This Family of Five: January 2015

Other Holiday Happenings

I was a pretty crummy photographer during Christmas break. The honorable mentions that happened but were not well photographed were...
*** Bria's birthday.

***John's family in town for a couple of days for Hailey's baptism. The baptism was wonderful and it was fun to have lots of family gatherings for a few days! We had a Christmas party at Dan and Paige's one night and John's family was over here the next night after the baptism.

***New Year's Eve dinner with friends and then heading off to Skate World for ice skating to ring in the new year. Unfortunately this ice skating experience was not so great. Our last two family ice skating nights were so fun...I'm not sure what happened this time. Actually maybe I'm exaggerating. The night was pretty fun, but just ended with a 30 minute full on breakdown by my oldest. Yes, my oldest. I'm super excited for all of the emotional breakdowns that are sure to be headed my way.

Christmas Day

I always love Christmas Day. A day full of playing, relaxing, staying in pajamas all day, and nowhere to go. It is my absolute favorite.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve this year was full of many great things. The first of which was the most delicious Christmas Eve dinner I have ever had. Literally. My dad smoked ribs and beef tenderloin and we had a full arrangement of delicious sides, loaded baked potatoes, fresh green beans (my new favorite), John's homemade bbq sauce, homemade rolls and on and on. We ate until we were sufficiently stuffed. And then we had the big Welch Family Christmas program that Syd does with the kids the years the entire family gathers for Christmas. This year was a Jeopardy theme full of musical presentations and fabulous trivia. If I recall the boys won. Bummer.

After the group festivities we headed home for pj's. A reading of "Twas the night before Christmas" and a watching of the story of the birth of Christ. It was a lovely night.

Christmas Plates

I have been looking for Christmas plates for several years now. Call me crazy but I just like the idea of festive plates hanging in my plate hanger during the holidays. I failed to find ones I liked again this year. So I had the kids make me some. I love them!!! I couldn't have found plates I liked better if I tried. I am now a fan of acrylic paint an sharpie markers on plates. We just might have to make a set for every season.

2014 Ward Christmas party

Whoville! A ton of work for a 90 minute party...but it turned out adorable and the kids had a lot of fun! I somehow ended up on the food committee and spent the majority of the morning in the kitchen...but everyone has to take their turn, right?!

Our visit with Santa

One dreary, rainy, Friday afternoon during December Kortney called and informed me that it was free ice skating night at The Village. Due to the rain we assumed crowds would be low and we would have the rink to ourselves and a nice opportunity to visit with Santa. Miraculously the rains stopped right before we arrived and stayed away the entire hour or so that we were on the ice. The kids had a blast and did surprisingly well. The rink is teeny tiny and I've always wondered how it would be for skating. My answer is that for free its awesome! And even if it weren't free it would be pretty fun.

Here is a picture of my children with the obnoxious boy at the rink. He was somehow everywhere I turned all the time and soooo loud and chatty. I laughed that John happened to get a picture of him with the kids.

After we got off the ice it started raining. Pouring more like it. And we waited in line for about an hour to visit with Santa. There was much crying on Emmie's part and she may have eaten all of Norah's puff crackers out of shear starvation. She was also not interested to talking to Santa. Even though we are all sure this is the real one.