Visiting Grandma

Christmas in the hospital with my Grandma. The great-grand-kids all loved their hats and gloves they got.

Christmas Time is Here....and gone.

Our Christmas was great. It was filled with lots of family and fun events. We had a progressive dinner with Jarom's family, and a cute nativity, gift exchange, and nice turkey dinner the next day. Unfortunately I only have video from those events, and they are too long to post. We visited my Grandma who is in the hospital with some hip trouble and opened gifts with her. We also had a nice dinner and opened more gifts with my family on Christmas day. It was just one big party that kept going and going. Here are some highlight pictures from Christmas Eve and Day at our home.




Kate with her Christmas ornament. I know that she looks like a boogery mess, but when she's clean I think Kate looks a lot like this little Christmas dolly.

Carter and his Curious George. If you've ever watched the new cartoon series our Carter looks and acts just like George. It's pretty cute.

Halle and her Karate star. Even though she quit karate, we still thought it was appropriate to give her a karate ornament this year.

Alyssa likes to collect ballerina ornaments and I found this pure white one since she was baptized this year.

Dressed in new pajama's ready for bed! Right after this we heard Santa's sleigh bells outside our window. He must have been flying by to check on the going-to-sleep progress. Alyssa started screaming and FLEW to her bedroom, Halle freaked out and started crying cause she just knew they were going to be missed by Santa since they weren't asleep, and poor Carter bawled his head off because the girls' reactions scared him so bad. It was pretty hilarious! A few minutes later Grammy and Grampy dropped in to get a recipe and they were able to hear all about the excitement.

CHRISTMAS MORNING! "Did he come?!!! Can we look?" The girls got up at 5am, but I was a mean mom and made them go back to bed until 7. They actually took it really well, I was quite surprised.

The untouched scene that Santa left.

Santa has always left breakfast of apple juice (usually in little cans, he must have been lazy this year), poptarts, and little cereals.

Alyssa and her tent and a Vera Bradley bag.

Halle with her radio and tent.

Jarom and Carter in the train.

Carter's Thomas the Train tent.

Kate opening presents and getting into everything.

Kate's little vacuum. It's the cutest thing I've ever seen to watch her try to clean up. She really knows what to do. It's darling.

Check out the bow on her bum. I'll take her for a Christmas gift any time!

Santa was full of surprises this year. He left us furniture in our den!! I think the kids went on sensory overload when they saw this stuff. It was really fun.

Carter and the new computer desk! Check out the chocolate on his face. I think he had been enjoying his stocking before this.

The poof pillow is still growing. It is about twice this size now. The kids think it's the coolest thing to watch it grow. They LOVE to play on it.

Well, the Chirstmas holiday has come and gone. I feel like I spent days and days, hours and hours, of preparing, only for the big moment to have flashed by in a second. But it was all worth it. The kids loved it, and there were many memories made. Here's to next year!

Got Milk???

The effects of drinking a milkshake out of a cup that's too big!!

2006 Christmas Newsletter

Updates for the year in our annual Christmas Newsletter.

Christmas Cookies

Saturday the kids enjoyed making sugar cookies with Grammy and their cousins.

We did this last year and saved a few to give to Santa, I don't think there will be any to save this year. We might need to make a new batch..... Mmmm!

The biggest winners!

Last Friday, the 15th, Jarom and I along with Kevin and Becky, attended the Realtors' Assosciation Christmas party. ( We were there as affiliates since Jarom makes a lot of realtor websites.) Our table cleaned up in the way of door prizes!! Kevin won $50, (although there happened to be another Kevin Ward there, but our Kevin was the first one out of his seat and therefore won the prize! It was pretty hilarious.), Becky won a wreath and candle set, and I won the center piece (the votive candles) AND a portable DVD player. We thought we'd let Jarom hold it in the picture so that he felt included. HA! Jarom's Aunt Sue and cousin Steve Butler who were also sitting at our table, each won $50 as well. Our table pretty much scored. It was a really fun evening.

Papa's birthday

December 7th, my father-in-law, Gregg, turned 55! We celebrated with clam chowder and red velvet cake, a tradition in the Manwaring family.

"Could it really be?"

"It is!! A flat panel computer moniter. Cool!"

One big blow and he had all 55 candles out.

