Fun with Sarah

After Christmas, my niece Sarah came to Utah with her brother Joshua and her mom. We had a lot of fun visiting and Sarah was able to spend the night and go to Surf and Swim with us. Come back, Sarah, Emma misses you and so do we! They had their hands in their mouth all the time, wiggling their loose teeth. Nona loves to share stories with the girls.

Christmas Eve

The kids were so cute. Right before bed, they wrote notes and left cookies and milk for Santa. James even made a Lego santa on his sled. James being the big kid he is, and wanting to make sure the girl believe in Santa, wrote a note from santa to the kids responding to their letters.

Christmas Day

So Christmas this year was great! Diana came into town (and I didn't even get one picture of my sis, sorry). So we slept in a little (if you count 7:30am sleeping in). Got up and opened presents and then went to my parents for breakfast with my family. Then we stopped by the Dirk's parents house and visited with his parents. Christmas Eve we had a big family dinner with Dirk's family. Hot spaghetti which burns your mouth with how spicy it is - youch! The rest of the day we spent at home playing with toys. The kids seemed to be thrilled with what they got and played for hours with their toys. Dirk and I fell asleep early since we stayed up really late putting together a basketball hoop (with his brother Hank's help). No fights, no problems, a nice Christmas. The next day we spent with my family (me and my mom and sis shopped) and then we played games that night. Christmas night we got a huge snowstorm and had a very white Christmas. Brrr.

Christmas photo shoot

Another tradition of ours is to take a picture in our matching Christmas outfits the Sunday before Christmas. Once, again, this year was no different. We set the camera on a tripod and used the timer to take the pictures. Emma just couldn't stay in place long enough and we got several pictures of her walking toward the camera to see the picture as the picture snapped. We all missed it one time. The first picture is of me setting up and Jenni playing the piano.

Decorating the Tree

So every year on St. Nicholas eve, (December 5), we decorate the Christmas tree. It's a tradition of ours. St. Nick brings an ornament for the tree that night and puts it in the kids shoes that they leave outside their door (the Dutch tradition). The kids love it and we got to celebrate Christmas in our new home.

Christmas Concerts

Jenni and James both had Christmas Concerts for their respective choirs. My kids just love singing. James had a solo and did great. Jenni was hidden in with all the kids, but had a blast.

And here is James' photo shoot.

And here is my little actress posing.

Jenni's photo shoot

Here is Jenni's photo shoot.

A Fun Foto Shoot

So before Christmas we had a photo shoot to get our Christmas pictures. We were very happy with the results. As we were waiting, the kids wanted to practice posing. So I pulled out my camera. Here are the ones from the studio. Then I'll do a post for each kid. Boy do I feel fat in these pictures.