Christmas Day

Looks like Santa came...
It was pretty cute when Katelyn woke up she was so tired she just looked at it all and said, "Which one is mine?" She got a really big kick out of Santa eating the cookies and she kept asking me why Santa came when she was asleep. She wanted him to come while she was awake so she could say hi to him. Brayden was pretty excited too. He wanted to open everything at once. They were really good to take their time though. I invited my parents over and we had a lot of fun taking turns opening and having a great morning together. It was so fun!







Sean built Brayden a train table and I painted it. Here is a picture of it. It is really nice because Sean put legs on that fold down so it can be stored under a bed if we need it to be.




All ready to go have Christmas dinner... My parents had a turkey dinner for the missionaries, their neighbors, and some other people in our ward. We joined them and played games with everyone after. It was really great! Hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Christmas Eve

Every year for Christmas Eve with my parents, we have Christmas dinner and then my Dad reads the Story of the Baby Jesus while whoever wants to dress up can participate in it. Last year we had a very large group of actors, but this year we only had Katelyn and Jaden volunteer. They were so cute! Katelyn takes acting very seriously. She pretended to be Mary and kept saying things like "Joseph, I think the baby is coming..." "Here, would you like to hold him?" "Joseph, come along now..." We were all laughing because it was just too cute!






The kids also get to open their presents from Grandma and Grandpa on Christmas Eve.




Then we have a birthday cake and sing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus. The kids loved blowing out the candles together for him. We also bake stolen bread which is a German bread. We take it to our neighbors and we go caroling. The kids really like doing it! After we got home, the kids were so excited about Santa coming that they made him a plate of cookies... Brayden decided to test the milk. haha



he kids had their own trees this year. We made the ornaments with pictures of them on each one. Katelyn's is a Princess theme and Brayden's has boats, cars, and trains. They were so excited about Santa coming that we had to sing some reverent Christmas songs to help them settle down for bed.

Silver Dollar City Christmas

The Friday before Christmas we decided to head down to Silver Dollar City. There were so many Christmas lights it was incredible to see! They also had an awesome musical of Scrooge playing at the opera house there. It was such a neat play. All of the performers were really talented and it was so good the kids were into it the whole time! We also watched the light parade after and that was really neat. The guy playing Santa made a special stop to say hi to Katelyn on the way through. It was so sweet! We were freezing, but we had a lot of fun!

Even though it was so cold, it was the busiest we have ever seen it.



Look at how many lights are just on that one small building! It's pretty amazing in person.



Here we are waiting for the light parade.

No Camera...

Our camera finally gave out on us after Thanksgiving. We have had if for four years now so I guess that's about right for a new one. We have had a really great month of Christmas activities even though I don't have any pictures to show you them. We have made gingerbread houses, gone through a drive through Christmas light show in Branson, we went to our ward Christmas dinner program, then we went to Katelyn's school program. I was sad I didn't get any pictures of it, but she was so cute. Her class sang Christmas songs. She new all the words and actions and she loves to sing. She sang so loud you could totally hear her above the rest. It was so cute! We made lots of Christmas candy and goodies for our friends and neighbors. We have really had a great month of Christmas! Then a week ago we saw a really nice camera on Kraig's list that just happened to pop up for a great price! We met up with the guy selling it and we bought it last week. Just in time for Christmas!

Katelyn's school had a fundraiser carnival last week. Her class was in charge of the cake walk. Here they are decorating cookies with Daddy. Brayden played all the little games and Katelyn had fun getting her face painted.

Santa at the mall

While we were in Springfield at the Nativity we decided to take the kids to see Santa. Katelyn was very excited, but Brayden was too scared to sit on Santa's lap. He said, "No... He's scary. He's a tiger. He'll bite me."



Katelyn on the other hand was so excited, she spent five minutes cuddling and talking to him about exactly what she wanted for Christmas.



Brayden preferred the children's play area...

Christmas Nativity

Our Stake spends the first three weekends putting on a Nativity celebration for the public. It has proved to be a great missionary tool. The performers in Branson come and sing in the evenings which helps to draw a crowd. There is a live Nativity outside and hundreds of Nativity sets inside to come and look at. It is really neat. Our ward was in charge of hosting it this weekend so we took the kids up with us.





Even though it is still early, Katleyn insisted on wearing her Christmas dress to it.

