A little over a week before Christmas, Tori had her dance recital. It is always so much fun to watch her at her recitals. She is so cute, and loves it so much. She is our shy little one, so we are always so proud of how well she does dancing in front of everyone. She smiled and giggled through the whole thing. She loves having her little friend Haylee in her class. They help each other to not be as nervous. We, of course, took a ton of pictures. Here are a few of our favorites.
I can't believe the last post I did was for Thanksgiving! Hopefully I won't get in the habit of only posting on holidays =). Christmas was yesterday, and we had a great one. It was full of laughter and fun times spent with our family. On Christmas eve we always go up to Brandon's parent's house and have a little Christmas party. We had a blast eating, playing Settlers of Catan, opening a few presents, having an ornament exchange, getting new pajamas, and just enjoying each others company. Here are some cute pictures from that night: 
Here are some pictures of the kids with their presents. They were so happy, and so grateful for everything they got. It made all the months of saving and hunting down of the toys on their wish list worth it =) We spent the first half of the day just hanging out and having fun with each other. I decided not to worry about the mess that always occurs on Christmas morning, and to just have fun playing with the kids. It was great.
Later that afternoon we headed over to my mom and dad's house to hang out. It was so much fun having everyone in town. Christmas would not be the same without everyone. Everyone had a blast playing on the new Wii, expecially with Wii Fit. (Thanks Grandpa Park for finding them for us in Idaho!) I am so mad that I didn't get any pictures except one! Here are my mom, my sisters and me wearing our new aprons from my Aunt Linda. We all had to decide which ones we wanted, and it took a while but we all finally decided. Here's the requested picture Auntie Lin =)
What a wonderful day, with so many fun memories made. I love Christmas =)Today Tori had a hard time going to Primary. She just did not want to go. As I walked her to the primary room, and we stood outside of the door she said, "Mom I just don't want to go!" I asked her why, and her response was, "We just sing too many songs and it makes my mouth hurt!" That's a new one! I got a good laugh out of that and thought I'd share =)
We had a really nice Thanksgiving yesterday. This year was our turn with Brandon's family, so we headed up to Conifer to Jeremy and Tisha's house for our Thanksgiving feast. We got there around 12:30. The house smelled so good! I hadn't been up to see their new house since it was completed (sad I know) so Tisha gave me a tour. It is gorgeous! After that Brandon pulled out Alexis's front tooth that was hanging by a thread. We decided that was a good idea, since every time she would bit into something she would scream in pain. You can't be in pain while eating Thanksgiving dinner! Dinner was delicious. We got more then enough, and will be snacking on ham and turkey for a few days I am sure. After we ate Nana let the kids open up ornaments that she got them. She gets them a new ornament every year, and the kids always love getting them.
Nana got the girls these adorable porcelain ballerina ornaments. Levi got a cute little mouse on a candy cane.
Our favorite game had to be Rock Band. We all had a blast, and quite a few laughs with that one.
Brandon had fun teaching Levi how to hold the guitar. Like father like son =)
Brandon's mom is a nurse and she was able to have some of the extra flu shots from work, so she gave everyone who hadn't already had them, flu shots. The kids and I already had them, but Brandon hadn't and he somehow talked his mom into letting him give it to himself. He had us all cringing, but he thought it was great!
We all then decided that we wanted to go to the movies. Brandon and Jeremy took the kids to see Bolt in 3-D which they loved, and us girls all went to Twilight. It was my second time seeing it. I loved it! I know it has gotten mixed reviews but I have to say I thought it was great! I could see it over and over and not get tired of it =) That ended our day. I missed being with my family, but we had a really fun day with Brandon's family. I am so grateful for the close relationships we have with both of our families. I love this time of year.Today I went visiting teaching, and my wonderful visiting teaching partner, Celeste, gave an excellent message based on a talk given by Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin at General Conference this past October. The talk was titled, "Come what may and love it". It was a really great talk. Little did I know at the time how it would help me throughout the day today. Kristalyn watched the kids while I went visiting teaching (what a lifesaver!) After I got home I watched Mason for a few hours so that she could finish up some things at her house. Before she left we were talking in the front room. The boys were running around playing. Things got a little quiet and that should have been my first clue that something was going on. I said goodbye to Kristalyn and went to go get the boys. I heard giggling in the laundry room in the kitchen. As I opened the door and walked in, this is what I saw:
Both of those red food containers were full, as was the water container.
