I Love Christmastime!

I still feel like a kid when it comes to Christmas because throughout the whole month of December, I am so excited that I can hardly stand it.

I love putting up the tree and the Christmas decorations. I love making holiday goodies and sharing them with friends and neighbors. I love buying and wrapping gifts for loved ones. I love listening to festive music that gets me in the holiday spirit. I love watching Natalie's excitement about Santa and presents and teaching her about the real reason that we celebrate Christmas. I love the holiday parties and get-togethers. I love getting all cozy and watching Christmas movies with my family. And I love that we have a special time of the year to focus more on the Savior, and everything that He has done for us.

This year, Rob so kindly took me to see the Nutcracker Ballet. I hadn't seen it for years, and it used to be a tradition in my family with my mom and the girls to go see it every few years. I really enjoyed it. I especially enjoyed watching and listening to the live orchestra.

I was also able to go to a holiday desserts cooking class, which was really fun.

Another thing that I've had fun doing this Christmas season is making a few decorations for our home.

This is Natalie, once again in her Snow White dress :), standing by our new, very tall tree.

We had a playgroup at our house and made graham cracker candy houses. Natalie's making quite the funny face here.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Natalie's Visit to Santa

Natalie could not wait to visit Santa this year. She had been talking about it for a while. I thought she would cry like last year, but she did the opposite. She was all smiles. She even whispered in his ear what she wants (play earrings and a Nemo's dadda (Marlin)). She was sad to leave. Now she tells me all the time that "Santa is very nice".

My First Pie Crusts

I just wanted to post a picture of my first homemade pie crusts. My mom taught me how to make them when I was visiting in Utah, but I was nervous about how they would turn out when I made them on my own. I was pretty pleased with the outcome, although they shrunk a little in the oven. This was my very first opportunity to make pies because we were not with our families this Thanksgiving.

Visit to Utah

Natalie and I got to visit my family in Utah in mid November. I did some shopping (Utah shopping is so much fun), played with my siblings, and my mom taught me how to make pie crusts. My sister Priscilla made the high school basketball team while I was there (go Priscilla!). Natalie had so much fun playing with her little aunts and uncles. It was good to see my cute family again.

My family minus the four oldest and me. From left to right (Matthew, Bradley, Priscilla, Joseph, Emmeline, Luke, Lucy, Abigail, and Alice)

Little Alice

Aunt Melissa and Natalie

Grandma and Grandpa Hales, Natalie and Alice

The girlies looking so cute in their Christmas dresses

My sweet Natalie

Natalie and aunt Alice playing in the snow

Natalie with aunt Alice and aunt Emmeline

Natalie with aunt Abby and Alice

Halloween Party Post.....Really Late

I've been figuring out our new picture editing program over the past few months, so these pictures are really late getting posted, but I wanted to make sure that they made it onto our blog.

We hosted a Halloween party this year. I had a lot of fun decorating and making goodies. I made bat cupcakes (seen below), which we used for a cakewalk for the kids. We ate yummy food and enjoyed catching up with our friends. Rob's brother Chris was here visiting, so he was able to be a part of the fun too.

It's a...............

We are so excited. Natalie has been saying that she wanted a brother ever since I told her there was a baby in my tummy. We can't wait to welcome this new little one into our home in April.

Natalie in the Snowstorm

Last week we had two snowstorms here! It was really early to be getting snow (it was a few days before Halloween), but we were excited to have it. It made me want to get out the Christmas decorations. Natalie and I went out when it first started snowing and stayed out there until it stopped. I was freezing, but she didn't seem to feel the cold. I kept asking her if she wanted to go in where it was warm and she would say, "no, I have a coat".

I love this one of her in midair. She had fun running and jumping in it.

Our Snow White Girl

Natalie was Snow White for Halloween. She had worn her costume every day for the whole month before the actual Halloween night. It's amazing that the dress was still all in one piece. I saw a few other Snow Whites while we were trick-or-treating, and I have to say that she was the cutest. :)

She had a blast trick-or-treating. Her favorite part was ringing the doorbells (she could care less about the candy). So now mommy has lots of goodies to eat on her own because daddy doesn't eat much sugar. :)

This was at our ward Halloween party.

Rob's Work Halloween Party

Rob dressed up as a guy from his work this year for his work Halloween party. This particular guy wears a Hawaiian shirt, jeans, and New Balance tennis shoes to work every day. He has facial hair and wears glasses also. He's a few years older than Rob.

Rob spent a few weeks growing out his beard and went to Walmart and got a pair of glasses just like the guy's. He also parted his hair like the guy does. He caused quite a few laughs at work (including from the guy that he dressed up as). He and the guy could seriously pass for twins.

The guy's wife actually works there too, and she had a picture taken with Rob. They are probably going to send the picture out with their Christmas cards so everyone thinks that her husband is looking a few years younger now.

Rob won first prize for his costume. And now we get a free dinner at Bravo's Italian Restaurant.

The Pumpkin Patch

This was our second year visiting the pumpkin patch. We've decided to make it a family tradition. We went with our neighbor friends, the Vance's.

The McCall's Pumpkin patch has tons of fun activities for kids. There were slides, a petting farm, a pumpkin bounce area, a bunny village, train rides, a corn maze, and of course hayrides to the pumpkin patch. Natalie even went down the slide all by herself. The part I had been waiting for all year did not disappoint either--the fudge. I love autumn time!

This guy was huge. He's got to be exhausted at the end of the day with those heavy horns weighing down on his head.

Chris's Homecoming

Rob's brother Chris recently got home from serving a mission in Portugal. We took a trip to California this past weekend to see him and to be there for his homecoming talk. I just realized that I didn't take any pictures of him.

It was a short three-day weekend, but we packed a lot of fun into it. Here's a few things that we did while there:

I went to the rotary club's hamburger cook-off with Sherrie (my mother-in-law) and Natalie at the park. The rotary club just helped build a new park in Tulare.

We had some new family pictures taken now that Chris is back.

I shopped at the outlets (always a highlight of my trips to California).

We listened to Chris's homecoming talk (which was very good). The night before we had a big family get-together. Rob's aunt and uncle, Richard and Sechi, were visiting from Japan and some other family also came to see Chris.

Rob went four wheel driving with Chris and Richard and Sechi up to Red Lake.

Natalie and daddy got to swim (it's still pretty warm in California), but Grandpa and Grandma were nice and heated the pool.

Natalie got lots of playing time in with Grandpa, cousin Kjerstin, aunt Chelsea, and uncle Scott.

Natalie got spoiled rotten by her Grandma (as usual) :)

Natalie at the new park (it even has a pond)

Natalie and Kjerstin with Grandma Bell

Natalie and cousin Kjerstin

Natalie doing "Papa Charlies" with Grandpa Bell.

Grandpa doing push-ups with both babies while singing the ABCs

Uncle Scott pulling Natalie and Kjerstin