

We also took a big group picture for Landon and Jamie who are in Virginia and couldn't make it.  They are going through some tough trials and we wanted to send them our love!

And what would be a family get together without a silly picture?  The kids think this is great!



Yes, we had a very fun night.  Thanks to Shauna and family for a very fun evening!

No More Curly Hair (sniff sniff!)

Yes, the curly hair is gone.  And it's all my fault.  Before you have crazy ideas start racing through your head, I had better tell you that it was just Tate's first haircut, nothing sinister.  But even though it was needed, I was still so sad to cut off all those cute curly baby locks!

Here are a couple of before pictures:

Look how long and curly it was!  Yes, it was getting too long, so it was time!

At first, he didn't quite know what was going on, although he was a little resistant.  He did pause once or twice to say "cheese" for the camera though.

Once we got going a bit, the major problem was just him wiggling all over the place.  I can't tell you how many times I would get a section ready to cut only to have him wiggle at the last minute and not cut anything!

Towards the end, he got a little fussy and was ready to be done.  He kept begging for his Dad to pick him up and hold him to get away from the crazy lady with the scissors.

Although it was a little crazy and there were a few tears, the end product did look pretty good.

I wasn't originally going to cut it so short, but after seeing what a crazy process it was going to be, we decided to cut it short and then maybe let it grow out a bit.  Thus preventing another haircutting episode for a while!

It looks so much different!  In fact, it really made him look quite grown up.  All those curly locks really made him look like a little baby, now he looks like a little boy!

Yes, toward the end, it got a bit difficult, the little pouty lip was coming out quite often.

We definitely were ALL ready to be done!

Luckily after we got him bathed and calmed down a bit, he was fine.  And I have to admit that although I was mourning the loss of his curly locks, he did look really good!

A Fascination with School Buses!

We live in a neighborhood farily close to a school, so our kids don't need to ride a bus to get there every day. And the kids that go to the local junior high and high school get on around the corner and at the end of the next street, so we don't ever see those school buses either.

But, luckily for us, there is a boy across the street that goes to a special needs school, so there is a bus that comes by to pick him up and drop him off every school day.

Now why would that be lucky? Because we have a little boy in our house that LOVES buses! Every morning when I hear the bus round the corner, I try to let Tate know. He runs as fast as his little legs can go into the front room to see the bus. HE LOVES IT!

What's coming around the corner???

Why it's the bus!

He loves to stand and stare at it while they wait for their passenger.

And of course, we're all listening after school gets out for the bus to come back to drop off it's passenger across the street!

Nothing like a bus to watch and a sippy cup of milk to drink - does it get any better?

Not only do we love when the bus comes into our neighborhood, but whenever we are driving around town and see a school bus, Tate gets so excited. Zach and Hailey are constantly on the lookout for a school bus to point out and Tate can spot them from a mile away it seems!

I had forgotten all about this, but as we were going to the pumpkin patch back in October, we drove over a freeway overpass and what did we encounter? Why, a parking area for the local buses! You can imagine Tate's excitement!

We just had to pull into the adjoining parking lot to get a closer view of all those buses!

Tate could not take his eyes off of them.  It was so cute and we all loved watching his excitement!

 
Yes, we love buses at our house.  It's fun to watch the fascination that Tate has with them.  You just never know what little ones will love!

Wolf! Wolf!

Yep, that's right - we have a wolf in the house!  Not just any wolf, but a cub scout who has received his wolf achievement! 

Zach has been working really hard on all of the requirements to get this award and the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, received it a pack meeting.  I was so proud of him and so happy to stand up there with my big boy! (I really didn't have my eyes closed during the ceremony, Jeremiah just happened to snap the picture during a blink!)

Here he is pinning the mother's pin on me.  My shirt was a little thick, so I had to help him out a bit.  I missed the pack meeting where he go his bobcat (Tate wasn't feeling well), so I was really happy to be there this time!

 And of course here's a picture of our cub scout.

Great job Zach, we are all so very proud of you!  Keep up the good work!

Halloween Festivities

I downloaded these pictures forever ago and they got stuck in a random folder and I just stumbled onto them and realized I never blogged about our Halloween Fun Day!  So even though it's over a month late, here were all the fun activities we did!

We started out at the pumpkin patch, a tradition we do every year!  We love Packs Pumpkin Patch in Farmington, we go there every year.  The kids absolutely love the little hay maze they have!

Tate was still a bit too young to run around, so we let him just sit in the stroller and watch the kids.  He wasn't sure what was going on, but he was more than entertained watching all the kids.

Hailey and Branson are best buddies and usually run around together, most of the time holding hands.  It's so fun to watch them play together!  Jocelyn and Mylee each took turns running around with Hailey too, so many fun cousins to play with, Hailey was in heaven!

Zach loved running around the hay maze and trying to keep away from Hailey - for some reason, that's the funniest thing to him.  He did pause for a minute though so I could take his picture.

Once they had their fill of the hay maze, it was off to chose the PERFECT pumpkin to take home.

It took a while and a lot of looking to find that perfect one!

After pushing Tate around in his stroller, I realized we weren't going to be able to make it much further, so his Daddy graciously pulled him around in the pumpkin wagon - Tate absolutely loved it!

Things got even more exciting when kids started putting their pumpkins in the wagon with him.  He thought that was so neat and couldn't stop looking at or touching them!

The kids came back from their pumpkin hunting and thought Tate was so cute sitting in the wagon, so we grabbed a quick picture of all 3 of them.

Of course, we had to grab a quick family picture too!

After everyone had their pumpkin, we headed back to the hay maze and then got a quick picture with Nana and Papa.  Tate was not cooperating - he was more interested in the pumpkins than the camera!

They had this little area with a bunch of huge pumpkins and I thought it would be fun to get a picture with all the grandkids sitting on a pumpkin - none of my pictures turned out that fabulous, but it was cute anyway.

This one was by far my favorite picture of the whole day!  I just love these three kids!

After we left the pumpkin patch, we headed back to Nana and Papa's house for some more fun!  The first order of business was to make some masks.  Here's Hailey in her cat mask.

And Zach in his mummy mask.

Tate also had a mummy mask, but he was more interested in playing with grandpa's sprinkler tools and box than wearing his mask.  He was hilarious, he played with these for over an hour.

Libby played with some toys and practiced walking around.  She was on the verge of walking and was so cute - especially those shoes, how darling are those?

After the masks were done, the next order of business to was to get painting their pumpkins.  Hailey of course chose pink.

Zach started off with yellow.

Since there was NO WAY I was going to let Tate paint his pumpkin, we found some plastic face items that you could just push into his and Libby's pumpkins.  He seemed fine with that since he was more interested in the sprinkler stuff.  But I did get a quick picture of him with his finished pumpkin.

After that the kids had a blast playing.  A little bit later, we had dinner, and then was the final activity - trick-or-treating at Nana and Papa's house.  This is really a fun tradition and kids love getting dressed up in their costumes and trick-or-treating the different room in the house to get all sorts of candy and treats!  I was holding Tate during the trick-or-treating, so I didn't get any pictures, but we did get a picture outside of everyone in their costumes.  They were all so cute!

And here's one last picture of our policeman, cheerleader, and little dalmation dog in front of their pumpkins. 



We all had a wonderful time and did so many fun activities!  The kids loved everything about the day and loved most especially playing with their cousins.  Thank you Nana and Papa for everything!  As Hailey put it on the way home:  "That was the funnest day ever!"