Caydence's Dance/Tumbling Recitals

Caydence has been taking dance and tumbling at her preschool and we LOVE it!  She had a VERY small recital in class a few weeks ago (like a couple chairs set at the end of the room).  I was really sad that we couldn't invite the whole family, but she'll have a bigger one in the spring that everyone can attend.  I tried to take lots of pictures since I was the only one there, but I was wrestling Will the whole time, and then my camera battery died, so all I got was phone pictures :(

Here are the few I got:

The 12th date of Christmas

My brother, Matt, has a birthday on the 22nd, so we like to have a big party that is separate from Christmas.  We started at the Peter Breinholt Christmas concert, which was good, as usual :)  Then we got take out and headed to my parents' house.  We gave him these awesome glasses (he has the exact same pair in a normal size, so I knew we had to get them for him, ha ha)

 He got this snowboarding coat from my parents.  He is pretty tall, but also really skinny, but for some reason he loves to wear XXL, don't ask me why.  So this is Caydence in his XXL coat, which even looked like a dress on him, ha ha.

 The second annual Birthday Bingo game had some great prizes, as usual.

 And this was Caydence's favorite:

They all know her too well :)

The 11th date of Christmas

Danny finally had a few days off before Christmas, so we took advantage and had a whole day of fun!  We started at the bowling alley at Boondocks, and of course Will was the cutest little boy ever :)

 Then Danny went golfing with his parents (in December!?) while the rest of us went out for ice cream.  He joined the kids and I at the D.I. to find some sweaters for the ugly sweater party we were attending that night.  We couldn't find anything Christmas-y so we just got this green gem and embellished it.  Can you even believe he let me do this?!

  

I didn't get a picture of mine, but it was a pale blue with snowflakes on it.  We had fun for a few hours at the party, including a white elephant exchange, and then headed off to Salt Lake City.  We had tickets for the Laughing Stock Comedy show, which was fun, as usual!  It was quite a day, but lots of fun!

The Tenth Date of Christmas

I found this random activity on the KSL deals and decided we should give it a try.  Danny's family humored me and came along.  We had dinner at our house and then trekked down to Provo to take the "Provo River Cruise."  It was packed, and freezing, but we found a fire to keep warm by.  Someone in line ended up with some extra tickets and just handed them to us, so we didn't have to pay!  I'd say it was a good thing, because it was $8/each!  It was kind of fun, but not $8 per person fun!  Ha ha.

 The kids were NOT excited that they had to wear life jackets :)

 We hit up Krispy Kreme on the way home for doughnuts and hot chocolate.  I think Caydence could have watched that machine all day long!

The 9th Date of Christmas

Danny's niece, Kyanna, had a Christmas Orchestra Concert that we got to attend about 2 weeks ago.  I just love listening to Christmas music!  It was combined with the Jr. High and High School, so we got to hear many great groups.

And to end the night the teacher had ALL of the students come on stage and play a song together!

The eighth date of Christmas

No pictures, sad, but it's maybe a date I don't care to remember. Ok, that's a little dramatic, but, well, let me start at the beginning.

So Danny and I decided to have a little get away before he starts school and I don't see him for the next two years, ha ha.  So we booked a night in Salt Lake and planned 2 days of fun.  My awesome mom took the kids Friday morning and we headed to our first stop.

About now I started feeling a little funky, but figured I was just hungry so we stopped for a quick hamburger because we had an early dinner scheduled.  I felt much better after, but I made the mistake of reading the news on my phone and heard the first little bit of the shooting in CT and I felt guilty for even having a good time.  I tried to push those feelings out of my head because this was a big deal for Danny and I, but it definitely weighed on my mind.

So we headed to the Shane Co. for my wedding ring (more on that later).  Unfortunately we left a little later than planned so we missed the session at the temple we were planning on so we headed to City Creek to do some Christmas shopping before our dinner reservations.  I wasn't thinking clearly, or maybe it was because I was packing for three people...either way, I forgot a coat.  Luckily my sister lives in SLC so we stopped by her place to borrow one.  We checked into our hotel and decided to use trax for the rest of the night.  It worked pretty well, just some of the places we were going were just a tad too far from the stops due to the rain.

I purchased a groupon for Christopher's Steakhouse and we treated ourselves to an AMAZING dinner.

We had a little time to kill, so we literally ran a couple blocks to City Creek to get out of the rain.  (We were all dressed up during all of this)

We then had tickets for Off White Christmas at the Off Broadway Theater.  The show was pretty cheesy, but still fun (their improv is much better, and we are really excited to be going to that this weekend). About half way through the show I started feeling pretty nasuious but I made it through.  We finished the show and hopped on the train back to our hotel.  I crashed into bed and figured I just need some sleep.  Danny turned on the tv and all that was on was coverage of the shooting, which made me even more sick to my stomach.

I barely slept at all, and around 5:45 I finally threw up.  Have you ever puked a $100 steak dinner into a $100/night hotel toilet?  Gross, I know, but I LITERALLY felt like I was FLUSHING $200 straight down the toilet!  Like I wanted to reach in there just to get it back!!!  That was almost the worst part, ha ha.

Anyways, needless to say I was pretty miserable and felt horrible that I had ruined the weekend.  When Danny finally woke up we came home and he dropped off the present to the baby shower I was missing (I was crushed because she came all the way from NY!!!  At least I got to see her for a couple hours on Thursday). And then Danny went to the movie we were supposed to be seeing, all by himself.  And I didn't get out of the love sac for 2 days.

I'm now feeling so much better and I'm SO grateful that no one else caught it (yet!) And that I got it over with before Christmas!  Friday was still a great day, so I can't be too upset.  And my parents kept the kids all day Saturday which was a HUGE help.

So maybe it wasn't perfect, but we'll call it date number 8!

The Seventh Date of Christmas

After enjoying a birthday dinner at Danny's grandma's, we put the kids in bed and grabbed some hot chocolate from 7-11 (the one in Kaysville has the BEST hot chocolate!)

 And we spent the night putting together this puzzle:

 And watching "Arthur Christmas"

I just love Christmas time!