Christmas Eve & morning!

Christmas Eve we decided to go sledding up at Mat's dads house. It was so much fun! We had the sled behind the 4-wheelers and the snowmobiles were pulling the kids up the hill. It was beautiful weather!

Grandma Larsen pulling Ben!

Me...a little excited...waiting to go around on the sled. Wasn't as "exciting" as I hoped but the kids loved it! :)

Mat & I

Sam wanting to go on a ride! After we were done, we went to the cemetery to light candles and then we came home to enjoy the night.

My brother and his family were in town so they all came over and my sisters family to eat some yummy food and open pj's. All that was missing was my other sister's family! :(

We played a mean game of BINGO and Sam wanted to win sooo bad. For some reason the person who kept winning was Mat...the man who hates games!

Wrestling with grandpa. I am amazed that someone didn't get hurt!

After everyone left, the kids went to bed and Mat and I set the presents up. Mat started the tradition of wrapping the archway into the front room years ago so Ben wouldn't sneak in. We have kept it going and the boys love to crash through it on Christmas morning!

It was a great Christmas. Ben got his science kit and Sam got his aqua sand...plus much more. We also finally got a Wii. It was a wonderful morning!

Sam's race track.

Sam's Aqua Sand. This was the only thing that he asked Santa for!

One of Ben's science experiments. It's really fun and he loves that stuff!

Showing Spencer and Sam how cool it is!

It has been a great Christmas season!

Thanksgiving week!

Like any holiday week, we have been BUSY!! It's even better with my sister and her family being here.

Ben started playing real games and loves it! He is a lot better this year and it's fun to watch!

The HUGE blizzard of 2010...whatever. At least there was a little bit for the boys to play in.

They love the snow!

For family night, we went to the BYU museum of art to see the Carl Bloch exhibit. It was so amazing to see and the kids really enjoyed it.

Then we headed to Brick Oven. Yum!

We had Thanksgiving at Jessica's house with all of my family including all the cousins and their families.

The boys are old enough that they are actually eating all the food and loving it!

The kids table!

Later that night, the kids wanted to "do" my hair! Ha! I had so many bows and clips in it by the end. I loved it because I love having my hair played with.

The 3 sisters. We missed the 1 brother and his family! :)

The kids had a sleepover that night. Good thing Jess has a King sized bed! Ha!

The day after Thanksgiving it's the Spanish Fork light parade. Mat's dad parks his truck on main street early so we have prime seating! It was SOOOOO cold this year but that didn't stop us!

Lyndsay, Rylee, Ben & Sam in the back of the truck.

Sam & I

Having fun with glow sticks!

Our "family" picture. I added another one...thanks John! :)

After Hillary and her family left the kids were going through withdrawals! We decided to take them bowling. It's always fun to watch them try to bowl!

Sam, Ben, Kaylee & Ashley

Sam had GREAT form! Ha!

Ben ended up sliding down the lane 99% of the time. It was a fun night even though both boys beat me...I decided I stink at bowling!

A great end to a great week! Bring on the Holidays!

Catch-up!

It seems like no matter what time of the year we are always busy with something. I need to play catch-up with my blogging life so I can keep track when I actually do my book!

I signed Mat up to be Ben's coach. He wasn't too sure of it but he has liked it so far and Ben loves it!

Sam made himself a "friend"! He moves it around the house and adds hats and socks whenever he feels like it needs. At times, when I walk into a dark room, I actually think that it's a real kid! Crazy...I know!
Ben had his 1st piano recital. He was so excited! He loves to play the piano and is always excited to practice. I love that!

Playing his piece with his teacher.

We had a lot of family come and support him, in fact I think that half of the room was filled up with us! We are lucky to have that!

Ben had a late night at our house the other night with 2 of his friends. Of course Sam had to join in and we watched Rylee for Lyndsay too! Mat went to the BYU game so it was me with all the kids! Rylee was so funny because she had to have her own bowl of popcorn and she got right in and sat with the boys and freaked out when anyone took her seat! Ha!

Watching Toy Story 3

Sam talked Mat into putting our tree up early. I was NOT happy about it, it was WAYYYYY to early for me. I set up our green tree and put the lights on and Mat came into the room and said he wanted the white tree. I am so not a fan of the flocked tree (it's messy and not really my style) but I got voted out of all of my ideas this year anyway so we took the green one down and put the white one up. We had all new ornaments which were green and red so it looks really great!

