Merry Christmas picture

I cannot believe Christmas is gone already. This time flew by!!

On Friday, we went down to Phoenix for a quick day trip to swap gifts and also welcome home my cousin Bubba from his mission. The kids enjoyed opening a couple gifts early.

These are from Great Grandma Meikle

When we got home, we did a quick stop at Great-Granny Dowdle's house. She took a hard spill the night before so that's why she has some boo boo's on her face. It was good to see her for a bit.

Saturday was an easy day and we just relaxed. About 6:00 we played some games and ate dinner and then they finally got to open their one gift- PJ's!!

Here's all my cuties all dressed up. They all looked so cute.

After we went out to look at Christmas lights. This year, Brecklynn was by far the entertaining one. She would yell about EACH AND EVERY HOUSE that even had the smallest amount of lights on it. It was all exciting and great. Made it really fun for us. Cambree and Ridge enjoyed it too.

Then we threw them all in bed and they all fell asleep pretty quickly. Then Santa came and made his visit!

Cambree's stocking and gift...a new working camera

Brecklynn got a bike

Ridge got a bike

The tree

This is how we kept the kids down this year :) We tied a knot on it to keep them in. They would sit and yell all night at different hours that it was time to come up. I would have to walk over and tell them it was only 1 or 3 or 4 in the morning. We finally gave in about 5. Kids were so excited.

Despite the minor break downs at first when Cambree thought the new bike was hers...and Ridge getting legos and yelling -I didn't ask for this for Christmas...I didn't want legos- it was a great Christmas. We had to quickly get ready for church since we had lovely 9 sacrament. It was a great day overrall.

Side note- this is more for me to remember later on but this month has been sick month for the Allen family. We were struck with the flu bug and Brielle started it at church getting me head to toe...then Curtis got it and then I got it with Ridge and Cambree. After we finally got over that week of throwing up, I popped something in my shoulder than I kid you not, hurt like I cannot explain. I had to go get it adjusted. It hurt so bad.

Then Christmas eve I started to get sick. Well I thought I was taking care of it but the day after it went from bad to worse. I went in Tuesday to find out I had a bad kidney infection. I have never had one before and man, it is some of the worse pain I have ever felt. I was on the floor or couch all day. I felt miserable. Then I got a lovely cough. So here I am now still with a terrible cough and no voice but I am hoping this is the end of sickness for me. This has been one of the hardest months for me. Hopefully the new year will bring a healthier me :)

First annual Ugly Sweater White Elephant party

Chace and Rachel Norton came up with the idea to have an ugly Christmas sweater and white elephant Christmas party. They put it on...we just had it at our house :). We had 17 adults over and it was a lot of fun. We had a quick finger feast before hand with some delicious food that everyone brought and then the fun began.

So finding/buying an ugly christmas sweater is actually pretty hard. They are either super expensive or you just can't come by them. So we decided to hit the thrift store in town and then with craft supplies I had, I literally threw Curtis' sweater together. He won!! I think it turned out pretty good. I wish I had taken better pics of it because its rather funny. It even has a full on reindeer head with jingle bell antlers on the back. And to add it all, he had his hair cut in a bowl style. Really classic!!

Ridge with Trakken (sp).

Here's all the couples...the brains of the party: Chace and Rachel. Chace's sweater was hilarious too...women's vest

Sam and Amber and Sam's sweater had a working stocking :)

JT and Jen

Us...yes its a bit creepy and Ridge just had to be in it too.

Cambree was feeling left out in all the picture taking

Mark and Jaelynn (so glad they could make it last minute)

Michael and Whitney

Ryan and his lovely 'date'. Don't you just love his all natural sweater?

Seth and Kamron

McKay and Jarica

All the guys.

It was a lot of fun. I am hoping this will be an annual thing. This group just makes anything like this a blast. Thanks Chace and Rachel for a good time!!

Polar Express Party!

It was time once again for my Polar Express preschool party. This is by far my favorite party of the year. There's just something about the time of year and seeing the kids all excited and in the spirit of it all. Plus, this year was the first time in my new house which meant more space which was WONDERFUL!!

This year I made a cardboard train for the kids to 'get in'. It was a lot of work but worth it I think. Some kids were still disappointed that it wasn't a real train that moved though ;)

Here's Brecklynn all ready for the party to begin.

Here's the train. It was actually too long for the room...

Part of the set up

Train tracks to the train...

All the kids ready for the ride

We had chocolate milk and doughnuts

We made magic reindeer food and had a book exchange. Every year it cracks me up with the book exchange. Kids just can't grasp the concept of what seems to be a simple thing. They all kept getting upset that they weren't opening the gift they brought and that someone else got their gift. Pretty funny.

Then of course we had to have Santa come. The kids loved him. Well almost all did. He was so good to the kids. Brecklynn wanted nothing to do with him though which made me sad because I couldn't get a picture of her with him, but maybe next year.

Here's the whole group-all minus one who sadly ended up sick this day. So now we're on to celebrating Christmas and enjoying a 2 week break. I really love what I do. Yes there are hard days, but nothing is greater than teaching little kids!!

Merry Christmas picture

Just had to share...we took this Sunday morning. They were so cute and coordinated (not actually planned)...so had to take a quick pic.

Christmas Card

Here is our Christmas card for any of those I forgot to send one too. We hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!! We love you all!

Chimmy our elf and Meikle Christmas party

This year, we decided to start a new tradition. We brought 'Elf on the Shelf' to our house. Many people have started it over the past couple years. This year, there was a movie made it about it. My kids loved it!! Well the next morning our new little elf came to our house. The kids were so excited. He wrote a letter to them and asked them to name him and left them a little something special. Know what his name is? They all agreed upon 'Chimmy'. Every night he reports to Santa on how they are doing with being good. The rules are you can't touch him and he can't talk back but he's always watching. He moves every night when the kids are asleep. Its been so fun for them to get up and try to find him. We love to remind the kids when they aren't behaving...that Chimmy is always watching. Its worked quite well for the most part :)

Here is one of the spots he found one night

And another

Last Saturday we had the Meikle and McKnight family party. The kids loved it. We made gingerbread houses and had a gift exchange.

We had teams to make the gingerbread houses

This was ours.

This was Curtis'...rather gruesome if you look at it closely :)

The official judges

We then headed to the McKnight party. Here's Brielle with Great-Grandma McKnight

Great way to start off the season. We had another party last night with Curtis' family. Wasn't feeling the greatest so didn't grab too many pictures, but that was fun too. Can't believe its 2 weeks till Christmas!!