St. Patrick's Day

 Whoa, I have never been so many months behind in blogging before!  Life is crazy with four kids. Blogging has definitely been put on the back burner.

We have a tradition of eating green breakfast foods and smoothies for St. Patrick's Day.  Here we are with our green eggs and waffles and our "shamrock smoothie."

The leprechaun always visits our house, too, and leaves gold chocolate coins for the kids.  It was totally an unintentional tradition, but now the kids talk about it and expect it.

Christmas!

Lining up to go see what Santa brought!

We had a very full day on Christmas day!  First we opened presents here at our house.  Grandma Curtis came over for a little bit in the morning to give her gifts.  Then we went to Grandma and Grandpa Stout's house and went to church with them.  We also got to talk to Alan's sister Angela on her mission!  Then we had Christmas dinner with the Curtis families at Grandma Curtis' house.  Whew!  What a wonderful day.

Santa brought large gift for each of the kids, plus several small gifts.  Jared got a fun new game (Forbidden Desert) and Maggie and Evelyn got My Little Pony sets.  Santa also brought each of the kids their own themed cereal.  Abby even got some baby rice cereal!  

My Little Pony ice castle

My Little Pony tree house

Abby and her presents from Santa

We ended up getting quite a few new games this Christmas and have enjoyed playing all of them: Forbidden Desert, Skip-bo, R2D2 Bop-It, Five Crowns, Quiddler, and Machi Koro.

Here are some more candid shots of our chaos on Christmas morning:

This is one of those things in which you can make impressions of something.  I love the mess of our living room in the background.

"A paint with water book?"

Santa photos

The kids had two opportunities to see Santa this month.  I took the kids to our city's Christmas party with Santa.  Then, a couple of weeks later, Santa came to our ward Christmas breakfast.  When he came out at the ward breakfast Jared sighed and said, "Been there, done that."  He's been a good sport, though.  We have never had a serious conversation about Santa with Jared, but I believe he has somehow figured things out for himself in the past year.  It's a bit sad for me.  

Abby was sad she didn't get her own individual picture with Santa at the city party, so here she is all by herself.  She's even dressed as Santa's helper.  

"Who is this guy?"

Halloween

 We had a busy October with lots of fun parties! It gave the kids chances to dress up in several different costumes, so they didn't have to choose just one.  Ha ha.

Here the kids are at the Stouts' Halloween carnival! There were fun carnival games and delicious food!  My kids had a blast.  Also, we took home our pet goldfish, Henry.

"Mean witch" (a repeat costume from when Maggie was 4),  ballerina, and Harry Potter

Halloween Bingo with aunts and uncles

Grandpa Stout in his "bloody" shirt holding almost-twins:  Abigail on the right and her cousin James who is six days older on the left

Abigail didn't wear this costume for longer than 5 minutes.  I just put her in it to take a picture since all of my other kids all wore it.  

Abigail in her leopard costume.  I couldn't get a smile out of her. 

 Next up was the Curtis family Halloween party.  Alan was in Mexico City on vacation with some buddies, so he unfortunately missed this party.  We carved our pumpkins, at yummy food, and sang Pumpkin Carols.  Maggie dressed up as Anna from Frozen this time, and Evelyn was Belle.

Curtis cousins.  Evelyn was having a meltdown on the front row.

Princesses (and witches, etc.)

The three Belles: Evelyn and her cousins Christina and Lily

My family (minus Alan) 

Jared did a good job carving this spider pumpkin by himself.  I helped find a pattern and showed him how to poke holes around the pattern, but then he did the cutting himself.  

 Here were the final costumes for trick-or-treating.  Maggie was a witch again (no green face this time--too itchy), Jared was Harry Potter, and Evelyn was a hamburger (ballerina and Belle costumes were not warm enough to go trick or treating in.)

Alan was home from his Mexico trip just in time for Halloween, but he came home feeling a bit sick (one too many street tacos, I guess!!), so we broke with tradition this year.  I took the kids out trick-or-treating, and Alan stayed home to pass out candy.

Easter 2016

We had a very fun Easter. We were having an egg hunt with the Curtis cousins in the evening, so Alan and I didn't bother planning our own little hunt.  However, I did give the kids their hollow milk chocolate bunny--a tradition from my childhood.  

Evelyn's yellow Easter dress was mine when I was a girl--it already is too short for her.  Maggie wore it three years ago, too.


All of the rest of the pictures are from the egg hunt in Grandma Curtis' backyard.  We also had a lovely ham and potato dinner with some of the aunts and uncles and cousins, but I forgot to take pictures.

Jared's favorite face to make for pictures lately

Fun with cousins!  

Merry Christmas!

I just have a smattering of pictures from Christmas day.  We had a wonderful, relaxing morning here at home.  Then Alan spent a lot of time shoveling snow before we could drive up to visit Alan's parents.  Then we drove back to our neck of the woods for Christmas dinner at my mom's house.  

Maggie wanted an Anna dress from Frozen

Jared got a fancy Harry Potter wand from Santa

Maggie and Evelyn each got their own Barbie houses with furniture from Santa (Santa bought them for only $10 and decided they each needed their own at that fabulous price)

Evy got a Cinderella barbie and matching dress up, and Maggie got a Tiana barbie and matching dress up from Grandma and Grandpa Smith

Dollar store wings are always a hit with the girls

We had such a fabulous Christmas day.  It was probably our most magical yet!  All three kids still believe in Santa, so that was really fun.  Jared is teetering on the edge, so next year might be different. We had so much fun with all our traditions and are grateful for all of our blessings.