Sorry if these pictures gross you out, but I had to include all of them so you can get the full visual. (In case you weren't sure, that is cat food in the litter box.)
The remaining cat food was poured out into the pantry.
Now after seeing this site, I admit I panicked a little. I immediately removed the boys, to asses the damage, only to have all three of them run straight into the front room and onto the carpet with the cat food/ water/ kitty litter all over their feet. As I could feel myself begin to freak out, the words of Elder Wirthlin's talk popped into my head. "Come what may, and love it". In his talk he said " Learn to laugh. The next time you’re tempted to groan, you might try to laugh instead. It will extend your life and make the lives of all those around you more enjoyable." So as horribly gross this mess was, I decided to just laugh, go get my camera and not stress about it. Now if you thought the drama ended there, you are wrong. Later on when Kristalyn came to pick up Mason, we once again were talking in the front room. (Maybe I should be doing less talking, and more supervising). Levi and Weston shut themselves in the bathroom, and when I went to get them out this is what I saw. (notice the opened toothpaste?) 
What a day! I am grateful that I was able to hear that lesson this morning. It definitely helped me get through the crazy happenings of the day. I am sure if I didn't have Elder Wirthlin's words fresh in my head these boys would not be smiling in this picture. =) 
Ok this is everyone's last chance to send me their email if they want an invite to our blog. I was waiting until my grandma and grandpa figured out how to create a google account so they could still read. Kristalyn helped them with it, so in a few days we are officially going private. =)
This past weekend Brandon and I traveled to Utah. It was only the second time that we went on a trip without the kiddos. It was really hard leaving them. I almost called the whole thing off a few times, but I am glad that I didn't because we had a blast. We decided to leave really early in the morning (3 am) so that we could get there by 10:30 or so, and have a whole day to do stuff. We rolled out of the house around 3:15, and about two hours into the drive the snow started to fall. We stopped at a gas station right outside of Cheyenne and were informed that we couldn't go any further because the roads were closed. I actually was asleep when this happened, but a few hours later I woke up to find us parked on the side of the road and Brandon asleep in the back seat! He told me what was going on. Finally about 4 hours later the roads were opened and we were back on our way. Needless to say it was a very long drive, much longer then we anticipated. We arrived to Cindy and AJ's house about 4:15. Here are a few pictures of us while we were waiting for the roads to open.
We got a little slap happy as time went on.
That night, Cindy and AJ and us decided to got to the spaghetti factory. It was an interesting experience right from the start. Cindy and AJ know what I am talking about, but I won't go into detail. Here we are waiting to be seated. Brandon seems to like goofing off for the camera when I am trying to get a cute normal pose =)
Goofball Brandon again. By this point I just wanted a good picture! Can you tell by my face? haha
After dinner we headed out to find some cables to hook up to the T.V. so that we could hook the computer to the T.V and watch a movie. We went to Walmart and Best Buy. We seemed to get sillier as the night progresse. Here are some pictures from when we were driving.
The boys then had to try. Brandon decided to try and do a hand stand on it.
After that we headed to a custard place ( I can't remember what it was called), and we got some yummy custard. Then we headed back to their house, and spent the rest of the night just visiting and having a lot of laughs. The next morning we headed back home. It was way too short of a trip, but we were so glad that we got to go. We had so much fun, and were sad the whole way home that it was over. Thanks guys for a great weekend!
