Merry Christmas Part 2

Ok, so I tried to add this picture into my Christmas post, but stupid blogger put the picture right at the first, then wouldn't let me move it down to where I needed it, so I'm just going to have to make a whole new post. I didn't want to forget this picture because it was Cody's "tied for 1st place" with his favorite gifts from Christmas. So he is wearing his other favorite present and that is his Eagles Jersey with his name and number on it (he hasn't taken it off since Christmas) and the present that tied with this gift was given to him by his Nana Collins, and that is Madden 10. He has wanted this game for so long and we told him that he was going to have to earn the money if he wanted it, so imagine his face when he opened it Christmas morning!

Well you don't have to imagine it, here it is! Thanks Nana!

Happy 18th Wedding annivery to me!

On Sunday, Clay and I celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary. I can't believe it's been that long. Am I really getting that old?? Anyways, with it being on Sunday it was pretty much boring and not very exciting, but Clay made up for it with his gift!

A new front loader washer and dryer! Cody saw them and was so excited! They were the same colors of his favorite team, the Philadelphia Eagles. He asked if we could put their logo on it. I of course said "NO". But Clay found this on the Internet today and emailed it to me. He thought it might work....

Don't worry! It will never happen!

Christmas Eve and Christmas morning 09

Christmas eve started out with a delicious dinner of ham, potatoes, a wonderful salad (thank you Kym) and of course cream corn and tons of sparkling cidar!! I think if you could get drunk on that stuff we would have on Christmas eve!

After dinner we played our While elephant game that we do every year, but this year Martin had us play it a little differently.

We all had a gift in front of us and while Martin read aloud the story about the "Right family" every time he mentioned the word "right" or "left" we would move our presents that way.

At the end of the story you would open the present that was in front of you at that time. Yes, that is Lily sleeping in the middle of our game. She didn't move the entire time!

Now, I don't know what kind of dark magic that was working on me that night but this was the gift that I received that night. If you can't see or read it, it's a picture of me that Kym photo shopped. On my shirt it reads "BYU's #1 fan". and it's framed in a BYU frame.

After our fun white elephant game we read stories about things that have happened thanks to the magic of the Christmas season. We also read about our Savior's birth. It was a great way to bring in the true spirit of Christmas. Afterwards we let the kids open their Christmas eve gifts, which are always a new pair of pajamas.


Even Lily got her new pair!

Kym brought gifts for the kids too. The girls received new hairbands.

And we had more BYU things given to help our love for that team grow!

This was my favorite gift of the night. Aunt Chelsea gave Jessica a locket necklace with a picture of Chelsea on one side and on the other side President Monson!

Afterwards we bundled up and went driving around the neighborhood checking out all the incredible Christmas lights.

Christmas morning came way too soon, 6:00 a.m. to be exact and this picture of Jess sums up exactly how we all felt!

It all was good and fun even though we were all very tired!

Brittany and Savannah received water bottles with their favorite Twilight guy's. Brittany's is Edward. You will be able to see further down who Savannah's is!!!!

Thank you to Nana and Papa for the new Wii game! The kids are loving it!

Last year Cody got his Eagles jersey from Santa, but it was #5, McNabb's jersey. This year Santa made him his own official Jersey!

Thanks to Dave and Becky for the fun Scene it game. We have already played it a few times and it's a blast!!

More BYU love from Savannah this time!

Savannah in her "Snuggy", she could of been in the commercial!

Jessica's big gift from Santa! She loves Johnny Depp!

Brittany's big gift from Santa was her own digital camera.

And Savannah's was this life size poster of Jacob from Twilight, which I have to say terrifies me every time I walk into her room now!

That pretty much sums up our Christmas! After all the presents were opened Clay and I returned to be for a much needed 3 hour nap! Then later that afternnon we headed up to Kym and Martin's home to make our gingerbread houses and play games. It was one of the nicest Christmas' we have had! Thank you to everyone who helped to make it that!

Santa Clause is coming to Highland!

