It's never too late to post your holiday photos: Christmas Edition

Well, maybe it is too late but I am doing it anyway.

Santa tried to help me get baby to look at the camera.

Since my husband is an eternal Ph.D. student at the U, we get free tickets to Pioneer Theater.  Here we are at "Elf" (obviously).

Speaking of free entertainment, here I am with my mom and daughter at a King's Singers/MoTab concert.

While decorating the tree, my three-year-old wore the name tag he got camping the previous summer and announced that he wanted "to go to the hills and do the camping."

Here is my lovely niece preparing for Christmas Eve dinner at my mom's house.

My son saw these enormous wrapped presents at my mom's house and asked to be photographed with them.  He had never seen such a thing before because his own parents are too lazy to wrap gifts that are too big to fit in gift bags.

My parents have about a zillion nativities out at Christmas.  When my oldest was a baby, I gave them this fisher price nativity to keep in the lowest nativity nook, in the hopes that my daughter would play with that instead of all of the much more breakable ones.  It has been a hit with all the babies ever since.

Enjoying the lights at Temple Square.

My 3-year-old was in his refusing-to-wear-long-pants phase at that time.  I tried to coax him into snow pants for the chilly Temple Square visit, but I failed.

We gave the kids a new play room for Christmas, made from a small cement-walled room in the basement that used to be a coal room.  I took the kids with me to the store to get paint color samples.  My kids love paint color samples, so they grabbed a bunch too, including some really crazy colors.  At home, I divided the samples into two groups, "Maybe" and "No."  I asked my two oldest for their opinions on the colors in the maybe pile and they vehemently disagreed with each other, which is typical.  Then my husband walked in, picked up a fluorescent green sample from the no pile and said, "I like this one" and both children were suddenly in complete agreement.  So I worked long hours to paint a room--with several shelves--a hideous shade of fluorescent green.  Here is my son in front of the magnet board in the room, with magnets my sister gave the kids for Christmas to go with the new magnet board.

Random Photos of Really Normal Everyday Stuff

My Kids

My Kids Perform "Three Billy Goats Gruff"

Hubby bought this tie to support me on a special day.

We have Thanksgiving Point passes this year.

Someone borrowed my phone without asking.  I have evidence.

A unique sense of style

The kids' dentist office

(Extended) Family Home Evening

Story Time at the Local Library

Thanksgiving Point again

Make a wish.

Toes.  Yum.

Doesn't he look quiet and calm?  The wonders of still photography.

Baby's first smile

Halloween, Christmas, New Year's (Yeah, I'm behind.)

Halloween

I let my kids use the camera to photograph their jack-o-lanterns.  It came back to me with orange goo on it, possibly from the pumpkins, but possibly from this abstract still life they made from laundry and peaches.  They may have potential as artists,  but I will not lend them my camera again.  (I ended up giving them cheap cameras for Christmas.  So my camera is safe, but my laundry and food may not be.)

Christmas

I love the Christmas Sing-Along.  It's a great way to expose the kids to a live orchestra without forcing them to be quiet!

Someone did the 12 days of Christmas for us.  The gingerbread kit and play dough were among the gifts. So fun!  I wish I knew who to thank.

Wrapping paper was a big hit to my littlest one.

We tried to do a family nativity, and the kids spent most of the time fighting over who should be the angel, but the next day, they cooperatively staged their own without parental guidance.

My aunt and uncle host a delicious annual Christmas Day breakfast.  My oldest daughter has been asking me about if we could go there every few weeks since last year's breakfast, and I keep explaining to her that Aunt and Uncle's house is not a breakfast cafe and you can't just show up there anytime ordering food, but I am glad she enjoys it so much.

The kids got a camera for Christmas that takes silly photos and videos like these.

New Years

Summer Photos the Sequel

After posting my random summer photos, I realized that I missed some.  Here they are:

State fair

Hayride at Thanksgiving Point

My toddler doesn't realize that he isn't actually playing the demo at the arcade.  Makes for cheap entertainment.

My sis, baby, niece and daughter at Trafalga.

Preschool Spotlight Time

Summer Photos

Fall has arrived.  I glanced at Facebook yesterday and saw that everyone but me was uploading pictures of fall color.  Facebook was unusually pretty.  My neighborhood is getting pretty, too, but I don't have any fall photos yet.  Instead, here are some summer ones:

Tracy Aviary:  When did they remodel?  It is much nicer than I rememberer it from the last time I was there.

Here we are fishing at Hyrum Lake.  My husband, son and daughter each caught a yummy trout!  We have never had so much fishing success before.

My husband participated in a bike-athon in Logan.  While we were there, I wanted to show my kids where I went to college.  I limited the tour to the most kid-friendly parts.  I drove though campus to First Dam, a mountain park just a few minutes away from campus, and then came back to campus for some Aggie Icecream.

Here, the kids enjoy the Salt Lake City International Peace Gardens, which have gardens themed after many parts of the world.  I think they are in the Norwegian garden here... or maybe Finnish?

We used the "Pass of All Passes" to frequent Seven Peaks, Trafalga, and a bunch of Salt Lake Bees baseball games.  Here is my nephew and son at a Bees game.  This photo is unusual because one of my kids is actually watching the game.  They all love the ballpark, but mostly for the bouncy house, the playground, the train rides,  and the hot dogs.  I am not sure they have noticed that baseball happens there.