Christmas Fun 2011

We had a busy, fun, family filled, Christmas break. It seemed like we went from one fun thing to the next. We started out the break by having a sleepover with the Huls girls and then the next day we went ice skating. The kids did great! I think all the hours of rollerblading paid off for this sport. We will definately go again. Later that night we had our Thornton Christmas party. My dad did a great job making his wooden toys. It is something my kids look forward to each year. Hannah got a sewing machine, Hayden got a top which kind of works like a beyblade and Chloe got some ducks. Heath was in Las Vegas for all these festivities and we were super excited to get him home before Christmas Eve.We ended this part of the week with another sleepover at the Thompson house. Christmas Eve started by making cookies for Santa and then we went to Grandma and Grandpa Thornton's for a Christmas Eve breakfast and a program. When we got home Heath gave us our annual jammies. The kids surprisingly went to sleep really easy with how excited they were. I think we had worn them out the few days before. They even slept in until 7 the next morning which is uncommon for Christmas morning. We opened just our stockings before church which ended up being really fun. They had time to just enjoy what was in there. Grandma and Grandpa Jackson and Laramie came over for breakfast and then we headed to church. It was a great spiritual moment to the day. Then we came home and finished presents. Chloe especially had a great time unwrapping them. She would get so excited with each present and would play with it for awhile before she wanted to open another one. She was so excited about this four-wheeler that she hopped on backwards. We spent the rest of the day enjoying family time and ended the day with a prime rib dinner at Cody's house with the Jackson side. It was a great day. The only downfall was that we were all a bit tired because Chloe had been sick all week and hadn't slept at night. We were glad she was starting to feel better. The next day we headed to Jackson with the Beck family and Cody and his girls. It was a nice drive. We first went on the sleigh ride out to see the elk. It was a great ride and really interesting to listen to the guide but Chloe decided to break a tooth right then and she screamed the whole time. That made it not so great for everyone on the sled. Good thing the guide was so nice about it. After that we took another trip to the rec center pool there. We love it and the kids had a great time swimming. The next day we went sledding at Cody's house behind the four-wheelers. There was just enough snow and a few weeds but it worked. Then my sister, Janet, came from Fruitland and we spent time with them. Another sleepover, watching "We bought a zoo" (which I wouldn't recommend), Orange Leaf (all this was for my kids passing off all of their articles of faith) and then a pizza party at Grandmas.On Thursday, we took off for Utah early in the morning. My sister Jen had Hannah and Hayden and Chloe slept with Heath's parents so Heath and I could celebrate our 14th Anniversary. We went out to dinner and shopping. Our hotel was right across the street from temple square so it was nice to spend time there. Brianne was baptized that weekend so we stayed for that and then we had a New Year's Eve party with Jenn, Laura and Mike's family. We planned fun games for the kids like the donut on a string and making teeth out of now and laters and they even made it up until midnight when they banged pans out of the street.
We had plenty of time with these cute little puppies. We loved snuggling withe them and watching them play. It would be so fun to keep one but we haven't talked ourselves into it yet.We were spoiled with all the fun we had and were almost grateful to get back on a schedule so that we could slow down a little. We love to be able to spend so much time together as a family and have both of our extended families so close.