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope you all had a wonderful thanksgiving. We went to my mom's for the big dinner. Sean organized a Turkey bowel game that morning and the kids and I watched the parade on my parents new HD TV. We had a great turnout of people and we filled the long table on the porch. I forgot to take a picture of it. I brought "Miller" tradition dishes to the dinner; miller overnight salad, Grandpa's yam casserole, and Grandpa's Christmas punch. Everyone enjoyed them. Here is a picture of Katelyn just cuddling with Nanny to watch a movie after dinner. She wanted to wear her Indian outfit to the Thanksgiving feast ever since we read about the first thanksgiving.




Here she is with some of her cousins who all stayed the night so the parents could go shopping the next morning bright and early. Sean and I actually had a great day together just taking it easy shopping and the going to the movies.



The boys spent the afternoon cutting firewood and messing around on Grandpa's big tractor.




Brayden spent most of the weekend on Grandpa's lap in the tractor.

Human Cannonball

A few weeks ago, our ward was in charge of the Stake Super Saturday. We had planned for a few months that we wanted to do a barn dance and some other fun activities. We found a brother in our ward who works for a Human Cannonball. His name is David "Cannonball" Smith. He actually holds the world record for the longest human cannonball of 201 feet. He came and shot himself at our super saturday 156 feet. Here is a video that was taken from someone's cell phone.




Here is better video of him at a fair

Pocahontas and John Smith

Hope you all had a great Halloween weekend. Katelyn asked me if she could be Pocahontas this year. I made their costumes because it was a really last minute thing. Poor Brayden didn't have much of a choice. With his blond hair, he makes a perfect little John Smith.

I thought it would be really fun to spray Katelyn's hair black, but then I panicked after i couldn't get a section of it out with water. I decided to just take pictures and then wash it out to be sure she didn't loze her pretty blond hair. It all came out fine. We went to a carnival that our ward put on and they trick or treated there.






Brayden's favorite game was the cake walk...

October Activities...

Day with Daddy

Poor Daddy was supposed to go on the temple trip this past Saturday, but his alarm did not go off.  Lucky for us we got to spend the day with him.  We drove around trying to find things to do and we stopped at the "Apple Fest" in seymour.  The kids loved riding on a little train pulled by a tractor.  It was also an auction where the Mennonites were selling quilts and furniture that they had made.  It was really neat to see.

Then it was off to Silver Dollar City.  We decided to see what it was like during the fall time of the year.  It was decorated so pretty.  They must have brought in thousands of pumpkins, mums, and scarecrows.  It was pretty festive!  Here we are on our way there.

This guy was sculpturing this cow and farmer out of real butter.  Pretty neat ha?

Pumpkin Carving Family Night 

We carved pumpkins for family night last Monday.  Katelyn painted hers and put glitter on it to make it a ghost.  Meanwhile, Daddy was helping Brayden carve his.  They decided to do something that Brayden would love.  Yes, he loves cars and trucks.  

Cottage Meeting "Pumpkin Night"

I was asked to host a cottage meeting and I decided to make it a "Pumpkin Night" where I made different examples of decorating pumpkins other than your original carving ones.  I also made recipes with pumpkin in them to taste.  I had a really great turnout and we had a good time.

This one is called a "Celestial Pumpkin."  You can drill holes and put Christmas lights through them to make this one.

These are real, little pumpkins coated with glue and glitter.  You need to use fine glitter for these.  Then you paint the stems.

Lots of the sisters painted theirs too...

Some of them were quite talented!

Don't forget the goodies... We made pumpkin roll, squares, bread, cake, soup, and pumpkin seed brittle.  Mmmm... 

Costume Party

My brother hosted a costume party for young couples.  We decided to be Zorro and Elaina.  We had a great time.  They played get to know you games and board games.  We had a lot of fun!

Pumpkin Patch Field Trip

Katelyn's class had a field trip and so my mom watched Brayden and I went with Katelyn for a little "Mommy and daughter" time.  We had a great time at the pumpkin patch.  This is her class.  Yes, she is under her hood.  It was kind of windy and cold when we first got there.

Here she is on the hay ride.

We had fun "getting lost" in the corn fields.

Here she is pretending to hide.

They were playing "The farmer in the dale"

It was a cold but beautiful day.  I just thought these mums were sure pretty.  They were selling pumpkins and mums there at the farm.