Christmas Eve

Grandma Chrissie and the girls having a tea party

Abbey's new Barbie

Alyssa's new Barbie

Anastyn and her new doll and stroller

Rockstar Avery with her new guitar and microphone- watch out world!

Grandma Jeri and Grandpa Alan at the Maples party

Waiting for their gifts. Each of the kids got a new piggy bank and a roll of new quarters.

Avery and Chase in the princess crowns

The Nativity

Me and my smokin' hot man! Seriously love being this guy's wife!!

On Christmas Eve morning we gather for brunch with David's mom and brothers to celebrate with them. We had such good food! I ate way too much. After hanging out with them for a few hours, we headed to my parent's church building to hang out with my family. We had a busy day but it was so fun to spend time with our families. We also had a party with David's dad and the rest of the family on the Sunday before Christmas but I forgot to take my camera with me!

I'm a little slow...

I realize that February is almost over and that I am just barely posting about Christmas, but in the last two months we have had 4 birthdays, Christmas, New Year's, Valentines Day, and a wedding (all of which needs to be blogged about) so needless to say we have been a bit busy. So here are our pictures from Christmas Day. This year we made Christmas pretty low-key. We have most of our birthdays around the holidays, so we don't want to go overboard. Plus I didn't want to go into debt to buy the gifts, so I watched for good sales and started shopping weeks before the holidays. The older girls have been asking for hand-held Nintendos for a couple years and we decided that this year they were ready for them. Avery has been obsessed with Toy Story lately so we got her a Mr. Potato Head set that dress up as Buzz, Woody, and Jessie. Anastyn loves our laptop, so we got her one of her own. David and I mostly got necessities, clothes, socks, things like that. I love the magic of Christmas. It is my favorite holiday and I just love seeing the girls so happy! I makes all the prep work totally worth it!

Our sweeties...

So I have these girls....

And while they are absolutely beautiful, they are

giant turds when it comes to group picture taking.
I took the kids to get some pictures last week.

Now I remember why I NEVER do this!

Anastyn hated the box...

Avery hated the camera...

Alyssa

Abbey

(I am so glad that the photographer caught her "real" smile)

Avery

Anastyn

(How can you not LOVE this face??)

The little ones HAD to sit on the boxes and yes,

Anastyn is holding a cell phone

By far my favorite picture of the whole session!

The individual pictures turned out so great. The ones of all the girls were a disaster. It will be a while before I torture myself and do this again someday...

Halloween 2011

Me and David in our Shaggy and Velma costumes. We showed up to the ward party and found our friends Fred and Daphne!

My beauties!

Anastyn- Lamb (or bunny depending on who you ask)

Avery- Pirate

Alyssa- Amelia Earhart

Abbey- Hula Girl

Here is everyone in costume! We had a great Halloween this year and we are still on sugar overload! I can't believe how much candy my girls came home with! David took the girls trick-or-treating with Hillary and Trent while I stayed home and handed out candy.

My rock band

This is how my girls spend their days off from school...

Special Olympics Field Trip

A few weeks ago I was able to be a parent volunteer for a field trip with Alyssa's class. I don't get to spend much one on one time with her since I have two little ones at home demanding my attention, but I had my awesome sister come over to watch the babies so I could go. The field trip was to the Special Olympics that were held at the University of Utah. The fourth grade kids all made signs to cheer on the events. We were able to watch bocce, swimming and basketball. Alyssa was so excited to have me there and ride the bus with her. She chose to sit at the back of the bus which was kind of a bummer since all the kids in front of us wanted their windows open. I was completely windblown, but we had a great time hanging out!

A quilt for Genesee

Back in September my Grandma Carol, my mom and SIL Brooke got together to tie a quilt for Brooke's baby Genesee. I love the fabric that she chose and it was fun to have some girl talk and quilt. Sometimes I think I was born into the wrong time period. I would love to live in a time where all the ladies spent their days doing things like this!