Oh yeah, Santa came!

I hope everyone had as good of a
Christmas as my family did! We are
all definitely spoiled! Just having my
parents here with us was present enough!Summer got her ipod! She is beyond happy!
I thought Santa might get it, so I bought her
a Twilight ipod cover. She loved it!!!

Sydney got an awesome digital camera. She got
everything she asked him for, except her remote
control car. The last present she unwrapped was
from Grandma & Grandad and....it was the car!
She is one happy girl, too!

Ty got his Thomas the train set. As you
can see by his face, he also got a lot of Chocolate
Santa's in his stocking. Levi, his cousin, gave him
the Cars toy in the photo and he loves it!

We left reindeer food out in the back yard &
when the kids went out to check if they ate it,
Sydney started screaming and Ty yelled, "What
in the world?" Santa and his elves had set up a
15 ft. trampoline in the pouring rain in the middle
of the night! WooHoo! Like I said, we are
very spoiled! Thanks Santa and his elves!!!

Snow!

We took our hour trek to Target on Saturday
and had to stop to play in the snow!

Ty & Sydney were dressed accordingly.

Summer was her 'pre-teen' self!
Too smart to listen to mom and put on pants.
She was frozen solid the rest of the day!
HaHa! I told ya so!!!

Jason was working, so we made him
a part of our snow day.

After church on Sunday, I forced the
family to pose for a quick picture. Summer
gave her first talk in Sacrament Meeting &
Sydney sang the third verse of Away in a Manger
as a solo. The first verse the primary kids sang
and played the chimes to. I am now the primary
chorister, so it was a lot of fun to put together.

Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas Concerts!

Summer had her violin Christmas concert last
week. I was sad to have missed it, but Jason and
the kids went. Ty had his performance on Thursday
night. He sang 3 songs and did a finger play. Too
bad he kept his tongue in his cheek and his hands
in his pockets the whole time! He is too funny!!!He has a major crush on his teacher,
Miss Pandi. He talks about her all the time!

Last night was Sydney's voice and piano recital.
She sang 4 solos and played 1 song on the piano!

The songs she sang were:
Away in a Manger
Sleep Well, Little Children
That's What I Want for Christmas
& He's Too Fat for the Chimney

She played Jolly Old St. Nicholas on the piano.

She had an awesome cheering section. The
Burkharts came, Will, Christina, Tanner, Grandad
and Grandma. She stole the show! At the end of Too
Fat For the Chimney, Santa made a grand entrance.
It was really cute watching Tanner and Ty get really
excited....although Ty yelled out, "That's not the real
Santa!" Of course he said it as loud as possible!

I am so proud of my musical geniuses!
Really, I am very jealous! I wish I had
any one of their talents. My kids are awesome!

Sydney is 9!

My baby girl is 9! How does time
fly by so quickly? It seems like just
yesterday we were bringing this sweet
little (long & skinny) baby home from the
hospital. She is still long and skinny (taller
than all of her friends and almost taller than
Summer). We sure do love her!!!You could safely say she is VERY spoiled!

Those green eyes and freckles
make for one gorgeous girl!!!

She decided on Javelina Cantina for her
birthday dinner. We didn't complain one bit!

On Saturday, Sydney, Summer, and I
got to go up to Flagstaff and see the play
'Babes in Toyland' for Syd's birthday. I won
the tickets on the radio and she got to pick which
sibling to bring. She picked Summer (which made me
happy since they don't get along very well these days).
While we were there, the first snow of the
season began to fall. Here comes winter!
BURRR!!! Happy Birthday, Syd!

Christmas Caroling!

On Friday night, we had our
Christmas party. We invited a
few of our closest friends to help
us celebrate. It was a huge success
(if I do say so myself)!Amy Parrella brought candles for the
kids to hold while we caroled to the
neighbors. Annie looked the cutest with
her red jacket and warm hat.

The flames were definitely the boys
favorite part of the evening
(especially Charlie)!

Clay is an awesome singer, so we were
lucky to have him along for the fun!

All of our neighbors are retired, so
they really enjoyed the young voices
at their doors. We were greeted with
cookies and candy canes!

The wind was blowing a bit, so it was
hard to keep the candles lit. Ty loved it!

Even the too cool Jr. Highers like
Summer and Eddie had a great time!

Whenever Helen is around, Ty always has a huge
smile on his face. She is quite possibly the cutest
little girl ever! We love sweet Helen!

The ladies decided the kids game was too
fun not to play. We had to gift wrap a present
with our eyes closed. Liz's was very pretty.

Amy, the most competitive person I've ever met,
was (of course) the winner. Almost too perfect!
Did she cheat? Only she knows! :-)

Laura, who proclaimed she was a terrible
gift wrapper,came in a very close second.
Now I'm going to make her wrap all of
my gifts this year, and, yes, blindfolded!

Kerry did an awesome job, too! In all,
I think we all had a great time. Even the
men were heard singing the carols. Will
and Christina came with Tanner and I'm
sad I don't have any pictures of that cute little
guy. I'll do better next time! Thanks to all who
came and supported our little family and our
celebration of the season!

It's official!

It's Christmas time at the Stewarts!We bought our biggest tree ever.
It's so big in fact, that when we got it
home, our tree stand didn't fit.
2 days later, we were able to decorate it!

The Burkharts came over last night
and we decorated sugar cookies. Henry
took his job very seriously....very seriously!

Frank and Ty hard at work
(Ty mostly ate the cookies)!

The best buds Summer & Samantha!

Sydney forced me to take this picture
to show off her best cookie decoration.

They turned out really cute!

And, yes, most of these are Henry's on
the Burkhart plate. If it were a competition
(which it wasn't, Henry), they would have won!

Busy Weekend!

When we listed our house 2 years ago,

we took down our fence....now we have a

puppy and no where to put her.
We laugh at ourselves now!
Jason got busy and started building
a dog run this weekend.

He had a couple of 'helpers', too!

We are all really sick of the dog hair
and chewed up toys. We are counting the
days until the dog run will be ready for Scoop!

Then, this morning, I woke up to this sight.
My husband risking his life to revive our
red rock views. I will post after photos
some time soon, but man does it ever make
a difference! I love myself a manly man!!!

Just a reminder...

Don't forget to enter my weekly giveaways
on my Etsy blog! I would love for my family
and friends to win. Head over here and enter!
New ones start every Tuesday.
This week is this lovely scarf!Good luck!!!

Fun in Vegas!

We had a fabulous time in Vegas for Thanksgiving!

My in-laws have the perfect party house and (even

with 19 of us staying there) we all had warm showers,

soft beds, and DELICIOUS food (thanks to Marie)! We went bowling at Red Rock Hotel. All

of the grandkids were together for a picture!
We went 4 wheelin' and found some new
sand dunes that scared all of us (in a good way)!
Look at my mad driving skills! That was taken
right before I almost flipped us trying to
drive back up that steep hill! :-P

I tried to get a family photo of us for our Christmas
cards, but Summer ruined (yet another) picture!
I may strangle her one day!!! If this is the photo
I choose, it will be doctored a bit!