Our wonderful neighbors have Santa come to their house every year and invite everyone to come over to visit with him. It's so nice to not have to go to the mall and fight the crowds every year. Luke loves to get his yearly visit in with Santa, so that he makes sure Santa knows what he wants for Christmas. At first Cody wasn't interested in sitting on Santa's lap but after a few coaching words from me, he finally got on board. Cody told Santa he wanted another Eagles Jersey (he got one last year), which made Santa very upset. You see Santa is a San Diago Chargers fan, but he told Cody he could try to work the Eagles into the finals, which made Cody very happy!

My cute teenage girls didn't want to sit on Santa's lap so they headed to the treat table to sample all the goodies!

And I want this, and this, and this.......

Luke is usually very shy around people he doesn't know, but not Santa. He talked his ear off. I had to go pull him off his lap, he was listing about 20 things he wanted Santa to bring him!

Finally at the end of the visit, both boys stopped talking long enough to pose for a cute picture!

Even though under his breath, Cody is saying Eagles rule!!

School Christmas program

I love this time when I can take a few minutes away from shopping, cooking, cleaning, wrapping and everything else that takes over my busy life during this Christmas season and go and watch a cute Christmas program, where they still sing "Merry Christmas" and songs about our Savior. Luke with his "I'm to cool for this" attitude, of course didn't sing much or do any of the hand motions, was still fun to watch. But he was all smiles while he was walking in!Of course that had everything to do with the girl standing next to him. Yes, him and Emma are still going strong. They have survived kindergarten and now half of first grade! She's a keeper!

Cody on the other hand sang one of his songs and they rapped the next one. He wasn't too into the singing but boy was he all over the rap song! Can I get one kids that enjoys singing like me???
Yesterday was our ward's Christmas program at church. We had the primary sing a melody of cute primary Christmas music, then the Young Women sang, since I'm in there now I went up to sing with them. Then our ward choir sang a song, of course I sang in that too, than finally me and this guy in our ward sang a Kurt Bestor duet. It was a great program and I loved being able to sing so many times, especially Christmas music, my favorite! I don't know if my ward loved it, but hey no one else volunteered!
Later that evening was our Stake Christmas program that I love to sing in every year. It is directed by Donald Riplinger, who used to direct the Tabernacle Choir. We is a musical genius and write a lot of the music we sing. He chooses extremely hard music to sing every year but the pieces are the most beautiful and amazing to sing. He has violins, trumpets, horns, cello's, and other instruments that accompany us to some of the songs and it's hard for me sometimes to even sing the songs without crying through them. This year he had a violinist play a duet with the piano to "Devine Redemer", my favorite Christmas song ever and it was so amazing, words can't even do it justice. I could of listened all night to her play!
I have to say though, by the end of the preformance my voice was completely gone but it was well worth it! I love being in this program every year, and I feel so blessed to have moved into this stake that provides me with this opportunity.

Piano recital

Last night my two girls Brittany and Savannah had their piano recital. I was so impressed by how well both girls played. Savannah usually gets so nervous playing in front of people that she makes mistakes during her performance. But last night she played beautifully! Brittany also played so well and had only started working on her performance piece two weeks before the recital. Her teacher changed her song because she did not think the first song was challenging enough for her. Brittany's song was called Morning Light by Jon Schmidt and Savannah played White Horse by Taylor Swift.
This last week has been a complete fiasco for me. Our ward was split last Sunday and two hours after the split I was called into the Bishop's office and was made the 1st counselor in the Young Woman's. I'm so excited to be able to work with my three girls! I met with the Young Woman's president a few days later and after an hour meeting I left with my head spinning. I would teach that very Sunday and have to come up with an activity for the next Tuesday. I don't have any advisers yet so right now I'm doing everything myself.
Well, the first lesson was a hit, I think. I even sang for them! I have to say it was pretty funny to see their faces when I told them I wanted to sing them a song at the end of my lesson. They said "You mean your going to play a song on your ipod?" I said "no, I'm going to sing you a song myself". They were so kind afterward and all told me how much they loved that I would sing for them and I even had a mother call me and tell me that her daughter came home and couldn't stop telling her all about the lesson and the song I sang. So I think it went pretty good for my first week. Our activity was a service project, we babysat some of the kids in our ward who's parents have very young kids. It was an opportunity for them to get out for a few hours to Christmas shop, or just to go to dinner together without having to pay for a babysitter. The girls were so sweet and kept all the kids entertained and happy and the parents were so grateful to us for giving them a night out for free!
Now, I just have to plan for all next year and I'll be on top of things, I think!

