Adam and Heather Hayes

We've been telling our friend John that we should have his family over for dinner for about 4 years.  We finally set a date and did it!

John and Adam are competative stake sports guys and Heidi and I are the much more relaxed, happy to be there wives.  Our kids are about the same age so they had a blast dressing up together.

Our newest game is called settlers.  We love to play it and always seem to convince our company to play with us.

If we invite you over for dinner, watch out, we're getting pretty good at it! (Or at least Adam is!)

Tricity has been wiggling her front teeth for almost a year now.  She feels really bad that she's almost done with 1st grade and still hasn't lost a baby tooth yet.

I guess all the wiggling of solid teeth is worth it because she lost a tooth the beginning of March.

Then a couple days later Dad notices that new teeth are coming in and feels that the lose tooth next door better get the heck out of there or the new ones will be crooked.  Too late, they are REALLY crooked anyway! Yay, 2 out of 2 need braces....

Andi stayed an extra day over Christmas to be there for Erith's birthday.  I'm so glad she did because I sure needed all the help I could get with that house full of girls!

Erith got get ready for baptism stuff from Mom and Dad.

The girls made marble magnets.

They played lots and lots of games.  (Each one took a shockingly small amount of time)  They played musical chairs, pictionary, Jenga, pin the candle on the cake, duck duck goose, and probably a couple more!

Cupcakes for the party and the cake for the family, Erith got her first taste of trick candles!  Erith got some fun gifts from her friends and I think everyone had a fun time.  Happy birthday Erith!

Have you ever needed a break from partying?  That's how December was for me.  Don't get me wrong, I loved getting together with family and friends, eating delicious food and playing games, catching up.  But boy is it nice to sleep in and let the kids make messes again!  Speaking of messes, as you can see, Clara had a spectactular Christmas morning.

Our List of Parties:

Adam's birthday

Ward Christmas party

Elder's dinner party

Christmas eve

Christmas day

Erith's birthday, this was her first non family birthday party.  I can't believe I have an eight year old!  I'm so old!

New Year's eve

New Year's day

Erith's baptism

Dolls, dolls, dolls.  We entered the world of Target made "American dolls" this Christmas.  Tricity paid half to get one earlier this year.  She got a canopy bed for Sophie.  Erith got MaryLynn, and Vi got Jenna, whom is 18" tall but not from Target. Clara got a baby doll that can drink and wet (and 2 potty books).

The girls got up at 6:30 am even after Adam they could get up as early as they want.  (grrrr)  Vi and Clara don't cope with being woken up early very well.

I bought these little baby crib and high chair for Clara, they aren't very sturdy, I won't go the cheap route next time.

I somehow got the most spoiled this Christmas.  I don't think Santa or Adam stuck to the budget.

Adam got lots of painting stuff and a remote control helicopter.

I gave the girls my old tea set so they could use it with their dolls.  One tea cup was immediately broken, I can see why everything is made of plastic these days.

I have to say, seeing the excitement in little kids' eyes sure makes Christmas morning magical!

We had a pretty successful Christmas photo shoot last week.  Aren't we a cute family?  I can't believe it's Christmas already.  Where has December gone?  We have had a ward party, elder's party, 3 school programs, lots of temple work and christmas candy making.  I guess that's where December went. 

From our family to yours, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Thanks to everyone who came to help with baptisms for the dead. 

We had 94 names we baptized and confirmed that day plus I sent my cousin Sterling and his wife 20, plus we gave some 3rd cousins of mine in our ward 30 male names a month ago.  It has been a lot of fun, more fun than updating the blog I'm afraid...

As you can see from the picture, we will have a lot of sealings to do once all the individual ordinances are done.

We had the most eventful Halloween this year since we got married.  We carved pumpkins the family home evening before the big day. 

Vi was quite the opinionated girl about her pumpkin.  She had the smallest one, and she drew the face she wanted on it.  She drew so small, I decided I could take a few liberties, like make the tiny mouth into a nostril and then put another nostril on the other side... BIG mistake!  "That's not what I want!  I don't want my pumpkin to have a mustache!"  She wouldn't let me put a mouth below the nose, so it didn't have a mouth at all!

My aunt and grandma had this fun halloween magazine at my sister's bridal shower, that is where I got the idea to make mummies and snakes for lunch.  The mummies are pigs in a blanket, made with croisant rolls and the snakes are mashed potatoes with green food coloring.  The eyes are sliced olives and the tongue is a carrot slice/shred.  My kids LOVED it and keep telling me their ideas on how we can make ghosts and witches with food next year.

I made suagar cookies in the morning and the girls decorated them after lunch.

We had a hard time deciding what to be this year.  They finally decided on this: Erith and Vi were ballerinas, Tric was a witch, and Clara was Barney!

We went to the Trunk of Treat Halloween extravaganza in Ririe starting quite early.  Adam entered the pumpkin carving contest and won the "scarriest" prize. 

They had soup and chilli, hay rides, a spook alley, pumpkin carving contest, and of course the Trunk or Treat.  There were a lot of kids!  I went through 2 big bowls of candy and still ran out before they had all come through.  Thank you to Josh and Emily for taking my kids around and letting me steal pics off their blog.  It was a fun day!

The girls loved doing something different each day for Red Ribbon Week.

Crazy Hair Day was the most WOW.