This picture doesn't do it justice, it's really a pretty tree!

The boys love laying under it every night.

My sister came into town for Thanksgiving. This is a big thing because she only comes during the summer but they bought a truck out here and came out to drive it home. We LOVE having them here and always do fun thing. We were going to go out to the sand dunes but it ended up being windy and cold so we went and rode around the ranch. It was still windy and cold but we had to do it!
Grandpa with some of the kids! Nate got to drive and he was really good at it!

Mat & Sam (in his rain gear)!

That night we took the kids to the BYU basketball game. It was a late night and I was exhausted but they weren't! They were all decked out in blue with face paint to match!

They had a ball!!

They wanted to get a picture with the real Cosmo but he never came close enough so the large cardboard one had to do. Good thing it's not the real one since Ben was grabbing him where no one should be grabbed! Ha! :)

The boys were all dressed in their sweaters for church and I loved it so I had to grab a picture.

Sam came home from school after learning about the "neet americans". I said, " The Indians?" He goes, "No mom, the neet americans." Ok, to be politically correct, the Native Americans!

The first REAL snowstorm of the season. Ben helped Mat shovel and Mat told him he would pay him $1 for every night he shovels snow this season. Ben was so excited he started knocking on doors to ask if he could shovel for .25! Ha! Let's see how long this lasts!

Last but not least, Sam lost his first tooth. It was quite the drama of getting it out but it finally did! Thank goodness!

Halloween

Since we celebrated Halloween over a couple days (school parade on Thursday all the way to trick-or-treating on Saturday) I have to combine it into one post. This year Sam wanted to be a vampire. He was so excited to dress up. I tried to put fake blood on his mouth and he freaked out, so he is more of a clean cut vampire.

He had so much fun walking in his 1st school parade!

Ben wanted to be a Lego after seeing his cousin be one last year. So I made it. It was so much fun making the costume and cheaper and I do have to say that he was the only Lego at his school! Ha! He loved it!
The annual carving of the pumpkins. I was smart this year and cleaned them all out before I had them come and carve. Less mess and less of mom screaming at them for throwing the seeds and making things with the guts of the pumpkin!

Ben carved his own this year, no help by us. That is why the eye holes are the whole length of the pumpkin! Sam did a little bit of his with a little bit of help. Mat tried to be tricky and poke a million holes in his with a screwdriver to make it look like a lantern when it was lit up...didn't work so he ended up having to carve a face in it anyway and I tried a spider.

Saturday morning we decided to go on a 4-wheeler ride before we headed down to our Halloween party. It was so pretty and the kids had a ball. Because of the huge windstorm that we had that week we had to stop and move trees off the path but it was fun.

Helmet heads!

Our 1 family picture and after we stood up we were all covered in burrs!

We came off the hill at the ranch and saw Karen's brother and his wife trying to get the tramp off the lake. Mat helped them pull it in and then the boys had a ball jumping on it to let the air out. They jumped so hard one time and Earl flew off...sorry! :)

With the huge wind storm a big branch on the tree house tree fell off and broke it. They were cutting up the branch while we were there. It was crazy!

We ran home and got ready for the Rasmussen Halloween party. Last year I made the mistake of not dressing up...I will never do that again. I haven't dressed up for Halloween for YEARS and I have never seen Mat do it so we decided that we were both going to!

Makenna, Ben & Sam

John (a firefly), Mat (the Twinkies man), Karen (a pumpkin), Craig (himself...boo), me (a french person), the Ben and Sam. They always have a great party with great food!

Makenna was the princess and Sayla was the frog!

Mat decided to take the boys out trick-or-treating while I stayed home with the candy bowl. About a half an hour later I heard lightening hit and looked out and it was hailing SOOO bad! I jumped in the car to try and find them and I couldn't see two feet in front of me! I pulled in and Mat ran into the garage. They had gotten stuck in a little haunted house down the street when it hit. Right at that moment a monster jumped out and scared Sam half to death so he didn't want to go out again! They were huddled in the garage of that house so we went and got them and brought them home! So sad!

The cousins came over and we ate our dinner and it finally cleared up, but it was cold!

Kaylee was a Lego too! My mom and Jessica were green and yellow ones but I didn't get a picture of them.

Sam was still traumatized over the monster so we had to bribe him to go out again. He was having fun until we hit a house where there was a guy sitting on his porch scaring kids. That was the end of trick-or-treating!