After seeing Libby's I couldn't resist doing my own!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Live Nativity

Tonight for Family Home Evening I thought it would be fun to take the kids to see a live Nativity that a family in Alpine puts on every year. We dressed in our warmest winter clothing since it was only 20 degrees outside and headed to a church in Alpine where you board a horse trailer or bus, depending on what ever one you get and head up the hill to a families ranch where you get to enter the town of Bethlehem.

My kids were so happy we were able to get to take the horse trailer instead of the heated bus! Granddad Collins would of been so proud!

As we entered the city gates we were greeted by this Roman soldier who were nicer than I thought, but he did ask us if we had seen any baby boys around.

There were many different kinds of wild life walking around the city of Bethlehem. Camels, horses, sheep, goats, swans and ducks just to name a few.

The people who live in the city of Bethlehem were especially friendly. They showed us how they make tools, weave baskets, bake breads and make pottery. This one special boy also played on Cody's football team!

After passing through the city we finally were led to a little stable. When we went inside we found baby Jesus with his mother Mary and Father Joseph.

After leaving the stable we were given a nice cup of hot chocolate, I'm sure a favorite drink in Bethlehem.
It was a wonderful experience! The kids really enjoyed themselves and after we left we hit Wendy's and had a $10 dinner thanks to Jessica's 50% discount! Can't beat that family home evening!

I'm a flake!

I have been such a flake lately and have to admit, I just haven't wanted to take the time to blog for the past week weeks. I keep forgetting to bring my camera with me when we do stuff, so I use that as my excuse why I don't blog, because lets be honest, who wants to just read a post?
Our family has been staying busy with the usual stuff like basketball (once again, no pictures to show you). Cody has been playing on a team down at the Flash Factory and has only three games left. Brittany starts tonight with her first practice. Clay and I took the two boys to the Jazz game last week. Clay gets to use the companies suite and loves to take the kids with him, and the kids love going. It's fully stocked with food, drinks and desserts and sometimes stuff from the gift shops.
We stayed home for Thanksgiving this year because Jessica got a job at Wendy's and was working all week. If you ever happen to be in Highland and what to see Jessica at her finest, stop on in at Wendy's and you can check her out. She has decided that school just isn't her cup of tea and has, well, she doesn't like to say she has dropped out, but she is " opted out" and is taking her GED. She is working full time and saving her money for college.

At least she looks cute doing it! Right?

Cody has been spending a lot of time with he best friend Getty who just happens to have a little sister named Ellie. Ellie, who is only 2, maybe 3 has developed a huge crush on Cody. She runs to Cody as soon as he comes over. She has even made up a song all about, well, yes, Cody! At church is when she sees him in the hallway she will jump out of her fathers arms towards Cody. Now if you remember from previous posts, Cody loves little kids. So, he loves all the attention he is getting from her. I joke with his mom about it being too bad she isn't just a little older and Cody and her could possibly hook up some time in the future, What a story that would be.

This is a picture Getty's mom sent me not to long ago of a typical day when Cody is over. You can see Ellie running up trying to get Cody to hold her.

This Sunday our ward is getting split. I'm really nervous about this because I'm afraid one of my girls will loose their friends because of it. But it's something that really needs to happen. This is a picture of Savannah last night at her Beehive activity.

Yes, we have over 30 Beehives in our ward right now!

One more thing before I end this post. I have to give a shout out for everyone to go and see The Blind Side. We took our kids over the Thanksgiving weekend and I have to say, it is by far, the best movie of the year. And I was thankful my kids saw it as well. It's a great movie about how one boy, who had nothing, got taken in by this wealthy family, and they changed his life so much. He now plays in the NFL. A wonderfully uplifting movie that I cried all the way through. Clay told me after the movie that he has now found my long lost twin. The leading lady in the movie, played by Sandra Bullock, he says is exactly like me. He didn't think we looked alike, but that we act just the same. She is a very feisty women and yes, I have to admit I did see some similarities, but really just like me, I don't think so. Ok, well maybe :)