Letters to Santa

The other night we took the kids to mail their letters to Santa. This giant Santa mailbox has been around Idaho Falls since I was a kid. The kids LOVE to go see it.

Carter's list wasn't very explicit. Infact, it was just a bunch of cirlces he drew. Sure hope Santa can decipher!
Halle's list included a tent, a radio, and a Barbie Elena doll. (What a great name for a barbie. :) )
Unlike Carter's list, Alyssa's was very descriptive. She wants a "ballerina fairy or human ornament", a tent, a driveable jeep, and Magnetix. We'll see what Santa can come up with.

Little Micah Irwin Murdoch

We drove to American Fork to meet the newest addition to the family. Blake and Missy welcomed 6 lb 6 oz, Micah Irwin to their family on November 29th. What a little cutie!

The Children's Museum

While we were waiting for it to get dark so the lights on Temple Square would come on, we passed the time hanging out at the Children's Museum in Salt Lake. It was really fun for the kids, expensive, but worth it. We spent a good 3 hours there while the kids just played and played. (Thanks for the suggestion Elise.) Carter shopping for groceries.
This little kitchen was inside the CUTEST playhouse I have ever seen. It had everything miniature sized.

The kids all climbed on this life sized horse and pretended to ride it.
Little miss Kate gathering eggs.

Alyssa is always willing to add something up for you. She loved pretending to be the cashier.

Lights on Temple Square

Going light looking on Temple Square. The big trees weren't lit so it wasn't as impressive as I remember it being as a kid, but it was still beautiful. It was too cold to do a lot of looking, but we saw the main things.

The whole family on a carriage ride. Very fun, but cold.

The kids loved it for the first half of the ride. Especially Halle, she had been looking forward to the ride all day.

The 2nd half wasn't quite as enjoyable. The kids were freezing! I must admit, it was really cold. All anyone could think of at this point was hot chocolate! (We then went to Golden Corral for dinner, a place that pleases everyone except the parents, and they only serve hot chocolate for breakfast. At least there was ice cream after we were warmed up sufficiently.)

Splish Splash

This picture was taken about a month ago, but I thought it was so cute and wanted to share it. My niece Brylee and Kate enjoyed tub-time in Grammy's sink. The picture portrays the situation extremely accurately. Brylee LOVES to splash! If you look closely you can see the water behind the sink, Kate figured out how to turn on the faucet. Needless to say, we were all soaked after this episode!! (Don't you love to look at the difference in skin color in these two little cousins!)

Funny story!

I just had to tell this cute little story that my friend Jennie's little boy said. (Sorry no picture, but the story is worth it.) Jennie told Harrison that they were going to eat at Godfathers for dinner. He asked, "Oh, will Heavenly Father be there?" When she told him no, he said, "Oh, just Jesus then?" He'll be 2 the end of December. He's my little buddy. Jennie and I go walking in the mornings and Harrison always wants me to button his coat or give him his snack or whatever it is that he needs. It's so funny.

Thanksgiving weekend

It was such a nice holiday weekend for me. Great food (which I never got a picture of), family and friends, shopping, BYU football (which was such a good game that even I found myself screaming and hurting my voice!), and much needed rest all contributed to a wonderful time.


After a nice dinner everyone sat around an played Millennium Monopoly. My how the prices have changed! We enjoyed the company of Jon and Larissa's family, my Aunt Gale, Quin and Natalie, my folks, my grandma, and my sister-in-law Natalie's folks.


What's Thanksgiving weekend without power shopping at 5AM? My sister and I went. I took this picture to show all the men at home what kind of lines we are talking about. I know you can't see it very well, but you get the idea of just how far from the entrance we were. It was okay though, we got everything we needed.


Building gingerbread houses. What a mess and so much fun. I think I enjoy it more than the kids do.


My dear friends from high school. We try to get together every year around Thanksgiving or Christmas. It is a great reunion! Left side of table back to front: Jarom, Me, David, Shellie. Right side back to front: Kirt, Holly, Angela, Lou. We were missing Doug and Mary, she is due in 3 weeks with their 5th daughter, and Jed and Janelle who live in far away Florida.


Old high school buddies! Angela, Troy, and me. We had a great time catching up over milkshakes at Perkins. It has been about 10 years since I have seen Troy. It was really fun to get together again.